Harley
Wow!
That’s the only word to describe this mansion … wow!
Jasper wasn’t kidding when he said he’d make the move here nice, quick, and simple. All it took was three days to empty my belongings from my old apartment. And now, thankfully, I never have to see that lying, cheating sleazeball ever again. My room is located at the top of the stairs, complete with a king-sized bed, its own bathroom, and a separate toilet. I still can’t believe I’m actually here, in this mansion, playing manny to these three kids. Not exactly the dream job I had outlined for myself, but nevertheless, money is money. Jasper performed an immediate background check on me and ordered the results be sped up as a priority, and when they returned clear, he officially offered me the job.
“Ah, there you are.”
I hear Jasper enter the living room.
“Is there something you needed?”
“No. I just came to give you this.”
He hands me a check and my eyes widen when I see the amount printed at the bottom.
“What’s this for?”
“Your first paycheck, in advance. I figured you could take the opportunity to get yourself some new clothes or any other things that you might need.”
I look at the figure written on the check again, just to make sure.
“This figure isn’t exactly what we discussed,”
I tell him.
“I wasn’t aware that we had discussed your salary. Of course, if it’s a problem, I could always reconsider the amount.”
I quickly fold up the check and place it in my pants pocket. “Nope, no problem at all,”
I answer. “Where are the kids?”
“Violet and Kit are still asleep. And Tristan … is still not talking to me. I tried to call him and he won’t answer any of my calls. All I managed to get was a text last night to say that he was fine and to stop worrying about him.”
“He hasn’t been home since that night at the restaurant?”
I inquire.
“He’s been home. Drew caught him coming home later that evening and wandered straight to his room. Then she caught him leaving again early yesterday. He’ll probably just go straight to school to avoid me again and then come home later tonight. You’ll get used to this; he goes through this phase that all teenage boys go through whenever they’re angry at a parent. But he’ll get over it soon enough.”
“Drew?” I wonder.
“She’s the housekeeper. She takes care of the house and does all the cooking and cleaning. Her room is right next to yours.”
That would explain the music I’ve been hearing from that room every night since I’ve arrived.
“I see.”
“She’s been working for me and Todd for years; she’s a lovely young woman. I know the two of you will get along just fine.”
“You have a housekeeper?” I ask.
He nods.
“Then why do you need a manny to look after your children? Why can’t she do it?”
“Because Drew already does enough for this household. Answers the phone, prepares the meals, does the laundry, and all the household cleaning. She doesn’t have time to care for my children.”
I guess that kind of makes sense in some way. I’ve only been here a few days and I know I still have a lot to get my head around, especially when it comes to taking care of these kids. It’s obvious that Tristan is going to need the most work. If I have any hope of being the successful manny that Jasper is paying me to be, I have to make that kid trust me somehow. And that’s not going to be easy, especially for a sixteen-year-old. I remember when I was sixteen. God, I was a little shit. Always getting into trouble, running away from home and having it out with my father almost every night of the week. And there were even times when I didn’t come home for days on end. Yeah, I was a real treasure.
“Something wrong, ?”
I hear Jasper’s voice tear through my thoughts.
“Hmmm?”
“You seem deep in thought,”
he replies, scrolling through the newspaper.
“I was just thinking about when I was Tristan’s age and all the mischief I got up to. So, I can totally relate to what he is going through. But like you said, he’ll get over it soon enough. They always do.”
“Yes. Well, I must get to work. Be sure to introduce yourself to Drew when she comes downstairs. She’ll be starting work shortly.”
He folds the newspaper up and places it back down on the table, then walks through the living room, across the hall, and steps into another room. I wander through the living room and across the hall. The door to the other room is wide open and I peer inside. There’s a desk with a rather large chair, which Jasper is occupying, a bookshelf behind the desk and an armchair in the corner. I knock on the door and Jasper looks up from his desk.
“Yes, ?”
“Um, you … you work here? In this house?”
He removes his glasses and gives me a questioning look.
“Yes,”
he replies, drawing out the word.
“Good morning, Mr. Harding,”
a woman’s voice sounds from my left and a tall, slender redhead brushes past me.
“Good morning, Drew. I don’t believe you’ve met .”
The woman spins around to face me and Jasper completes the introductions. “, this is Drew. Drew, I’d like you to meet , our manny.”
She stretches out her hand and inches toward me. “It’s a pleasure to meet you—manny?”
she asks, turning back around to face Jasper.
“Yes. You’re always busy cooking, cleaning, and doing all the other everyday things in this house, so I figured it was time I hired a nanny to look after the children. In this case, a manny.”
“But you’ve never needed anyone to look after your children before. Why the sudden change?”
“Well, I work all day long and I don’t have time to take care of the children twenty-four-seven. I need someone who can help them with their homework and do all the things I can’t. Like, take them to the movies, the zoo, or any other extracurricular activities that I can’t do with them. And besides, they need some discipline at the moment.”
“But why a man? I mean, aren’t these roles usually done by––”
“A woman?” I offer.
“Exactly. Which makes this whole thing a wild and crazy idea, right?”
I’m not sure I like where this woman is going with this.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
I ask, folding my arms across my chest.
“Tell me, , is it? What experience do you have raising three children?”
I really don’t like the sudden change in her tone. “I don’t see how––”
“Drew, stop it! I met in a chance situation. Something happened to him that was kind of my fault, and I helped him out of a rather desperate situation by offering him a job here. So, if you don’t mind, I’d appreciate if you gave a chance.”
“Okay, Mr. Harding. I apologize. , I look forward to working with you.”
She stretches out her hand and I shake it firmly.
“That’s better. Now, if you two don’t mind, I have a ton of work to do. Drew, I trust I can rely on you to show around the house and show him where everything is.”
“Certainly,”
she replies and we both exit the room. “This ought to be good,”
she whispers under her breath but still loud enough for me to hear her.
“I don’t want to cause any issues, Drew. Like Jasper said, he caught me in a vulnerable situation and then I ended up here.”
“I should have known better than to question Mr. Harding’s judgement. He’s been a great boss for many years and he adores those children. I know that he would never do anything to jeopardize their well-being by bringing someone he didn’t trust into this house to look after them.”
Okay, that was completely unexpected.
Jasper had given me a brief tour of the mansion after my first night here. Drew was out at a party over the weekend, so this is the first time she and I are meeting one another. I can definitely see the curiosity swirling in this woman and why she would be so quick to get so defensive. Maybe she felt threatened and thought I was here to take her job. She takes me through the house, showing me areas of the mansion I haven’t seen, including the attic and basement, which is more like a wine cellar than a usual basement you would expect to find in a house.
She then leads me through a narrow corridor. Although narrow, it’s a decent length with several potted plants, coat stands, and shoe racks, and let’s not forget the armchair that’s randomly placed underneath one of the windows and seems completely out of place. But that’s not all. Drew then takes me through to a billiards room which is pretty much the size of my former apartment. It’s completely equipped with a billiards table, three sofas, an armchair, two coffee tables, a bar area, and a fireplace with a TV mounted to the brick wall above it. And don’t even get me started on the exquisite polished floors with a plush white rug placed in the center. It almost makes me afraid to walk on them with my shoes on, in fear of getting even the tiniest piece of dust on them.
The entire room looks completely out of place from the rest of the house, and it has me wondering if it was an extension that was later added. Although, why anyone would want to make this place any bigger, is beyond me.
“I know what you’re thinking,”
Drew says.
“I highly doubt that,” I reply.
“Mr. Harding often uses this place as a guest house whenever he has family staying over.”
Of course, that makes sense.
It’s only been a few days but so far, living in this house has been … a dream. Well, more than a dream, actually. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I ever imagine myself in this situation, living in these conditions. Not only do I get to spend the next … however long living in this house, but I get to do it living in the same house with one of the sexiest men I’ve ever met. Yes, that is totally cliché but it’s true. And I never thought I would ever say that about another man so soon after Daniel, but fuck. The guy’s raspy, scratchy voice and that delicious accent of his, holy fuck. The man is definitely a treat to look at.
Pull yourself together, . You work for the guy and you’re looking after his children. He’s off-limits … way, way, wayyyy off-limits!
After she finishes giving me a final tour of the mansion, she excuses herself and heads to the kitchen to prepare breakfast. The kids still haven’t woken yet, and when I look at the clock on the wall, I notice the time. If I don’t get these kids out of bed soon, they’re going to be late for school. I run up the stairs and knock on Violet’s door. “Violet, it’s time to get up and ready for school, sweetie,”
I say through the closed door. I give it a few seconds, and when I don’t hear a response, I knock again.
“Violet, you need to get up and get ready for school,”
I say again.
After a few moments I hear the sound of a groan on the other side of the door, and the sound of footsteps approaching, then the door swings open and I see Violet standing on the other side of the doorframe in her pajamas, squinting her eyes and looking up at me.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” I say.
“Mmmm,”
she mumbles.
“Come on. Hurry up or you’re going to be late,”
I tell her.
I step into her room, and take a look around. It’s very colorful and quite large. The walls are covered in pale pink wallpaper and a single bed rests in the corner of the room. There’s a dressing table in the center and an armchair in another corner of the room. I feel kind of awkward walking in here. I mean, I’ve never walked into a child’s bedroom before. Then again, I’ve never had to look after a child before. As Violet sits down on her bed yawning, I walk over to her closet and peer inside.
“Where’s your uniform?” I ask.
She gets off the bed and joins me in the closet, then she pulls out a little tub from the bottom of her closet, steps up onto it and stretches her tiny hands to the top shelf. I smile as she grabs her uniform and hands it to me. She then slides the tub back where she got it from and grabs her shoes. Once we’re back inside her bedroom, she opens the top drawer of her dresser, pulls out a pair of white socks and places them on the floor beside her shoes.
“I’ll let you get ready for school and I’ll come back soon to check on you, okay?”
“Okay,”
she replies.
I give her a smile and walk out of her room, closing the door behind me. I then proceed down the hall and come to a stop outside Kit’s room where I gently knock on his door.
“Kit? Are you awake? It’s time to get ready for school.”
“Come in, ,”
he tells me through the door.
I push open the door and step inside his bedroom, and I’m not the least bit surprised to find that it looks just like an ordinary bedroom for a teenage boy. Much like how mine used to look when I was that age, except my walls were covered with pictures of Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, and many other eighties heartthrobs.
“Don’t be too long or you’ll be late,”
I tell Kit.
I walk out of his room and shut the door, and as I make my way down the hallway, I bump into––Tristan.
“Oh, hey! Sorry, I didn’t see you there,” I say.
“Yeah, well maybe you should watch where you’re going next time. And why are you still here? I thought I made it perfectly clear the other night that I don’t need a babysitter.”
“Oh, I’m not here to babysit you. I’m just the manny.”
“Don’t patronize me, . I know exactly why you’re here.”
“You do, do you?”
“Yeah. The other night at the restaurant, you saw the opportunity and you took it.”
“What opportunity?”
“You saw the letters ATM tattooed on my dad’s forehead and you thought, ‘yeah, I can totally milk this guy for every penny.’ I can tell you now, you’re not going to get a fucking cent from him.”
“For your information, I had absolutely no idea who your father was, even before I waited on him in the restaurant that night. I didn’t even know that he was a regular customer either until my boss informed me.”
“Bullshit! Why else would you agree to come and work for him? If not for the money, then why else? I can see right through you, .”
He practically spits the words in my face and I eye him up and down, my eyes traveling the full length of his body, and when our eyes connect, I see the anger in them. “I just want you to know one thing.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“I don’t like you. You stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Is that clear?”
“It couldn’t be clearer if you’d spat it in my face.”
“Don’t tempt me,”
he replies.
His eyes now give me a quick once-over, up and down the entire length of my body before he finally says, “You’ll slip; they always do. And when that time comes, my father will have you out on the streets quicker than you found yourself in this house.”
“Is there a problem here?”
I turn around to see Jasper standing behind me, both his hands in his pockets, and his eyes all over Tristan.
“No, we’re good. I was just telling here that I don’t like him.”
“Tristan, you watch your mouth. And shouldn’t you be getting ready for school?”
“I’m going.”
With that, he turns and wanders down the hall and I hear the loud sound of a door slamming.
“I’m sorry about him. He doesn’t do change very well.”
“The poor kid hasn’t even given me a chance to screw up yet, and already he’s trying to get me fired.”
He chuckles. “Give him some time. He’ll come around. And before you know it, the two of you will be best friends.”
“Oh, I can’t wait,”
I reply, sarcastically.
“I’m going to head back to work. You sure you’re all right here?”
“I’ve got it all under control,”
I assure him.
“Good.”
He turns and makes his way back down the hall and down the stairs and after a couple of minutes, Kit steps out of his bedroom, dressed in his uniform and his backpack swung over his left shoulder. I eye him up and down and notice that his tie is slightly out of place. I stretch out my arms and adjust the knot around his neck with my hands and pat him down on his shoulders.
“There you go,” I say.
“Thanks,”
he replies.
“Why don’t you head downstairs for breakfast? I’ll be down in a minute with your sister.”
He nods in acknowledgement and then makes his way down the stairs. As I make my way back to Violet’s room, I see her bedroom door open and I step inside.
“You all ready, Violet?”
She’s standing in front of the mirror, adjusting her tie and ironing out the creases in her skirt. I move toward her and place both my hands on her shoulders, then stare at her through the mirror.
“You look nice and smart,”
I tell her.
“?”
she asks, looking at me through the mirror. “Could you help me with my hair, please?”
I look at her with a smile and reply, “Yes, I’d love to.”