The alarm goes off at five in the morning like it always does. I roll over, contemplate going back to sleep, but I never do. I don’t have time to sleep more even if I wanted to. It doesn’t matter that I got home late last night and barely got five hours of sleep.

I have responsibilities. And I’m not the kind of man to ignore them.

I get out of bed, quickly brush my teeth, and work out in my little home gym for an hour. By the time I’m finished, I can hear Lacey just starting to wake up.

Every morning at six, just like clockwork. I go into her room and she looks up at me. “Morning, little girl,” I say to her.

“Dad,” she says. “Breakfast.”

I grin at her. Lacey is one and a half, and that’s her way of saying good morning. I lift her out of her crib, change her, dress her, and walk with her out into the kitchen.

This is our routine. Every single morning since she was born, I’ve taken care of Lacey. I’ve had some help, a long string of nannies and babysitters, but they never last very long. I’m too picky, I guess. I just don’t trust any of them with my baby girl.

Even though I desperately need help. I stifle a yawn as I go about feeding Lacey breakfast, but I can’t really deny it anymore. I’m fucking exhausted.

I was exhausted when Lacey was younger, but that was to be expected. Now she sleeps through the night, but I’m not getting enough sleep and I’m barely seeing her. Back when she was younger, my job wasn’t so busy, but things are different now. I could get away with not hiring someone fulltime back then, but I know those days are over.

My company, The Numbers Group, is one of the largest data analytics companies in the world. We take huge consumer data sets and basically break them down into digestible pieces with actionable suggestions. I started the Group when I was just a kid in college at MIT, but I aggressively scaled it up, and now we work with congressmen, huge companies, and even Hollywood studios.

I went from a poor orphan with a scholarship at a good school to one of the youngest billionaires in the world, and I did it all on my own. My parents died in a car crash when I was eighteen, leaving me alone to figure out how the hell I was going to get through college on my own.

Things worked out for me, of course. Work was going great, I was on top of the world, up until I met my ex, Catherine.

I liked her at first, but things quickly soured. I have a habit of not sticking around too long with any one woman. I’m young and attractive, I don’t see any reason to settle down too soon.

At least until Catherine showed up one day with Lacey, claiming she was mine, and stating that she absolutely wouldn’t keep her.

So of course, I took Lacey. I confirmed my paternity, because Catherine turned out to be a notorious liar, but fortunately Lacey is all mine and Catherine is very much out of the picture. I paid her off and now she’s living somewhere in Milwaukee last I heard.

I lost my parents too young. I wasn’t about to let Lacey grow up without at least her father. And so my life changed, but it changed for the better. I learned responsibility. I learned what it means to love someone so much that it hurts. Every day, I love Lacey even more than the day before, and it kills me that I haven’t been able to see her as much lately.

All because of the merger. The Group is in talks with another big data firm called Fisher Consortium, named after its founder and CEO Rick Fisher. His company is another big data analytics firm, and although it’s not as big as mine, they have some incredibly specialized and important data sets that we desperately want.

My job works like this: places like Facebook and other websites are constantly tracking everything people do on the internet. So much data has been collected on everyone that we can get some pretty granular and amazing insights about them. But there’s so much data that it takes a special and powerful group of people to be able to make sense of it all, and that’s what we do. We take all that big messy data and we turn it into something useful that companies can then turn around and use in their advertising.

The merger should be simple, but it’s not, not at all. Rick Fisher is an abrasive asshole who refuses to budge on any one of his demands, and so far negotiations have stalled. I’m working late nights to try and get this thing through, because it has the potential to make my Group the largest analytics firm in the world, but I’m starting to feel like I’m sacrificing too much to make it happen.

As I finish up feeding Lacey, I grab myself a bowl of cereal. Just as I sit down to eat, the intercom at the front door buzzes.

I groan a little and trot over to it. Lacey is busy playing with some Cheerios in her high chair as I go over to the intercom and hit the button.

“Yes?” I ask, annoyed someone is here so early.

“Uhm, Mr. McGrath?” It’s a young woman’s voice.

“Yes?” I ask again.

“I’m Erin,” she says and pauses. “The nanny,” she says.

Oh shit, I think. I totally forgot. “Right, come on in.” I hit a button and the door opens. Erin comes in through the foyer and I open the front door for her. “Sorry about that,” I say, a little embarrassed. I totally forgot she was coming. My best friend and my second in command at the Group, James Moore, recommended Erin to me, and I basically hired her without ever even meeting her. I’ve known James for years, and I basically trust him implicitly. If he says Erin is great, then Erin is great.

She steps in through the door. “It’s nice meet you, Mr. McGrath,” she says.

“Call me Griffin.” I smile and we shake hands, which gives me a second to look at her.

She’s young, probably in her early to mid-twenties. Long, dark hair, and bright blue eyes. Her skin is pale and smooth, and I can’t help but notice that she has a gorgeous little body. In fact, she’s really beautiful in a surprising way. She’s probably about five foot four, which means I tower over her, but I like that. I’ve always liked smaller women.

For a second, I’m taken by how gorgeous she is. I can tell she’s maybe a little surprised by how I’m looking at her.

“Come in,” I say finally. “Let’s go meet Lacey.”

She follows me in, and I get the sense that she’s nervous and shy.

“James tells me you’re great,” I say to her. “Lots of experience?”

“Of course,” she says. “I worked as a nanny for a couple over in Germany for two years.”

“Germany?” I ask her. “That’s interesting, why were you there?”

“School,” she replies. “I went to this little liberal arts school in Germany for college. I became a nanny to help support myself.”

“That’s good,” I say. “Reminds me of myself. I used to work two jobs while going to school.”

“Looks like it paid off,” she says.

I smile at her, surprised at the joke. “I did okay,” I answer.

We enter into the kitchen and Lacey looks up.

“Erin, meet Lacey,” I say.

Erin walks right over to her. “Hi, sweetie,” she says.

Lacey is friendly, one of the friendliest kids I know. The two of them quickly hit it off. Erin cleans her up and clears her little tray before lifting her out of the chair. I watch for a second then become intensely aware that I haven’t showered yet.

“You look like you’re going to be okay, right?” I say.

“Of course,” she answers, smiling. “Lacey, want me to read to you?”

“Book!” Lacey says.

I grin as Lacey leads Erin over to her little stack of toys.

“I’m going to shower and get dressed. I’ll see you before I leave.”

“Okay,” Erin says, and then she sits down with Lacey and starts to read Lacey’s favorite book.

I shake my head and head back into my bedroom. I had no clue Erin was going to be so fucking hot. I might not have hired her if I knew. Truth is, I don’t have the best track record at keeping my hands off of attractive women, and I shouldn’t get involved with my kid’s nanny. That’s so fucking cliché it hurts. But I really need the help, and Erin seems great.

I push any lingering reservations out of my head and hop into the shower. I’m happy Erin is here and I’m happy she’s clearly getting along with Lacey. I’m not going to screw this up like I’ve screwed up so many relationships before.

This time, I’m going to be good. I’m not going to do all the dirty fucking things I keep thinking about, no matter how much I want it.

Right now, it’s all about Lacey and the merger. Nothing else matters. I can’t afford to get distracted by the sexy nanny I just hired.

It’s time to focus up and get the job done.