Chapter 1
Kerry Gibbs was running late for her interview because every single thing that could go wrong today, had. It hadn’t started off bad—her alarm had gone off and she’d actually heard the ocean waves pulling her from a deep sleep…and she’d promptly snoozed it. Exactly once. Or so she’d thought before she actually woke up an hour later than she’d planned. Then her landlord hadn’t bothered to post a notice that the water would be shut off today, and of course it had to happen right in the middle of her shower.
But after using six liters of water to rinse the watermelon body wash and shampoo from her hair, she quickly dressed, grabbed her bag, and rushed out the door. She couldn’t find a cab to save her life so she’d gone underground first, not feeling good about her odds of making it to Malibu without her car, which was in with the mechanic. The interview was in forty minutes and instead of heading there at a leisurely pace she was rushing. Running. Dashing to get to the other side of town—at least—to interview for a nanny position.
It wasn’t her life’s goal to be a nanny, but after graduating with a master’s in art therapy she'd spent the past couple years working at a day program for kids in need of intensive therapy and volunteering at an afterschool program in Long Beach. Now she wanted some one-on-one experience. “Aw, come on!” The bus stopped and she still had eight stops to go.
As soon as the doors opened she ran up to the street and got a cab, slowing her breathing down and touching up her makeup. And trying very hard not to resent the cabbie for stealing what little disposable cash she had. But she arrived with eight minutes to spare.
Go me.
Of course it was a gigantic, beautiful high-rise building with rose gold windows and white stone. She was glad she’d opted for the royal blue skirt that stopped just above the knee and a silky white blouse that belonged to her actress roommate. Toya wouldn’t mind anyway; she left a week ago for a three-month play in London.
“Your bag, miss.”
The male voice pulled her from her thoughts at the door. “Excuse me?”
“We need to check your bag before we allow you entry to the building.”
“Really? Is Prince William in there?” She pointed to the large iron gates which were somehow completely impenetrable, disbelief stretched across her face.
His lips twitched but the man said nothing other than, “Your bag.”
Kerry handed it over for a quick look. The smiling guard opened the gate and she strolled down a paved circular path. Trees lined both sides of the drive with small potted flowers on the edges. The drive ended around a fountain.
The house itself, on the forty-fifth floor, was big and loud but part of her thought it was kind of elegant. She rang the bell, looking around while she waited. She was enjoying the scenery, which she wasn't accustomed to, having only been to Malibu once to watch one of her exes compete in a surfing competition.
“Kerry? Hi, I’m Nala. It’s good to meet you, come on in.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” she smiled at the pretty woman with the sleek black bob and doe eyes. The house was as enormous as she’d expected of a Malibu beach house with armed guards on the door, but what she hadn’t expected was all the white. Must be a sign of wealth, she snorted with amusement. Seriously, the floor was white marble shot through with gold, the walls were white and they had white on white paintings and white sculptures everywhere. And when they came to a stop in the living room she couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her at the sight of white sofas, a white area rug and white throw pillows.
Nala laughed and rolled her eyes. “I know, it’s obscene, but the place came this way.”
Kerry shrugged and took the white armless chair across from the loveseat, hoping she hadn’t rubbed up against anything that might stain the furniture. “So. You’re leaving this position.”
Nala blinked as though caught off guard. “You’re forward. I like it.” She smiled and pulled out a tablet. “Yes. A wonderful opportunity I never thought I’d get has come through, the London School of Economics, and I can’t pass this up or I wouldn’t leave Aram. I need someone he’s comfortable with.”
She let out a long, low whistle. “Wow. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.” She blushed. “Your qualifications are excellent and you’ve passed our extensive background checks so I’m already rooting for you, but the fact is that it was very hard to find a nanny for Aram when his mother died, nearly a year in fact. He’s not a difficult child but he needs the right person, someone he’s comfortable with.”
Kerry nodded, understanding completely. Some kids you had chemistry with and the rest you could fake it. Her favorite kids had always been the ones who made her earn their friendship. “A test?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“Okay.”
Again she blinked but quickly recovered, standing and leading her down a long—white—hall where the sound was…silence. Nala pushed open a door to reveal a small boy with curly maple hair that stood in all directions. “Aram, I want you to meet Kerry. She was very interested in meeting you.”
He slid off the couch with a solemn expression. “Nice to meet you,” he said softly and extended his hand to her.
Her heart squeezed at his manners and those big amber eyes that saw so much. Kerry bent down so they were eye to eye and accepted his hand. “Nice to meet you too. What are you doing over there?” She nodded to the tablet sitting on the sofa.
“Reading a comic book.”
Oh, thank goodness! “Really? Because I love comic books!”
He frowned. “Girls don’t like comics.”
She laughed and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Oh yeah, says who?”
“The other nannies.”
Kerry could see the problem clearly now. He’d probably been left with a series of women looking to hook a rich man but not his sweet little boy. “Okay, best super power?”
He thought carefully. “Superman. He can fly!”
“That’s a good one,” she told him, stroking her cheek like an evil villain. “But Deadpool regenerates and he’s fast and strong.”Aram’s eyes flashed recognition and, if she wasn’t mistaken, the kid was impressed. “Best costume?”
He smiled. “Batman,” they both said at the same time.
By the time Kerry and Nala left Aram to his reading, she was sure the boy liked her well enough to give her a shot. The woman took her seat and smiled, giving nothing away until she was ready. “We’ll train the rest of this week and you will be expected to move in on Friday. Will any of that be a problem?”
“You mean I got the job?” Nala nodded, lips twitching with a laugh. “Cool. What time should I be here?”
“Nine should be fine.”
She nodded as her stomach danced a little jig. A new job with a bigger salary and one-on-one therapy. A thought occurred to her. “Are there parents I need to meet before this is official?”
Nala shook her head. “You’ll meet with the Sheikh tomorrow evening when he returns.”
She swallowed, green eyes round and big. Sheikh? “As in a royal sheikh?”
“Yes.”
She nodded and said goodbye to Nala and Aram and took the elevator back down to the ornate lobby with only one thought in her mind. I don’t have the wardrobe to work for a Sheikh!
* * *
It had been a long day at the Mayor’s office and Malik Nourani was more than ready to get home to his son. With Nala leaving soon he hoped Aram didn’t revert back to the quiet boy he’d been the year after Kamala died. It hadn’t been grief, or maybe it had. He wouldn’t know because he hadn’t grieved. Not really. And even if he’d been so inclined, now was not the time to think about that. Or her.
“Thank you for coming, Your Highness. It will take some time but once our cities are officially linked as sister cities we will both benefit.” The shiny blond aide smiled in his direction.
“Right. Well nothing beats American bureaucracy, apparently.”
Mayor Reynolds laughed. “Not so great when you can just declare something so, eh?”
“Our Parliament is quite streamlined to ensure our legislation isn’t out of date before it’s debated on and passed.” He stood and shook hands with all the people in the room. “I must get home. We will pick this up tomorrow?”
They all nodded, eager to please the young Sheikh. He scoffed to himself at that. Young. He’d hardly call thirty-seven young, but by American standards he guessed he was a babe in the woods.
“Enjoy your evening, Malik.”
“You as well.” He needed to get home early today to meet the new nanny before Nala left, and he’d been late the past two days. Today he would not miss the woman his son couldn’t stop talking about. At breakfast this morning it had been, “Kerry says this,” and “Kerry knows how to do that.” His son was smitten with the woman and he didn’t even know her. That had to change.
Exiting the room with his team of bodyguards in place, they took over one elevator car and made their way to the street. It was still light outside and at this time of year that meant it was still early, and he would make it home at a decent hour. He had to be sure this Kerry wasn’t a fortune hunter or a kidnapper or a seducer. Aram had been subjected to many of those in the first year after his mother had died. Women had come out of the woodwork in his small peninsula nation of Ravenna to be nanny to the widowed Sheikh and his motherless son.
And his boy had paid the price.
Not this time, Malik smiled to himself as the black armored car pulled into the private lot beneath their building. As the elevator car made its way to the forty-fifth floor, his shoulders relaxed but internally his body went crazy. Heart racing and stomach clenching, Malik felt a sense of unease he couldn’t explain, but it had him rushing out of the elevator ahead of his security team in a hurry to get to his son.
The door opened, giving him his first glimpse of Nala, wearing a smile as she spoke quietly into her phone, shooting him a wave as he turned right down the hall. Aram spent most evenings before dinner in his playroom, which was Malik’s current destination. Empty.
He turned, retracing his steps and glaring at Nala, who was still on the phone. “Where is Aram?” he barked at the same time a familiar childish giggle sounded. He went in the direction Nala had pointed, towards the kitchen. In there, he found his son with his head bowed over a sheet of paper—not an electronic device, surprisingly—beside a woman with blonde hair…tipped red. She had a deeply sensual laugh. His scowled deepened. “Who the hell are you?”
They both froze, a pair of amber and a pair of green eyes looking at him with unease. “Since that’s your son, I assume you’re referring to me.” She stood and he really wished she hadn’t. The girl, because he wasn’t sure she was old enough to be called a woman, was stunning. She had golden-blonde hair with candy-red covering the bottom third. But the hair framed delicate features, high cheekbones, full lips, and a ski-jump nose. She wore fitted jeans that showed her petite frame was made up of curves and muscles, and a superhero t-shirt that appeared to be Aram’s size. “I’m Kerry Gibbs, nanny and art therapist.” She extended her hand and he looked at it as though it might poison him. “Oh right. Well I’m not sure about royal protocol and all that, but it’s nice to meet you.”
He wanted to laugh because she didn’t sound like it was nice to meet him. “Is it?”
She shrugged. “Sure. Aram seems to like you.” Looking over at him, she shot him a wink and he smiled.
Malik could forgive her beauty and her completely inappropriate hair because very few people made his son smile with his whole face, flashing his teeth in the way only a four-year-old could. “Based on your qualifications, I assumed you were older.”
“I am older than some.” Her shoulders straightened, spine stiffened, and her big green eyes sharpened with focus. “Is there a problem, Mr. Nourani?”
He smiled. Nala was right, she is straightforward. “None I can see yet,” he answered, still staring at her hair because it was the most offensive thing about her.
“Right.” She glanced at her phone and took her seat beside Aram, addressing him rather than his father. “Let’s finish up our masterpieces today, kiddo, and then I’ll leave you to guy-time with your dad.”
“Guy-time?” His son looked up at the woman with such adoration Malik was sure it couldn’t be healthy in such a short period of time. But her smile was just as genuine.
“Yeah, you know, watching football—or maybe soccer for you guys—drinking beer, and talking about girls.” She winked and he giggled.
“I love footy!”
She pouted. “But not girls?”
He smiled. “I like you and Nala. My mama died.”
“I heard, sweetie, and I’m sorry for your loss,” she told him, gently rubbing soothing circles in his back that seemed to relax him. When he picked up his colored pencil she spoke again. “My mom died when I was a little older than you and I still miss her. Sometimes I forget what she looks like.”
Wide amber eyes looked at her. “You do? I do too.”
Malik felt a crushing sadness at hearing his son speak so freely to a virtual stranger when he’d never heard any of this. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Aram bowed his head, hands fidgeting in his lap. He shrugged.
Kerry bumped his shoulder. “Hard work being a superhero, eh?”
He giggled again and then looked up at Malik with a wariness he didn’t understand. “Can Kerry stay for dinner?”
Malik felt the frown form on his face. “I don’t know, Aram.”
The nanny stepped in again. “No can-do tonight. I have to finish packing. I hope you’ve cleared a few drawers for me in your room?”
He smiled. “You have a girl room!”
Malik watched the woman clutch her chest in fake agony. “You wound me, young man.”
“Kerry, you’re silly.”
“It’s all part of my charm.”
Malik had to agree as he watched them for long minutes. Kerry encouraged Aram without coddling him and she made sure he didn’t get too serious about every little thing. He could, grudgingly, admit she was as great as his son said. “I want to speak to you before you leave, Ms. Gibbs.”
“Sure thing,” she said to his back. A few moments later, they both erupted in laughter and Malik was sure the joke was on him.
He breathed a sigh of relief in his room that Kerry seemed capable and more so that she had little interest in him. It rankled a bit to be so thoroughly dismissed by a woman. Not even a flash of desire in those mossy green eyes, he groused. She was tempting but her indifference meant he wouldn’t have to dismiss her before his time in America came to an end.
Changing into less formal clothes for "guy-time" as Kerry had called it, Malik headed out of his bedroom just as his phone rang.
By the time he’d finished the call, Nanny Kerry had left.