knew he had it in him. She’d heard him laugh this morning, and the memory alone was enough to make the hairs on her arms stand on end even now. Unwittingly, she smoothed her palms over her upper arms.
The scent of his cologne enveloped her, and she found the warm, woodsy fragrance more than a little pleasing.
No matter how severe his persona, though, she was still amazed by that purring undercurrent of energy radiating from him, around him—around them. It was the same force she’d felt when he was in her office, and it plucked at her with the same dogged insistence now as it had then.
As he looked over her information, Sophia attempted to ignore the invisible static by checking out his home. From where she stood, she could see into the living room to the left, and a bit of the kitchen to the right. The black leather and rich coppery metals in the living room were warm and masculine. All she could see of the kitchen were cabinets made of a deep red cherry wood and bit of black granite countertop.
“Everything looks adequate.” He glanced up from the papers he’d been studying. “Let’s go inside where we can talk.”
Adequate? A smile tickled her lips, but she quelled it as she followed him into the living room. She’d graduated from university with top honors and a double major in child development and business. She’d started her company fresh out of college and had nearly exhausted herself working full-time during the days to establish The Nanny Place, while earning her Delaware childcare certificate in the evenings just for emergencies like this one when she had to step in and take over at the grassroots level. She would describe herself as a confident, successful businesswoman, educated in both the physical and emotional aspects of childrearing. And he thought her credentials only adequate. Sophia wondered what a woman would have to do to impress the man.
“On the coffee table there,” he said, “is a detailed inventory of what I expect.”
Ah, Sophia thought, as she picked up the list with interest and eased herself down onto the couch. So these were the infamous rules. Just as Lily and the other fired nannies had described, there were pages of them.
“Hailey fell asleep on the ride back home so I put her back in her crib. She hasn’t had her bath or her breakfast.” He paced to the chair and sat down. “The schedule for today is completely shot. Again.”
“Well, maybe it’s a good thing that the baby’s having a morning nap.” Sophia kept her tone casual, hoping to ease his irritation. “I talked with Lily after you left and she said that Hailey was awake most of the night.”
His handsome face went tight. “She wouldn’t be up in the night if the nannies would just do as I instruct them. Keeping to the schedule is everything.”
Sophia’s first instinct was to defend the young women who had come here to care for Hailey, to let him know that schedules and babies didn’t always mesh well, but she bit her tongue. Arguing with him about his rigid expectations before she’d had time to assess the rules—to assess him—wasn’t a good idea. She needed time to take it all in and then she would worry about arguing.
Her best course of action, she decided, was to refrain from kick-starting any antagonism between them. Instead, she needed to remain calm and professional so she could become familiar with the situation. Smoothing his ruffled feathers should be priority number one, she reasoned silently. Surely his daughter would awaken soon and babies were notorious for sensing the stresses and anxieties in others. Sophia didn’t need a fussy infant on her hands at the same time she was dealing with Michael.
“And that’s all I ask you to do,” he continued. “Follow the rules. They’re simple enough. Keep to the schedule. How hard can that be?”
Apparently, he was still agitated from his confrontation with Lily and the need for having to drive to The Nanny Place.
“I understand that you’re annoyed that you had to fire Lily this morning. Especially since you warned her about walking around in her nightgown—”
“I wouldn’t call what she was wearing a nightgown. Short, lacy and completely transparent.”
“What?” Sophia couldn’t believe her ears.
“The girl was nearly naked.”
Sophia’s jaw went slack. “You’re kidding?”
“I’m not,” he said. “And if you’re looking for the whole truth of the matter, it wasn’t an accident.”
“But she said—”
His square jaw dipped low. “Trust me on this. She wanted me to see her body, and she left nothing to the imagination.”
Sophia frowned and murmured an apology on Lily’s behalf. That girl was in for it, that was for certain.
He shrugged. “Young people act rashly. They don’t think about consequences. I see it every day.”
No wonder he’d stormed into her office like a roaring lion. In this day and age of sexual harassment in the workplace, he’d had every right to be furious. Heck, he’d had every right to fire her.
Sophia told him, “That should never have happened.”
Awkwardness tightened the air. Finally, she said, “I promise you that I’ll do everything in my power while I’m here to follow your guidelines to the letter.”
As she made the pledge, she knew she was clinging to the age-old business adage that the client was always right. She was determined to do whatever it took to save her good business reputation. However, if she discovered that his rules were really as restrictive as she’d heard, she had every intention of somehow turning things around, of making him see that his agenda was way too rigid for the mere mortals who were caring for Hailey, not to mention a one-month-old infant.
“I appreciate that,” he told her. But his tension didn’t seem to lessen.
“I want you to know,” he continued, “that your only job is to care for Hailey. I don’t want you doing any housework or cooking or anything else while you’re here. Your focus should be on my daughter.”
That was a relief. One of the biggest complaints she heard from the nannies she placed was that parents kept adding responsibilities that had nothing whatsoever to do with childcare; running errands, performing household chores and such. One nanny was asked to attend a parent teacher conference at her charge’s school. The young woman had felt awkward about approaching the parents, so Sophia had stepped in and clearly outlined everyone’s proper role in the business relationship.
He went quiet for a moment, and Sophia finally had a chance to glance over the schedule he’d prepared.
“Were you in the military?” she asked, her eyebrows arching a fraction. She really had been aiming to play it cool and not cause problems, but she reacted before she could stop herself.
Her question seemed to confuse him, so she explained. “The schedule you’ve set for Hailey is so…regimented. Up by seven, fed by seven-thirty, bathed and dressed by eight. Diaper change at nine, another at ten. Snack at ten thirty. Diaper change at eleven.”
She peered at him over the top edge of the paper. “What if she isn’t hungry at seven-thirty? Or what if she doesn’t need a diaper change at ten?”
His
