The Nanny Plan

The emcee was thanking Longmire for his time and everyone was applauding and the rest of the evening was clearly over. Trish managed to snag her small purse—a Coach knockoff—and fight against the rising tide of college kids who had not been invited backstage for a private meeting with the Boy Billionaire. With her small purse and her large check, Trish managed to get up the steps at the side of the stage and duck behind the curtains.

The emcee stood there, glaring at her. “That was some stunt you pulled,” she said in a vicious whisper.

“Thanks!” Trish responded brightly. No doubt, Jennifer had had grand plans for her own post-interview “meeting” with Longmire and Trish had usurped that quite nicely.

“Ah, Ms. Hunter. Hello.” Suddenly, Nate Longmire was standing before her. Trish was a good five-nine—taller in her boots—but she still had to lean her head up to meet his gaze. “Excellent,” he went on, looking down at her as if he was thrilled to see her. “You have the large check. Jennifer, would you take our picture?”

His phone chimed. He looked at it, scowled briefly, and then called up his SnAppShot app. He handed his phone to the emcee, who forced a polite smile. “Hand it up here,” Longmire said, taking half of the check in his hand. Then he put his arm around Trish’s shoulders and whispered, “Smile.”

Trish wasn’t sure she pulled off that smile. His arm around her was warm and heavy and she swore to God that she felt his touch in places he wasn’t touching.

She would not be attracted to him. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to him. All she could do was forge ahead with her plan. Phase One—trap the Boy Billionaire—was complete. Now she had to move onto Phase Two—getting a donation out of him.

Forging ahead had absolutely nothing to do with the way his physical touch was sending shimmering waves of awareness through her body. Nothing.

Jennifer took two shots and then handed back the phone. Longmire’s arm left her and Trish couldn’t help it—she shivered at the loss of his warmth.

“Mr. Longmire,” Jennifer began in a silky tone. “If you recall, I’d invited you out for a dinner after the program. We should get going.”

There was a pause that could only be called awkward. Longmire didn’t even move for three blinks of the eye—as if this statement had taken him quite by surprise and, despite his ferocious business skills and dizzying intellect, he had no possible answer for Jennifer.

Jennifer touched his arm. “Ready?” she said, batting her eyes.

Trish rolled hers—just as Longmire looked at her.

Oops. Busted.

But instead of glaring at her, Longmire looked as if Trish was the answer to all his questions. That look should not do things to her. So, she forcibly decided, it didn’t.

“Gosh—I do remember that, but I think I need to address Ms. Hunter’s question first.” He stepped away from Jennifer much like a crab avoiding a hungry seagull. Jennifer’s hand hung in empty space for a moment before she lowered it back to her side. “Call my office,” Longmire said, turning on his heel. “We’ll try to set something up. Ms. Hunter? Are you coming?”

Trish clutched her check to her chest and hurried after Longmire, trying to match his long strides.

That definitely wasn’t a no.

Now she just needed to get to a yes.

* * *

Nate settled into the Apollo Coffee shop. He liked coffee shops. They were usually busy enough that he didn’t garner too much attention but quiet enough that he could think. He liked to think. It was a profitable, satisfying experience for him, thinking.

Right now he was thinking about the young woman who’d trucked a comically large check into the hired car and carried it into the coffee shop as if it were the most normal thing ever.

Trish Hunter. She was drinking a small black coffee—easily the cheapest thing on the extensive menu. She’d insisted on buying her own coffee, too. Had absolutely refused to let him plunk down the two dollars and change for hers.

That was something...different. He was intrigued, he had to admit.

The large check was wedged behind her chair, looking slightly worse for wear. “That’s not the real check, is it?” he asked over the lip of his grande mocha.

“No. I got a regulation-sized check that went straight into the bank. But this makes for better photos, don’t you think?” she replied easily, without that coy tone women had started using around him about the time he made his first million.

“Not a lot of people would have had the guts to try and trap me like that,” he noted, watching her face closely. She was lovely—long dark hair that hung most of the way down her back, brown skin that graced high cheekbones. With her strong features and strong body—because there was no missing that—she looked like she could be Wonder Woman.

She didn’t act like the kind of women who tried to trap him with their feminine wiles. Instead, she sat across from him, drinking cheap coffee and no doubt waiting to tell him why he should cut her another check.

For a second—the amount of time it took for her to look up at him through thick lashes—Nate almost panicked. He wasn’t particularly good with women, as evidenced by that nagging feeling that he hadn’t handled Jennifer’s dinner invitation well and the fact that he had flat-out ignored that message from Diana—the third one this month.

Ever since things with Diana had fallen apart—and then really gone to hell—he’d kept things simple by simply not getting involved. Which meant that he was horribly out of practice. But there was no way he would let another woman take advantage of him. And that included Diana. Hence why he would just keep right on ignoring her messages.

Trish Hunter wasn’t doing the things that normally made him nervous—treating him like he was a sex god she’d been secretly worshipping for years.

She grinned, a small curve of her lips over the edge of her cup. That grin did something to him—made him feel more sure of himself. Which sounded ridiculous but there it was. “Did it work? The trap, that is.”

Nate smiled back. He was terrible about negotiations with members of the opposite sex. Money, however, was something he’d learned to negotiate. And the fact that this lovely young woman wasn’t playing coy—wasn’t acting like he’d gotten used to women acting around him—only made him more comfortable. Everything was out in the open. He could handle this kind of interaction. “That depends.”

Her eyes widened slightly and a flash of surprise crossed her face. It made her look...innocent. Sweet, even. “Upon?”

“Tell me about your charity.”

She exhaled in relief. It wasn’t a big gesture, but he saw it nonetheless. He wondered what she’d thought he would ask. “Of course. One Child, One World is a registered 501(c) charity. We keep our overhead as low as possible.” Nate sighed. He hated the boring part of charity work. It was, for lack of a better word, boring. “Approximately $0.93 of every dollar donated goes to school supplies...” her voice trailed off. “Not the right answer?”

He sat up a little straighter. She was paying attention to him. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t flattering. “Those statistics are all required as part of the grant application process,” he replied, waving his hand. “The lawyers insisted. But that’s not what I wanted to know.”

She raised a strong eyebrow and leaned toward him. Yes, he had her full attention—and she had his. “You asked about my charity.”

Oh, yeah—her words were nothing but challenge. This was not a woman telling him whatever he wanted to hear. This was a woman who would push back. Even though he had the money and she had a very cheap coffee, she’d still push back.

That made her even more interesting.

And as long as he kept thinking of it in terms of power and money—instead of noting how pretty she was and how she was looking at him and especially how he was no doubt looking at her—he’d be just fine.

“Tell me about why a young woman would start an organization to get school supplies into kids’ hands. Tell me about...” You. But he didn’t say that because that would cross the line of business and go into the personal. The moment he did that, he’d probably start flailing and knock the coffee into her lap. “Tell me about it.”

“Ah.” She took her time sipping her coffee. “Where did you grow up? Kansas City, right?”

“You’ve done your homework.”

“Any good trap is a well-planned trap,” she easily replied, a note of satisfaction in her voice.

He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Yes, I grew up in Kansas City. Middle-class household. Father was an accountant, mother taught second grade.” He left out the part about his brothers. “It was a very comfortable life.” He hadn’t realized how comfortable until he’d made his money—and started looking at how other people lived.

Trish smiled encouragingly. “And every August, you got a new backpack, new shoes, new school clothes and everything on that list teachers said you had to have, right?”

“Yes.” He took a calculated risk. Just because she had black hair and skin the color of copper and was running a charity that helped American Indians on reservations didn’t necessarily mean she was a Native American herself. But there was no such thing as coincidence. “I take it you didn’t?”

Something in her face changed—her eyes seemed to harden. “My sixth-grade teacher gave me two pencils once. It was all she could afford.” She dropped her gaze and began to fiddle with one of her earrings. “It was the best present I ever got.”

Nate, being Nate, didn’t have a smooth comeback to that. In fact, he didn’t know what to say at all. His mom, Susan, had worked as a teacher, and she’d occasionally talked about a student who needed “a little extra help,” as she put it. Then she’d fill a backpack with food and some basics and that was that. But that was before she’d had to stay home with Nate’s brother Joe full-time.