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  BABYSITTER FOR THE SINGLE DAD

  A Steamy Single Dad Romance

  Mia Madison

  Copyright © 2017 Mia Madison

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons (living or dead), places or events is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the author or publisher.

  NOTE: This story contains some scenes and language only suitable for mature readers.

  CONTENTS

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Jenna

  I squeeze my way along the aisle to the back of the crowded cabin, trying to avoid a concussion from passengers hauling carry-ons into the overhead compartments. My stomach drops when I find my allocated seat wedged between a sweet-looking old lady and a guy with a weird ginger lumberjack beard, baseball cap and sunglasses. I should have known it was too much to hope for no witnesses to my phobia.

  As mountain man gets up to let me in, the pilot announces that we should all take our seats quickly as the flight from London to Palma, Majorca is about to take off. I resist the urge to run for it while I still can. My heart rate escalates as the plane taxis along the runway.

  The old lady seems to be having a nap against the window. Lucky her. I shut my eyes and grab onto the armrests as the plane picks up speed, rumbling over the joints in the tarmac, and lifts off the ground. I clench my teeth. I can hardly breathe. I’m sure I’m about to meet my doom, but somehow, we make it through the clouds, and I open my eyes.

  “It’s okay. You can let go of my arm now,” the guy in seat 33D says.

  Major embarrassment. I pull my hand away as if from hot coals and he rubs his merino-wool-covered arm. A very fine substantial arm, nothing like an armrest. What was I thinking? “Sorry, flying freaks me out.”

  “I kinda gathered that.” He’s American. Nice voice, a vaguely familiar one. Smells great, too. Something subtle, but expensive. “Try a boat next time. Takes a little longer, but you know, your fellow passengers might still have their arms intact on arrival.”

  He smiles and opens a magazine. Conversation over.

  Not that I regret it. Ginger hipster beards are not my thing at all. And what a poser wearing sunglasses inside the aircraft. I grab my book from my backpack. But the words just dance in front of my eyes. I can’t focus at all. We’re cruising at an altitude of twenty-thousand feet. How can that be safe with the weight of all these people and their bags hurtling through the sky?

  The seatbelt sign goes off. But I keep mine on. I’ve heard unexpected turbulence can strike at any time and thrust you against the aircraft roof, breaking your back if you’re not tied down.

  I try again with my book, but end up reading the same page three times.

  And now I need to pee. I had a large glass of rioja just to get me on the plane. I didn’t dare have more. My employer is sending a driver to meet me at the airport. And I can’t turn up drunk as the new nanny. That wouldn’t do at all.

  Can I cross my legs for two and a half hours? Maybe. I put off getting up.

  The American puts down his magazine and settles back in his seat. I guess he’s not going to get up any time soon and give me a chance to slip out to join the line for the toilet, now three deep. Can I wait? Better not. There’s the landing to go, after all. Another uber-dangerous aviation moment.

  “Excuse me. I need to go to the bathroom.”

  No response. I touch his arm. Nothing.

  “I think he’s asleep, dear,” the old lady says, just having woken up herself. “Shake him harder or clamber over him.”

  The seats are wedged pretty close together on Cheapeasy flights. I’m not sure clambering is a good option, but neither is peeing in my seat, and if I can just make it past him, he might not wake up at all. I’ll worry about getting back in the seat once I’ve been to the bathroom. My mind might work better then. Or he might have woken up.

  Unclipping my belt at the last moment, I get up, but there’s really no chance of me getting past him without waking him. I stumble slightly with the movement of the plane, treading on his toes. He grimaces. I almost land in his denim-clad lap.

  “Sorry.” I’m pretty sure my face is red enough to power a stop light. “I just needed to go to the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I think you just did.” He raises his sunglasses and oh, I recognize that face, but I don’t have a clue what his name is. Where did I meet him? But then the penny drops—sunglasses, fake beard. He must be famous. What’s he doing flying Cheapeasy?

  I’m just hoping I remember who the hell he is before I get back to my seat. My friend Katie, ultimate consumer of celebrity magazines, is going to slaughter me the next time I see her if I don’t get a tale to tell out of this.

  CHAPTER 2

  Elliott

  I get up and let the girl in the next seat out. If squashed toes are all I have to put up with on this packed flight, I’ll have gotten off lightly. Not that I’d choose to go Cheapeasy again if I can help it, but if I don’t get back to Palma in time to let my sister get home to Ireland after I’ve already delayed things a week, she will kill me.

  Bridget has her own family. They are all teenagers now, but they need her, too, and I’m sure she misses them, however much she likes the Majorcan sun. She’s ended up staying to help me out far longer than she expected.

  A few technical problems and the charter jet company misses out on a bundle of cash, while Cheapeasy sells one of its last tickets to my destination that day. My co-star thought I was mad. “Nothing would possess me to get me on one of those flights,” she said. “You’ll get mobbed.”

  Well, I haven’t been mobbed. Just trodden on. The disguise is not bad, and in any case, everyone is too busy getting on, finding their seat, and dealing with their bags to notice anyone else.

  I hope the girl in the seat next to me doesn’t make a fuss when she returns. There was a flutter of recognition and then confusion on her face. Nice eyes. Sweet lips. Great body squeezing past me. I should ask her out. While I wait for her to come back, the cabin crew finally gets to the back of the plane with the drinks cart. I offer to get the old lady in seat 33F something, and she accepts a gin and tonic. “Don’t mind if I do.”

  I hand her the drink.

  “I like you,” she says. “Nice manners!”

  The girl in the next seat returns just in time for me to ask her, “How about you? Would you like a gin and tonic, too? Champagne?”

  She shakes her head and politely declines.<
br />
  “Are you sure? My treat to help with the landing. I’m sure it works better than grabbing an arm.”

  “I had better not. I’ve got to work this afternoon. But Pepsi would be good. Thank you.”

  I opt for a whisky myself. The drink is not the best single malt in the world, but it hits the spot. We’ve had a rough few days getting the filming finished, an unexpected overrun. The producer having a fit.

  “Is your boss a paragon of virtue? No champagne on the job?” I ask. “Sounds like the worst kind of boss.”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t met him yet, but no one wants a nanny who’s had too much to drink. Even champagne.”

  She’s a nanny going to Palma? “You haven’t met your employer? That’s odd. How did you get the job?”

  “Through one of the nanny agencies. It’s all a bit mysterious, but I know I’ll be working for the head of an international company. I’ve only dealt with the agency so far, and they seem reputable enough, but I couldn’t find anything about Travers Enterprises when I did a search. It’s a bit worrying, though the agency assured me it was perfectly legitimate.”

  “Oh, that will be Ben Travers. He exists all right. Everyone knows him in Palma. He has a reputation of being very strict with his employees, so you’re right about the champagne.”

  She looks alarmed, and I feel a bit sorry I mentioned that. It’s probably the last thing she wants to hear. Pity it also means she’s out of bounds. The more I look at her, the more I like what I see. She’s so natural compared to the women I usually date.

  On the other hand, I expected this flight to be tedious, but if all Cheapeasy journeys are full of surprises like this one, I should travel with them more often for the sheer entertainment value.

  “Excuse me, do I know you from somewhere? I thought when you took your sunglasses off I recognized you, but I’m not sure.” It’s as if her brain has been working overtime and suddenly, she has to know.

  I lift my sunglasses again, and I see the cogs clicking into place.

  “Oh right, you’re the guy that was in The Martian.”

  “Nope, that was Matt Damon.”

  “You were in The Revenant?”

  “Wrong again. That was Leonardo.”

  She blushes. “You were in Love Actually.”

  “Nope. Everyone and his dog was in that one, so good guess, but I wasn’t.”

  “You’re an actor though, right?”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t watch many movies. You can probably tell. I’m a reader, and movies have killed some of my favorite books. The characters never look like they should.”

  “Sorry about that. I apologize on behalf of the whole movie industry that it gets things so wrong. I’m Elliott Clark. Pleased to meet you.”

  I hold out my hand, and she takes it. Our eyes meet in a moment that seems more, much more, than polite introduction, and for once, it’s not the star-struck look I usually get from women who are not in the movie business. I like that.

  “Jenna Matthews,” she says. “And I have heard of you. Sorry. I was being a bit dense.”

  “That’s what I get for not doing blockbusters. I’m no A-lister; maybe you’d call me A-minus or B-plus depending on what I did last, but I like the low-budget, high-art stuff.”

  “I probably saw you when I was flicking through one of my friend’s celebrity mags. She will be way jealous that I sat next to you, and you bought me a drink. Maybe you can autograph my in-flight magazine or something for her.”

  “My pleasure.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Jenna

  The ways he says, “My pleasure,” the sound rolling off his tongue, sends a thrill up my spine. His eyes are deep blue, with a mischievous spark I can see now they are not hidden by his sunglasses. The old lady in the window seat has drunk her gin and tonic and is now immersed in a thriller.

  Elliott is facing me, his sunglasses still raised. Maybe he feels safer with someone who doesn’t immediately recognize him. Of course, he’s still wearing the ridiculous beard and hat. No one will recognize him unless they look closely.

  It’s just as well I don’t avidly follow celebrity gossip. Knowing me, I would be freaking out at this point. I scrabble in my bag for a pen, and he takes it from me, his fingers brushing mine. More tingling.

  Is it him or just the fact he’s a kind of star? Even if he is A-minus. He must be kidding me there. If he’s well-known enough for me to have heard of him, he’s being too modest.

  I take a quick peek. He’s wearing a thin sweater and jeans that do nothing to disguise the fact he keeps himself in shape. Long legs. He towered over me when he stood up to let me out and back in—twice. And that manly scent again. I could lose myself in that. So I think it’s him I like, not the fact he’s a celebrity.

  His eyes crinkle a little when he smiles, in a kind of infectious way. He’s no child star, more like an experienced guy who’s bound to know how to treat a woman in bed. What made me think of that? Now I’m blushing again.

  He signs the magazine ‘Elliott’ in big scrawling letters. I’m not sure Katie is ever getting this, but I don’t like to ask him to sign another page for me. He must be fed up giving out his autograph.

  “Thanks.” I take the magazine from him and put it in my bag. “That’s a great disguise, by the way. Though you could have chosen a more sensible beard to attract less attention.”

  I wish he would take it off so I could see his mouth properly. I feel like tugging the thing off.

  “That would be difficult,” he says. “Because the beard is real. Dyed, but real.”

  Oh, my big mouth. “Oops, sorry.”

  He laughs. “Don’t worry, I can’t wait to shave the thing off. It’s been driving me insane, but I was in too much of a rush to catch the plane. I grew it to play Rasputin.”

  “Rasputin? Wasn’t he a mad, sex-crazed monk?”

  “The very same. I just finished filming.”

  “Not in Russia?”

  “Some of it, but they had no trouble creating sets for the indoor scenes at Pinewood. Far cheaper to have the crew work there.”

  “I know nothing about the movie business. I guess that’s obvious.”

  “Most people don’t,” he says. “What happened to the nanny Ben Travers had, by the way?”

  “She left in a hurry. That’s why there was no time to interview me personally. I asked for more details, but the people at the agency didn’t really know much. They said she had another opportunity. If I’d known he was a horrible employer, I’d have probed more. I just thought it was the nanny getting fed up with travel or something.”

  “You have to travel with him? Flying?” He raises his eyebrows. “Does he know how much you hate it?”

  “I didn’t think mentioning it would be helpful to my application, and I’m hoping all the travel will help me get over my phobia. You know, like immersion therapy. I don’t think I’ll go everywhere with him, just on longer trips.”

  “Anything else you didn’t mention? Any other quirks, or maybe a criminal past you’re keeping quiet from your new boss?”

  “No. Just a tendency to say the first thing that comes out of my mouth. Sorry about the beard remark.”

  “Your honesty is refreshing.”

  “I could just flatter you for the rest of the flight to make up for it.”

  “Please don’t. You’re fine just as you are, Jenna Matthews.” My name rolls off his tongue. He could strip panties with that voice. Pity that I’ll never see him again.

  CHAPTER 4

  Elliott

  I’d like to continue teasing Jenna, but I can’t. It wouldn’t be right knowing what awaits her in Palma. I pick up my magazine, trying to block further conversation. I hope she’ll get the hint and leave me in peace. It’s a crying shame it has to end here, but it’s better to stop the conversation now than for this to become a big hassle later. I should tell her about Ben, but she’ll find out soon enough, and I don’t want the rest of the flight to
be awkward.

  Despite my best intentions to ignore her while we are stuck here, when the captain announces there are ten minutes until we land, I feel her freeze beside me, and I can’t let her suffer that alone without saying something.

  “Feel free to bruise my arm as much as you like. I can take it. But don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  “These pilots know what they’re doing, and besides, we’re in an odd-numbered row,” I say. Anything to keep her mind off the imminent landing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They wanted to put me in row two. I swapped it for this seat. So we’ll be okay.”

  “What was wrong with row two?”

  “Even numbers are unlucky.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No. I really hate even numbers.”

  She laughs, despite her fear.

  “Everything good always happened in my odd-numbered years so it became a thing.”

  “You’re crazy,” she says.

  I’m oversharing, but my arm will probably be grateful. “When I was thirteen, I played my first part in a play at school. Resounding success. Nineteen, first part in a movie. Twenty-three, first starring role.”

  “But what happened in your even-numbered years?”

  “At four, I fell out of a tree and broke my arm. And worse, I was too young to miss school. At six, the dog chewed my all-time favorite teddy bear, and he couldn’t be saved. Disaster. At ten my hamster died. It’s a clear pattern. Need I go on?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” she chirps. “About the teddy bear and the hamster.”

  I grin at her. “I was devastated at the time, but I think I’m over it.”

  “How old are you now? Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t ask. But do you cut out flying every second year?”

  “No, I just throw caution to the wind and chance it. But we’re safe this year. I’m thirty-seven. And you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “Good, we’re totally safe.”