Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 60131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Fuck him.
And fuck this.
I picked up a box and started tossing some of the cupcakes back inside.
“Excuse me, sir.” I grabbed a half-eaten cupcake from a guest. “That hasn’t been paid for, so you can’t eat anymore. Thank you.”
“Miss?” I snatched one from the woman wearing a ‘Mother of the Bride’ sash. “Sorry, that’s not free.”
“You, over there with the brownies?” I called out to one of Eric’s terrible friends. “Can you bring that over here, please? It hasn’t been paid for.”
“Ma’am, you’re causing a disturbance.” Someone grabbed my elbow. “I’ve been asked to escort you out of the party.”
“Not without my desserts.”
The DJ turned up the music, and guests crowded the sweets table as the security guard pulled me away.
He let go of me outside, then he handed me the bag of extras I’d brought.
I’d kept my tears back all week, but I couldn’t fight these.
“Please walk all the way off the property, Miss,” the guard said. “Or else I’ll be forced to call the police.”
I headed down the sidewalk, and the levees broke.
Everything in my life was officially falling apart, and I needed to stop lying to myself once and for all.
I can’t afford to live in New York.
I don’t have enough savings to start a bakery of my own.
I never finished cooking school, despite my dad and stepmom giving me the money for tuition.
That last lie hit me so hard I stopped walking.
Sasha’s taillights beckoned me in the distance, and I wiped my face on my sleeve.
“He’ll get his karma eventually, Harlow,” I whispered to myself. “Let it go, let him go.”
I took out my phone to delete my “Dream Board” on Pinterest and noticed a missed call from an unknown number.
Grateful for a minor distraction, I called it back.
“This is Barbara Hildreth speaking, how may I help you this evening?”
“I was just calling this number back. If this is about a debt, you’ll have to call me back in ten years.”
“Is this Harlow Hawthorne?”
“Maybe…”
“Miss Hawthorne, I’m with the Hearst Placement Agency,” she said. “Are you still seeking full time employment?”
“Yes.”
“Great! Well, the client you interviewed with is interested in considering you for the position.”
“Really?” I asked. “Does that mean I’m getting a second interview?”
“Something like that,” she said, tapping away on a keyboard. “Can you come in this week?”
“To fill out some forms?”
“To work, Miss Hawthorne,” she said. “The job is yours, but I need to give Mr. Dawson an answer within two hours. Can you do it or not?”
So, his name is Mr. Dawson. “Yes. Yes, I can do that.”
“Great. Call me back when you have access to a laptop, notebook, and a ton of coffee, so I can go over everything you’ll need before you start. Clear?”
She ended the call before I could answer, and suddenly my tears were irrelevant.
Sweet little lies win again.
SEVEN
HARLOW
“I’m so excited that you’ve decided to follow me through my typical day as a live-in nanny!” The woman on the orientation video smiled a little too hard for the camera. “Come on!”
She adjusted her Prada neck scarf before strolling out of a bedroom and into an immaculate white kitchen.
“I start my morning by making fresh green juice for me, and hand-squeezed orange juice for the kids!” She set crystal drinkware on a marble counter. “I have about forty minutes before I’ll need to wake them up for breakfast and chauffeur them to school, so I make sure their backpacks are filled with whatever they need.”
The screen suddenly shifted to her standing in the laundry room.
“I keep all their school uniforms on a cleaning schedule and make sure to keep track of everything. Especially since Mommy and Daddy work way too hard to deal with silly things like dirty socks.”
I hit pause and wrote my first note.
“Do rich parents with nannies help out with their kids at all?”
I guzzled Skittles before hitting play again.
“After dropping the beautiful kids off at school—” The nanny twirled around a beautiful blue bedroom. “I begin preparing the home for their return, which is a true pleasure because Mommy and Daddy trust me to keep them entertained until bedtime.”
So, when do ‘Mommy and Daddy’ SEE the kids?
Behind the sound of annoying cartoon music, she cleaned their rooms, set up floats by a pool, and baked cookies before setting them next to a board called The Homework & Cookies Station.
“Oh yummm!” She picked up one and took a bite. “Can you guess what this sweet cookie tastes like?”
“Indentured servitude,” I offered.
“It’s the sweet taste of being an amazing nanny!” She clapped her hands, and I reconsidered my life’s choices in taking this job. Then, I checked the video’s time stamp.
There’s more than an hour left? You’ve got to be kidding me…
“Although the terms of your nanny job will differ from client to client, I’ve found that the major keys to being a perfect nanny are all the same.” She was now walking the kids’ dog down the street. “Love the kids like your own, engage with them, and routine, routine, routine. Now, let me show you how I prepare for bath time!”