Nanny to the Billionaire Dragon - Cynthia Wilde

Chapter 1

Keira stared at herself in the long closet mirror. Before she could start on her list of issues…she caught herself. Ok Keira, remember, be nice to yourself. And focus. She needed to get her shit together. That was the bottom line. I mean, I need to take action, if I am going to make my dreams come true. Right. And that had to start with getting a job. She hadn’t even had an interview in weeks, and here she was, afraid to even call the agency. She didn’t want to pester them. Besides, she was afraid it would just be another wasted call. Be positive Keira. Right, anything is possible. After her last job ended, she had assumed she would be able to land another cushie gig right away.

As a nanny her clientele had generally been pretty normal, kind people, if you considered living in mansions, A-list parties, cars for Christmas gifts, and trips to Ibiza to be normal. She had gotten so used to working with those kinds of families that she didn’t realize how good she had had it. The last month eating ramen was giving her a pretty good idea though.

The Steele's were really down-to-earth and had treated her well. Their twin boys were so well behaved that Keira sometimes wondered why they needed her at all. She loved working for them; not only were they kind, but she had always felt welcome, and almost like she was a part of the family. One of the nicer perks was that they let her move into the guest house. She even had her own little private garden. She never needed to cook or clean either. She knew some nannies got tasked with that sort of thing all the time. But they had other employees for that. They gave her plenty of vacation time and never questioned her if she had someone over on her day off. All in all, it was everything she could have asked for. She worked for them for five years until the boys graduated middle school. That was part of the business… kids grew up. They sent her home with excellent references and a full three months’ worth of salary, but her heart hurt just the same.

Leaving a place that she had called home for so long, and people she considered family, was by far the hardest part of her chosen career. Keira yearned for the day when she could have children of her own to care for and a roof that wasn't just temporary. Thus far, her efforts in that direction all ended in disaster; she kept falling for the wrong guys and it always seemed to end in heartbreak. Sometimes they had a wandering eye, or in one particularly galling case it had turned out to be a “class” thing. Why would anyone want to marry the nanny when an heiress was available? In retrospect, that guy, Rick, had been an ass anyhow, but it still stung at the time.

She knew being a nanny was a perfectly good job, and she loved working with kids, but at some level she was always aware they weren’t her kids. It wasn’t really her family. She was still hopeful, but at times she felt maybe she needed to accept that “just” the nanny was her lot in life. It was sort of like “always the bridesmaid and never the bride” or something. At least it was something she was good at. And really? All in all it was just a sort of tickle in the back of her mind. For the most part she really enjoyed her work. Now, if she could only get a new job.

Looking around her tiny and sparse apartment, she sighed heavily. For the last two months, the agency had insisted there were no jobs available, though she had called practically every day. Scraping together enough money for this dump was proving increasingly difficult. Now, going into her fifth month of unemployment, her supply of noodles and pizza rolls was growing dangerously low.

Keira had even had to sell most of her purse collection. It was the one thing she allowed herself to splurge on. She had never had much money – certainly not growing up, and definitely not now. But the purses were sort of her little extravagance. She had started with the one Arthur bought her on their vacation in Cabo way back. That was right before he dumped her for that rich Swedish chick - on the same trip.