tell you about coming in here while we’re interviewing?”
Her giggles heightened. “Where’s the babysitter?” She pushed out her lip and fluttered her sky-blue eyes at her uncle. “And what’s that smell?” She inhaled deeply and then hopped out of his arms, lifting her nostrils in the air, like a puppy sniffing around at the dinner table. “I like it. It smells”—sniff—“kinda good.”
Well, shit.
“Mary …” I shared a knowing glance with Brad and tipped my chin toward the exit.
In the next second, Brad ushered Mary out the door. “Okay, out you go. We’ve got business to do.”
He stalked toward Mason, reached for his paper, and wrote over his notes in big red letters, Does drugs. Not qualified.
“Hey!” Mason protested.
Brad turned to me. “Do you disagree? Do you believe she’s qualified? I mean, this is a no-brainer. I don’t care that she has her English degree from Stanford.”
Both sets of eyes turned to my direction.
They always did.
As the head of the household and the oldest brother, as the CEO of our company—Brisken Printing Corporation—they always looked to me for the final word.
I shook my head. “No. She’s not qualified.”
She was more than not qualified. That woman would not be stepping in this house ever again.
Mason shut the file folder, and Brad sported a victorious grin.
I wished I felt some sort of victory. We were losing our nanny who had been with us since my Natalie had passed. Finding a replacement was nearly impossible.
This was our third round of interviews, getting our candidates from well-known recruiting firms and passing Mason’s standard test, which included an extensive background check and questionnaire, prior to interviews, with no luck thus far.
Sarah, my ten-year-old, walked in, followed by a woman dressed in the shortest black pleated skirt I’d ever seen. The damn thing was hiked up to just below her butt cheeks. Her green eyes perused the room before landing on Brad, and then her smile widened.
I refrained from rolling my eyes. I should be used to this by now—all the women who fawned over my brother—but there was a time and place for everything, and my patience was running thin with these candidates.
Brad showed no reaction. He was the brother who got the most attention from women. That was why we interviewed all his employees at our company—to make sure their first priority was the job and not landing my brother.
“I saw her wandering around the house,” Sarah deadpanned, her tone showing her annoyance.
I had to wonder what I was in for with her, as she was already seeming to sprout that preteen attitude. Something that made me long for my wife even more.
The woman chomped on her gum and flipped her light-brown hair over her shoulder. “I’m interviewing for the nanny position.”
Oh, great. I stifled a tired sigh.
She pointed a manicured red nail in Brad’s direction. “Tell me you’re the single dad.” Her eyes wiggled in an exaggerated effect.
Brad’s signature flirty smile surfaced but dimmed a second later. “That would not be me.” He saluted us and threw an arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “I’m done here, guys. I trust Charles will make a sound decision for our girls.” He pulled Sarah in close. “Uncle Brad is taking you and Mary out for ice cream.”
Brad’s gaze flickered my way for permission.
I wanted to go with them. Getting ice cream with my girls would be more fun than sitting here through another interview with a candidate I knew wasn’t it. But Mason had worked hard to set up the interviews and go through the proper procedures in getting us the right person for the job.
My brothers were heavily invested in my girls. When my Natalie had died, I’d moved in with my parents so that they could help me raise the girls. When they passed not too long after that, due to a drunk driver–related car accident, both of my brothers moved into the house with me. Though they had their own places in the city, they both spent a few days a week here to spend time with the girls. They had helped me raise them from infancy to every momentous milestone in their lives. Brad had been the one to potty-train Mary while Mason had taught Sarah to read.
The woman sat down, all the while chomping on her gum. “He’s such a handsome boy.”
My eyebrows shot up. Boy?
“Your kid. The boy who found me in your kitchen.”
A spark of fury shot through me as I glanced over at my beautiful daughter. Sarah’s dark brown hair