 by Xavier Neal.jpg)
Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Tucker Frost is a charming, billionaire flight risk with no interest in attending his mother's wedding reception at the end of the summer.
And June Bailey?
Well, she's his aunt's clumsy, overworked assistant that's tasked with making sure he gets to the aforementioned wedding now that he's back in town.
That is if she'd like to keep her job.
Is there anyway she can convince her boss's stubborn, wanderlust loving nephew to bury the hatchet and be her date to the big event or will she be jobless, homeless, and back to sending out resumes before they even have a chance to cut the cake?
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Chapter 1
June
Contrary to my eccentric boss’s belief – and I use the word eccentric because she fired a different assistant just last week for using the C word – I am not an actual member of The Babysitter's-Club.
Not the book version.
Not the movie version.
Not even the half-thought-out streaming version I’m sure will come to fruition in the next few years.
No.
I have never – and will never – be a part of that creation nor a fan of its creation the way other girls were when I was growing up. See, they all believed it was glamorous and magical and fairy-tale bullshit, when in reality it was exhausting and taxing and sticky.
Always so goddamn sticky.
I don’t know how or why, but I swear to God kids generate stickiness out of thin air.
Like the world’s worst type of magicians.
That entire franchise I just mentioned goes on my personal “Do Not Like” list.
Right under fucking kiwi.
“Mrs. Harding, I…I um…don’t think…I…understand the aforementioned,” my light toasted brown shaded fingers roll around one another in frantic circles while I search for the proper wording that won’t lead to me calling up another job recruiter, “assignment.” The end of my statement is accompanied by me accidentally bumping into the edge of the red leather seat I’m beside. “I mean I know I have child…care…experience listed on my resume because I nannied for an otolaryngologist a couple summers back in college-”
“Teeth doctor?”
“Ear, nose, and throat. The teeth doctor you are referring to is an orthodontist.”
“They’re awful in bed,” Brandi Harding, my multibillionaire boss, dramatically sighs at the same time she leans her rosy beige, thin frame forward onto her elbows. “All the time they spend having their customers-”
“Patients.”
“-make that O face, you’d think they’d be better about spotting a fake one.”
Keeping appalment out of my expression is almost impossible.
If this were a normal conversation with someone who wasn’t married to the retired NHL defenseman Brett Harding, wasn’t mother to the twin NFL quarterbacks Brent and Bennett Harding and wasn’t the youngest daughter of Bill and Bethany Frost – the multibillionaire owners of one of the largest hotel chains in the entire world – I would absolutely display the horror that statement summoned.
Not because she faked an orgasm.
All women have faked orgasms at least once in their lives – or in my case anytime I haven’t been the one to give it to myself.
No.
The astonishment comes from having my boss just casually say that shit to me as if it’s the tail end of happy hour and we’re sipping cosmos instead of it actually being nine in the morning with her sipping Adrak chai in between taking baby bites of overly thin pieces of kiwi, pieces I had to slice that thin my fucking self, which is primarily how the tiny green fruit landed on my shit list.
The reason I can’t showcase anything remotely related to shock is because that would translate to her warped sense of self that I couldn’t do the job she hired me for.
And if I can’t do my job, then I don’t have one.
And my job…unfortunately…is whatever this second coming of The Devil Wears Prada deems it to be.
“Juniper-”
“Just June,” I meekly correct.
“-it should make you happy to know that the care you will be providing for the next ten weeks isn’t to a small child.”
My dark eyebrows pull together in confusion.
“Don’t get me wrong, he absolutely behaves like he’s still that six-year-old who doesn’t think I know he’s the one who spilled cranberry juice on my white leather chase lounge that summer in the Hamptons instead of Bennett who took the fall, but Tucker is actually a full-grown, fully tattooed adult who just so happens to still harbor a small parental grudge he swears he’ll take to his early grave.”
“That sounds like a large parental grudge.”
Brandi thoughtfully hums in contemplation.
Okay, maybe correcting her all the time isn’t the best idea; however, she rarely ever hears me. I mean my mouth moves and sound comes out and I know I’m speaking English because I’m dreadful at other languages, it’s just that unless what I’m saying is something she wants to hear, it isn’t heard.
Perhaps that’s why I’ve become comfortable mumbling more and more shit out loud lately.
“Here’s the thing,” she flicks a few blonde strands away from her round, “Tuck never stays in one place for too long. We’re talking…any place. And when it comes to this city? That normal window is cut down to a bite-size fraction. He typically sticks around for a couple days, rarely a week. I think the last time he did that was when Brett had his back surgery.”
“But wait,” my body attempts to lunge slightly forward yet gets jerked back by my foot being unexpectedly caught on the leg of the nearby chair, “you said I would be providing care – which I’m assuming means assisting him like I would you – for the next ten weeks. Did you mean…days, Mrs. Harding? Did you misspeak or more likely, did I mishear?”