The Bear's Nanny Read online

  Table of Contents

  Unnamed

  C

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE BEAR'S NANNY

  BEARS WITH MONEY BOOK 3

  AMY STAR

  Copyright ©2018 by Amy Star & SimplyShifters.com

  All rights reserved.

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  About This Book

  This is a Billionaire Paranormal Romance featuring a strong furry hero and a curvy heroine. Please only read if you enjoy steamy scenes, passionate romance and fun filled action scenes.

  Life as a single father was not easy for wealthy werebear Malik Carson. He wanted to do it all himself but he inevitably knew he would have to hire a nanny to take care of his 3 werecubs.

  Knowing that his children would not show any extraordinary abilities until they were adults he felt it was safe to hire cute and curvy Ainslie Barrows as a nanny without letting her in on his family's secret.

  Ainslie was perfect for the job and this was just business after all.

  However, with danger approaching from an unexpected source and the safety of his cubs soon to be in jeopardy. The Bear and his nanny found themselves getting closer and more involved with each other than either of them could have ever expected...

  This is a Billionaire Paranormal Romance featuring a strong furry hero and a curvy heroine. Please only read if you enjoy steamy scenes, passionate romance and fun filled action scenes.

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  Getting the job had been surprisingly easy. Granted, maybe Ainslie shouldn’t have been surprised—her resume was impressive, considering her seven years of childcare—but she was always wary. She had fallen onto her career track young, only eighteen and watching a neighbor’s children seven days a week. And sometimes people would look at her young age and there would be doubts.

  And to some extent, she had expected a billionaire to be a bit more judgmental during the interview process. (Inasmuch as she had expected a billionaire to be anything, considering she had assumed he would have a personal assistant or someone else conducting the interviews for him. That had been a surprise, to be ushered through the door and into a den where the man himself was waiting.)

  She wasn’t going to dwell on any of that for too long, though. As it stood, she got the job, and it came with not only a pay raise, but room and board.

  Yes, Ainslie Barrows was moving up in the world. At least as much as a nanny could move up in the world.

  Even knowing that, she took an extra moment to check her reflection in the window, making sure her short black curls were orderly and her makeup hadn’t smeared and that all of the buttons of her blouse were properly buttoned. True enough, her job was going to involve chasing after a trio of children, but that was no excuse to traipse in the door looking like a slob on her first day.

  It felt a bit strange as she knocked on the door. She had no luggage with her—it had been picked up two days before—so she had to actively remind herself that she was moving in.

  The door opened soundlessly and a slightly harried woman—perhaps in her mid-thirties—with strawberry blonde hair and bright blue eyes opened the door. Her expression softened slightly as she looked at Ainslie.

  “Miss Barrows?” she asked, though it sounded as if she was already certain and was asking purely out of formality. Nonetheless, Ainslie nodded, brown eyes wide and mocha-dark hands wringing together. The woman grinned and stepped back, ushering her inside. “Wonderful! I’m Maria Fisher, Mr. Carson’s personal assistant. If you’ll follow me, Mr. Carson is in his study. Lily and Andy are at school, but Mr. Carson wants a chance to welcome you to the house before Paisley wakes up from her nap.”

  She gestured expectantly and Ainslie fell into step behind her, pausing only to close the door.

  Though it was rather apparent that everything in the house had cost a great deal, the house—a beautiful, pale green and ashy grey Victorian reminiscent of a dollhouse—wasn’t particularly large. Only two floors, if she didn’t count the basement. A family room, a kitchen with a dining setup, and a sort of den smashed together with an office and a library. The second floor consisted largely of bedrooms and a pair of bathrooms. One of those bedrooms, Ainslie knew, was going to be hers.

  It was into the den that Maria led her, and sitting at the desk beneath one of the enormous windows was Malik Carson, his head bowed over his work until Maria rapped her knuckles against the doorframe.

  He was tall and broad, and Ainslie was pretty sure he could have bench pressed her without much of an effort. He had dark green eyes, a mop of slightly unkempt, wavy copper hair, and skin the color of caramel. And a very kind smile, Ainslie discovered as he glanced up from the desk and grinned at her.

  (Of course, she had already known he was a good man. He had given her money for four months for half of the rent on the old apartment, so her roommate had plenty of time to find a roommate or other accommodations. He hadn’t even required any convincing.)

  He shook her hand briefly, his grip strong and sure, and when he welcomed her to the house, he seemed genuinely happy to have her there.

  The introduction was only brief, though. Despite his presence in the house, he was still working. After assuring her that he would talk to her in greater depth later, he turned back to his desk.

  He worked from the house two days a week, as Maria explained. Ainslie’s ‘half days,’ since he was around if she really needed to bow out for some reason.

  Back in the hallway, heading to the base of the stairs, Maria explained pleasantly, “You can head up to your room to start unpacking if you want, at least until Paisley wakes up. Trust me, you’ll know when she does. Your room is right next to the stairs, just to the right.” She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, before she added, “There’s a folder with some general info from the last nanny waiting in your room.

  Breakfast is at six on school days and eight on weekends, dinner is usually around seven. Lunch just… happens whenever it happens. If you want to take your meals alone, no one will be offended, but no one will mind if you decide you want to eat with the family. If you have any questions, I’ll be here until around five, or you can ask Mr. Carson. I promise, he’s not expecting you to nail everything perfectly right out of the starting
gate.”

  Good grief, Maria could talk fast. Ainslie nodded along, feeling as if she was barely keeping up with the stream of words.

  Once she fell quiet, Ainslie wondered, “What happened with the last nanny?”

  Maria laughed pleasantly. “Don’t worry; no one scared her off or anything like that. She’s on the last trimester of her pregnancy, so keeping up with the girls was getting a bit… well, impossible, and she wants to be able to spend some time with her baby without needing to worry about corralling three other kids.”

  Ainslie nodded in understanding once more and turned to head up the stairs, listening to the rapid clicking of Maria’s heels across the floor as she set off immediately. Ainslie didn’t know Maria, but already she seemed slightly exhausting.

  She put that out of her mind for the time being as she got to the top of the stairs. She swung an immediate right and nearly walked into her bedroom door. She pushed it open and peered inside, glancing around just long enough to get an idea of the layout before she ventured farther down the hall until she found the bathroom.

  Best to know where that was before she had a pressing need for it, she figured, and she returned to her bedroom once she found it.

  The room was… bigger than it looked, since the dresser, the bookshelf, the bed frame, the door to the hallway, the door to the closet, and all of the woodwork around the floor, the window, and the doorframe were made of incredibly dark wood and the bed was a slightly excessive queen size. There were sheets, pillowcases, and a blanket piled neatly on the mattress, right beside Ainslie’s luggage.

  Even looking slightly more cramped than it really was, it was a nice room. It was a bit bigger than her bedroom in her old apartment had been. Impressive, considering she was reasonably sure it was a guest room. The view out the window was pleasant, looking out over the front gardens to the quiet, country road. A tree-like statue sprouted from the middle of the largest garden, but with tiny turbine propellers in place of leaves. There was a farm across the road, and if Ainslie squinted, she could make out a few horses grazing on the other side of the fence.

  Ainslie took a moment to appreciate the view before she turned away, leaving the curtains open to let sunlight spill across the floor. She opened the closets and found one just large enough to count as a walk-in. Combined with the dresser, it would be plenty of space for her to put all of her clothes away.

  She was halfway through filling the dresser when she heard small but surprisingly loud footsteps stampeding down the hallway, and she looked out the still open doorway just in time to watch a little girl charge past, shouting, “I gotta go potty!” at the top of her lungs. A moment later, the bathroom door slammed shut with a bang that rattled one of the walls.

  Suddenly Ainslie understood Maria’s earlier words perfectly; she was definitely aware that Paisley had woken up from her nap.

  Dusting herself off, she stood up and stepped out into the hallway, standing patiently as she waited for Paisley to reappear. A few minutes later, the girl opened the door just enough to poke her head out. She glanced around furtively before she began to creep out, pausing halfway out the door when she spotted Ainslie.

  Paisley was a delicate slip of a girl, with a wild crop of curly brown hair, a round face, skin a shade or two darker than her father’s, and enormous brown eyes. She blinked up at Ainslie slowly.

  “Did you wash your hands?” Ainslie asked.

  There was a rather noticeable pause, followed by, “…Yes?”

  “Why don’t I believe you?” Ainslie wondered dryly.

  Paisley grinned, toothy and sheepish, and ducked back into the bathroom. Dutifully, the sink’s faucet was turned on, and Ainslie called from the hallway, “Use soap, not just water.”

  A drawn-out, slightly overwrought, “I knooooow,” drifted out of the bathroom. A moment later, the faucet turned off once again and Paisley peered out of the bathroom, just the top half of her head poking past the doorframe. Her voice was slightly muffled as she asked, “Are you the new Mizz Evey?”

  “That’s right,” Ainslie replied, assuming that Miss Evey had to be the last nanny. “I’m Ainslie. Do you want to come out of the bathroom and put on some real clothes? You can’t spend the entire day in your pajamas.”

  “Why not?” Paisley challenged, and Ainslie got the distinct impression that a three-year-old girl was testing her.

  Her eyebrows rose. “What if you want to go outside?” she asked. “You can’t play outside in your PJs. You’ll get them filthy, they’ll get ripped full of holes, and then you won’t be able to wear them to sleep in. Besides, you can’t go outside without shoes, and you’ll look awfully silly wearing shoes with your PJs.”

  Paisley chewed that information over carefully for a moment before she nodded decisively. “’Kay,” she agreed before she bolted down the hall again, disappearing into her bedroom.

  Ainslie spared a moment to pause at her room, grabbing the folder that was still sitting on top of her dresser, and followed Paisley to her room, mostly to make sure she didn’t try and put on six shirts or three pairs of pants or winter clothing. Whether or not it really matched wasn’t such a big deal, and Ainslie figured it was important to let Paisley have a say in things whenever it was possible.

  She got to Paisley’s doorway just in time to see her toss a ludicrously bright green skirt across the room to land on the bed. A green and blue striped t-shirt followed, and Ainslie watched as the girl practically dove into one of her drawers to dig around, until she emerged victoriously with a pair of equally striped knee-high socks.

  Well, at least she had some idea of color theory.

  Ainslie turned away as she dressed, paging through the folder. Favorite foods, favorite games, hobbies, and other assorted information was at the front of the folder. Granted, some of it was reasonably obvious in Paisley’s case, as her room was covered in pictures and posters of animals, the bed was barely visible beneath a mountain of stuffed animals, and every available flat surface was covered in toy animals of every sort.

  For a moment, Ainslie was reminded of her horse phase when she was younger, though she was pulled from her reverie when Paisley tugged on the back of her shirt.

  “I’m hungry,” she stated, staring up at Ainslie expectantly.

  Ainslie glanced down at her watch to see that it was just past noon, and she paged forward in the folder to see that it was indeed around the time Paisley usually ate lunch.

  “Let’s go do something about that, then.”

  Paisley grinned and bounded along to the stairs, Ainslie following a few paces behind her.

  *

  As it turned out, some things were universal amongst small children, even when their fathers were billionaires.

  Paisley wanted macaroni and cheese and chicken fingers. Ainslie had prepared similar meals what seemed like a million times before, and she could nearly do it blindfolded as she boiled elbow noodles and put chicken in the oven.

  Kneeling on a dining chair and leaning on the table, Paisley chattered cheerfully, hardly even pausing to breathe between her sentences. She was an impressively precocious little girl, Ainslie reflected, as she babbled on about the strange things tiger sharks would sometimes eat.

  “They found a whole suit of armor in a shark once!” she proclaimed excitedly. “I dunno how it would’a eaten that. I’d never try. I amn’t crazy.”

  “Am not,” Ainslie corrected. “It would be ‘I am not crazy. ‘Amn’t’ isn’t a word.”

  Paisley groaned, and it was followed by a thump. Ainslie glanced over her shoulder to see the girl face down on the table, her arms splayed out.

  “What other weird things have sharks eaten?” Ainslie asked as she drained the noodles.

  Paisley perked up in an instant and carried on chattering, as if she had never even stopped.

  It was an interesting meal, to say the least. Ainslie listened enough to comment now and then or ask questions when it seemed like Paisley was expecting her to, though she continued
paging through the folder.

  After lunch, when Ainslie was done putting the dishes in the dishwasher, she wasn’t taken off guard when Paisley tugged at her arm. “Class?”

  “Where do you usually have class?” Ainslie asked, and she closed the dishwasher with a thump.

  Paisley pointed one finger down the hallway in a gesture that wasn’t really helpful, so Ainslie let her lead the way. She was pointing to the family room, as it turned out.

  “Class” was nothing overly strenuous. A few counting games, a few alphabet games, and a few very basic vocabulary words. All in all, it took less than forty minutes. And it made sense; Paisley’s attention span only just barely seemed to last that long.

  When they finished, Paisley whooped triumphantly and stampeded towards the stairs again, leaving Ainslie to finish picking up the worksheets and jog after her.

  *