What could come between a nanny and an earl in a fairy-tale love story? A reality check—in an endearing and witty romance by Sariah Wilson, the bestselling author of Roommaid.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and the second chapter of Sariah Wilson’s Cinder-Nanny, which is out June 21st 2022.
With her sister’s medical bills mounting, Diana Parker can’t say no to a high-paying opportunity like this: accompany a wealthy couple to Aspen and nanny their precocious five-year-old son for three months. Necessary qualifications? She must know how to ski and teach math, speak fluent French, excel at social graces, and hold a master’s degree in childhood development. Who’ll be the wiser that Diana’s only skill is packing for Colorado?
So far, so good—having a con woman for a mother has turned out to be a benefit, even if Diana has complicated feelings about telling lies. But she’s doing this for her sister. And the perks—like a ticket to a lavish charity fundraiser, a new gown, and a Prince Charming–adjacent earl named Griffin Windsor—are pretty irresistible. Diana can’t deny the Cinderella vibe.
Wary of gold diggers and scandal, England’s most eligible bachelor is nevertheless falling for Diana, and sweeping the not-quite princess off her feet.
The warmer their relationship becomes, the slipperier the slopes are for Diana. Sooner or later, she’ll have to come clean. When that happens, does an honest-to-goodness happy ending stand a chance?
CHAPTER TWO
I flew into Denver, and from there took a smaller plane to the Aspen/Pitkin County Airport. Flying in the snow was not my favorite thing, and I white knuckled the last leg of my trip, letting out a sigh of relief when we didn’t skid all over the runway.
Mrs. Crawford had told me a driver would be waiting for me, and I found him holding up a sign that said Diana Parker. I said hello and told him that I was Diana. Although he didn’t immediately say anything, he did give me and my tattered duffel bag the once-over. Which made sense—he probably didn’t pick up people like me every day.
“The hotel is about three miles away,” he said. “I should have you there in no time.”
I thanked him as I climbed into the back of the luxurious SUV. I made sure to put my seat belt on, because it had started snowing in heavy flurries shaped like giant globs of cotton candy.
As he eased out onto the road, I wondered if I should have done more to prepare for what was about to happen. Any intense drilling by Mrs. Crawford, and I’d be toast. Like, what if she was already fluent in French? What if they spoke it at home? It wouldn’t take much for her to figure out that the only French I knew was a dirty lyric from a famous song and the words used by Miss Piggy.
My mom’s voice echoed inside my head: Always do your homework. She hadn’t meant real homework, the kind schools assigned you. She meant learning everything I could about a potential mark so that they’d be easier to exploit.
My mom, a notorious con artist, had been caught the day before my seventeenth birthday. She had been arrested, tried for her many crimes, and incarcerated with a twenty-year sentence. She had raised me and Alice as her partners in crime, teaching me how to manipulate people to get what I wanted before I could tie my own shoes.
I hadn’t known that what we did was wrong. Obviously, there had been no kind of morality in my life other than “take what you can get and don’t get caught.” I assumed that everybody around me lived a life like mine. That other parents were just like my mom. I hadn’t really had many friends growing up because she kept me out of school as much as she possibly could, telling the district that she was homeschooling me. That was a lie—she needed my schedule to be open so that I could be available to help with her schemes.
I’d never graduated from high school. Which in turn made college an impossibility. I wasn’t dumb, and I had always spent all of my free time reading, but I lacked mastery over a lot of the basics. My mother had always hated that I read, which made sense, given that it opened my eyes to an existence beyond my own. That everything in my life was completely messed up and totally abnormal.
Alice got away first, and when she was married and settled, she came for me. She rescued me, and I would always, always owe her for that.
I’d promised Alice nothing but honesty and here I was, about to spend the next few months lying my face off. I knew how disappointed she was, even if she stayed quiet about it.
That slightly guilty feeling returned, since I was ashamed that I’d broken my promise to her. Not to mention the one I’d made to myself—that I would never, ever be like my mom. No matter what. I wiped that regret away quickly by reminding myself that nothing mattered more than Alice getting better.
I wasn’t like my mother. This was different.
Despite wanting to keep the memory of my mom and her instructions at bay, I had actually done some homework. John Crawford was an executive for a huge conglomerate with offices all over the world. He seemed to travel frequently. Sheila Crawford had started up an organic / health food home-delivery service that had exploded in popularity.
Their pictures surprised me, though. My now former roommate Tammy had done nannying for a few years. She had warned me that the kids were almost never the problem; the parents were the people I’d have to watch out for. She’d shared horror stories about inappropriate husbands, demanding and entitled moms, being forced to do jobs she wasn’t being paid for, how she had to fill in for the parents’ neglect. So I was expecting the Crawfords to be horrible. To hate each other.
But in all their photos, they looked genuinely happy together. It was a trick I’d learned early on—to tell the difference between people who tried to appear happy and those who actually were. (Unhappy people were easier to manipulate.) I could tell that the Crawfords weren’t faking it.
And in all their photos with Milo I saw the same thing—parents who adored their child and were loved in return. Tammy’s words hung in my head, though, and I wasn’t sure what to expect.
There was such a thing as being overprepared. I had to believe in myself and my skills, and everything else would hopefully fall into place. Milo and the Crawfords would be won over and they’d be sad when I left in three months.
That was the thing about how I’d grown up—I was this confusing mix of insecurity and distrust, balanced out by flexibility in new situations and a confidence in my abilities that I probably didn’t deserve.
The driver pulled up to the largest hotel I’d ever seen in real life. He opened my car door and I was hit with a blast of frigid air. He ran to the back to get my bag while I got out of the SUV. I pulled my threadbare jean jacket around my torso, wishing that I’d had the funds to buy a real coat before I arrived. I thanked the driver and wondered if I had a dollar in one of my pockets that I could tip him with.
He seemed to know what I was doing and offered me a bright smile. “Don’t worry about it. The Crawfords took care of everything.”
We said goodbye and the SUV drove off. I stood in the snow for a moment longer, steeling myself against what I was about to do. Resolved, I walked in through the massive sliding glass doors. The lobby was all marble and shining chandeliers and had a kind of elegance that my mom had always pretended to possess but had never actually achieved.
I felt completely out of my element.
The man behind the registration counter seemed to agree with me. “Is there something I can help you with?” His tone was dismissive.
“I’m here to work for the Crawfords.” I shivered, and I didn’t know if it was because of how cold my skin still felt or if the full weight of what I was doing had finally settled onto my chest.
“You’re Diana Parker?” he asked, one eyebrow perfectly arched.
“That’s me.”
He frowned, as if not certain whether to believe me. I got it. I didn’t look like I belonged, and I had learned at an early age to view everyone around me with suspicion.
I couldn’t get offended when somebody else saw me the same way. In large part because, in the past, they would have been right.
The snooty man typed some things into his computer and then slid a keycard through a device before handing it over to me. “The Crawfords are staying in the Presidential Suite on the thirtieth floor. Your keycard will give you access to that level. I will call and let them know that you’re on the way up.”
I gave him a brilliant smile and said, “Thanks so much.” Just because he was being rude and dismissive didn’t mean that I had to play his game.
When I got into the elevator, it took me a second to figure out that I had to insert the card first and then push the button marked “30.” I kept up my internal mantra that everything was going to be fine. It was all going to work out. Nothing bad was going to happen.
The elevator opened and I walked down the short hallway and stood in front of the door. I took a deep breath before I knocked.
Sheila Crawford opened the door a moment later. She looked just like her photos but was much taller than I’d thought. As tall as me, and I was pretty tall at 5′10″. Other than that we didn’t look much alike—she had short blonde hair, pretty blue eyes, and tan skin. I was pale with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was Cinderella to my Snow White.
“Diana! I’m so glad you made it. Come in!”
The penthouse suite had the same level of luxury and elegance I’d seen in the lobby. Expensive flooring, a granite fireplace, twenty-foot ceilings. A view of the nearby mountains that was breathtaking. This was no regular hotel room—it was like a massive apartment with rooms far beyond what I could see from this front living room.
Against my will, I found myself mentally calculating the price of the art around us—the Chagall lithograph on the wall, the Lalique crystal vase sitting on a side table, the Piaget clock on the mantel. I wondered if the items I saw belonged to the hotel, or if the Crawfords had brought them.
It doesn’t matter how much anything is worth, I hissed at my mercenary brain.
“Wow, this is some place!” I told her, doing my best to shut down my worst impulses.
“I know, it’s a little over the top,” she agreed. “My husband grew up with the best of everything. So sometimes we spend more than we should.”
“Like paying nannies’ salaries,” I said teasingly.
She laughed. “I knew I was going to really like you. Come in and meet Milo.”
I could almost hear my mother, like she was in the room with me. Good. Get her laughing. Listen. Don’t interrupt. Put her at ease. Find out everything you can. Make her trust you.
“Stop it,” I muttered as I followed Mrs. Crawford.
She turned her head. “Did you say something?”
“No,” I responded, trying to smile. I worried that everything my mother had taught me had been so ingrained that I couldn’t help but take advantage of other people. I suppose in this case I sort of was, but not for a selfish reason. It was for Alice. Okay, maybe that was selfish because I needed her alive. There was no one in the world I loved more than my sister.
But I wasn’t ripping them off. They were paying for a service that I was going to render. Just maybe not in the exact way that they had hoped for.
I was going to have to watch my thoughts, what I said. Telling these lies to get this job had been too easy. It was like having a coat that was too small, too constricting, and shoving it to the back of your closet, then pulling it out years later and finding that it was comfortable and fit perfectly.
It was a slippery slope and I was going to have to be careful.
I’d had all these questions about Milo, wondering what kind of kid he would be. If he’d be easy to get along with, or if he was the type who hated his nannies and would try to get me fired. Considering his mother’s unrealistic expectations for this job, I had to imagine that she had the same sort of expectations for her only child. There were probably all sorts of things he was forbidden from doing. Like eating sugar or watching TV or playing video games. All things I could use in my battle to win the boy over.
Milo was lying on a couch, playing with an iPad. He had light brown hair, wore black-rimmed glasses, and had a very serious expression.
“We don’t spend a lot of time on devices, but today Milo earned some extra screen time, didn’t you, sweetheart?” Sheila’s voice was warm and tender as she spoke both to and about her son. “Milo, I need you to put it down for a second and meet Diana. Do you remember when we talked about her? She’s going to be with us for a little bit and will watch you while Daddy and I work.”
I mentally cataloged the fact that Milo liked screen time. Definitely something I could use in the future. Determined to make this kid like me, I crouched down so that we were more eye level. “Hi, Milo! Nice to meet you.”
His expression stayed somber. “It’s nice to meet you, too. I have rickets. That means my bones are soft.” He made a show of attempting to raise his arm, and it seemed to take a good deal of effort.
I looked up at his mother, alarmed. She hadn’t mentioned that he had soft bones. That seemed like important information to have.
“No, he doesn’t have rickets. What he has is an overactive imagination. Which I’m sure you’ll be able to handle with your early childhood development degree.”
Yes, I knew just how to cure a child who pretended he was wasting away from a disease I’d never heard of.
“I also have consumption,” Milo told me, as if his mother hadn’t spoken.
“Milo, you don’t have tuberculosis or any other Victorian-era diseases,” his mother said, her voice a bit more stern this time. “Ten more minutes and then it will be bath time.”
“Did you want me to do that?” I offered, ready to hit the ground running.
“No, but could you come into the kitchen with me for a few minutes?”
“Sure.” I stood up and put my bag strap back over my shoulder. “I’ll see you later, Milo.”
He nodded sadly. “Yes, you will, if my brain hasn’t been destroyed by mad cow disease.”
Okay. I nodded, not sure if I should respond. I followed Mrs. Crawford into the kitchen, which was enormous. Shiny chrome appliances, sparkling stone countertops. I sat at an island that could have seated thirty people. She pushed a tiny pile of electronics and a black binder toward me.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“The binder has Milo’s schedule, his current curriculum, and all the notes I think you might need to know about him.”
I picked up the binder and it was ridiculously heavy. I didn’t know what to say.
“The most important thing you need to know is that when John and I are here, our workday stops between six o’clock and eight o’clock. That’s our family time, and it’s sacred. We eat dinner, spend time together, give Milo his bath, and get him into bed. Which means your workday is done at six if one of us is home. Obviously if we’re gone, we’ll need you to stay and be with Milo. Or if John and I go out on a date after Milo’s in bed. But we’ll always clear it with you first to make sure you’re available.”
I was always going to be available. I’d do whatever they wanted. Including washing those massive windows in their family room. “Of course.” I nodded. This was far more generous than I had expected.
“Like tomorrow night. There’s a charity dinner I have to attend. Would you be okay staying here with Milo?”
“Of course!”
She nodded. “Thanks. Usually we always try to eat here at home when we can, and you’re welcome to join us for dinner whenever you wish.”
During the time she’d just called sacred? I was pretty sure I’d just grab something out of that massive fridge or walk-in pantry and call it good. “Thanks.”
“And this is a laptop and a cell phone for you to use. Everything’s all set up and ready to go.”
I’d lied to her when she’d asked about me having a phone. When she’d offered to chat with me via text, I’d told her some kind of nonsense about wanting to live off the grid and not being tied to a device in order to explain why we had to arrange our phone interview from my landline. Now she was giving me a phone?
This was too much. “Oh, no, Mrs. Crawford, I couldn’t possibly—”
She held up one hand and I stopped speaking. “First, I’d love for you to call me Sheila. And second, when you told me that you didn’t have a smartphone or a computer with a fast CPU, we got these. It’s important for us to be able to contact you whenever we need to. I already put my and John’s numbers in there. I also want you to have your own computer to download lesson plans, find art projects, or just print out whatever you need. We’ve done the same thing for our other nannies.”
Still not quite able to process what was happening, I seized on the least important part of the sentence. “What happened to your previous nanny?”
“Gail? She was amazing, but she wanted to stay in California.”
“That must have been hard to let go of someone with so much experience.” Sheila looked a little confused. “Someone who . . . has the same set of skills as me?”
“Oh, no. Gail didn’t have any of that. She just played with and watched over Milo.”
Wait. Why was it so important that I meet some laundry list of impossible qualifications then? At my quizzical expression, she continued, “John was offered a promotion and a transfer to his company’s office in France, and it will mean such great things for our family. His travel will go down from twenty-one days a month to just seven days. And I can do my work from anywhere in the world—I just need a good Wi-Fi connection. We’ve already got a French nanny all lined up once we arrive, and we need you to help Milo prepare for his life in France. Our home in California sold really quickly. Faster than we expected. And we’re waiting for the lease of the current tenants in our new French home to finish up, so we’re spending the next few months here. On vacation.”
This was kind of like a stopgap, then. “A vacation where you still have to work.”
Sheila smiled at that. “Yes. I prefer to go to the business center during the day because if I’m home, I just want to spend all my time with Milo. And while we’re standing here in the kitchen, please know that you can help yourself to anything and everything. We keep it pretty well stocked. Our home is going to be your home, and I want you to treat it that way.”
I nodded, still feeling like I was in an actual dream. And not sure that I could ever feel at home here.
“Okay,” she continued. “Grab your stuff and I’ll show you to your room.”
There was another hallway and Sheila opened the door farthest from the kitchen. We walked into a cavernous room, just as lush and gorgeous as everything else I’d seen. There was a massive dark wood dresser, a matching entertainment center with a seventy-inch big-screen TV, a comfy-looking sofa, and several wingback chairs. But I saw only one bed. “Am I sharing this with Milo?”
Now it was Sheila’s turn to look confused. “No, Milo has his own room. This is just for your private use. You have your own bathroom, as well, just through that door. No one will come in here except the cleaning staff. So if you’re running low on supplies, just leave them a note and they’ll make sure to restock.”
Tammy had warned me that at her last nannying job, she’d had to sleep in the closet of the little girl she was caring for, and I’d actually expected something similar. What I hadn’t expected was a room bigger than my sister’s entire home. That feeling of “too much” came rushing back, but I was just going to accept it and go on. “Thank you. This is amazing. I can’t believe all of this is for me. I’ve never lived like this before.”
“You’ll be surprised at how quickly you get used to it,” Sheila said with a wink.
She wasn’t wrong. I already didn’t know how I was supposed to go back to cockroach/raccoon living ever again.
“So I’m going to get back to Milo, and you’re free to settle in or go out and explore the city. Maybe do some shopping?”
I definitely needed some better outdoor clothing. “Shopping sounds fun, but I . . .” I hadn’t told her that I was completely broke. I wasn’t sure how to explain that without her asking more questions, but somehow she seemed to understand.
“I’ve already transferred half of the money to your bank account. Like we agreed on.”
We’d agreed on that? Yay, past me! I didn’t even remember that part of the conversation, probably because I’d been so excited that a literal answer to all my prayers was happening.
Although I should have just said thanks, instead I blurted out, “That’s so much money. I can’t believe you’re paying this much.” Like I’d half expected to be human trafficked or locked up in somebody’s basement when I got here.
“We paid our last nanny a hundred and sixty thousand dollars a year, which works out to forty thousand for three months. We’re happy to pay a lot to have the best.”
“And you really couldn’t find anyone else?”
“We wanted the perfect person. And you made us wait until it was almost too late, didn’t you?”
At that I cringed. I was so not the best or the perfect person. Ugh. I felt terrible. I did finally manage a weak “Thanks.”
“You’ll need to get up with Milo at seven. And anything you need to know should be in the binder, but text or call if you need anything else, okay?”
I nodded.
“We’re all so glad that you’re here.” Then she left me alone and I put my bag, new phone, and laptop on the bed. Despite the size of the room, it felt a bit like the walls were closing in on me. So much for my conscience being totally clear.
I’d thought the Crawfords would be the worst and had rationalized my actions with that belief in mind. Now that I could see it was untrue?
I had to go somewhere that was not here.
I grabbed my wallet and the new phone and headed toward the front door. Sheila and Milo were sitting in the family room, reading a book together. When I came into the room I said, “I am going to go out. And buy some things.”
“Is that what you’re wearing? You should take one of my coats.” Sheila got up and headed to a closet in the hallway, taking out a coat and handing it to me. “Try it on.”
Part of me wanted to protest again, but she was right. It was too cold outside to be wandering around in my jacket. Her coat fit perfectly, like it had been made for me.
“I would guess we wear the same size,” Sheila said, smiling. “Have fun!”
“I will. Thanks for letting me borrow your coat!”
She waved her hand like it was nothing and went back to join Milo on the couch. I wondered whether I should say something more, but instead I left and headed down to the lobby. An employee, not the snooty guy from earlier, asked if they could help me. I told them I wanted to go shopping and they pointed to a large white van out front, saying it was a shuttle and that I could call them when I was finished and they’d come pick me up.
It took only a few minutes to get to the “historic downtown” area, and the driver told me there was a pedestrian mall. He let me out on a busy corner, and I found myself facing three different skiing-supply stores. Which made me think of how Sheila believed I could teach Milo to ski.
Oh man, what had I done? My heart felt unsteady, like it might stop beating altogether.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to calm myself. Maybe things weren’t the way I had anticipated, when I’d imagined myself as some kind of modern-day Robin Hood, taking from the terrible, selfish, spoiled rich people and giving it to my deserving and very poor sister.
The only way to get through this would be to do the best possible job I could and hope they never, ever found out the truth about me. I would work really hard and do whatever they asked me. If they needed to yell at me and give me extra chores, I was ready. Whatever it took.
I would be as honest with them as I could within certain parameters. I couldn’t tell them about not having actual experience or that the only French I knew was fries and kiss, but I would be as authentic with them as I possibly could be, and would have to hope it was enough.
For the Crawfords, and for my own peace of mind.
Right then a man smacked against my shoulder, making me drop my new cell phone. Of course. This was karmic retribution for what I’d done. Get a new phone, the universe breaks it into tiny pieces all over the sidewalk.
Before I could lean down to pick it up, the man who’d hit me grabbed it first and handed it to me. Something about him made my heart beat hard in my chest.
A jolt of electricity hit me when he spoke. “So sorry. No damage done, though. Here you go.”
I focused on the unbelievably still intact phone so that I didn’t stare at him. My gaze darted around so that I saw only small bits of him—a blinding smile, stubbled jawline, light hair, that foreign accent, and the expensive and yummy cologne he wore.
Before I could respond, he was already walking away. Tall, broad shoulders. I felt a strange twinge in my stomach, and I was struck with an overwhelming desire to run after him to find out his name. If I’d tried to explain this moment to my sister, she probably would have made fun of me. Crushing on some stranger who obviously wasn’t the least bit interested in me.
So instead of following my completely inappropriate urges, I turned my attention back to my phone. The handsome, polite man and my unbroken device felt like some kind of cosmic reassurance that things were going to be okay.
It was all going to work out.
Excerpted from Cinder-Nanny by Sariah Wilson with permission from the publisher, Montlake. Copyright © 2022 by Sariah Wilson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sariah Wilson is the author of CINDER-NANNY (June 21, 2022; Montlake). A passionate believer in happily-ever-afters, Sariah and her own soulmate live in Utah with their four children and the two family cats. Her belief in true love has inspired many other standalone novels including ROOMMAID (2020), THE SEAT FILLER (2021) and THE PAID BRIDESMAID (2022), and several bestselling romance series, including End of the Line (THE FRIEND ZONE, JUST A BOYFRIEND); Lovestruck (#STARSTRUCK, #MOONSTRUCK, #AWESTRUCK); Ugly Stepsisters (THE UGLY STEPSISTER STRIKES BACK; PROMPOSAL), and Royals of Monterra (ROYAL DATE, ROYAL CHASE, ROYAL GAMES, ROYAL DESIGN). You can connect with Sariah online at sariahwilson.com.
