Victor Sterling’s six-year-old triplets had driven six professional nannies out of his mansion in less than a month, and they welcomed me
Victor Sterling’s six-year-old triplets had driven six professional nannies out of his mansion in less than a month, and they welcomed me by dumping freezing water over my head. But when I refused to run, the most feared man in Westchester realized something no one expected: his impossible sons had finally met someone who wasn’t afraid of them.
I stood beneath the mansion’s entrance, soaked from my hair to my shoes, while three identical boys laughed from the balcony above.
Dark hair. Gray eyes. Three smug little faces.
“Ten points for timing,” I called up.
The laughter died.
“But terrible strategy. Water dries. If you really wanted me gone, you should’ve used mud.”
One boy leaned over the railing.
“Who are you?”
“Nora Abbott.”
“We don’t like Nora Abbott.”
I squeezed water from my sleeve. “That makes four of us. I haven’t decided whether I like you three either.”
The housekeeper beside me nearly choked.
Then a voice came from behind us.
“Enough.”
The entire house seemed to freeze.
The boys vanished.
I turned and found Victor Sterling watching me.
Thirty-eight years old. Construction companies, nightclubs, shipping businesses, and enough whispered criminal connections to make grown men nervous when his name entered a conversation.
Yet the man standing before me didn’t look like a monster.
He looked exhausted.
His gaze dropped to my dripping blazer.
“You’re late.”
“My driver refused to pass your gate.”
“That’s your problem.”
“And your children attacking employees with buckets is yours.”
The housekeeper went pale.
Victor simply stared at me.
“Office.”
I followed because I couldn’t afford not to.
Three months earlier, I’d had a steady hotel job in Queens. Then new owners arrived, half the staff disappeared, and suddenly I was an unemployed widow raising a six-year-old daughter alone.
Samuel had been dead four years.
One undiagnosed heart condition had taken my husband and left me with grief, medical bills, and Chloe asking why her daddy couldn’t attend school events.
Now an eviction notice sat inside my purse.
Ten days.
That was all I had left.
Inside Victor’s office, he opened a file.
“Nora Abbott. Widowed. One daughter. Chloe. Six years old.”
My stomach tightened.
“You investigated me?”
“You applied to enter my home.”
“I applied to care for children.”
“In my world, there’s no difference.”
I should’ve walked out.
Instead, I pictured Chloe asleep in our tiny apartment.
Twenty thousand dollars could save us.
Victor closed the file.
“You know the arrangement. Stay until Sunday at six and you receive twenty thousand. Leave before forty-eight hours are complete, and you receive nothing.”
“And you think I’ll leave?”
His expression hardened.
“I know you will.”
I leaned forward.
“Then why hire me?”
For the first time, Victor Sterling had no answer.
His eyes slowly lifted toward the ceiling.
Three pairs of feet were running directly above us.
Then came an enormous crash.
I looked at Victor.
He looked at me.
And somehow, I knew the bucket of ice water had been the easy part.
The sound of shattering glass and heavy thuds overhead echoed through the mahogany-paneled office like an impending avalanche.
Victor didn’t flinch. He didn’t shout. He simply rubbed the bridge of his nose, the heavy exhaustion in his posture deepening by the microsecond.
“They’re in the west wing library,” Victor muttered, more to himself than to me. “That was likely a fifteenth-century oil painting or a priceless vase.”
“Or both,” I added, already turning toward the door.
Victor’s arm shot out, blocking my path. His hand was large, calloused, and surprisingly warm. “Where are you going?”
“To do the job you’re paying me twenty thousand dollars for, Mr. Sterling,” I said, looking down at his hand until he slowly dropped it. “Unless you’d prefer to spend the next hour negotiating terms while your sons remodel the rest of your estate?”
A flicker of something resembling curiosity—or perhaps morbid amusement—crossed his gray eyes. “Be my guest.”
I didn’t wait for a second invitation.
I marched out of the office, my soaked heels squelching against the pristine marble floors of the foyer. By the time I reached the grand staircase, a fresh stream of water was actually trickling down the banister, accompanied by hysterical giggles from the top floor.
Amateur hour, I thought, remembering the chaotic kindergarten classrooms I used to volunteer in before Samuel got sick. Six-year-old boys didn’t scare me. They were loud, impulsive, and entirely predictable.
I took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the chill of my wet clothes clinging to my skin. Following the trail of destruction, I pushed open the heavy double doors of the west wing library.
It looked like a miniature hurricane had touched down.
Books were strewn across Persian rugs. Cushions had been piled into a makeshift fort in the center of the room. And right in the middle of it all stood the triplets—Jax, Asher, and Finn—armed with supersoaker water guns loaded with bright blue liquid.
“Intruder!” Jax shrieked, aiming his weapon right at my chest.
“Fire!” Asher yelled.
A stream of blue-dyed water hit me square in the collarbone.
I stopped. I looked down at the bright blue stain spreading across my white blouse, then slowly raised my eyes to meet theirs.
“You ruined my blouse,” I said evenly.
“It’s ugly anyway!” Finn shouted, pumping his water gun for another round.
“Fair point,” I agreed.
Before they could pull the trigger again, I didn’t yell, and I didn’t run. Instead, I dropped to the floor, swept my leg out in a low, swift arc, and knocked the cushion fort completely off balance.
The boys tumbled backward in a heap of fabric and muffled yelps, dropping their water guns.
I moved fast. Before any of them could scramble up, I grabbed a stack of oversized hardcover encyclopedias from the nearest shelf and slammed them down onto the floor with a resounding THUD.
The triplets froze, staring up at me with wide, identical gray eyes.
“Rule number one,” I whispered, leaning in close so my voice was dangerously low, perfectly mimicking the stern tone my grandmother used to use on me. “If you’re going to declare war, never leave your ammunition on the ground where your opponent can use it.”
Jax’s jaw dropped. Asher swallowed hard. Finn actually took a step backward.
“Who… who are you?” Jax whispered, the smugness completely wiped from his face.
“I’m the person who is going to make sure you clean up every single page of this library before dinner,” I said, standing up and dusting off my hands. “Or I will personally donate every single Lego set in your bedrooms to the local shelter. Am I understood?”
For the first time in a month, the formidable Sterling triplets didn’t throw a tantrum. They simply nodded in unison, looking entirely terrified.
From the doorway, a low, deep chuckle vibrated against the wood paneling.
I turned around.
Victor Sterling was leaning against the doorframe, his arms crossed over his chest, a slow, genuine smile finally breaking through the heavy, grim lines of his face.
“Well,” Victor murmured, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. “It looks like you might just survive forty-eight hours, Ms. Abbott.”
“Oh, Mr. Sterling,” I said, lifting my chin as the cold water dripped from my hair onto the floor. “I’m not just going to survive. I’m going to earn every single penny.”