Page 1 of Knot The Nanny We Planned

Chapter one

Willow

The elevator rises so fast my stomach drops, and I clutch my duffel bag tighter against my chest like it can shield me from what's waiting at the top.

Sixty-eight floors.

I've never been higher than the third story of the Millbrook Public Library, and now I'm shooting toward a penthouse that costs more per month than my mama's house. The private elevator smells like leather and money, and the mirrored walls show me every angle of my panic. Pink cheeks. Wide eyes. A wrinkled thrift-store blouse that suddenly feels like a joke.

You don't belong here, the voice in my head whispers. You never belonged anywhere.

I shove it down.

The Omega Nanny matching service said I was chosen. Selected. Out of thousands of applicants, three billionaire clients requested me by name, or at least by profile. I still don't understand why. My references are decent but unremarkable. My experience is a few years of babysitting and a semester of early childhood education before the money ran out. I'm not polished. I'm not experienced. I'm just a twenty-three-year-old omega from a town with one traffic light, hoping this job might finally be the thing that keeps me from drowning.

The elevator chimes and the doors slide open.

The scent hits me before anything else. Pine. Smoke. Cedar. A wall of Alpha pheromones so thick and immediate that my legs go liquid beneath me. My inner omega, the instinct I've spent my whole life trying to suppress, surges forward with a desperate, keening need that makes my thighs clench and heat pool low in my belly.

No. No, no, no.

I grip the elevator door frame, my knuckles white. My body is doing something it has never done before… producing slick. I can feel it, warm and unmistakable, soaking through my cotton panties. My scent, honey and vanilla, I've been told, must be flooding the entire floor by now. There's no hiding it. Omegas can't fake arousal, and they can't suppress it when their biology decides to betray them.

And my biology has decided to betray me spectacularly.

Three men stand in the open foyer of the penthouse, and every single one of them is staring at me like I'm something to devour.

The one closest to me is the tallest, easily six-four, with broad shoulders that strain the seams of his black button-down. His jaw is sharp enough to cut, dark hair pushed back from his forehead, and his eyes... God, his eyes are pitch-black. Fully blown pupils, the Alpha in him already surging to the surface. His nostrils flare as he breathes me in, and a low, rumbling growl rolls through his chest.

JD. The name surfaces from the profile I memorized. JD Blaine. Alpha. Billionaire. CEO of Blaine Capital. Thirty-four years old and dangerous in every way a man can be dangerous.

To his right, a slightly shorter man leans against the wall with his arms crossed, but there's nothing casual about the tension coiled in his body. Golden hair, slightly long, falling over his forehead. A grin curves his mouth, but it's not friendly, it's predatory. His green eyes track me like a wolf watches a rabbit wander too close. Another Alpha. I can feel it in the pheromones rolling off him, lighter than JD's but no less potent. Smoky, with a hint of something sweet and wicked.

Knox Dixon. Venture capitalist. Thirty-two. The profile said he was "charismatic." That word doesn't begin to cover the way he's looking at me right now, like he already knows what I sound like when I fall apart.

And behind them both, leaning against a far wall with his arms crossed and a scowl carved into his face, is the third. Dark hair, darker eyes, wire-rimmed glasses perched on a nose that's probably been broken at least once. He's leaner than the other two, less obviously imposing, but something about the sharp intelligence in his gaze makes my spine straighten. His scent is subtler, cedar and rain.

Deklan Kros. The only Beta. Thirty-three. Also, according to my file, the one whose sister died six months ago, leaving her child in the hands of three men who never planned on being parents.

"You're early." Deklan's voice is flat, clipped.

His jaw tightens, and I watch his fingers curl into fists at his sides. He doesn't move from the wall, but his eyes rake over me, head to toe and back again, with a thoroughness that makes my skin prickle.

"I, yes, sir." My voice comes out breathless. I clear my throat. "The train got in early, and I didn't want to be late, so I..."

"Sir." Knox pushes off the wall, and suddenly he's moving toward me, his gait loose and prowling. "I like that. Say it again."

"Knox." JD's voice is a warning, low and rough.

He hasn't moved from his position directly in front of me, blocking my path into the penthouse. His massive frame is a wall of heat and Alpha pheromones, and being this close to him makes my head swim. "Let her breathe."

"I'm not doing anything," Knox says, but he stops three feet away, close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his green eyes. Close enough to see his nostrils flare as he scents the air between us. His grin sharpens. "She's already soaking, JD. I can smell her from here. I'm not the one who needs to back off."

Heat floods my face, my chest, my everything… and I want nothing more than to disappear. I want the polished marble floor to open up and swallow me whole. My body is broadcasting my arousal to three strangers, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it.

"I'm sorry." The words tumble out of me, shaky and mortified. "I don't know why… I've never… this doesn't usually…"

"Willow," JD says my name like it's a prayer and a curse wrapped together. His black eyes lock onto mine, and I feel the weight of his attention like a physical thing, heavy, inescapable, consuming. "Don't apologize for your biology."