A Highland Summer: The Billionaire's Nanny (A BWWM Billionaire Contemporary Romance) Read Free Page A

like."
    I smiled at her repeated insistence on calling Castle McLanald a 'house' and accepted her offer of a tour. She told me that in the meantime I could go for a walk in the grounds and I decided to do just that - the sunlight was too warm and inviting and I was eager to get a feel for the place that would be my home until September.

Chapter 3
     
    I ran into a groundskeeper in muddy boots as I was wandering rather aimlessly around the garden that sat in front of Castle McLanald and asked him how far I could walk without leaving the property. He laughed out loud.
    "You'll not be leaving the property, not for a good few hours of walking, at least."
    A few hours. So the McLanald's didn't just own a castle, they also owned all of the land I could see sprawling out around me.
    The castle itself was set on the highest point of the landscape and surrounded by carefully tended gardens. As those gardens came to an end the land turned wilder - it was down a narrow footpath into one of the less-groomed areas that I turned, woken up by Mrs. Clyde's tea, my fresh-aired surroundings and, probably most of all, my encounter with the Laird. Handsome men aren't exactly a complete rarity in New York so I wasn't sure what exactly it was about the Laird that had me so intrigued.
    Darach. Darach, yes, that's what he'd asked me to call him. Even his name felt exotic and thrillingly foreign to my mind. He had presence that went beyond his Viking-like good looks. It could have been his position or his money but it felt like something specific to him, something that would be there whether he had five dollars to his name or five billion. And why was I already daydreaming about someone I'd just met - my married employer, no less?
    Typical. Go abroad to experience a new culture and a new country and within twenty-four hours I was already focusing on a man. I did this during my freshman year at college, too, with my first real boyfriend - Jordan. Classes, studying, exploring the city - all of it had taken a backseat to a relationship that ended up being embarrassingly unworthy of my attentions. When my grandmother got sick it took Jordan less than a week to decide he "couldn't handle" the situation and bolt. Ever since then I'd worried about my tendency to get too attached to people - well, to men - who simply weren't very attached in return.
    Hell, one of the main reasons for coming to Scotland was to learn to be more self-reliant - more comfortable with being alone. The last thing I needed was a schoolgirl crush. What would my grandmother think of this place? What would she think of me in this place, reverting back to old habits before the jet-lag had even worn off?
    The thought of her caught me off guard, the way it always, always does and I felt the threatening sting of tears in my eyes. Damnit, Jenny. Get yourself together. Why are you even here if you're going to spend all your time wallowing, which you could have done just as easily back home?
    The sound of footsteps yanked me out of the threatened spiral of self-recrimination and I looked up to see a young woman walking towards me. Unlike me, though, she seemed to fit into the landscape around her - she was dressed in a long, thick skirt that billowed out in the wind that was also blowing her blonde hair around her face. She smiled as she got closer to me and I almost did a double-take at the similarity between her and Darach - it was immediately obvious that she was a relation of some sort.
    "You must be...Jennifer? I'm Anne McLanald."
    I took her outstretched hand and shook it, nodding that yes, I was Jennifer.
    "Have you met my brother yet? The Laird? He was supposed to be in London until tomorrow but Mrs. Clyde said he came back early?"
    I replied that I had met her brother. Anne was eerily like him - she even held her body the same way he did, with the same nonchalant ease that I'd seen earlier in the kitchen. It occurred to me that the two of them had probably looked like twins as