Nanny Behaving Badly Read Free

postcard perplexed.
    ‘Want to explain this text message from Lyle?’ he demanded. ‘He’s told me I’m to escort you off the premises. Had a bad day?’
    The American woman’s fired! I’ve already told her to go. I’m at the café near The Art Gallery mending my blown fuse. And escaping her. Lyle.
    Maddie read it and winced. ‘Hate at first sight?’
    Jim looked solemn. ‘One explanation. But how did it happen?’
    ‘We’ve just had a VIP customer and I had to take charge.’ Maddie grabbed her jacket and bag. ‘I’m going to see him and explain. Sheena and John are back from lunch so we’re covered. Okay if I go try some damage limitation?’
    Jim shrugged his shoulders. ‘I’m not exactly sure there are any limiting opportunities in this particular damage package. Just promise me you had good reasons.’
    ‘Let me get my job back first.’

    Maddie saw him sitting on the lower tier of the festive European-themed market. At a table in the Ooh La La Creperie courtyard, broodingly nursing a bottle of mineral water and a newspaper. His large frame was squeezed into an outdoor garden chair – a wild tiger in a white plastic cage.
    Lyle’s hair was dark as charcoal, his shirt, crisp and white, set him apart. The location seemed incongruous with the man; a thundering entrepreneurial hero against a festive merriment backdrop. While a song about peace and goodwill to all men echoed from someone’s stall’s music system like audible irony.
    The broadsheet newspaper Lyle was flicking through lay flat out on the table, sending out a clear message . My territory. Get lost. No interlopers. Just like his attitude to new arrivals in his café; he owned the world and it weighed heavily on his shoulders.
    Maddie sank down into the chair opposite him. ‘Hi. It’s me. Calamity Coffee Waitress about to be dismissed. Only I’m not quite sure I’m ready to give up without a fight.’
    Lyle looked up, his expression calm. ‘I already fired you. Technically the point is moot.’ Though he stared at her, not a ripple of emotion marred his features. He turned over the page, flicking his gaze to the print. ‘Not gone yet? Maybe you should go find another job?’
    Maddie dumped her bag on the table in the middle of his newspaper. Like The Titanic, she wasn’t going down without a momentous splash.
    ‘You’re so not sacking me today. Not without mitigation.’ She leaned forward in her chair, knitted her brows, determined. She wasn’t a Boston legal eagle’s daughter for nothing. ‘Hear me out. You’ve just had a visit from the most important critic in the city – Rob Brewster from The News . He once slated my uncle, who now has laminated pics of him all over the kitchen wall so every waiter is ready. Consider that expertise enough to know him at ten paces.’
    She left out the part about the pins sticking out of the noticeboard picture.
    Lyle stared hard. ‘The foodie critic I’ve been calling for weeks?’
    Maddie blinked her lashes at him. ‘Bludgeon Brewster, the very same. He had an Americano plus delicious feta and spinach quiche with salad. Served with extra care and a super large smile by yours truly. Though to be honest I thought you were going to blow us up in smoke. Pushing against you is like taking on a difficult bull at a Highland Show, Lyle.’
    He smiled grimly. ‘I work out. There’s more to me than coffee and cakes. You should be grateful I chose to be a gentleman.’
    ‘What do Scottish gentlemen train with these days – pulling super trucks?’
    Lyle glared. ‘Let’s stick to the point. You shoved me out of my own café. You’ve changed everything on a whim. Suddenly it’s like a magician’s been doing disappearing tricks in my office and I can’t find anything anymore. I’ve been demoted from boss to ‘he who shall obey the madwoman’. It all stops here, Maddie. You went too far.’
    She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I’m sorry – I figured I had to do