The Nanny

Chapter 14

What Immanuel Emerson considered to be a leisure activity on a late Saturday afternoon was Tina's favorite weekend pastime. After an extensive social media search for his accounts, she'd managed to track him down to a dainty restaurant five miles outside the city. He was sitting at the sushi bar, sipping on dark liquor with a cup of untouched coke on the side. With his head bent over and his shoulders slumped, Queen and Tina both knew they had caught him getting drunk too early in the day.

"How do we approach him?" Tina asked, studying the man. He seemed unbothered by others sitting nearby but that was because no one tried talking to him. Tina had an uneasy feeling that as soon as she and Queen interrupted his day drinking, he'd have words for them.

Queen didn't have a failsafe plan, so she walked across the restaurant and propped herself in the stool next to him. When she ordered two glasses of wine, Immanuel's lips curved into a mischievous smirk, and he turned to her.

"Has the babysitter come around to my offer?"

Queen thanked the bartender for her drink and waved Tina over to take hers. When Immanuel was surrounded by them both, Queen finally took a sip from her glass. "What exactly was your offer?"

He glanced at the woman on the other side of him and shook his head. "You didn't need backup, Queen. I know better than to touch you now."

"Dick," Tina murmured into her glass.

Clearing her throat, Queen said, "Your brother could use your help."

"Why would I help him? He's banned me from his house, and I can no longer see my nephews."

"That must really hurt," she said, resting a hand over his arm.

He looked down at it, hesitated for a moment and then nodded. "He's my big brother. I always seem to fuck up with him."

"You can fix your relationship with him," Queen told him, offering a reassuring smile. "I know how."

His eyes narrowed. He seemed unconvinced by her claim. "Why should I listen to his nanny?"

"Because you just called me his nanny." She broke out into a grin and leaned in, her breath fanning across his cheek as she spoke. "And he isn't happy with what you did to me, so let me help you help him."

"What do you need me to do?"

Tina quirked a brow, surprised that her friend had managed to sway him, but she didn't say anything as she slid her phone across the bar and in front of him.

"When you, Kyrie and Savanna turned eighteen, you were gifted a large portion of shares from each of the Emerson businesses," she said, gesturing toward the article on the small screen. "With that money, you put yourself through law school and built your own respectable law firm that Gerald wants nothing to do with. I'm sure as a business man, he wanted you to follow him like Kyrie did, but you found your own direction, and he doesn't like that."

"The press talks too much," he murmured, unamused by her findings.

"You reopened a domestic violence case that sent a husband to prison for abandoning his children and murdering his wife." She opened a new tab, showing him the article Tina had found of his work. "When everyone gave up on her, you didn't."

"That's one case," he said, pushing the phone back toward Tina.

"Of hundreds your firm won." Tina tucked her phone into her purse and extended a hand to him. "I'm Q's best friend Tina, by the way. You're going to listen to her because she's all you got."

He stared at her skeptically, shook her hand and then moved his gaze back to Queen. "What do you suggest I do?"

Queen tried to hide the glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes and composed herself, straightening her posture. "Publicly propose a partnership with your brother tonight at the auction and make a large donation to his organization to prove you're serious."

"What are you hoping to get out of this?"

The smile on her face expressed a deep sadness she couldn't explain to him, so she looked down at her drink and shrugged. "I can't stop him from marrying Lucinda, can I?"

Realization dawned on him, and with a deep sigh, he shook his head in disappointment. "You could do better than Ky. Much better."

"I..." She paused, tore into her lip and then with a wavering voice said, "I love him."

Immanuel sucked in a sharp breath and finished the liquor in his glass, chasing it with a sip of his coke. "You may not want to believe it, Queen, but he's just like my dad. He'll chase the money, not the women who give a damn about him."

"I don't think that's true."

He laughed at her naiveness and waved the bartender down, pointing to the two glasses of wine Queen had ordered. "Add these to my bill," he said before providing Queen with his attention again. "I'll do what you want to get back in my brother's good graces, but I'm warning you now. Ky will not call off his wedding for you."

When he saw the frown on her face, he took her by the arm and pulled her away from the bar. Tina followed closely behind, clutching her purse as her friend was taken out of the restaurant.

"Let me go," she said to him. Despite his gentle hold on her, she didn't try escaping.

"Get in," he demanded, jerking his head in the direction of a parked car. He unlocked the door and opened the passenger side for her. "I'm taking you back to Ky's house. I'll take Tina wherever she needs to go."

"I'm good," Tina said, pointing to her car. "I'm gonna head out, Q."

Queen glared at her. "You're supposed to be helping me."

"She's helped enough," Immanuel told her. He lowered his voice and looked between the two women. "I agreed to your plan, so let me take you home."

Her eyes seemed to soften as she slowly stepped toward the vehicle. Then without much thought, she muttered a 'thank you' to Tina before climbing into the passenger seat. When the door slammed shut, she flinched, glancing back at her friend as she got into her own car.

A few minutes of silence passed between them, and when Immanuel was finally on the main road, he spoke up. "Is that your dress?" he asked, gesturing to the bag in her hand.

She nodded. "Tina picked it out for me."

"Rachel had a close friend, too," he said nonchalantly. "She and Jules did everything together until Rachel married Ky. They stopped seeing each other, stopped keeping in contact, until Rachel began drinking herself to death. Jules welcomed her with open arms and took her out every weekend. It was Rachel's escape from the kids."

Queen looked at him. She remembered hearing that name not too long ago. "How do you know this?"

"My brother and I used to be close, believe it or not."

"Is this the same Jules working for Kyrie?"

"You've met her." It wasn't a question that he was asking. Immanuel was only confirming information. "Rachel's death hit her the hardest. Ky tried to give her time off, but she wouldn't take it. She mixed up her grief for resentment, said a few colorful things to him, but he kept her because she was mourning the loss of her friend."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"He won't care when he loses you," he explained to her. It was harsh, but it was also the honest truth. "His wife died. He still doesn't care."

"He didn't love her," she tried to reason.

"He's didn't care about the mother of his children, Queen. You're nothing to him. Just a fling because he knows he can't have you."

She bit her lip to stop herself from speaking out of turn and leaned her head against the window, watching as the cars passed them. The sun was beginning to set, and in a couple of hours, she'd have to make an appearance at the charity auction with Colt and Maddox.

Still, she remained hopeful that Kyrie would be waiting for her, saving her one dance before announcing his wedding date. It was all she wanted.