3. Felipe

3

FELIPE

" T hat, my friend," I said in a low tone through a wide grin, "seemed like a roaring success to me."

Even though Miles only hummed thoughtfully from beside me, I knew I was right. I'd never been as invigorated by a business meeting as I was coming out of our long-awaited first official meeting with Pierce Enterprises. There was a fresh, hopeful spring in my step as I exited the immaculate conference room of with my best friend and business partner by my side. The future of my philanthropic work looked bright enough to blind, and after all the grinding I'd done to get here, the feeling was pure elation.

I could tell that Pierce—both the company and its hyper-competent CEO—liked our style, liked the mission behind the work Miles and I were doing in addition to the good PR it would get them to partner with us. Aaron Pierce himself had practically lit up when I talked about our work to expand access to tuberculosis treatment in the developing world—well, as close to lighting up someone like Aaron Pierce could get, I guessed. The other bigwigs we'd met with so far hadn't seemed to give a damn about the mission itself, only their bottom line. Those flat expressions as I extolled the virtues of using my wealth and privilege to help those less fortunate… yeah, working with any of those selfish CEO types was a hard no for me.

My whole goal in life was to use my ample resources to help as many people as I could. I'd been lucky enough to be born into wealth back home in Chile, but I saw hungry, sick, unhoused people in the streets back there and in my new home of New York City too often to ignore how easily I had it. I wouldn't allow the mission Miles and I had set together to be tainted by partnering with a soulless, amoral, money-making machine. No matter how helpful it would be to be bankrolled by their stacks of cash.

"Goddamn it," I heard Miles hiss under his breath as we were making our way down the hallway and into the Pierce lobby. My eyes shot to his face—angular and robotically still as always, though I could see the tension in the crinkled corners of his eyes. He'd been looking at his phone screen before he shoved it back into his pants pocket as if trying to smother it to death.

"What is it?"

"It was a text from my nanny." He sighed. "Did I tell you she's leaving?"

"No way. Mrs. Nyugen? She's been with Olivia since she was born."

"Hence the frustration," Miles said. "Nearly every other nanny in the five boroughs is already booked for the next year, and none of them will be half as good as Mrs. Nyugen, anyway. The kid loves her. I don't know what I'm going to do—especially for the next few weeks after she's gone."

I resisted the strong urge I had to suggest the same thing I had a million times before—that Miles take some time off work, or at least work from home a while, so he could spend some time with his little girl for once. But my friend was as hard-headed as he was intelligent, and he didn't take well to my attempts at steering his life.

It was just a pity that Miles resisted connecting with his child so strongly. I knew it was fear and not apathy that kept him from spending time with Olivia, playing tea party or dress-up with her like she clearly wanted. In his own way, Miles did everything because he loved his daughter. He worked to provide for her, to create a better world for her to grow up in, to keep her safe from the misfortune so many other children experienced. He'd said as much to me years ago, before Olivia was even born, before he'd become too broken and jaded by life to show affection or weakness. I didn't begrudge my friend his workaholic tendencies, especially since it had helped lead us to such success as meeting with one of the highest-grossing CEOs in the country this morning. I just knew that emotionally closing himself off from his child wasn't the way for either of them to heal from all the loss they'd experienced.

"You'll figure something out," I told Miles instead of the truth. We parted ways, then, Miles heading off to the elevator while I made a point to stop at reception.

I'd made friendly small talk with Holly at the desk in front of Aaron Pierce's office before the meeting, so I hoped to bid her a good day on my way out. But when I approached the large, curved desk, I was surprised to find her looking stressed out and frantic, holding a child that was clearly not her own. The kid, to his credit, didn't seem bothered, despite his constant wiggling in her inexperienced grip. But as I took another step toward the desk, he suddenly started to wail louder than his tiny lungs should allow. Holly quickly went from overwhelmed to panicked.

It was instinct and years of spoiling my younger family members back in Chile that had me sweeping in to ask Holly, "May I?"

She was visibly relieved as she nodded and handed the little tike over. I must have had the magic touch, just like my family members had all said when I comforted their babies over the years, because after a few bounces and shushes and a gentle, "It's alright, mijo ," the child quieted down. With another few moments of joyous bouncing, he was smiling, and he stayed calm as I handed him back to Holly, his blue eyes watching me with alert curiosity.

"You're a lifesaver," Holly told me breathlessly. She leaned in, and I leaned toward her across the desk to hear her next words. "Mr. Pierce's estranged sister left her son with him. Just… dropped him off and ran. Mr. Pierce is too busy to handle this kind of thing, so I've been trying to find childcare for the little guy at the last minute. Unlike you, kids… aren't really my thing." She grimaced, and as if on cue, the baby took a small handful of her face-framing layers of dark hair, tugging it until Holly yelped.

"Just think of him as any other person you dazzle with your charm every day," I told her with a smile. "He's a person, just little. You're doing fine." I made sure to come behind the desk again to help free the tiny baby fist from Holly's hair. I shook the small boy's hand, giving him a serious, "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Pierce, the younger."

Holly and the baby both seemed to giggle on cue. A gentle fuchsia blush painted Holly's face, which I'd noticed in our earlier interactions as well. My Abuelita back in Chile always scolded me for what she called my charm , though she meant it more as an admonishment than a compliment. "These young ladies can't resist those green eyes, Felipe," she always used to say with a shake of her head. "You have to be careful not to break any hearts."

Holly was a pretty young woman, but I wasn't looking to lead her on. So, I grinned at her and the baby and started to leave, recognizing that the young woman had relaxed enough to handle this predicament without me now. I threw them both with a wink over my shoulder as the elevator doors pinged open for me and I stepped on.

I was musing over all of the sudden, urgent childcare needs surrounding me as I walked to the nearest subway station. I preferred public transportation to a flashy Tesla or a town car, since it put me in closer contact with the people of the city whom I hoped to help, and it was better for the environment. Plus, I didn't often have time to socialize without some business pretense, so I relished the chance to absorb the energy of a crowd. And even better, when I put myself among the everyday folks in this vibrant metropolis, every so often, I'd see someone like the young woman who crossed the street in front of me. Someone lovely and intriguing who made the romantic side of my brain start to build a fantasy for me to enjoy.

The woman—clearly no longer a girl, though she carried an air of sweet innocence about her that caught my eye as much as her ample curves and sunny-bright dress—held a sparkly phone case to her ear and spoke into the device with clear trepidation. Her blonde curls shone in the patchy sunlight of a day that wasn't quite cloudy enough to earn the label of overcast. Her softness, the lovely long-lashed eyes highlighted by a pair of stylish wire- rimmed glasses that sat on her nose, had my silly heart fluttering a bit. This was the type of woman I could easily turn into a specter of my future wife. I smiled a little, wistful at the mental image of her face lighting up at the sight of me coming through the door at the end of a long workday. It wasn't uncommon for me to imagine pretty women in the role of my future wife, but it was rare for me to see our future children as vividly as I could in this moment—a little girl with my black tresses, this nameless woman's curls, and all of the love I hoped to give to a real child of my own someday.

I shook my head a tiny bit, as if warding off a pesky mosquito on this warm day, and came back to reality. It was a regular day on the streets of the city, all of the noise and bustle and activity dragging me back into the present. But as the blonde beauty settled in to walk just a step or two behind me, clearly heading toward the same train I was hoping to catch, I found myself hyper-aware of her presence. I even caught snatches of her phone conversation despite the city's constant buzz.

"It was awful, Gina. He was so— ugh. I just had to quit." A lovely, sing-song voice accompanied her words, a stark contrast to the content of her conversation. "But I have no idea what to do now. This was the best paying nannying job I could find, and you know how much time I spent looking online."

My ears pricked at the mention of nannying. The thought that she could solve problems for the people around me, that I could find an excuse to turn her into a recurring character rather than a passing background extra in my life, was exhilarating. I'd love to take the opportunity to get to know the woman behind her pretty face, if such an opportunity presented itself.

Don't get your hopes up, Felipe, I told my romantic heart. She's just some girl. You don't even know her.

Well, I didn't until she rammed straight into me, nearly knocking us both over onto the sidewalk. She dropped her phone from her ear, yelping in a dainty way that was too cute for words, and I realized slowly that the collision was my fault. I'd been so lost in my romantic reveries that I'd practically stopped in my tracks, not giving her enough time to slow her pace and leaving her no choice but to crash her body against mine.

I wouldn't have minded under better circumstances. But the poor thing looked pretty stressed out when she saw her phone had fallen to the concrete face-down. I bent to help her retrieve it, handing it to her with deliberate contact, both of us sighing a little when the screen appeared unscathed. Our hands touching in the exchange felt like I'd grabbed a live wire, but with a wave of pleasure instead of pain. I was reluctant to pull back.

Our eyes met, and her full cheeks were pink with an endearing embarrassment, her plump lips slightly parted as her breath came out a little labored. I thought maybe she felt that spark, too. And for once, I wasn't convinced it was just my imagination.

"I'm–I'm so, so sorry," she let out breathlessly. Her voice shook, and I could see the beginning of tears forming in the corners of her eyes, in the way she blinked rapidly and avoided my gaze. "I wasn't watching where I was going, and I was on the phone, which I probably shouldn't do while walking any?—"

"It's alright, love," I told her automatically. "You haven't bothered me at all." My voice came out in a lower and more intimate tone than I should use with a stranger. But it came naturally, attached to the deep desire I felt to fix her pain, to rescue a seeming damsel in distress just like I wanted to rescue the rest of the world.

Her face relaxed into a gentle smile, still a little bashful. A curl of her golden hair, a perfect little ringlet that would spring back into place if given a small tug, fell into her face. It was instinct that had me tucking it behind her ear, breathing in her sweet cotton candy scent and relishing the soft brush of her skin against my fingertips, all while we were still crouched there on the sidewalk.

A taxi honking a few yards down the road broke the spell that seemed to have stopped time for us, but only barely. We had to pull ourselves from the haze for a slow second, and in another few seconds, the young woman and I were both sputtering unneeded apologies and standing back upright again. It gave me the chance to get my first full look at her at close range, and I wouldn't squander the opportunity.

I wasn't the tallest man, but she was a diminutive height, a full head lower than my natural eye line. It was no trouble to look down into her warm brown eyes, though, to take in the full, lovely portrait of her soft features, her youthful innocence and unvarnished vulnerability. Chocolate caramel irises swirled in a sweet, long-lashed gaze that was watching me with something like awe. It wasn't an unfamiliar look for me to witness on a woman's face as she looked at me—women were often charmed by my looks even if they didn't yet know of my money—but something about it had me blushing when it came from this girl. The sweet scrutiny had me feeling exposed. I cleared my throat.

"Pardon my nosiness," I started without thinking, "but did I overhear you say on the phone just now that you're in need of a nannying job?"

She blinked hard and fast, some attempt to wake herself up from a dream. She seemed to buffer before she answered, "Uh… yes?"

My lips twitched with an urge to laugh. But I resisted, continuing instead with, "Well, if you're not sure, that's alright. I only ask because I have a couple of friends who may be looking for a nanny. Right away, if possible. So I may be able to help you, if you need it."

"Oh?" she asked. I nodded, and she glanced around us at the passing pedestrians. A small, tinny sound came from the phone in her hands, reminding us both of it. She looked down, whispered, "Shoot!" then scrambled to put the screen to her ear again. "I'll call you back, G!"

She hung up and looked back at me, straightening her shoulders. "I'm sorry. You, uh, you need a nanny, you said?"

"Not me," I reiterated. "Two of my friends. Business associates of mine, in fact. Would you be interested? I can assure you they would pay very well."

That seemed to be the secret password. As much as she wanted to appear professionally apathetic, her face was an open book. Even behind the glint of her glasses lenses in the mid-afternoon sun, her face was anything but opaque. I could have read every microscopic emotion she even considered having from the expressiveness of her eyes, the gentle dimples in her cheeks. The mention of high pay had her feeling hopeful, almost relieved.

"I—yes, I'm definitely interested," she assured me with faux casualness.

"Great," I said with disproportionate enthusiasm. "I can, ah… set up a meeting, if you're okay with giving me your contact information."

She hesitated, but then she nodded. "Um. Yeah. I'm, uh, Lila Dawson?"

Lila Dawson. My heart seemed to thump along with her name's syllables. I took a beat too long to pull out my cell phone and hand it over to her so she could enter her number. As she entered it, I mouthed her name, testing out the feel of Lila Dawson on my lips. I was going mad, surely.

"And, um, you are?" Lila Dawson asked me shyly as she handed back my phone.

"Felipe," I told her after a concerted effort not to repeat her own name back to her in some kind of trance. Now I was feeling embarrassed. "Felipe Rojas. It's a pleasure to meet you, Lila Dawson."

God, it tasted even sweeter to say the two words.

"You, too," she said softly, cracking my heart open.

I hadn't been this quickly enamored with a woman in ages—maybe ever, if you didn't include my intense crush on the singer Selena when I was a child. This moment, the first meeting between me and Lila Dawson, felt like the start of a fairy tale love my family had always ridiculed me for dreaming of, and that was just as frightening as it was exhilarating. I willed myself to stay cool, even as we exchanged more brief pleasantries I was too emotionally intoxicated to remember and parted ways.

Finally, I made it to a train and then to my hotel, and I practically sang her name in my head all the while. There was no room inside me for anxiety about whether the scheme I'd concocted would actually work, whether Aaron or Miles would hire the girl who clearly needed a job. How could they say no to such a lovely creature, especially when neither of them could afford—for the first time ever, maybe—to be picky? Lila Dawson was maybe a godsend, the answer to my colleagues' prayers, an angel who had dropped into my path just in time. And I was halfway to believing she could be an answer to my own deepest wishes, too.