I hadn’t shaved that morning, and I rubbed the stubble. I liked the feeling on my palm. It woke me up.
I was comparing all of them to the nanny I was losing. Who was perfect. Who I wanted to fuck so bad my balls ached. I wasn’t comparing their fuckability. I swore it and I meant it. But my wires were all crossed up. I couldn’t look at them without knowing I didn’t want to fuck them as bad, and seeing that as a good thing.
My dick wasn’t supposed to be in the reckoning. How much or little I wanted to bed the nanny wasn’t supposed to matter. The interviews were for Nicole. What was best for her. Not me.
After nanny number ninety, I found Blakely still sitting at the kid-size table with Nicole. I wanted to be sitting at that table. I wanted to draw crazy-ass unicorns. So I sent Blakely home.
“This would be easier if they met your daughter first,” Laura said from the doorway of the playroom.
“She doesn’t need to be confused,” I said. “Too many nice faces trying to get her to like them.” I held a marker up for my daughter. “Is blue next?”
She peered at my paper and pointed to the orange stripe on top of my rainbow.
“No, silly Daddy.” She snapped the blue marker out of my hand and handed me a yellow as if she were handing me an Oscar.
“Here’s what I want,” I said as I made a yellow rainbow stripe. “I want the best. I want two ladies. At least one should have so much experience nothing shocks her. I’m thinking she’d be with the same family twenty years and she’d be bored now because the kids go to Harvard. If she has my mother’s values, even better.”
“What are your mother’s values?”
“Good Southern Baptist.”
“Great. You sure you don’t want to keep Cara DuMont? I’m sure she can be convinced.”
I was about to dismiss the idea, because I did want to keep her, and the only way to do that was to replace her. But Nicole, bless her heart, had ears like a fucking rabbit. She handed me the green marker and didn’t say a word. Didn’t look up at me. Actress. She heard everything. Every damned word.
I thought I’d gotten away with trying to replace Cara. Even though I was replacing her so I could keep her, there was no way to explain it to Nicole.
Blakely was easier. The news went down with vanilla fudge swirl ice cream.
“Are you going to live in another city?” Nicole asked as Blakely wiped her face.
“No,” Blakely balled up the napkin. “I’m staying in Los Angeles.”
“Daddy,” Nicole said matter-of-factly.
“Yes?”
“Miss Blakely should stay with us. She can go to additions in daytime and sleep in her regular bed at nighttime.”
Nicole Garcia-Sinclair. Solver of all the world’s problems.
“We need that bed for your new nanny.”
“What new nanny? Not Miss Cara. Miss Cara’s staying, right?”
“Yes,” I said without thinking. Blakely shot me a look. “Mostly.” Then Nicole shot me a look. Jesus Christ. These women. “Yes. Miss Cara’s staying.”
Nicole asked about Miss Cara the whole way home. Over dinner, she asked if Miss Cara was coming to Disney the next day. When I tried to twist up a French braid and made a huge mess, she suggested I learn from Miss Cara. And when Miss Cara herself showed up to do the night shift, Nicole ran to the door.
“Daddy was talking to a hundred pretty ladies today.”
“Really?” She crouched to Nicole’s eye level and looked at me sidelong. Half a smile. “A hundred?”
CHAPTER 37
CARA
Brad stood back a bit, arms crossed.
“Ninety-nine hundred!” Nicole spread her arms wide. “But none were as pretty as you!”
“I don’t believe it.”
“Miss Blakely’s leaving! She’s going to be an actress!” Nicole squealed as if Blakely’s dreams would come true just because she’d freed up her schedule. I hoped she was right. “Do you like my dress?” She held out the pink cotton stripes of the skirt. “I like your shoes.”
I was wearing new sneakers. I thanked her, complimented her twinkling light-up shoes, and we continued the exchange into the hall. Brad waited, leaning against the doorframe, looking at me as if I was the only woman in the world. My heart sank. I had no chance against him.
I decided right then I wasn’t telling him about the pictures. I didn’t want him to tell me it wasn’t a big deal.
“You were at West Side today, I presume?”
“Yeah. It’s bad out there.”
“You’re coming tomorrow, right?” Nicole swung my hand back and forth and made a please please please smile.
“To Disney?”
“Yes, please!”
Brad didn’t move. The assumption was that since it was my day, I was going. That was going to have to be renegotiated. Everything was going to have to be renegotiated. He changed the subject as if he knew.
“I’ll read her books tonight. We picked a few.”
“Really?”
“Really. Why?”
“You never put her to bed before.”
“I’m down to one nanny soon. You people are so unreliable.”
“Don’t even.” I looked down at Nicole. “What are you wearing tomorrow?”
“Grandma sent me something!” She pulled me to her room. I looked down before I turned at the landing, and he was there at the bottom, watching me silently with a level of determination I hadn’t seen from him.
Then in a split second, he winked and playful Brad was back.
CHAPTER 38
CARA
I approved her outfit for the theme park and handed her off to Brad for the bedtime ritual. Everything seemed to go smoothly. Bath. Dressing. Kiss for Daddy. Reading in bed with Daddy, which was more singing-and-making-things-up than following the story. Kiss good night. Lights out. Apparently bedtime went all right. I even heard him brush her hair and teeth.
Brad came to the kitchen with his beat-to-hell white T-shirt and jeans. My hormones rushed through my blood like marauders setting the village on fire.
“If she’s down, I’m going to the back,” I said. “If you need me—”
He was on me in half a second with that mouth, those hands. I was utterly powerless against his kiss. His tongue found its way into my mouth. He tasted like a bad decision. He tasted like the thing you always said you shouldn’t have done, but didn’t regret anyway. A little bit of starlight. The tart sting of the forbidden and the sweetness of a sin you think you’re getting away with.
Every inch of my skin came alive, and I felt heavy and swollen between my legs. One big undeniable throb set to the rhythm of his kiss.
We stumbled into the hallway, and without the sound of Nicole’s patter, we became unhinged. Desperately, wildly irrational. I was leaving, and once I wasn’t in the house caring for his child it wouldn’t matter. I’d be a target for the paparazzi, but not as the nanny.