“What’s the problem with them?”
“Nicole doesn’t like them, or I don’t like them.” He set up a one-three and sank it.
“Too hippy-dippy?”
“I don’t like a woman who flirts on an interview to watch my kid.” One-seven. Sunk. He was just going to run the one ball all over the table.
“I think you’re seeing things.”
He must have been. We were professionals, every one of us. Laura was damned serious about this sort of thing.
“I know women.” One-five. Sunk. He was set up for the seven, and if he played it right, the nine would be next. I should have made a better break.
“I have someone,” I said. “A friend. She’s had some bad luck, but she’s got experience and she loves kids.”
“Really.” He looked up at me from setting up his shot. “Where’s she worked before?”
I didn’t pause. Pausing was death.
“The Trudeaus.”
He missed the seven. Stood.
“I’m not looking for that kind of help.”
“It’s not what you think.” I leaned down and set up the one-nine.
“It never is. Take your shot.”
“She’s really great.” I pocketed the nine. Game over. “So is Crossroads. I’ll set up the appointment. Please don’t use the phrase ‘hippy-dippy’ in the interview. The school doesn’t need your money or the trouble.”
“Good advice.” He leaned down and retrieved the rack.
“You really should take my advice on this and just about everything.”
I smiled at him and leaned on my cue.
He popped the balls back in the nine-ball diamond. “I don’t want Josh Trudeau’s nanny. Even without the extra services. I want you.”
This is the kind of thing a single girl wanted to hear from a beautiful man. I was there as a professional. Despite that, I went a little jelly. I tightened my mouth into a line I couldn’t let him see.
“So does Nicole,” he continued, popping the balls into the shape. “She asks about the lady in the bathroom all the time.”
“That’s very nice.”
“I’m not going to pretend I know what she’s going through. I don’t know too many five-year-olds in the first place. But you do know. Or you pretend well enough. Both your parents around?”
“They live in Fiji.”
“Where the hell is Fiji?”
“Far.”
“Do you visit?”
“No.” I dropped my voice an octave. I hadn’t spoken to my parents in years, and I wasn’t in the mood to describe the slow, tidal drift that separated us. “Knowing what’s going on with Nicole is a matter of human compassion, not pretending.”
“And your friend? That human compassion too? Why are you coming around trying to place her?”
I felt trapped. Dug in deeper than I should be. I didn’t know how it happened, but I never intended to tell him Blakely’s problems. Now I felt as if I had to, or lie. I didn’t want to lie.
“She’s great. And she’s not making the same mistakes again. She was devastated.”
He lifted the rack off the diamond-shaped configuration of balls.
“Good rack,” I said.
“You break. You sink the nine before my turn, I’ll hire the two of you. You miss, you come work with Nicole for a month.”
“Win-win for you.”
“That’s the only way I play.”
I set up my shot and broke.
CHAPTER 6
CARA
The night after I beat Brad at pool, I dreamed of nine-ball. I made the shot over and over and every time it happened the same. I sunk it off the break, which wasn’t what had happened the day before. The day before I sunk a ball on the break and the nine off the four.
In the real world it didn’t matter how I won, just that I won. My dream life was more efficient. Nine off the break, and I was naked, because clothes would have gotten in the way of Brad Sinclair’s dream body curved over mine as I leaned over the table.
He kissed the back of my neck, and his erection pressed against my backside. I didn’t turn around, but in the dream I could see his body over me. Every bit of moisture in my body rushed between my legs. I woke up swollen and needy.
I took care of my business as efficiently as the dream told the story, turning Brad into someone, anyone else as I circled my clit with two fingertips. As I got closer to climax and my mind got weaker, Brad reappeared and I came fast and hard.
Fully awake, I promised to do a better job of controlling my fantasies. They were dangerous. Brad Sinclair was off-limits. I wasn’t going to be a Daddy-toy. Not in this lifetime.
I didn’t say that to Blakely as we got our things together for our first day with Nicole. We took separate cars up the hill to the ginormous house. I held my breath the entire way. I didn’t know if I could even look at that pool table.
CHAPTER 7
BRAD
She’d beaten me fair and square. Nine off the four. She’d turned a loss into a win. Nice. I liked that. I also liked her ass.
“Don’t talk about her ass. No one wants to hear it. Not even me.”
My buddy Michael. Prince Squeaky Clean. He’d gone from famous kid to famous teen to the guy I met in college. Famous young adult. The guy never had a problem until he met his wife. She’d been a paparazza and a real problem. For a guy who spent his life worrying about what people thought of him, she was the last woman he should be with. He lay back in the sun by my pool.
“I’m just saying,” I said. “And I have to say it to someone. My parents are cramping me. Every day’s report card day, and I got rows of Fs and Ds.”
“Tell them to go home.”
“They leave today, but believe me, they can wave the report card at me from Arkansas.”
“You taking Nicole to Blueberry’s sixth birthday?”
The invitation had come that morning. I didn’t know what it was at first. It was a cupcake in a basket tied to the bottom of four helium balloons. The delivery service had used a drone to float it over the mail chute. Then it followed the housekeeper into the house when she brought the mail in. That’s what my mother told me when she handed me the cupcake. And that my dad almost shot it out of the air.
BLUEBERRY WOULD LOVE TO
WELCOME NICOLE TO
THE NEIGHBORHOOD.
I was being welcomed too. Somehow. To something. I had no idea what. To a world where birthday invitations came on helium balloons and kids had names like Blueberry.
Nicole loved the cupcake, and the balloons made her wild. I couldn’t say no.
“You going?” I asked Michael. Stupid question. He had six kids now. He went to all the kid shit. “What should I get? For a present. I’m supposed to bring a present, right?”
“Let the nanny take care of it. They do research. Make calls. Ask the other nannies what the kid likes. Blah blah. No brainer. Just don’t bring the blonde nanny.”
I leaned back so I could see into the office off the kitchen. Paula, my right hand and easily half my brain, sat with the two nannies. Cara’s hair was dark brown. The other one, the one who came with the deal, she was blonde. Blakely. She’d fallen for Josh Trudeau’s line.