“And Emily?”
Emily turned around.
“Let me be clear—if my son dislikes you, you’re out. Understood?”
“Yes, Ms. Evans.” Emily nodded meekly before sprinting from the room.
Camila pursed her lips, watching her go, unsure what to make of her.
Emily was eager to please, a quality that Camila appreciated in new hires, and she’d shown that she was not afraid to stand up for herself when push came to shove.
But she was also bubbly and so very, very young. Camila wouldn’t be surprised if she buckled under the pressure a few days in.
She hoped that wouldn’t be the case. There was something about the way she had surprised Camila that made her want Emily to succeed.
It didn’t hurt that she was nice to look at too. She could be a swimsuit model if she stopped hiding behind those god-awful sweaters.
Camila shook her head—it wasn’t appropriate for her to think of Emily like that, not when she was potentially about to hire her, not to mention the fact that she was half her age.
Satisfied with her decision, Camila went in search of her son, hoping that her days of bringing him to work with her would soon be over.
* * *
“So,” Cassie asked the second she dropped into the booth opposite Emily, “how’d the interview go?”
“No Maia today?”
Cassie was a crime scene investigator for NYPD and Maia was a detective. The two of them usually had lunch together, and Emily didn’t want to start telling Cassie about her interview if she was just going to start over when her sister’s girlfriend arrived.
“Nope. She’s out investigating a lead for one of her cases. Come on, Em, I’m dying here. How was it?”
“Um… Okay,”— Emily’s voice wavered a little because she really had no idea how she had done. —“I think.”
“You think?” Cassie’s lips twitched with amusement. “How can you only think it was okay?”
“Because Camila Evans is hard to read and more than a little scary.”
Cassie chuckled. “Not got a crush on her anymore, then?”
Emily vehemently shook her head. “Oh no, I definitely still do.” Emily thought again about Camila in that dress and sighed. “She can be scary and hot. Scary hot. Anyway. We got off on the wrong foot. I’m pretty sure she’d already written me off before I even opened my mouth.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.” Emily took a sip of her iced tea. “So then she called me the wrong name, and I corrected her—”
“You corrected Camila Evans”—Cassie looked at her wide-eyed—“and lived to tell the tale? Damn.”
“I think it impressed her.” Emily had seen the flicker of interest in Camila’s eyes when she had stood up for herself. “Or something did because she said she’d give me a chance.”
Cassie raised an eyebrow.
“I’m having dinner with her tonight so I can meet her kid. If he likes me, then I’m hired.” She paused. “I think.”
“What?! Congratulations!” Cassie grinned. “Why aren’t you happier about this? You’re having dinner with your long-time crush.”
“I know. But it’s still—I have to impress her. Camila Evans. How the hell am I going to do that?”
“Just be yourself,” Cassie told her, reaching across the table to squeeze Emily’s hand. “That’s all. You go in there, and you charm the hell out of her, and you make that little boy fall in love with you. She won’t be able to turn you down.”
If only she had Cassie’s confidence. But she hadn’t made a fool out of herself earlier, and now she just had to get through dinner with Camila.
Alone. In her apartment.
She felt like she was going to be sick.
Chapter 3
If standing in front of the CEBC building had been intimidating, it was nothing compared to standing on the sidewalk outside of Camila’s apartment block.
Emily squinted up at the top floor, the penthouse where she would be spending her evening, and let her breath out slowly, wondering when going from one skyscraper to another had become her life.
This lobby wasn’t quite as busy as the CEBC building, but it was still intimidating, and Emily approached the security desk hesitantly.
“Emily Walker?” Emily looked at the guard suspiciously at the familiar greeting. “Ms. Evans gave me your description,” he explained. Emily wondered what that description was—probably nothing complimentary. “You need a key card to get to the penthouse floor. I’ll swipe you in for now, and we’ll get you a card if things go well. Follow me.”
She stepped into the elevator when it arrived and watched him press PH. “Good luck,” he said as the doors closed.
The elevator whizzed to the top of the building, and the doors slid open to reveal two doors, one on each side of the hallway. Emily checked the time. She was ten minutes early, but she didn’t think Camila would have a problem with that, so she rapped on the door.
When it opened, Camila stood in the doorway wearing black jeans and a fitted red sweater. Emily held her breath, thinking the sight of a dressed-down Camila might be the death of her.
“Emily. Come in.” Camila stepped aside to let Emily pass. She wandered uncertainly into the apartment, trying to act cool as she took it all in.
Camila’s apartment was an open-plan living room slash dining room slash kitchen with floor-length windows that looked out onto the concrete jungle beyond. The sun had just started to descend on the horizon, lighting the whole city with an orange glow.
It was beautiful, just like the woman who came to stand beside her.
Emily felt like she should say something. “This place is really nice.” She thought she heard Camila hum, maybe in agreement, but she couldn’t really read her. Maybe she’d get better at it the more time they spent together.
As Emily turned to take in more of the apartment, her eyes fell on Camila’s son sitting cross-legged in the corner wearing pajamas covered in tiny spaceships. He stared up at Emily.
“I thought I’d get dinner ready while you spend some time with Jaime. Do you like carbonara?”
“Sounds great.”
“Jaime.” Camila addressed her son. He shifted his gaze from Emily to his mother. “This is Emily. She’s going to visit with you while I make dinner.”
He looked back at Emily shyly. She was going to have her work cut out for her to coax him out of his shell.
“New nanny?” he asked, looking back at Camila. His voice was soft but his words were clear.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Emily approached Jaime, sitting on the floor opposite him. The corner of the room was set up as a play area with a tiny table and chair, paper and crayons on top, a stack of books and a dozen toys scattered around it.
“I’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything.” Camila glanced at Emily, leaving the unspoken “I’ll be watching your every move” hanging in the air.
Jaime eyed Emily warily without returning her smile. He wouldn’t be the first kid she’d had to win over.
“Hey, buddy. I’m Emily. And you’re Jaime, right?”
He blinked.
“Okay.” Her first task was to get him to speak. “I’m really excited to meet you, Jaime. I like your pajamas.”
Still nothing, just a withering stare that reminded Emily of his mother.
“Can I see some of your drawings?” she asked, nodding toward the stack of paper on the table behind him. “No? Okay, then.”
He was proving to be a tough nut to crack, but she would have expected nothing less from Camila Evans’s son.
Jaime turned around and crawled over to the chest of toys in the corner. Emily glanced inside and spotted some familiar shapes. The kid had just handed her a lifeline.
“You like dinosaurs, huh?”
Jaime’s hand closed around a T. rex. He turned his head to look at her, letting on that he was interested.
“I like them too. What’s your favorite?”
Silence.
“Mine is the stegosaurus. Do you have one of those?”
Again no answer, so Emily glanced over his shoulder and reached past him into the toy chest. Jaime watched her the whole time.
“This is a stegosaurus,” she told him.
“I know.” The words were so unexpected and came out so haughtily, so undeniably reminiscent of his mother, that Emily broke into a wide smile.
“You know, huh?”
He nodded.
“Do you also know that, even though they were really big, they had really tiny brains?” She watched him struggle—half of him wanted to ignore her and wanted her gone, the other half really wanted to know more dinosaur facts.
“Really?” he asked eventually.
“Uh-huh. You know what they ate?”
“Plants.” He answered quicker this time.
“That’s right, they were herbivores.”
“Herb-vore,” he repeated, and he was so cute that Emily wanted to cry. “So is that one.” He pointed at another dinosaur by Emily’s knee, a diplodocus.
“Yeah, it was. You’re good at this.”
Jaime smiled uncertainly.
“They used their tail as a weapon.” She demonstrated, knocking over a different dinosaur with the diplodocus’s tail, and Jaime giggled. “And their brains were small too.”
Jaime pointed at another dinosaur, then another. Emily felt like this was a test, and she was glad her own childhood obsession had prepared her for this moment. After she’d gone through his entire collection, he watched her thoughtfully before crawling closer to her and holding out the dinosaur he’d been clutching since she first sat down.
Emily took it gently from him as if it were an honor.
“Favorite,” he said, and crawled onto her lap.
“So what else do you like, buddy?” she asked him. She spoke softly, afraid she might startle him, make him run away and not come back. She peered at the stack of books. “Space?”
“Yeah!” It was his most enthusiastic response yet. “I wanna be an astronaut!”
“You do?”
He nodded, completely serious.
“It’s a lot of hard work, you know. I have a friend who’s training to be an astronaut.”
Jaime’s eyes grew wide. “Really?”
“Really,” she confirmed.
He looked at her, amazed. “Can they take me into space?”
“That’s not really how it works.” She laughed, then seeing his disappointment added, “but maybe she could come and talk to you about it one day.”
Jaime beamed at the thought.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.” Emily jumped at the sound of Camila’s voice because she hadn’t heard the other woman approach. “Dinner’s nearly ready, and Jaime”—she turned to her son—“it’s nearly time for bed.”
Jaime thrust out his lower lip in an impressive pout.
“Can Emily read my bedtime story?” he asked, and Camila blinked.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to overstep,” Emily said, but Camila waved her off.
“Nonsense. This is why you’re here.” Camila leaned down to help Jaime out of Emily’s lap. It was the closest she had been yet to Camila, and Emily reminded herself to keep breathing. “Jaime’s room is this way.” Camila headed toward the hallway with Jaime in tow, and Emily followed. “Let’s brush your teeth while Emily picks out a book for you.”
Jaime’s bedroom was identified with his name on the door in brightly colored letters. Emily stepped hesitantly inside. The room was plastered with his drawings, and his bed was shaped like a rocket. Emily made her way to the bookshelf against one wall, easily identifying Jaime’s favorite books by the worn spines. She chose one at random.
A moment later, Jaime darted past her, Camila close behind. Emily watched Camila tuck her son into bed with a devotion that screamed how much she loved him.
“He’s all yours,” Camila told Emily as she straightened up, nodding at the chair beside the bed. “I’ll go finish up dinner.”
Emily opened the book and began reading. She was barely three pages in before Jaime’s breathing slowed, and she looked up to see him fast asleep.
She smiled and closed the book, leaving it on the chair, and padded silently from the room, butterflies back in full force at the thought of having dinner with Camila without Jaime there as a buffer.
* * *
Camila returned to her kitchen, amazed and unbelieving at how quickly Emily had won over her son.
She had watched the two of them closely as they played and had nearly dropped the pasta on the floor when she saw Jaime crawl onto Emily’s lap.
With Amelia, Jaime had cried for two weeks whenever Camila left the apartment, and yet fifteen minutes with Emily Walker and she was his new favorite person.
What was it about the girl that was different from the ones who came before her? Even Eleanor, Camila’s wonder nanny, had a difficult few days before Jaime had accepted her in his life.
It was like a dream.
She had expected Emily to be good, but not this good, and it was a little disarming. Camila wondered if Emily would continue to surprise her and hoped that she did.
“He’s out for the count.”
Emily reappeared, looking a little nervous now that Jaime wasn’t with her—she was a different person with her son than the woman Camila had met that afternoon.
She finished dishing up the carbonara. “He never did have trouble sleeping.” Even as a baby, Jaime slept through the night more often than not. “Here, sit.” She gestured for Emily to take a seat at the breakfast bar; it would be less formal than sitting at the table. Camila placed a bowl of pasta in front of her. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Just water is fine.”
Even though Emily looked wildly out of place in her apartment, it was nice to have someone to share the space with. Camila filled two glasses with water, forgoing her usual red wine, then sat next to her new hire.
“Thank you for having me over, Ms. Evans. The carbonara looks amazing.”
“We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. You should call me Camila.”
“Okay. Thank you. Camila.”
It sounded good to hear Emily say her name.
Camila gave Emily a few minutes to eat before she started her next round of questioning.
“So how was it for you spending time with my son?”
“Pretty great.” Emily smiled brightly, and Camila had to look away. “He’s a really great kid.”
“I know,” Camila answered coolly. “You made quite an impression on him—he rarely warms to people so quickly. Should I be concerned about your extensive knowledge of dinosaurs?”
Emily nearly choked on her food.
“I was a dinosaur nerd growing up.”
“Mm. And do you really have a friend who’s an astronaut in training, or was that just something you said to get my son on your side?”
“I wouldn’t lie to him,” Emily said earnestly. “Although technically it’s my ex-girlfriend, but still. I know a few others too, but not anyone I’d call a friend. Comes with the territory.”
“Of?”
“Did you even read my résumé?” Emily teased. It was the most relaxed that Camila had seen her yet.
“I did, along with several others. The details get a little fuzzy.”
“I studied astrophysics at Yale.”
“Wow.” Camila was surprised, though she tried not to show it. “And that’s what you want to get your master’s in?”
“Yeah. And maybe a doctorate, but I’m not sure. Haven’t really decided yet.”
&
nbsp; She’s so young, Camila thought. She’s still trying to figure out her career path, her future.
“That’s impressive.”
“It’s just what I’m good at.” Emily shrugged. “And apparently it comes in handy when I want to charm five-year-old boys.”
“Yes, well, Jaime’s quite enamored by you already. I imagine he’ll fall completely in love if you keep talking to him about space. He likes stargazing, but I’m not very good at pointing out the constellations.”
“I’m sure you don’t have much time to learn, considering your job.”
Camila quirked an eyebrow.
“Your occupation isn’t exactly a secret; you’re pretty well-known in this city.”
Camila well knew what was written about her, especially now that her marriage had fizzled out so publicly.
“Mm. So I’m sure you’ve heard what a hard-ass I am, and you’ve experienced it yourself today. So I’ll ask you again: are you sure you want this job?”
“Of course I still want the job,” Emily replied, setting down her fork. “And for the record, I don’t listen to idle gossip, especially about women. I admire you, Camila—”
Emily’s blue eyes met hers, and Camila saw her sincerity. And she wondered if perhaps there was a little hero worship too, and she basked in the attention.
“—and I have a little experience with what it’s like to succeed in a male-dominated field.”
“Astrophysics isn’t popular with the ladies?” Camila asked, surprised to hear teasing in her voice. Maybe Jaime wasn’t the only person in the apartment who Emily was winning over.
“Not really.” Emily smiled.
“Well, the job is yours if you want it—subject to an extensive background check.” Camila doubted if it would reveal anything outside of a parking ticket. “It’s standard procedure for a prospective employee, especially for someone I’ll be trusting in my home and around my son,” Camila explained. “So if there’s anything I should know, now would be the time to tell me.”
“I…I don’t think so.” Emily paused, thinking. “I already told you I was in foster care. My parents died in a car crash when I was eleven.” There was pain in her eyes at the memory.
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