Sweet Revenge: A Nanny to Mommy Romantic Suspense

by Ford, Mia

  “Ok,” Jane said. “I’ll do that.”

  She fixed a couple small plates and then said, “I’ll be right back,” as she headed off towards the boys’ rooms.

  When she came back she took off the apron she was wearing and let her hair down, pulling the tie away from it. I watched in awe as her luscious locks fell to her shoulders. It was like seeing a sexy woman in some shampoo commercial. She was that good and far more beautiful. And Jane had the type of beauty that was all natural, like she never needed makeup. In fact, that would have covered up the perfection of what was already there.

  Jane fixed us both a plate and sat down.

  I took a bite of the steak and moaned with delight as my taste buds tingled and my mouth came to the brink of an orgasm. It was beautiful.

  “Wow, this is the best steak I’ve ever had,” I said. “Salisbury is my favorite. How did you know? You aren’t like Facebook stalking me or something, are you?”

  Jane blushed. “No, it’s just one of my favorites, too. It’s actually an old recipe that my grandmother passed down to me.”

  “Ah, those old recipes are always the best aren’t they? If we could find a way to bottle grandmother magic and put it into food, then we’d all be eating like kings.”

  “Right,” Jane said. “I’m glad you like it.”

  “So, how were the boys today? They seem to have really taken to you. I’ve never heard them this quiet. I hate to say it, but sometimes when I want to get things done in the office, I have to lock them out and make sure they are kept in their rooms. Otherwise, even in this huge house, I can hear them all the way in the office. Don’t let them fool you; those kids can make some noise.”

  “Well, they are babies,” Jane said. “I think all boys are hyper rambunctious at that age. I bet you were too, if you can remember that far back.”

  She had a point and tried to remember.

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’m a handful now; I can only imagine myself as a toddler.”

  We ate in silence for a moment. Finally, I asked her a few more things about herself, trying to probe a bit deeper. This was the first time I’d really had a chance to get to know her outside of her role as a nanny. I tried to listen, but she was so beautiful that every time she spoke my mind just went to some kind of a happy place where nothing else mattered.

  “So, I don’t see a wedding ring,” I said. “What’s the deal? Are you divorced? Single? You are bound to have someone special in your life, right.”

  “Well, not really. I’m just kind of by myself for a bit. I just got out of a bad relationship, so I’m enjoying a break from the drama, you know?”

  “I do. Those types of toxic people are so hard to take. You just have to get them out of your life.”

  “I agree,” Jane said. She held my gaze for a moment and I was captivated by the beauty in her eyes. There was something familiar about them. I couldn’t put my finger on what though, but I felt it was close to my heart somehow. She was definitely the type of woman that I could feel myself actually falling in love with. Well, for a while anyway. Being me, I was bound to get bored eventually. But I was willing to take whatever I could get from her.

  “What do you do for fun?” I asked finishing the steak. I buttered a roll and took a bite. They were so fluffy, so light, and so buttery. It was perfect. I was feeling very full, but this was too good. I could not stop eating.

  Jane sighed and leaned back in her chair. “Well, I go golfing every now and then. And bowling. I’m kind of addicted to bowling.”

  “Bowling? Well, that is a wild sport,” I teased.

  Jane laughed. “Stop it. I know it’s lame, but there is something about the lane, the ball, the atmosphere—it’s just you against the pins, you know?”

  I nodded. “Sure, I can get that. It’s been a while for me since I went bowling, and last time I did I’m pretty sure me and my friends spent most of the time drinking beer and occasionally doing some bowling. I think our focus might have been backwards.”

  “Well, we might have to go sometime,” Jane said with a smile. “If my boss ever gives me the night off.”

  “Oh, I think we can arrange that sometime,” I said.

  Was this girl flirting with me? Sometimes it was hard to actually tell because I naturally assumed that all women flirted with me.

  “So, how about you? What do you do for fun?” Jane asked.

  “Well, business is my pleasure,” I said. “I know it sounds corny and cliché, but I love to work. I enjoy building the companies and I love making deals, especially out on the golf course.”

  “Why is it that the golf course is the central hub of business dealings in our country?” Jane asked with a smirk.

  I thought about the question a moment.

  “I have no clue,” I said. “But it sure is a fun way to do it. Maybe that’s why. You know, I bet you’d look great out on the golf course.”

  Jane shook her head. “No, I am not a golfer.”

  “I’m sure you’d do fine. Besides, if you put on the right type of golf outfit, I’m sure you’d look fantastic. And that’s half the fun right there.”

  Jane didn’t say anything for a moment, and I wondered if I’d overstepped too quickly and frightened her off the thread of conversation. But then she smiled and reached over to touch my hand.

  She winked at me and said, “You’re bad, you know that?”

  “I do know that. You aren’t the first to have noticed.”

  “Are you saving room for dessert?” Jane asked coyly.

  I felt my stomach about to explode.

  “I’m not sure… I’m pretty full.”

  Jane rose from the table and grabbed something from the freezer. It was vanilla ice cream. She grabbed a couple bowls, two spoons, and an ice cream scooper.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “I make great chocolate sundaes.”

  Within thirty seconds she’d filled the bowls with ice cream, whipped cream, nuts, and chocolate syrup. It looked delicious.

  “Oh… fine,” I said. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  I took a few bites of the sundae and felt like I was eight years old again and I’d just come home from school. Every day my mother would have a different, fantastic treat waiting for me. Some days it was peanut butter and jelly, others it was ice cream, and others it was candy bars or milkshakes.

  “I think I just gained five pounds,” I teased.

  “Well, you have to live a little, right? Besides it’s another thing you can’t take with you.”

  “What is?”

  “Well, you can’t take money with you to the grave and you can’t take health.”

  I laughed. “You’re right, I guess. I’m not sure I’ve heard that before.”

  We chatted a while longer and I found myself having a great time. Jane was fun to talk to. Most of the women I spent any time with that I was attracted to were dull and boring, or at least we never had anything in common, but Jane seemed to know me so well and we had a lot in common. I was very glad that I’d wisely decided to hire her.

  I just hoped that she wasn’t a tease of some sort and we could take this to a higher level pretty soon. She was so gorgeous that just being near her put me in a state of total lust. It took all of my self-control to keep from ripping her clothes off and just making sweet love to her right there in the kitchen. Why couldn’t real life be like the movies? Or at least like adult films.

  When she left, I watched her walk to the car. Her cute, little, firm ass was swaying back and forth naturally. Wow, that woman had curves for days. I went to the office and decided to catch up on some work. The numbers for the motorcycle company had not been looking very good. I was possibly going to have to fire some people. That was always fun, but sometimes it was a nuisance. I had to be in the right mood for it, otherwise it just felt like work.

  But as I tried to concentrate on work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sexy, new, nanny that had come into my life. Jane was something else…

  Chap
ter Twenty-Five

  Leia

  I loved being near my kids. It had been so hard not to break down and just tell them that I was their mother. I had to stop myself several times a day. I had to refrain from acting too close to them for fear that Ted might get suspicious. I was just being the best nanny I could be and I had become their friend. They liked me; they trusted me. That was a great step in the right direction.

  As I drove home, the dinner that Ted and I had just enjoyed kept going through my head. The impulse to stab him in the eye with a fork was almost too great, and it had overwhelmed me at one point. But I’d managed to keep my cool.

  I’d learned to cook during my isolation while I was waiting to heal up. I didn’t have a lot else to really occupy my time with, so I indulged in a few hobbies. Cooking was my favorite. I loved to fill the house with the smell of delicious food and I enjoyed the process of mixing the ingredients together and how it all ended up being wonderful food in the end.

  And apparently, Ted agreed with me on this. He loved my cooking so much I could see in his eyes that he was starting to fall in love with me a bit. I wondered if it was just the food, or if there was something else that he was remembering. As much as I hated him, when we were having that dinner I had to remind myself more than once of who Ted was and what he’d done to my kids and me. But it also seemed like the old times, when we would have dinner together. It was rare, but it did happen. And it was actually nice sometimes.

  We’d fallen in love with each other for a reason, after all.

  But I hated the very air he breathed now. And I was going to destroy him. I’d never been a vengeful person before, and I have to admit that it was worrying me. I was aware that I was starting to go over the edge and losing a little bit of myself in the process. No matter what happened, it was imperative that I keep who I was hidden. My babies needed me.

  At one point in the dinner I’d grilled Ted a bit deeper about what life had been like since his wife’s death.

  It was so bizarre hearing him talk about me that way, but it was fascinating watching him squirm a bit. He had his canned responses down cold, but when I urged him to go beyond that and I probed a bit deeper his answers seemed kind of flat and almost inhuman. He had no real substance to him.

  “Well, it was so tragic,” Ted said. “It was such a bizarre accident. I drove back in a fit of hysterics, practically. I even had to stop a few times to get myself together before continuing. I probably should have ordered an Uber or something, but for whatever reason the thought didn’t really cross my mind. I had to find my wife; I had to make sure she was ok. That was the only thing I could think or feel. It was repeating in my head like some kind of a crazed mantra. When I think back to the fact that my boys were in the back seat…wow. What was I thinking? I never should have been driving in that state with them there. But it happened.”

  “That sounds terrifying,” I said. We’d just finished the dessert and I was feeling very full. I could see that Ted was feeling the effects of the food as well and he was having trouble staying awake.

  “It was,” Ted replied. He was crying a little now. I would never get over how easy it was for him to cry on command. He was a master.

  “I remember hearing about the fire,” I said. “It was a bit of a news story due to her wealth and status. Is it true that they never found the body?”

  This question would have sent anyone else into some kind of rage. I was sure that Ted was going to yell at me and ask me how I dared to ask him that question. I think it would have been a warranted response under those circumstances.

  But Ted was easy and sweet. He smiled. “No, they never did. It’s difficult to say what happened to her, but I’m fairly certain that she did not survive the fire.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t be trudging up stuff like that. That was rude of me.”

  Ted waved his hand and shook his head. “No, you’re fine. It was a long time ago. I’ve had plenty of time to grieve. I’m just thankful that the boys don’t remember anything about it. I’m sure they will ask questions and all that when they get older, and I’ll tell them the truth when I feel that they are old enough to handle it. But I’m ok. I know that Leia is watching me from somewhere and keeping an eye over all of us.”

  Well, he was kind of right…

  “That bastard,” Taylor said. “He really said all that? I don’t think he even gets how creepy he comes off, does he?”

  I shook my head. “No, he really doesn’t. There is just nothing inside of him.”

  Sitting in the Jacuzzi with a glass of wine and some soft music in the background, I was finally getting a chance to relax and unwind after my day. Taylor was sitting on the edge of the Jacuzzi, still wearing his clothes, having just arrived home from the hospital a while ago. It was one of his long days. I’ve never been able to figure out why doctors often have to work such long shifts. But then again, Taylor was the head of the clinic.

  Sitting in his mansion, I felt a bit like a princess. Taylor had told me that he was rich and I knew he had money, but I never realized that he was worth over a hundred million dollars until we started getting really close. And even then I thought he might be joking, but he was quite the entrepreneur. Not only was he the head of one of the best hospitals in the country, but he had done some groundbreaking research on cell reproduction, in association with Patrick. He’d also written and published six New York Times best sellers. Taylor had even done a few book tours in his time.

  “Won’t you join me?” I teased flicking some water at him.

  “Oh, that is so tempting,” Taylor said. “But I was hoping to get some work done on the new book tonight.”

  “I thought you were just in the beginning stages. Have they even accepted the proposal?”

  “Oh, yeah. Did I not mention that to you? I thought I did? Anyway, the publisher is excited and would love to have the book by mid-summer, which gives me precisely three months to research it, write it, edit it, and get it in a publisher’s hands. So, the next few months are going to be a bit busy. They always are when I’m writing.”

  I shook my head. “Wow, I feel like a lazy bum compared to you.”

  He smiled. “I do feel lazy.”

  With that he headed off to his office while I stayed behind. The Jacuzzi felt great after a long day. It was the only way I felt that I could get the “Ted” off of me.

  How long would it take? How long would my kids have to live with that person? When would I be able to look at Ted behind bars?

  The suspense, the not knowing—it was killing me. It felt like some itch inside my chest that I just couldn’t scratch.

  I took several deep breaths and closed my eyes. But when I did, I kept seeing Ted’s evil, twisted face right in front of me. He actually thought that he was having some kind of romantic effect on me. It was almost laughable. If he had any clue to how close he was about to come to his whole world being ripped apart…

  “Good riddance,” I said laughing as I took a sip of wine.

  Yeah, I could definitely get into this revenge game.

  * * *

  I was just finishing putting the kids to bed the next night when I heard Ted downstairs doing something. Papers were shuffling and it sounded like he was pacing back and forth. Even all these years later I could recognize the signs of him on the verge of some kind of narcissistic breakdown. Something hadn’t gone his way and the world was out to get him, so he was going to have a little tantrum. That was about the gist of it, I was sure. God, he was such a baby. How had I ever let the jerk fool me into falling for him?

  And how much longer was I going to keep blaming myself? Most likely, I would never stop. I’d pretty much made peace with that. As much horror as Ted had wrought on my life, he couldn’t have done any of it without me letting my guard down. I’d let him in and he’d taken everything from me.

  The boys were both fast asleep. I turned out the lights and closed the door lightly behind me. Then I made my way down the step
s and headed towards the kitchen so as not to disturb him. From upstairs it had almost sounded like he was on the phone with somebody, but now he was just talking to himself from his office. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t resist taking a quick peak at him.

  He was standing hunched over his desk breathing heavily, sweat pouring from his forehead, his shirt and tie disheveled, and a half empty bottle of whiskey clutched tightly in his hand. Yep, the sight looked very familiar to me.

  I decided to ignore him and head out.

  “Hey, are you leaving?”

  Ted’s voice bellowed from down the hall. To his credit, he sounded only slightly inebriated.

  I turned around slowly and walked towards his office. By the time I got there, he had straightened himself up slightly, and plastered that cocky, alpha male smile on his face once again. He was cool as a cucumber. Only I knew him way better than that.

  “Yeah. You sounded busy, so I didn’t want to disturb you. The boys are asleep and should be quiet for the night. Anything else I can do for you before I take off?”

  Ted laughed. “Well, I’d love a massage, to get this kink out of my neck, but uh… no that’s fine. Thanks for taking great care of the boys. You have a good one.”

  I wasn’t about to pass up an invitation like this to get closer to him. Sooner or later, he was going to lower his guard, and then I’d have him.

  “Massage? I could do that,” I said.

  Ted looked up at me shocked. “Really? That’s not in your job description at all.”

  I smiled. “I know that, but I used to work as a part time masseuse in a health spa. I could totally help you out. Do you have a table?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  Ten minutes later we were in the massage room. Ted was lying face down and shirtless on the table and I had the towels and oils all set up. I placed the oil in my hands and began to rub them together to warm them up. I’d been getting massages regularly since I was a teenager and I figured I could fake it good enough. At least that was the plan. I couldn’t believe that Ted actually had a massage room for himself in his house. But it was pretty fancy and very serene.