by Aria Ford
Collapsing back on to the bed, I sighed.
It had been a dream.
“Nightmare, more like,” I said to myself.
I was used to these dreams. It had been a year since I left Mike, but I still had nightmares about him and about what he had done to me. So suave, so kind. He had slowly turned into the kind of abuser that was accurately represented by the vile thing of my dreams. Not that the dream-monster was the same every time, but each time it was horrible. I imagined that’s how he really looked behind the mask.
“Whew.”
I leaned back on the pillows and let reality slowly sink in. It was warm in my room. The duvet was tucked up to my chin, and yet I did not feel warm or safe. I missed closeness. Even Mike, as cruel as he was, was something.
Now I am all alone.
I sighed. I knew two o’clock in the morning tended to do things like that to someone. In the morning I would surely feel better.
Come on, Emma, I told myself. Yes, you are twenty-eight and single. But so what? That isn’t really so terrible, is it? So nightmarish?
Maybe it isn’t, I thought wryly. But tomorrow might be that scary. Tomorrow I started work again, and it wasn’t just any old job.
Since I left college seven years ago, my jobs had varied from being a writer to a teacher. I left my teaching job at Redwood Kindergarten following a bout of depression and started working as an au pair. I was going to work on my first assignment tomorrow.
And what an assignment. Whew.
The universe really knows that I like a challenge. So instead of starting off on some easy task, like helping out some stressed-out single mom, I got Alexander Carring, a stunning, reclusive billionaire.
Being nanny to Alexander Carring’s children was not just a challenge. It was a task to scare even the most confident. And after a year with an abusive partner, I was far from that.
All I wanted at this point in life was peace. As I lay there in the darkness of the two o’clock morning, peace seemed like the one thing that eluded me. I would just have to wait until tomorrow.
Chapter 1
Emma
I let my off-key voice fill the small kitchen in my bedsit as I put the coffee on. Singing always made me feel better. I needed it this morning. This was the morning I would start my job.
I put the kettle on and then went upstairs to dress. This was the bit that always scared me. Ever since Mike, I had thought of myself as frumpy, unattractive, and graceless. I had no idea if I could even make a good impression anymore.
Well, if you don’t try, you don’t know.
One thing I still had was my tenacity. I went to my cupboard, opened it, and pulled out a pinstripe blouse and some blue slacks. Let’s try this, then.
They were both an nearly identical shade of blue, the blouse from Gant, a present from a friend who always looked cut. I pulled them on. The slacks fit well, and the shirt was a nice loose, one that draped beautifully. I shook out my honey-blond hair over my shoulders—Mike always liked it wild and un-brushed. I glanced at myself in the mirror.
There.
The girl looking back at me was tall, neither super skinny nor super-anything-else, with a long oval face and hazel eyes. Her lips were a natural brown and her skin was clear, slightly freckled over the nose. The blue actually suits me. A color somewhere between Slate and Prussian, it was very pretty. I drew on some navy shoes with a slight heel and turned to the mirror, viciously arranging my hair in the mock French roll I thought was suitably severe.
Giving myself a critical squint, I went through to put on makeup and thence to see if the demon coffee machine could be persuaded to give me a second cup.
Breakfast was hasty. The clock was ticking, and I had agreed to be there by eight thirty so I could meet my employer before he jetted off somewhere. Then I was on the road.
Life either likes you, or it doesn’t. This morning, it seemed to violently hate me for some reason.
“For pity’s sake!” I shouted out of the window as the traffic backed up in front of me. The workday rush seethed and hooted and gathered round me, hemming me in with the scent of exhaust fumes and the rising pressure of a thousand tempers, loosely held. I put my head on my steering wheel and practiced the ancient art of screaming quietly.
After about a minute of that, I felt better. I looked up and looked around. We were still moving, if just. I let myself roll forward the next inch or so, and decided to turn on the radio. At least if I had to be stuck, and I was destined to be late for my first job in four months, I might as well have music.
“Non…regrette…rien!”
I was shouting along with an Edith Piaff song on the radio as I finally rolled into the car park at my work. The Reliance Au Pair Agency was on the fifth floor of the massive building that reared up ahead of me. Edith Piaf had put me in a great mood, and I was ready to go. I ran up the short flight of steps with perhaps a minute to spare. I could make it. I really could! I collapsed into the lift, panting.
The man in the lift with me insisted on going all the way down to the basement, but I was exactly on time as I fell out of the lift on the top floor. I ran down the hallway, clutching my bag, keeping my balance just on my heeled shoes.
“Watch out!”
I shouted it exactly as I ran into the tall, dark-suited man in the corridor ahead of me. He staggered back, and I went down hard.
I was hissing in agony when I stood up. One of my ankles had twisted, and my shoes insisted on twisting and compressing my little toe wickedly.
“You might have minded out of the way!” I said quite loudly at the tall man. My hair had fallen loose, too, and it flowed over my shoulders, a mass of honey-dark curls down to my shoulders. “You might not be late, but I am!”
I glared at him and pushed my way past. As I did so, he turned toward me.
“If you are late, I presume you are Miss Blunt?”
I stared at him, mouth open. “What?”
“I am Mr. Carring. You are assigned to work for me?”
Brilliant. I would have passed out. I swear I would have. If my blood pressure was slightly lower, I would have been lying unconscious on the tiles at that moment. Life is what it is, though, so I was left standing upright to face my tormentor.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh.”
He said it thinly, a thread of a word. If he had been even a fraction ruder, he would have sniffed as he said it. As it was, he looked me up and down. I flinched. I imagined I must have looked a sight, with my slacks now dusty and my hair all loose about my shoulders. I bit my nail and met his gaze.
He was, as I noticed earlier, taller than me, his body lean but well muscled, his hair cut severely, his eyes a shade paler than his black hair. His face was thin, cheekbones sculpted in a way that would make Michelangelo proud, mouth sensitive and full. I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t help it. I cleared my throat and looked hastily away.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
I resolutely looked at the wall. He had a beautiful accent—an impeccable British voice. This was the owner of Carring Solutions, an investment bank that had steadily rolled in funds for the last decade or so, making its sole owner, Alexander Carring, a cool billion. Whatever he has in the bank, I told myself, he still doesn’t have the right to look at me like he discovered me in his soup.
“You’re late.”
I glared at him before I realized what I was doing. Realizing it, I looked at the wall, cheeks flaming. “I know that,” I mumbled.
He said nothing. When I looked back at him, I caught a lift of his cheeks, before he hastily rearranged his face to neutrality. Had he been smiling? I swallowed hard.
“Well then,” he said easily. “If you know that, I suppose there’s no point me pointing it out anymore. I expect you will be more reliable in your care of my children.”
I wanted to glare again. Instead I made my voice so frosty I could use it to set ice cream. “I take my responsibilities extremely s
eriously, Mr. Carring. I would give my life to keep a child safe.”
I meant it. Being a teacher does that to you. Every one of those twentysomething young lives is in your hands, and you find yourself diving into swimming pools or walking into traffic without even thinking about it, to keep a child unharmed.
He gave me an odd look. “That remains to be seen,” he said, very quietly.
“You have my word.”
He snorted. Whatever that odd expression was disappeared, hidden behind that bland mask again. I felt hurt. My word means everything to me, and he had no right to dismiss it so glibly. I was going to take him up on that, but he was walking again and I followed. We walked the last few paces to my employer’s office together and looked at the receptionist at the same moment. The receptionist looked scared.
“Mrs. Hitchins?”
“Um, yes. Good morning, Mr. Carring.”
I had the momentary pleasure of being just behind his shoulder and seeing, undiluted, the effect he had on other people. It was gratifying. At least I’m not the only person who’s scared of him. If anything, Carla looked more frightened than I was.
“I have just met Miss Blunt,” he continued evenly. “I presume there is some sort of paperwork to be done before she meets the children?”
Children. Not kids. I grinned to myself. He really was British, wasn’t he? It was, if I was honest, quite sexy. I was just not ready to admit that to anyone yet, not even myself.
“Um, yes,” Carla said nervously. “You both need to sign this form. This one is for the agreement, and this one, here, is an indemnity…”
Carla rummaged behind the desk. She did not see, as I did, the sudden closing of his features.
“I’m not signing it.”
“Mr. Carring?” Carla stared at him, long-lashed eyes blinking. She looked confused.
“The indemnity,” he said. “I am not signing it. If anything happens to my children, I will hold your agency, and Miss Blunt, personally responsible.” His face was starkly empty.
“Now hold on a minute!” I blurted out at that, feeling my cheeks heat with anger.
He swiveled round to stare at me.
Under that cool stare, I felt myself wither. I cleared my throat and continued in a slightly softer tone of voice. “The indemnity doesn’t excuse me if something happens,” I explained. “It is simply a statement from you, to say that you have, to the best of your knowledge, informed me of any dangers or health risks to your children.”
I kept it as formal as possible, using each inch of my degree in English Literature to its fullest extent. He looked at me. Those dark eyes searched mine and, to my shock, I saw a deep, buried pain there.
“Very well,” he said hoarsely. “But I am telling you, Miss Blunt, that if so much as a single hair on my children’s heads is harmed, I will seek you out. And I will see that justice is done.”
It only occurred to me after he had signed the paper and pushed it back at Carla that he had never said whether or not justice would be carried out in the court or according to his own inner compass. I shuddered.
“Well then, Miss Blunt,” he said quietly, when both forms were signed. “That seems to be all the formalities. Now all that remains is for me to leave you with my own papers and instructions.”
“Sorry?”
He was already walking to the office door. I struggled to keep up as we headed back down the hallway and to the doorway of the lift where, a few brief minutes earlier, we had just met.
“Here,” he said briefly, passing me a sheaf of printed documents, neatly packed into a slimline envelope. “I am a busy man. In two hours I should be in Chicago. I cannot take time off simply to show the nanny round my house. In that envelope is everything you need to know. The set of keys assigned to you is here.” He passed them to me, then continued. “I should ask you to sign that you have read it but I am told you are an educated woman and I am sure you do not need me to tell you the basics. Now if you will excuse me, I am late. And for me, time is money.”
He looked at me, lips lifting in what seemed to be a smile or a smirk. Then, before I had fully got to grips with what he had just said, he turned and walked, quickly and silently, into the lift.
“Wait!” I shouted.
The door was already closing, leaving me alone in the hallway with an envelope, keys and no idea at all how to begin.
Chapter 2
Emma
“And the back door opens out onto the pool area. On no account allow the children out there unobserved…”
I read the notes as I walked up the drive toward the house. That was why I was not fully looking up at it until I came to rest on the front steps. Then I looked up. I almost fell over.
The house was massive. Painted a delicate cream, slate roofed, with twelve steps leading to the front door, it was a mansion, not a house. By anyone’s definition. I was raised in a small apartment—it had an upstairs and a downstairs. I had never—ever—seen a house with three floors. Or one, for that matter, with so many windows. And doors. And such a high wall around the garden.
I stepped back, cleared my throat, and looked up at it again. I looked down at the doorstep, aware that my muddy feet had left a mark there. I had to stop myself wiping it off.
Be cool, Emma, I told myself firmly. It’s a house. What’s it going to do to you? Swallow you? I chuckled nervously to myself and rang the bell. Somewhere, magnified by the depths of the vast house, I heard it ring. I waited. Pressed it again. A few seconds later, someone answered it.
“Hello?”
I jumped. The older woman who opened it looked up at me with a distrustful gaze. I swallowed and set off boldly.
“Hello!” I said nervously. “I’m Emma Blunt. The au pair? I’m pleased to meet you. I was sent here, um, unaccompanied by Mr. Carring?”
The diminutive lady in the hallway looked up at me again, more blankly this time. I realized I had been babbling and cleared my throat.
“Emma Blunt,” I said, holding out my hand and making a rather sickly attempt at a grin. “You were expecting me, I think?”
The older woman cleared her throat. “I’m Paula Laroche, the charlady. Mr. Carring said to expect visitors. You want to come in?”
“Yes!” I said, weak with relief. “I’m looking after the children. Um, Jack and…Camilla? I’m going to be here for a month.” I asked, reaching awkwardly for the sheaf of notes he sent with me to check I had the names right.
“Yes! Yes.” The woman nodded, face lighting up as I said the names of the children. “Come this way. They’re upstairs.”
“Thank you.”
Feeling grateful to Paula, I followed her upstairs. The stairs seemed to go on forever and I looked around as we went, marveling at the stylish understatement of the house. The stairs were laminated wood with a wrought-iron balustrade, something between delightfully vintage and insanely modern at the same time. The walls were cream, the stairs pale wood, the whole house scented with some subtle perfume. I was already falling in love with the place.
“Here.” she said, stopping outside a painted wooden door. The floor had changed again: here it was carpeted, the carpet so soft and silky it absorbed all sound. She knocked once, then opened it.
“Paula!” I heard a childish voice cry out happily, and a second later a little boy cannoned into my newfound guardian angel, embracing her knees.
“I have a visitor for you,” she said gently. Her long, knotted fingers stroked the gilded softness of his hair. Two wide green-brown eyes stared up at me solemnly.
The little boy, Jack, was looking up at me like a diminutive angel. He had a soft face, wide eyes with long lashes, and slightly curly gold hair. His body was somewhere between the softness of childhood and the start of teenage growth. He was, according to my list, nine years old. I felt my heart stir with something that I could swear was awe—or the beginning of love.
I smiled down at him. He gazed at me. He kept his hand resolutely in Paula’s, and moved so that she
was between himself and I. He kept out of sight for a second, and then peered up again, to see, I guessed, if I was still looking. I grinned at him again and he smiled back, shy, hand wringing his shirt.
“You’re Jack, yes?” I asked gently. “Hi, I’m Emma.”
He shot behind Paula, not saying a word. He was shy it seemed. Paula chuckled.
“Come now, master Jack. Miss Emma wanted to say something to you,” she said, voice still laughing.
“Don’t want to come out,” Jack said firmly.
I smiled. He seemed a little hesitant, almost as one younger than himself would be. But no one said he had to march boldly out and greet me, now did they? And far rather a shy angel than a wounded, violent child, any day.
“Okay, Jack,” I said gently. “Now let’s go and find your sister. Okay?”
Jack looked up at me, eyes like saucers. “Cammi’s not playing.”
“Oh?” I asked. I looked inquiringly at Paula, who shrugged.
“Miss Cammi’s probably upstairs, Miss Emma,” she said carefully. “She’s very…” she made a gesture with her hands that I took to mean unhappiness, or nerves. I nodded.
“We’ll give her some time,” I nodded. “Isn’t that right, Jack?” I asked. He looked at me with those soft eyes and grinned.
“You like cars, Emma?”
I couldn’t help smiling at his candidness, his enthusiasm. “Yes!” I nodded. I do like cars. At one time, my guilty pleasure was the Grand Prix on TV. I haven’t watched for years, but I still followed the news.
“Come and see my cars!” Jack said. He took my hand and led me across the room, which I assumed—rightly, it seemed—to be some activity room for the children. It had an uncarpeted, high-polished laminate floor, long windows blazing with sunshine and a strange absence of all but the most basic furniture. He went to a wooden box and lifted the lid. Inside were cars. Beautiful models, made to scale—priceless, probably. I stared.
“An’ this one’s a BMW, and this one…” Jack was busy scratching round in the box, producing a bright red one with a rearing-horse insignia in tiny paintwork on the bonnet, “this one’s my favorite!” he said proudly. “It’s a Ferrari!”