Nanny Needed

by Cara Colter

  And he’d have a night in fantasyland. Him, the ultrarealist. He’d let himself imagine that this was his life. Their life together, and it was ridiculously good and happy and satisfying, having her beside him, understanding him, accepting him and all his quirks and flaws, making everything in his life better.

  “Simon, I don’t even have a cocktail dress anymore. I mean, I guess I do, somewhere, if Richard didn’t throw out all my things when he moved back in. It just wasn’t the kind of wardrobe I needed in rehab, so I left them all behind.”

  “So, go get a dress.”

  “I don’t have time.”

  He shot her a look that said he was getting seriously annoyed. “Then I’ll get you a dress on my way home from the hospital. What are you, a size six? Petite? What’s your favorite dress shop?”

  “I haven’t been shopping for dresses in months.”

  “But you have a favorite shop. Every woman does.”

  “Simon—”

  “It’s business, Audrey.” It wasn’t, but she didn’t have to know that. He could have some secrets. “You know how to do this. Be charming, which I know you can do. Flatter them, flirt just enough to make them happy, and then I’ll swoop in and convince them to agree to anything I want.”

  “Business?” She frowned at him.

  “Yes, business.” She’d buy that much easier than the idea that it was simply what he wanted. And he wasn’t arguing with her anymore. He was leaving. “Thanks. I’ve got to run. I’ll be back in an hour. Call me and tell me where to pick up the dress. Oh, and you’re going to lock up the dog, right?”

  Tink lifted his head and whined an objection.

  Simon had his back turned, so Audrey couldn’t see how happy he was about something as mundane as a business dinner at his house, all because she’d be at his side.

  Chapter Eleven

  Simon checked on a grumpy Ms. Bee, so grumpy he was reassured that she was indeed going to be fine, then stopped by the dress shop Audrey had selected and quickly picked three little black dresses from the half-dozen the clerk pulled off the rack. Audrey could take her choice this way, he decided. He then asked for shoes and at the last minute, at the register, a hair clip with diamonds set into a little slash mark.

  A rather expensive hair adornment. He decided he wouldn’t admit the stones were real, would just say he thought they’d look pretty in her hair if she pulled it back on one side the way she sometimes did.

  Then he thought he was being a stereotypical rich man, dressing a beautiful woman he wanted in his bed, throwing diamonds her way.

  He hated being thought of as typical in any way, but he bought the dress, the shoes and the diamonds anyway.

  When he got home, Audrey picked the plainest dress of all, which had him wondering about her taste in clothes, until she walked into the room in that dress.

  He was certain it had been the most basic thing he’d ever seen on the hanger at the store—solid black, sleeveless, with a square neckline, not low by any stretch of the imagination, formfitting but not at all tight or revealing.

  But with her in it … It set off her pale skin and dark hair to perfection. She had pulled her hair back on one side and used the little diamond pin, probably dressing so fast she didn’t even look at it that closely. Her skin was absolutely beautiful, smooth and creamy as could be. The dress was short enough to show off a pair of very shapely legs and all of her curves.

  She looked compact, elegant as could be, a perfect lady with a subtle hint of sexiness simmering just beneath the surface.

  Watching her that night, effortlessly moving into the role of perfect hostess, he wanted her more than ever and told himself there had to be a way for this to work. He’d always found a way to make most anything he truly wanted work out.

  She could be a perfect partner for him. Strong, intelligent, not afraid of him or Ms. Bee, helping him like this in his business life, bringing an ease and a genuine pleasure to his home life, loving his daughter, because he was sure she would.

  Why couldn’t he have that?

  He didn’t believe anything was impossible.

  Simon stood at her side that night, a hand resting lightly at her waist, watching her work the room, proud as he could be of her and what she’d done here on very short notice, eager to get her alone when it was done.

  Simon paid off the server, giving her extra to clean up so he could get Audrey out of the kitchen. They stood side by side at the front door, saying goodbye to the last guest to leave, and then he steered her through the house, refusing to let her back into the kitchen or the dining room, and to outside on the terrace.

  It was a beautiful night, balmy and star filled.

  She wanted to let the dog out, but he insisted that she sit while he did it for her, and when the dog had bounded down the steps and into the backyard, Simon made himself comfortable on the outdoor sofa beside Audrey, who suddenly looked a bit unsure of herself.

  “It was a perfect evening,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “You even seemed like you enjoyed yourself.”

  She considered for a moment. “I suppose I did. It reminded me that I’d always thought I was good at things like that, and that there was a time when I’d forgotten I was good at anything.”

  “It’s obvious that you were very good at what you did.”

  “Just not at anything you can put on a résumé. Believe me, it was a rude awakening when Richard left.”

  Simon put his arm along the back of the sofa, not touching her but wanting to. “You know, I could make his life very unpleasant, if you wanted me to. I’m willing. I think I could enjoy it immensely.”

  “Don’t tempt me. I’m trying not to even think about him, because I’m sick of being mad all the time, usually at him. Marion says we have to learn to let go of our anger, not bottle it up but express it in some way and then move on. Otherwise, it owns us. I don’t want to be mad forever. It’s exhausting and just no fun at all.”

  “Would me ruining your ex financially qualify as an expression of anger?”

  “I don’t think that’s what Marion had in mind. Plus, we have a daughter who’ll soon be in college. Ruining Richard financially is not what our daughter needs right now.”

  “Okay, I’ll wait,” he offered.

  Audrey laughed. Beautifully.

  He was happy, he decided.

  Right now in this moment, he was so damned happy.

  He had to figure out how to hang on to this. He couldn’t let her out of his life.

  Simon thought of what he could say.

  Stand beside me. Be my partner. Be my lover. Mother my daughter. Warm my home and fill it with joy. Take care of me, and I’ll take care of your every need and your daughter’s. You’ll want for nothing.

  Exactly what she didn’t want from anyone.

  How could he fight that? It was like fighting himself and who he was. He could take care of her in every way. He wanted to, and she wouldn’t let him.

  Hell, he respected her for wanting to be independent and take care of herself, inconvenient as it was for him.

  “Tonight was nice,” he began. “Very nice. I liked having you by my side, you feeling like a partner to me. I never had that with my ex-wife. That kind of give and take—”

  “Simon, please don’t say what I’m afraid you’re about to say,” she began as she started to pull away.

  “That I like this? That I’m extremely comfortable sharing an evening with you in this way, and extremely uncomfortable with you in so many other ways. That I think about you when I’m gone. I count the hours until I can be back here, see you again. That the toughest time is when I’m alone in my bed at night, wishing you were there—”

  She looked shocked, then hurt, then furious. “I thought you understood—”

  “I understand that you think you can’t have this. That we can’t. That you’re letting an angry, hurt sixteen-year-old girl dictate the way you live your life—”

  “She’s
my daughter!” Audrey yelled at him.

  “So … what? You’re going to be alone your whole life, just to make her happy?”

  “I don’t know, but I have to be alone now. I mean, surely I can manage without a man in my life for a few months, a year, if that’s what it takes.”

  At which point, he fell silent, angry at the whole world and the difficulty of the circumstances in which she’d found herself, knowing how hard she was working just to get back into her daughter’s life.

  He had to understand that much, at least. He was trying to do the same thing. He wanted Peyton living here with him, and he was prepared to change his life, if need be, to have that.

  How could he make it harder for Audrey to do the same?

  “I don’t even know how to fight this,” he said, hurting and hating to let her see it.

  “Fight what? Surely you don’t happen to get every woman you want, when you want her. I mean, I know who you are. I’m sure you get most everything you want, but hasn’t any woman ever resisted you? You just move on, Simon. There’s always another woman, right?”

  Audrey actually slid away from him, as far as the sofa would allow, as she watched a hard, dangerous glint come into his dark, stormy eyes.

  She’d never really been afraid of him before but now was starting to see that maybe she had pushed him too far.

  “That’s what you think this is?” he finally whispered. “My poor, overly inflated ego raving at you this way? All because there’s a single woman I can’t have? That’s what you think of me?”

  He was practically screaming by the time he was done.

  And hurt.

  He looked hurt.

  Audrey just sat there, stunned.

  She liked him. She really did.

  He felt so strong, solid as a rock. Solid as in grounded, un-moving, unwavering, unrelenting. Someone a woman could trust.

  But he was absolutely gorgeous and rich and, she was sure he could have most any woman he wanted.

  Why would he want her?

  A thirty-eight-year-old woman with a messy personal life and such messy little problems as drinking too much and making a fool of herself by throwing herself at another man who happened to be married?

  She was just the latest woman to cross his radar.

  Wasn’t she?

  “You can’t tell me you want some kind of lasting relationship with me?” she insisted.

  “I can’t?” he shot back. “You know that? You’re absolutely certain? And why is that? Because I’m not capable of those kind of feelings? The ones that last? Or relationships that do?”

  Audrey winced at the bite in his tone.

  “Let me tell you something,” he said, leaning closer, the words blasting past her heated cheeks. “I am not your ex-husband. I didn’t cheat on my wife, and I am not the one who walked away from our marriage. I wasn’t happy in it, but I married her and we had a daughter I adored. I would have stuck it out to be there with my daughter for as long as I thought her mother and I weren’t hurting her by living together. My wife left me, not the other way around.”

  “Okay. I didn’t know. But still—”

  “Am I just an image to you, Audrey? A stereotype? A fairly young, rich man who thinks he’s entitled to anything he wants. Is that really what you think of me? Because I thought you knew me better than that. I thought you felt something for me, the man, not the image.”

  She was stunned.

  Honestly stunned.

  She didn’t just like him. She admired him. And fought nearly every waking and sleeping moment not to think of him or to want him.

  Not now.

  God, just not now!

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the fury finally gone and sadness creeping in. “My mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  Simon was at the hospital first thing the next morning because when he called to check on Ms. Bee, she was insisting on being released and her doctor wanted to keep her at least until the end of the day on IV antibiotics.

  His ex-wife called as he pulled into the hospital parking lot to say that she and her new boyfriend, some Italian she’d met last month, were planning a two-week cruise of the Mediterranean and Peyton didn’t want to leave her dog for that long. She wanted Simon to talk Peyton into going.

  “Two weeks? Doesn’t she have school?” Simon asked.

  “She’s five. What are they going to teach her? Her colors? She knows those. She’s the smartest child in her class. She’s already reading on a third-grade level, Simon.”

  He grimaced, frustrated beyond belief and determined not to let it show. He tried to never sound annoyed or mad when his ex-wife called, to never show her how much he wanted more time with his daughter. If she knew how much it mattered to him, she’d just make it that much harder. That was the kind of woman he’d married.

  He could only hope the Italian had a ton of money and was dying to move back to Rome soon with Simon’s ex and wouldn’t want to take a five-year-old with him.

  “Well, I don’t know what to tell you. She loves that stupid dog,” Simon said, though he loved Tink more every day for the joy he’d brought his daughter and because she couldn’t wait to be with the dog. Which meant, she was with Simon. “Maybe you could take the dog with you.”

  “On a boat for two weeks!”

  Simon rolled his eyes, knowing how outrageous that suggestion was. “Just an idea. I mean, we want her to be happy, don’t we? Because if she’s miserable and missing the dog the whole time she’s gone, you know what it will be like to be around her.”

  “The dog was a terrible idea,” his ex complained.

  “I know. I’ve been trying to get rid of it ever since we got it, but … Peyton loves him now. I can’t do that to her.” Simon tried to sound overly burdened and uninterested. “She could stay with me, of course, but Ms. Bee was put in the hospital yesterday with a bad gallbladder. So, it’s really not a good time.”

  There.

  That ought to do it.

  If his ex thought she could inconvenience him, he’d have Peyton for sure.

  “Simon, she’s your daughter, too—”

  “Sorry, I have to go. I’m at the hospital, and Ms. Bee’s doctor’s here.” The doctor looked completely exasperated. Ms. Bee was as set in her ways as a mountain. “I’ll call you later.”

  He closed the phone, introduced himself to the doctor and conferred with him while Ms. Bee glared at them both, insisting she go home immediately.

  When the doctor was gone, she let him have it, too.

  What was it with the women in his life lately?

  Every one of them doing nothing but making him want to scream.

  And he’d actually done it—screamed—at Audrey last night, all while supposedly trying to tell her how much he cared about her.

  Simon laughed miserably.

  Ms. Bee actually stopped complaining at that and stared at him. “What have you done? Besides tell your ex-wife that ridiculous bit about this not being a good time for us to have Peyton for two weeks? You’d never turn down time with that child, and I’d certainly never let you use me as an excuse. I’m fine.”

  “Don’t worry. Peyton will be with us. Her mother has a new boyfriend. They’re going on a cruise of the Mediterranean.”

  “And your dinner party?” Ms. Bee asked.

  “Went off without a hitch. You’d have been proud,” Simon said. Of everything except what had happened afterward.

  She snorted her displeasure or maybe disbelief that things had gone perfectly. “If that’s the truth, you certainly don’t look very happy about it.”

  “I swear to you, it was a beautiful party. Not what you would have done, of course,” he told her, because she’d never believe anything else and he was perfectly willing to flatter Ms. Bee to make her happy. “But it was lovely.”

  “Then it must be that woman who’s made you so angry.”

  “It’s every woman in my life right now,” Simon said. “You on top of the list. If you da
re try to leave this hospital before the doctor says it’s okay, I’ll—”

  “You’ll do what? You know I don’t respond to idle threats. Honestly, Simon, you should have figured that out years ago. Why do you even bother?”

  “If you leave too soon, I’ll call all three of your children, and they’ll be here fussing over you for days.”

  “You wouldn’t,” she said, sounding as if there was nothing frail or weak about her, despite her recent medical difficulties.

  “Try me,” he growled. “I have a meeting, but I paid off the nurse outside. If you try to leave, I’ll know about it before you even find your clothes.”

  She made a disgusted sound. He turned to go, immensely relieved. Ms. Bee was in fine, fighting form. She’d be okay.

  “Well, I just can’t wait to come home to you,” she called out. “Happy and sweet as you are this morning. I may stay another night.”

  “Idle threats,” he said. “I don’t respond to them, either.”

  “You must have fought with Audrey,” she said, reading him as well as always. “I can tell.”

  Simon sighed, wishing he’d made his escape before they got to this.

  “I have to admit it, but I may have been wrong about her,” Ms. Bee said.

  That was an astonishing revelation.

  Simon turned back around and waited, frustration warring with his own long-standing habit of trying not to show anyone how he was truly feeling, unless he was trying to be intimidating or he was mad.

  “I have to say, she was very … competent in handling things yesterday when I became ill.”

  “Competent?” Simon grinned. That was high praise from Ms. Bee.

  “And, I have to say, even kind to me, when I haven’t exactly been kind to her. So I can’t imagine why she was nice to me, except that … maybe … she’s simply a nice person who’s been through a very hard time.”

  Simon nodded. “I’m glad she was there to take care of you.”

  “And of you last night,” Ms. Bee added. “What did you do to ruin it?”

  Said too much, he thought.

  Felt too much.

  Needed too much.