by Holly Rayner
grade school the same as the struggle for a college admission. It seemed like a lot of unwarranted stress on everyone involved. When all was said and done with that one, I didn’t care for her on a personal level, but Alex and Karen were leaning heavily towards hiring her before we even met the last woman.
The last one’s name was Becky and she was a pretty, young twenty-something who came from one of the most influential families in Orange County, even I had heard of her family. Her father was a Bio-technical engineer as well and he had designed one of the L.A. areas most prestigious theme parks. When Alex saw her name he said that he knew her family. I was confused right off the bat.
“I’m sorry if this sounds like a rude question… I don’t mean for it to in anyway… I’m confused as to why you would want to be a nanny? It’s not something most girls of your… social standing would be interested in.”
She smiled and said, “That’s a perfectly legitimate question. I’m a trust fund baby, that’s for sure. But, my father was raised up to believe that the one person and the one thing we will always have to depend on in this life is ourselves and our own brains. My little brother works on a fishing boat in Alaska right now. My father is willing to pay our room and board, utilities and education, things like that until we’re thirty, but nothing else. So if we want a car or nice clothes, anything like that, we’re to get a job and pay for it ourselves.”
“So you don’t have any experience?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I have a degree in early childhood development.” She looked at Alex then and said, “I used to be a counselor at that summer camp every year, you remember that, right? You worked with me one year.”
He smiled and his eyes looked like he was remembering as he said, “That’s right, I remember! I was already nineteen my last year and you were just a kid still…”
“I was fifteen, and very insulted then that you thought of me as a kid,” she said, in a flirtatious way. Alex didn’t seem to be fazed by her flirting. Sometimes, I think he gets so used to being flirted with that sometimes he doesn’t even notice.
“Oh well, sorry about that,” he said, laughing. “It must have been the fact that I was such a worldly nineteen… everyone seemed young to me.”
“And everyone either wanted to be you, or with you,” she said, with another laugh. I looked her over as she flirted with my boyfriend and took in the Jimmy Choo shoes and the Prada pantsuit and the Michael Kors bag. I had to wonder if “Daddy” didn’t pay for those things and she’d been in school, how did she afford them? After she left, Alex again asked me what I thought.
“I don’t like her.”
He looked at me with a shocked expression. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you just flat out say you didn’t like someone.”
“You asked me what I thought.”
“True… but, I do like her and her family is above reproach. Karen, what did you think?”
“She seems like a nice, responsible young lady to me.”
“I don’t like her,” I said again. Alex laughed.
“Yes love, we’ve established that. What is it that you don’t like?”
“The way she blatantly flirts with you for one thing… right in front of me.”
He laughed again. “I don’t think she was flirting. I think it’s just the way she talks to people.”
“She didn’t bat her eyelashes once when she was talking to me,” I said.
Karen was trying not to smile as she said, “May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure,” Alex and I both said at the same time.
“I need to hire someone to help while Marco is out for his surgery. How about if we hire her temporarily for his position. That way, if the nanny we decide on doesn’t work out, we’ll have her as a back-up.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Alex said. “What do you think, Vicki?”
I knew that I still didn’t like her. I didn’t want to be overly difficult though so I said, “Okay, but can we hire Mrs. Yost then?” Mrs. Yost was the forty-something woman I’d taken such a liking to.
Alex laughed again and said, “Okay, Mrs. Yost it is. Karen, go ahead and offer Tracy Marco’s position while he’s gone. Make sure she knows that it’s temporary, but let her know if she does well, we’ll keep her in mind for any other openings that might come up.”
I had a bad feeling about that girl even being in the house for some reason but I had nothing to back that up with other than petty jealousy, so I kept my mouth shut… for now.
CHAPTER FOUR
VICTORIA
I was excited about dinner out with Alex. It had been quite a while since I’d been out and an evening alone with Alex is always a bonus. I was a little worried about what I would wear since I hadn’t bought any new clothes since before I found out I was pregnant. None of the clothes I did have before the pregnancy were really appropriate for the kind of restaurant I assumed Alex would pick either. With a bit of my excitement ebbing, I went up to start getting ready while Alex was on a business call. When I got to the master suite I was shocked to see a gorgeous black and white Vera Wang dress laying out on the bed. Next to it was a beautiful pair of black Manola Blahnik pumps and next to that sat two dozen long stemmed roses in a box. There was a note.
I picked up the note and read it: “To the most beautiful woman in the world. I didn’t get you a gift for doing such an amazing job of giving me an heir… so please accept these. P.S. Your friend Liz helped me with the sizes so hopefully they’re right. Love, Alexander.”
I had tears in my eyes. I read the note again, this time pausing longer on the part that said, “Love.” Did he love me? He hadn’t said it yet… but then neither have I and I loved him with my heart and soul. I picked up the dress and held it up to me. I looked at it in the full-length mirror on the closet door. I was going to feel like a princess in it. I turned back around to put the dress back on the bed and that’s when I saw the white velvet box. It was a long, thin box. With trembling hands I reached down and picked it up. When I opened it, my breath caught in my throat.
It was a necklace with a delicate white gold chain and a stunning black onyx pendant with white bands running through it dangling from the center of it. There were two small diamonds on either side of the onyx and I knew at a glance that it must have cost a fortune. I felt one of the tears in my eyes spill over onto my cheek and I turned around to go find Alex. I didn’t have to look far; he was standing in the doorway behind me, smiling.
“Alex! It’s all so beautiful, but it’s too much, really.”
He came over to me and took the necklace from my hands. He took it out of the box and held it up to my neck and said, “I saw it and I couldn’t stop thinking about how pretty it would look on your gorgeous neck.” He stepped sideways so that I could see the mirror as he held it against my skin and said, “Look, I was right. Please accept it, Vicki. I would never buy you anything that I didn’t want you to have or that I didn’t think you deserved.”
I was speechless. I felt like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. When I finally let him go, I voiced that thought aloud. I saw him furrow his brow and for a second I wondered if maybe he’d never seen the movie, but then he took my chin in his hand and tipped my face up towards him and said, “Do you know what the big difference is?”
“I’m not Julia Roberts?” I asked, kidding… sort of.
“No, you’re not,” he said. “You are ten times as beautiful, first of all. Second of all, she played a call girl in that movie. You’re much, much more than that. You’re my son’s mother and you’re my… I hate the term girlfriend, it seems so juvenile, and I just don’t like it. But you mean so much to me, Vicki. I look into your eyes and I just feel it… it’s like… Damn!”
“What? What is it?”
“I don’t want to scare you.”
“Scare me? You’re scaring me by not saying it.”
“When I look into your eyes Vicki, I feel like I�
��ve found my soulmate. I love you… I’m in love with you.” The lone tear on my face was joined by about a hundred more. After a few seconds it was a torrent and I could hardly see his beautiful face through them. “Please don’t cry… I’m sorry.”
I had to sniff and like a six year old, I used the back of my hand to wipe my tears away as I said, “Oh no! Please don’t be sorry. They’re happy tears. I’m so happy! I love you too, Alex. I just wasn’t sure how you felt about me.”
He grinned. I melted. “I love you. I want you. I need you, and when Cassandra is out of our lives I want to put a ring on your finger. I’m not going to do it yet because I don’t want anything to take away from that moment.”
I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Did he just say he wants to marry me? I threw my arms around him and he held me until I was able to get my tears under control. Most of them ended up all over his shirt, his shoulder was soaked. He lifted my head with a touch and pressed his soft lips to mine. He kissed me deeply and passionately and for the first time in my entire life I finally knew just exactly where I belonged.
***
He took me to Santa Monica for dinner to a place called Mélisse. It’s a French/American restaurant, and probably the nicest place I had ever been inside of. The outside looked like a picture of a French Bistro. It was wood and glass and had a big, green and white striped arbor over the entryway. There were potted plants on either side of the door and as soon as we entered we were greeted by a chic-looking hostess dressed all in black.
The walls of the restaurant were a deep purple color and there were beautiful gold lights all around the top of them that pointed towards the ceiling. They let off enough light to eat comfortably but still allowed for a romantic ambiance. The tables were all covered with white linen table cloths and set with fine silver and linen napkins. A hand-blown blue glass candle holder sat in the center of each one and a votive candle cast a glow across each of the patron’s faces. Fine artwork adorned the walls and a silver bowl sat in the center on a fine wood table filled with ice and chilling champagne.
“It’s so pretty in here!”
Alex smiled, “Yes, it is. The food is fantastic too.”
The hostess led us to a quiet corner of the restaurant to a small table near one of the windows that opened up to the man-made pond outside that had what looked like a handcrafted wooden bridge going across it and real ducks swimming and white lily pads floating. It was amazing. Alex didn’t take the seat across from me, instead he took the one next to me and angled it so that we were facing each other and close enough to touch knees.
Alex took my hand in his and brought it to his lips and said, “That dress looks beautiful on you.”
I smiled. “Thank you. I love it.”
He winked at me and said, “Thank you for agreeing to come out.”
“I needed this,” I told him. The waiter brought us a wine menu. I’d pumped enough milk for Michael for the night so that I could have wine tonight; Alex knew exactly which one to order.
The waiter brought the wine back and poured us each a glass after Alex tasted and approved it. After he’d gone away again Alex said, “Have you been to a restaurant with a tasting menu?”
“No…”
He smiled gently and said, “Basically we just order for two and they bring the food out in courses. It’s a lot of food so if there’s something you don’t like, you’ll likely be able to find something in the next course.”
“Oh, that sounds like fun.” He smiled. It was an affectionate smile and I didn’t feel like he was judging me at all for not knowing what a “tasting menu” was. It was one of the things I’d loved about him back when I was just his employee as well; he never seemed to judge people based on their background or social status.
Alex wasn’t kidding when he said there was a lot of food. Most of it, I had to ask Alex what it was, but he patiently told me what each thing was and after a while I wasn’t even embarrassed to ask him. For our first course we were served sweet pea soup, sun-choke chips and a whipped black truffle. There was also egg caviar which I’d never tasted and a soft poached egg with lemon-chive crème fraiche and American olestra caviar. There were turnips, young tatsoi, truffle-lime vinaigrette and Maine diver scallops. There were leeks, cardoons, beech mushrooms, Buddha’s Hand, crème de brandade, seared foie gras, red butter lettuce salad radish, grilled scallion vinaigrette, wagyu beef tartare smoked tomato emulsion, capers and puffed rice. My personal favorite was the white asparagus “Cocotte” and the morel mushrooms with yellow wine sauce. The second course was as ridiculously long. It was all yummy, but it was so much food. The whole time I worried about how much we were wasting and I thought about Cook and his soup kitchen. I wondered if people like Alex who had grown up with excesses realized how much food was wasted at a place like this on a daily basis, and how many hungry people were in the city. I didn’t mention it to him now. It wasn’t the time or the place, but it was something to think about for the future. I am so lucky and so is my son… I’d love to be able to give back the way that Cook does.
We ate until I was so full that I thought I would have to be rolled away and while we ate, we talked about anything and everything. Alex asked me if I could go anywhere in the world, where would I like to go. I didn’t have to think about it, I said, “Ireland.”