Because that was the problem. I’d already fallen for him. So he had the power to hurt me whether he knew it or not. It’s one thing to hook up with your hot boss, I guess. It’s another thing to carry on a secret affair with a man you’re pretty sure that you love.
That would have to be enough though. I’d have to love him enough to be brave. I’d have to be there for David and still give 100% as his nanny, not spend time mooning over his dad. When I did see William, I’d be professional. I could act like we were friends—not the closest of friends, but friendly. I couldn’t kiss him, climb on his lap, flirt with him shamelessly. I wanted to do all those things, but like William, I wasn’t willing to risk David’s feelings to pursue this.
I called him. He picked up on his personal line.
“Hey,” I said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m playing Jenga with David, and I’m fairly sure he cheats. He nudges blocks forward when it’s not his turn, trying to make the structure less stable. So it’s more likely to fall down on my turn.”
“So you’re saying that a precious five year old boy is sabotaging you and that’s why you’re losing at Jenga?” I teased.
“Exactly. His adorable face is the perfect disguise for a high-stakes gambler who cheats to win.”
“Ha!” I said, “You know he won fair and square at Candyland last time.”
“I think you stacked the deck in his favor.”
“I should call you out for that. We’d duel in the streets outside the saloon because you accused me of cheating!” I said.
“I don’t think you’re above manipulating the outcome of a board game in his favor. I also happen to have it on good authority that you helped him dispose of the water chestnuts in his stir fry last Tuesday,” he accused.
“What do you have, a camera?” I laughed.
“No, there’s no surveillance in the house,” he said seriously, “only at the doors. But you hid them in your napkin and I happen to know you eat everything.”
“I’m a cook. I love food. In his defense, those water chestnuts were like Styrofoam. I had to rescue him. And if he didn’t finish eating you had said he couldn’t have pudding. What kind of fascist monster withholds chocolate pudding?” I said.
“All right, you were justified. I’m sure the pudding was excellent.”
“You should let yourself eat some pudding once in a while. Loosen up. Have some fun.”
“Isn’t losing at Jenga supposed to be fun?” he said.
“I meant go to a concert or go dancing. What do you like to do?”
“I used to enjoy golfing.”
“Golf? Oh my God, William, you’re not seventy years old. I’m talking actual fun. I know! We should take David to a football game!”
“You want to go to a Bears game?”
“Yeah. I bet Red would let me buy a game of his season tickets if you guys will go.”
“Jessica, my company has box seats. You don’t have to buy my football tickets, although that was very generous of you.”
“So we can go?”
“Yes. I’ll have my assistant check their home schedule and work out a time when I can attend.”
“Perfect. I want to get David a Bears hoodie, okay? So he’ll feel more like he’s part of it. Maybe teach him the basics about the rules.”
“I can teach him the rules, and I can outfit us head to toe with fan merchandise if that’s what you want.”
“Nope. I just want to get him a little gift. It’s not about who has more money. I know you win that one. It’s about making sure he knows this is for him, and that I want to give him a hoodie. I noticed he doesn’t have any sweatshirts of any kind.”
“He has a dinosaur sweatshirt from the Field Museum. He just chooses to use it as a cape when he’s playing paleontologist.”
“Wait, so he knows the word paleontologist but he thinks they wear capes?”
“No, he just likes to wear one. I’m sure he knows it would get in the way of the real work. But he’s playing.”
“You’re so stuffy,” I teased, secretly so excited about the Bears game.
“And you’re so free,” he said.
“Yes. And I’ll see you guys tomorrow. Tell David I said good night. And to kick your butt at every game.”
He laughed and said goodbye.
I had to admit it, talking to him made me feel like I was rising up in a hot air balloon, like I was buoyant and happy.
This was going to be worth it either way. I decided I was strong enough to do this, to shut down my fear and take the leap.
The next day, I turned up right on time. I woke David, played tickle monster to get him to go wash his face and use the bathroom. Then he ate some bananas and part of a pancake, drank his juice, and put on his uniform. I couldn’t help feeling his forehead, asking how he felt.
“I’m okay. And Mrs. Angie was so glad I came. It was about magnets. I love magnets. Did you know they have two sides? Poles, like the North Pole not like a pole that’s a big stick. And the one side only sticks to an opposite side, not the same. If they’re the same, they push away.”
“That’s so cool,” I said, “We should try with your magnet blocks later.”
“We will. And we have to practice Jenga because Daddy figured out I’m cheating.”
“Okay, we’ll come up with a new plan to beat him. Now brush your teeth,” I said.
While he was at school, I got him a Bears hoodie, and I picked up a pair of Bears socks for William. I just couldn’t imagine him wearing a hat or anything that casual. Or if I imagined it I’d wind up naked because seeing him in a t-shirt had undone me completely. I returned our library books and picked out a couple of kids’ books on football and the Bears, a bio of Urlacher and one of Singletary who had been my dad’s favorite. I had dug out my old navy-blue sock hat the night before with the logo on it. I couldn’t wait to start teaching David about my team, my dad’s team.
We were holed up with a pile of books and some of his dino action figures when William came in. David was wearing the hoodie over his school uniform—he insisted—and ran to show it to his dad. He was so excited he was jumping up and down and saying over and over that I was the one who got it for him. I smiled fondly. William met my eyes, and he was grinning.
“I see you’ve been delving into the history of the team,” he said.
“Daddy, did you know Mike Singletary was the linebacker for eleven straight seasons? And he had 99 solo tackles.”
“109 solo tackles and 52 assists,” I corrected.
“You know Singletary’s career stats?” William asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“He was her dad’s favorite,” David piped up.
I winced a little. I wasn’t ready to talk about my father or his death.
“Then her daddy had great taste in players. Singletary was a spectacular defensive player,” he said, and just like that it was all right. He didn’t demand details from me. I relaxed, “You’ll stay for dinner, I hope?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to sound light instead of excited.
I had put on blush and eyeliner before he got home. I’d even taken down my ponytail. David had promptly insisted on brushing my hair. It was very sweet, but it hurt because clearly a human has more feeling in her scalp than the toy horse he usually combed. Still, my mane was gleaming even if I had to bite my lip to keep from howling when he yanked out a tangle with the plastic comb he was using.
“I did her hair,” David announced, “So she’d look fancy when you got home. She didn’t let me put in clips though.”
David’s toy show horse had pink plastic bow clips and I had drawn the line there.
“A girl has to have standards. He can rip out my hair with that toy horse comb, but I’m not wearing plastic bows,” I laughed.
“Oh God, he’s brushed my hair with that comb before. I swear the CIA could use that thing to get information out of foreign spies. Once he did my leg hair and I was surprised I wasn’t bleeding do
wn into my socks when he was done,” William laughed.
“He’s being a baby,” David informed me.
“He’s not wrong,” I said.
I got David washed up for dinner, and we sat down to steak, potatoes, and asparagus. It was delicious, so simple and excellent that I debated adding the option to my future menu—creamy mashed potatoes with a hint of white pepper, asparagus roasted with oil and perhaps the addition of flaked pink Himalayan salt for presentation. Maybe a drizzle of truffle oil, too. I imagined ways like that to elevate it even more when I noticed that David and William were talking, not about football, but about me.
“She even got these books from the library while I was at school.”
“That’s great. Which one’s your favorite?”
“All of them. And the dinosaur one because Jess never forgets my dinosaurs. This ones about pteranodons.”
“The flying ones,” William said.
“They called them pterodactyls back in the old days,” he said wisely and I giggled.
“Yeah, the nineties,” William said ruefully, “God, you must’ve been born in the nineties.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said, “and David must’ve been born in, let’s see, 2013?”
“2014,” William said, “January 11 at 3:07 in the morning.”
“So you were almost a New Year’s baby,” she said. “I bet you were so cute. I want to see a picture. I mean besides all the ones on the walls.”
“I don’t have pictures when I was a tiny baby,” he said.
I shot William a look. Clearly the man who had massive canvases of his son on the wall would have had newborn photos. Probably ones that had the mother in them. I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to say that the little boy was entitled to all of his past, even if it made his dad uncomfortable. But it wasn’t my place. I just ate my potatoes and nodded.
“Well, newborns keep you really busy. There may not be time for pictures when you’re constantly crying and pooping your pants,” I said. That made David laugh, because I said poop. The tension in William’s face lessened, and we went back to talking about dinosaurs.
After David had his bath and we all read together on the couch, we put him to bed. It was so cozy and perfect. I got my shoes and headed out for the night. William called me back and pulled me into his arms by the door.
“I’ve been dying to do this,” he said softly. He leaned in and kissed my neck just below my ear. Ribbons of sharp sensation trailed down my neck and to my breasts where my nipples tightened with arousal. I wanted to rub up against him, hold his head to my neck for more. But I settled for the delicious tease, the tantalizing suck at my sensitive throat before he lifted his head and kissed me softly, briefly on the lips.
“Good night, William,” I said.
William was a revelation to me. After David went to sleep at night, William and I went into the living room, picked out something to watch and sat together. It didn’t sound like much, but it was everything. Because he’d pull out a box of cheap caramel corn he’d bought since I said it was my favorite, or he’d put one of those fabulous silk throw pillows on his lap—the ones I was afraid to touch—and let me lay my head on it and watch a movie while he played with my hair, stroked my face. We’d make snarky comments about the movie or shout answers at a game show. It didn’t matter what we were watching. We were in sync, making each other laugh, filling up each other’s empty spaces.
God, I hadn’t known how lonely I was, how starved for touch until he said ‘come here’ and put his arm around me. I had curled up on the couch beside him and he just held me. I rested my head on his chest and half the time I just shut my eyes and soaked it in. After a week of that, I found I looked forward to it so much. Like it was the payoff at the end of every day.
He called me one day and asked if I could come over after David was asleep, just to spend some time together. The sweetest thing about it was that I wasn’t working that day, not for him. He just missed me on the days we didn’t see each other. It wasn’t a Netflix-and-chill call either. He wanted to be with me, be near me, talk with me, hear about my day. I had taken the risk of going over there in my comfy clothes—and my comfy clothes weren’t Kate-Hudson-for-Fabletics style. They were sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt and a hoodie. I had on my puffer coat on top of all of that. I was warm and bulky and cozy when the driver dropped me off at William’s house.
He met me at the door, wrapped his arms around me. His whole body was deliciously warm. He was wearing a flannel shirt, a soft brown plaid that probably came from an Italian designer. It felt like paradise, so soft against my cheek. He kissed the top of my head, then kissed my mouth. It was slow and sweet, passionate. I was breathless in just a few seconds. When we broke apart, I took off my big coat and watched his reaction to what I was wearing—not my cute, pretend-lounge clothes and makeup, but the real me. He smiled, kissing me again.
“There’s my girl,” he said, “I’ve missed you.”
He showed me a drawing David had brought home from school, “It’s evidently Squanto riding in on a stegosaurus to teach the ‘stupid pilgrims’ how to plant corn the right way.”
“Dinosaurs were extinct then,” I said.
“Yes, well, if they’d been around, I think the whole colonization process might have gone very differently,” he said with a chuckle. “If the Wampanoag had dinos on their side.”
“True,” I said, “you know I did read him a book about the first Thanksgiving the other day—the kind with the real historical facts, not the cutesy cartoon kind.”
“It made an impression. I expect Squanto to show up with a T-rex in the next picture and take care of business,” William laughed.
We settled in to watch the latest episode of a true crime show I liked. I curled my feet up under me and leaned into his arms. About ten minutes in, he said, “I think I want to tell you about Heather.”
“David’s mother?”
“Yes,” he said, and muted the TV, “don’t worry, it’s streaming, you can watch the end later.”
“I wasn’t worried about the show,” I said, turning to him. I kissed him. “I’m glad you want to tell me.”
“I don’t want to tell you. I don’t ever want anyone to know how stupid I was. But you have a right to know the whole story.”
“All right,” I said.
“I met Heather at a party. It was the birthday party for one of the company directors. She was singing in the band. She had on a red dress, her blonde hair was curly and wild. Her voice was amazing, but more than that, she had this charisma. I took her a drink when the band was on a break between sets. I wanted to meet her. She laughed and said the kind of guys who came to hit on her were usually lower rent than me. She was sharp like that, funny. We went out after the party.”
“So she was talented and attractive,” I said carefully, “and you were taken with her at once.”
“That’s a nice way of putting it. I made a fool of myself chasing after her. I went to gigs she had all over the city, even went out to New York one weekend to see her play when she got the band into an indie festival there. It was a failure, no promo and no decent crowds. The ones who showed up were there to sell bootleg downloads and drugs.”
“Nice,” I said wryly.
“She was devastated about it. I wanted to win her, you see. I wanted her to need me. So I said I’d back her demo, help her out, see if my money could get her a record deal. She said she needed to be in LA for that. So I did that for her. I literally rented her a place out there and a car, arranged for her to cut a demo with some studio musicians. I had my assistant get her meetings at record labels.”
“So you were her sugar daddy?”
“Not exactly. A sugar daddy would’ve just set her up as a mistress. I spent a lot of time, effort and money trying to make her dreams come true so she would want me. At one point the directors called me in for an informal meeting to discuss my behavior, my distraction.”
“Ouch,” I said.
�
�Very much so. I pulled myself together at work, but I lived for her calls, for the times I flew out there to see her, to watch her perform at some club. One weekend I took her to Monterey, stayed in a gorgeous suite, had dinner overlooking the water—“
“You proposed,” I said, feeling the bitter taste of it in my mouth.
“Yes. Me and my money and a ring from Cartier. She said yes. I thought I’d finally won her over, that she was in love with me and not just what I could do for her.”
“Did she move back here?”
“After she cut her first album and did a West Coast tour to promote it, she moved here and we married. About six months in, I knew it had been a mistake. She wasn’t a person I wanted to spend time with. I’d been infatuated with her talent and in lust with her looks and her charm. I hadn’t bothered to get to know her. I just pursued her like a prize. We didn’t get along. We disagreed on everything, and the only time either of us had any peace was when we spent time apart. She was going to LA for a couple weeks at a time, and I was staying at the office all hours. I managed a fantastic merger during that time, doubled our stock values. I was the opposite of distracted then, I was obsessed with my work.”
“So how did that work out?”
“I flew out to LA, wanted to surprise her, see if we could work things out and move forward. She was in bed with some guy, some record executive. I wasn’t even surprised, just disgusted. I told her it was over. That she’d get what the prenup entitled her to, and to get her shit out of my house before the end of the week. I felt like a fool because I was one. I was her idiot all along.”
“You made a mistake. People do that,” I said soothingly. I hugged him to me and kissed his head, “You’re allowed to misjudge people and screw up.”
CEO's Secret Baby: A Single Dad & Nanny Romance Page 7