by Kylie Parker
“Ma’am, you just gonna hafta come down here and take a look at the formulas,” the woman said.
I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. No one would help someone like me, but Franz made it sound like anyone would help Derek Blake. Was I even supposed to tell people I was his nanny? Wouldn’t this be something a guy like him would want to keep under wraps? Out of the public eye?
But, how else was I going to find help?
“Derek Blake said you would be able to help me, ma’am,” I stated lightly.
There was a pause on the other end of the line before lots of shuffling took place. I furrowed my brow deeply as people began to whisper, and when a voice emerged it was a deep, manly voice, with a very fake kindness behind it.
“Ma’am, I believe I can help you. What was it you were looking for?” he asked.
“I need formula for an infant. She’s about two months old, but that’s all I can tell you.”
“Any allergies?” the man asked.
“Not that I’m aware.”
“Sensitive stomach?” he asked.
I checked the shoulder Clara was not asleep on for any signs of vomit, and made an educated guess since my shoulder was clean.
“No, sir,” I stated.
“All right; I’m glad you called. We deliver produce to Mr. Blake’s from time to time. I was not aware he had a child.”
Here was my chance to rein this disaster in.
“It’s not his child. I’m a temporary nanny while he settles some things with his business. A friend of his has come into town to help him with some negotiations, and Mr. Blake hired me to watch his friend’s child until the business deals are done.”
“But I was told the infant didn’t have a car seat?” the man asked.
Fucking nosy-ass prick.
“It got damaged on the flight into New York. That’s the chance you take with airports, whether you’re flying public or private. I was told one would be shipped to me soon, but the child just finished her last bottle and I don’t have the car seat yet to get her some more.”
“Well, don’t worry yourself. I’ll pick out a really good formula type, and I’ll bring you four cans to start out. If it sits well on the child’s stomach, give us a call and I can get more to you. If it doesn’t, call back and ask for ‘Randy’, and we’ll send you over another one to try.”
“Oh, Randy, thank you so much for helping me. Um… I have a card, how would you like me to pay?” I asked.
“The grocer bringing you the formula will have a credit card swiper,” he smiled.
“You have been such a great help, thank you so much,” I cooed. Men always liked it when you stroked their ego and told them they were doing good jobs. It was almost as good as stroking their dick and calling it a “big boy.”
“My pleasure: is there anything else the little one might need?”
And that’s when it hits me. She also needs diapers.
“Well, I might as well not leave anything to chance. Does your grocery store have any diapers in infant sizes?” I asked.
“Of course! We have most of the major brands and a couple of brands that have removed many of the chemicals that come in disposable diapers. Do you have a preference?”
“Oh, always the more natural diapers,” I chimed in. “Do you have any that have specifically removed the chlorine from their diapers?”
“I have the Seventh Generation brand diapers in infant sizes. How many packages would you like?” Randy asked.
“Could I get two of the bulk packages to start out with?” I asked.
“You most certainly can,” he said warmly. “I’ll have someone pack this up and they should be there in about twenty minutes.”
“Thank you so much,” I soothed.
And with that, the phone call was over. This sleeping girl was about to have formula, and I had a cover story to use for the baby stores I called. I could order the furniture online and rush it, but I still needed someone to deliver clothes for this little one. I shifted her off my shoulder and back into my arms, and as she nestled her body into mine I reached behind her to find the tag on her clothes.
“Size 3-6 months,” I murmured. “You are a chunky little thing.”
I bent down and kissed her chubby cheek before my hand flew back to the laptop. I pecked in “baby stores near me” and watched as the search results appeared, and one by one I filtered them out due to their selection online. I found an outlet store not too far from the complex that had the biggest selection of clothes, and I decided to go ahead and get her a miniature wardrobe to give her a good start.
I entered the number into my ancient flip phone and brought the ringing device to my ear before I sighed and sat back into the breakfast nook. I fed the woman who picked up the same story of being Mr. Blake’s temporary nanny for his business partner’s child, and I was, yet again, handed off to another “put-together” man with a rich sounding voice who was ready to pander to my every need because of the money he knew I wielded. I talked him through the outfits I saw online while he, literally, walked through the store and picked them up for me, and he assured me someone would be there soon to deliver the thirty outfits, ten pairs of socks, fourteen pajama sets, and five pairs of leg warmers I had ordered for her.
If I was going to dress her, she was going to be adorable.
Then, just as I hung up the phone with the outlet store, there came a heavy knock at the door.
“Delivery for Mr. Blake’s nanny!” a voice yelled through the door.
I grabbed the plastic card off the table and shuffled out of the nook before I walked my way to the door. Clara was, once again, sleeping soundly in my arms, and when I opened the door the young boy on the other end smiled kindly.
“She looks comfortable,” he whispered.
“I hope so,” I responded lowly.
“Here’s the formula,” he said before he handed me a bag, “and here’s the two packs of diapers.”
I watched as he quickly lugged in two cardboard boxes full of diapers and sat them down against the couch. He jammed his hand into his pocket as he searched for the little square device to slide my card, and when he had finally located it I handed him Mr. Blake’s card.
“Theeeeeere we go!” he sung as he swiped the card. The card reader dinged with acceptance and he asked me if I wanted a receipt, and I wasn’t sure how to answer him. Would Mr. Blake want a receipt of the purchases? How would I get one if I hadn’t gone to the store?
“I can text you one or email you one,” the boy stated.
“Oh! Well, you can email it to me,” I said. I rattled off my email and he typed it into his phone. He had me double-check what he typed before he sent it, and once it sent on his end he nodded and gave me a kind smile.
“Good luck,” he said before he turned around and shut the door behind him.
“Yeah,” I breathed as I looked down at the formula and diapers surrounding my feet. “Yeah, good luck to me.”
5
“Oh, come on. We’re celebrating! You kicked ass in there, Mr. Blake!”
Anyone who actually calls me “Mr. Blake,” when not in a work setting doesn’t actually know me well enough to party with me. It is how I distinguish between who I can trust and who I can’t: people who call me ‘Derek’ I trust; people who I don’t, but have to play nice with call me “Mr. Blake.”
Having money means anyone will hang out with me anywhere, but it’s what I’m called that helps to keep me in line, even when I’m drinking.
“Been a long day,” I sighed. I stood up to button my suit jacket before I reached and grabbed for my coat. The rain was coming down thick, watering the glass of the windows, and all I could think about was how soothing it would sound on the full-length windows as I sat on the couch and sipped a glass of fine whiskey.
“Congratulations, Mr. Blake,” my secretary cooed at me as I walked by her desk. I tapped my knuckles on the corner of the cherry mahogany desk she had been calling home for four months before
I flashed a grand smile. That was my weakness: women working for me that couldn’t resist my charm. I knew I had it, and I knew I could wield it, and it made me feel powerful…
…Especially after a win like this morning.
Things had gone very well with the conference call. I was frazzled going down the elevator this morning, but once I hopped into the back of the limo, the worries of early that morning melted to the back of my mind. The air horn squeal of a foreign child soon faded to the back of my brain as I prepared my mind for the long call ahead, and when I walked into the boardroom and sat at the head of the table, the entire world seemed to fold at my feet. Those who had been bucking against a company merger with mine easily gave way when I showed them statistical analyses of their profit losses over the next ten years; then I offered them twice what they would have lost.
It was enough to severance everyone out of the company minus the few I wanted to keep.
I had garnered the company another overseas headquarters with valuable Intel that could be used to our advantage. I then skyrocketed the company’s stock, made many people very rich, given other people a year’s worth of severance they would spend frivolously or invest, and in return I could take three weeks off that I was desperately looking forward to because I needed it.
On the ride home I dreamed of all the things I would do: take a cruise, fly to Bora Bora, and book a two-week spa vacation with one of the hot, young, up-and-coming Hollywood actresses. All I had to do was make a few phone calls and any woman I could conjure would be on my arm in a heartbeat.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d spoil them just as they deserved: fine wines, fine foods, fine massages, and mind-blowing orgasms… whatever their hearts desired would be theirs.
They just couldn’t have mine.
My heart, that is.
That shriveled into its dark corner when Gracie left.
And that’s when it hit me…
“Home, sir,” the driver said after he had rolled down the window. “Unless you have somewhere else you need to be.”
I looked up towards the top of the tower where my home beckoned to me: the penthouse every mogul vied for but none would have but me. Rich men and dastardly women tried to bribe me out of that home. It housed the best view of the city, boasted of the finest service in the state, and had its own secrets kept under lock and key.
“No, no,” I groaned before I swung my door open into the rain. “I’m fine. Have a good night.”
“Night, sir,” the driver waved as I slammed the door behind me.
I pulled my coat closed tight around me before I strode underneath the overhang. The calming rain suddenly chilled me to my bones and the glass of whiskey that had my mouth salivating suddenly turned my stomach.
There was a child in that penthouse.
A child that was supposedly mine in the arms of a babysitter I had hardly glimpsed before I dumped her and left.
“Shit,” I murmured.
“Welcome home, Derek,” Franz smiled warmly.
My eyes must have betrayed what I was thinking.
“I’d be quiet if I were you. I checked on them a little while ago, and they were both fast asleep.”
The idea of a quiet home sent relief charging through my system. In a way, this must have been what Gracie felt: cooped up and alone with a child who never stopped crying. Maybe the child wouldn’t unlatch from her breast, or maybe the child woke up too many times in the middle of the night. I headed for the elevator and slid my green and gold key into the slot in order to activate it for the penthouse suite, and I wondered where Gracie was.
What she was doing.
If she was safe…
Before I knew it, the elevator doors slowly peeled open and I stepped gingerly out into the hallway. My coat was dripping on the floor as my Ferragamo shoes clicked along the hallway floor. I reached for the doorknob and turned it, and my brow furrowed deeply when I found the door to be unlocked.
I was going to have to talk with this babysitter about being more careful.
I opened the door into darkness. The rain smashed against the full-length windows while the splattered water trickled down the remaining glass, and the fuzzy stars and the silent moon illuminated the darkened hardwood floors as I darted my eyes around. I shut the door behind me with a quiet thud before quickly removing my coat. It wasn’t until I heard a slight murmur come from the couch that I began looking around the room.
I mean really looking.
Nothing seemed out of place: there weren’t any dirty diapers strewn everywhere or unwanted baby vomit in the corners. There were no cardboard packages or crumpled clothes or lingering smells of disgusting baby poop.
There was nothing.
It was a bit… unnerving.
And then it happened again – that same little groan.
I kicked off my shoes and padded lightly across the floor before my eyes crested the edge of the couch, and the sight I saw before me caused a confusion that ricocheted throughout my system: there she was, the woman from early this morning, with her dark brown hair twisting around her head. The moonlight drenched her sun-kissed skin in a silken glow, and a small head sat on top of her prominent chest. This babysitter, with her even breaths and her wild hair, cradled this little girl who had been dumped in front of my door thirteen hours ago.
I felt the strong urge to smile, but bit my lip in order to fight the urge.
I walked down the hallway to my room before an open door caught my eye, and as I began removing my suit coat I turned my body towards the door. The colors of the room drew me in, pinks and yellows and light greens peppered the walls and the newly-established furniture: a crib by the window and a changing table by its side. The closet had containers of diapers at the bottom of it while a leather rocker recliner sat cock-eyed in the corner, facing the beautiful view the window shared with the room.
I was shocked at what she was able to put together in just this one day.
There was a stroller folded in the corner and an unopened car seat in the middle of the floor. There was a toy box next to the dresser at my right as I stood in the room, gawking at its contents.
Everything was so… small.
But then, when I backed out of the room to go finally fall in my own bed, I stumbled over something that caused my back to hit the hallway wall.
The ratty, dirty suitcase from this morning she had flopped onto the floor in order to run after the screaming child –
–My screaming child.
She had put together my daughter’s entire room and never once gave a thought as to where she would sleep.
“Jesus, this is actually happening,” I breathed to myself.
So, I did the absolute least I could do: I picked up her suitcase without grimacing at its state and walked it into the empty room right across the hall from the baby’s–
–From my daughter’s room.
Because something told me she wouldn’t want it any other way.
6
A muffled cry caught my attention before something started wiggling in my arms. I peeled my eyes open to get some bearings on my surroundings. By the time I came to, Clara was roaring. I grunted before hoisting myself up off the couch and then mindlessly turning and heading for the kitchen. I had made some small bottles of formula before we fell asleep, and my back twinged the entire way to the kitchen. The clock on the microwave glared a blindingly bright 2:43 AM as I sighed heavily, and I tried bouncing the little one in my arms before I threw open the fridge and shivering at the cold air blasting towards my body.
I quickly grabbed the bottle, nuked it, and stuck it into the child’s mouth, all the while listening closely for any signs of Mr. Blake.
The last thing I wanted to do was wake him up. This job was literally changing the way I lived my life, and I wasn’t ready to lose something so… lucrative. The money alone he was paying me to do this assignment would change the course of my life for the rest of it, and I let the microwave shut with a quiet thud before I
ventured back out into the main room. The view from his couch was breathtaking, and I walked Clara over to it so I could gawk at the city lights twinkling in the distance. It was shocking to me, how many stars blanketed the nighttime sky even though the chaos of the city below our feet was ringing out loud and clear.
“You’ll grow up with this view, little one,” I cooed.
Clara was chugging away at her bottle while her eyes slowly drooped shut, and I figured she probably wouldn’t finish before she fell back asleep against my bosom. I pondered trying to lay her down in her crib, but I was concerned about waking Mr. Blake should she start crying after I walked out of the room.
After all, their bedrooms were adjacent to one another’s, and I had no intention of running into him anytime soon.
It still irked me, how little he knew about his own daughter. Where was her mother? How could he not have had any furniture? How in the world had he been feeding her?
As I stood there, surveying the city below me, I thought about what that all could have meant: maybe he was abandoned by the mother and left to fend for himself. Maybe the baby had been abandoned to him, and he was in over his head.
Maybe he was just a selfish prick who didn’t give a shit in the first place.
That was a possibility as well.
“She was left on my doorstep,” a low voice ricocheted behind me. I jumped and whirled around as Clara’s bottle went crashing to the floor. She began crying again before I scrambled to grab it, and all the while he just stood there –
Watching –
Smirking –
What a pompous ass.
“Here you go,” I cooed before I stuck the bottle back into her mouth.
“Shouldn’t you be concerned with the chemicals they cleaned the floor with today?” he asked.
“Oh, now you have suggestions?” I threw back.
I could tell by the way he hiked his eyebrows up that I had startled him.
“I mean… I just –”
“She was left on my doorstep the night you were called,” he said lowly. His eyes hooked heavily with mine while the shadows of the night carved sharp edges around his jawline and cheekbones. He really was breathtaking: honey blonde hair swept off to the side; ice blue eyes, boasting of an Arctic chill, sitting beside a rigid nose; and a prominent jawline. His dark-rimmed glasses slowly slipped down the edge of his nose, striking up a barrier between the two of us as I slowly studied his body.