“Has the baby’s father made moves on you already?”
“Jeremy—please let’s not do this.”
“That’s what you say when you want to avoid the issue.”
She took the bottle out of the microwave. “I think you’d better go.”
“No wonder you don’t want to work anything out. There’s nothing to stop you from staying on here permanently. You live in a virtual palace with New York at your feet. The money he’s paying you is probably more than I make in a year at the bank.”
Reese held the baby in her arms and fed him, praying Jeremy would see the futility in this and leave.
“Anyone home?”
Nick’s deep male voice preceded him into the kitchen. She was sure Albert would have told him Jeremy was up here. Nick had announced himself in order to warn her he was on his way in.
The look on Jeremy’s face reminded her of the Hirsts’ expressions when they’d walked in the kitchen and had come face-to-face with Reese. Nick was a breed apart from other men. His polish and sophistication couldn’t be denied. Besides his compelling physical attributes, there was something else you felt just being in his presence.
“Nick Wainwright?” She tried to keep her voice steady. “This is Jeremy Young.”
Always the urbane host, Nick extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Jeremy.”
“Likewise, Mr. Wainwright. You have a cute son.”
“Thanks. I think so, too. Please excuse me for interrupting. I came to find him so we could play for a while.” His eyes darted Reese an enigmatic glance before he lifted Jamie out of her arms. The baby was still drinking his bottle. “We’re going out to the terrace, aren’t we, sport.”
Quiet reigned after his tall, hard-muscled body left the kitchen. Jeremy’s eyes narrowed on Reese’s upturned features. “Well…that just answered every question.”
“Jeremy—” she called after him, but he was out of the kitchen and the penthouse like a shot.
He’d given her no choice by showing up without having called her first. How she hated hurting him. But if meeting Nick convinced him Reese was involved with her employer, then it had to be a good thing. Otherwise Jeremy would go on hoping for something that could never happen.
She rubbed her arms, feeling at a totally loose end. She was too tired from walking so much to go out again, but if she stayed in, she knew she wouldn’t be able to study. Nick needed his time with Jamie. That left TV. Maybe a good film was on.
In the end she didn’t bother to turn it on. Instead she flopped across her bed in turmoil. Five more weeks to go, but Reese was in trouble. The ache for Nick was growing intolerable.
She flung herself over on her back. Somehow she would have to find a way to be around Nick every day and not let him know the kind of pain she was in.
An hour later hunger drove her to the kitchen where she found him making ham-and-cheese sandwiches. She felt his gaze scrutinize her. “Do you and Jeremy have plans later?”
She shook her head. “He’ll probably be back in Lincoln by tomorrow.”
“Did you know he was coming?”
“No. His arrival was a complete surprise. Albert called me while Jamie and I were at the park.”
He pursed his lips. “Then let’s eat. Grab us a couple of colas from the fridge and we’ll go out on the terrace.”
“That sounds good.”
He reached for a bag of potato chips. Together they carried everything outside to the table. After they sat down, she opened her cola and drank almost half of it, not realizing how thirsty she was.
Nick relaxed in the chair, extending his long legs in front of him while he swallowed two sandwiches in succession. “Leah and I had a conversation the other day. When she chose you for the nanny, there were three other women who could have done the job. One of them is probably still available to work. But even if they’ve all found other employment, there’ll be someone else.”
A sharp, stabbing pain almost incapacitated her. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to be free to work things out with Jeremy. The man didn’t fly all this way unless he were still terribly in love with you. I saw the look on his face. He couldn’t say what he had to say with me walking in on him. If you go home now, it’s possible you’ll straighten out your differences and end up getting married.”
Nick’s last stab had dissected her heart. “You mean the way you and Erica straightened out yours?” Her pain had to find an outlet. He might just as well have been her patronizing uncle Chet patting her on the head and telling her she was too pretty to study so much. The guys would be intimidated.
He stopped eating and sat forward. “I was never in love with her.”
The bald revelation was swallowed up in her pain because he wasn’t in love with Reese, either. Not even close or he couldn’t have suggested she abandon Jamie and follow Jeremy home.
In a rare display of sarcasm she said, “Well, that’s an excellent explanation for why your marriage fell apart. Jeremy and I have irreconcilable problems now, and would never make it to the altar.”
“Love is a rare thing,” he came back in a mild mannered voice, the kind that set her teeth on edge. “You had that going for you once. He hasn’t given up. It appears to me that anything’s still possible.”
“Not when he doesn’t want a working wife.”
“Would it be so terrible if you compromised in order for the two of you to be together?”
“Terrible?” she cried. “It would be disastrous.”
“Why?”
“Because then neither of us would be happy.” She shook her head. “You really don’t understand. Let me ask you something. After you’d studied all those years to make your place at Wainwright’s, what if Erica had said, ‘You don’t need to go to work now, Nick. Stay home with me. I have enough money to take care of both of us for a lifetime.’”
His lids drooped so the black lashes shuttered his eyes. “You can’t use me or Erica for an example.”
The first sparks of temper shot through her. “Why not? Blue bloods still make up part of our world, albeit a tiny percentage of the population.”
She watched him squeeze his cola can till it dented. “Because for one thing, the kind of love that should bind a man and woman didn’t define our relationship.”
“Supposing it had?”
Nick didn’t like being put on the spot. It only made her more determined to get her point across.
“What if you’d both been crazy about each other and she’d told you she wanted you to be home with her and the baby. Several babies maybe. What would you have said?”
His hand absently rubbed his chest. “It’s an absurd question, Reese.”
“Of course it’s absurd to you. You’re a man, right? And in the world you’ve come from, a man is better than a woman.” She jumped to her feet, unable to keep still.
A white ring of anger had encircled his lips, but she couldn’t stop now. “It would be purgatory for you if you couldn’t get up every morning of life eager to match wits against your competitors.
“I heard your whole genealogy the other night at the Yacht Club. You come from an ancestry that made things happen. Like them you live to pull off another million deal today, and another one tomorrow, and all the tomorrows after that. It’s what makes you, you.”
He pushed himself away from the table and stood up. “And you’re telling me you feel the exact same way?”
She let out a caustic laugh. “That’s inconceivable to you, isn’t it. Moi? A mere woman who has that same fire in her? Impossible. A woman who wants to make a difference? Unheard of, right?”
“Frankly, yes,” he said in a voice of irony, “particularly when I see the way you are with Jamie. No one would ever guess you weren’t his mother.”
“You’re not even listening to me because in your eyes a woman can’t be both.” She circled in front of him. “Let me tell you something about yourself, Nick. Though you’ve come a long w
ay to rid yourself of the shackles imposed by thirty-four years of emotional neglect, you’ll never be a man who could compromise on something so vital to your very existence as your work.”
The glitter in those black depths should have warned her, but she was just getting warmed up.
“Yet you hand out advice to me and suggest I go home to patch things up with Jeremy as if my problem is nothing more than a bagatelle that can be swept under the rug. Be a good girl and do what girls are supposed to do, Reese. Let Jeremy take care of business so you can take care of his babies. Compromise for the sake of your love. That’s great advice, Mr. Wainwright, as long as you’re not the one being forced to do the compromising.”
“Are you finished?” he asked as if he’d grown tired of her tantrum. She couldn’t bear his condescension.
“Not quite,” she fired back. “One day I intend to open my own brokerage company right here in New York and be a huge success. In the meantime I’m contracted with you to take care of Jamie until I start my internship at Miroff’s. For your information I never renege on my commitments, unlike you who would send me back to Nebraska on the next flight without a qualm.”
She paused at the sliding door. “If you need me, I’ll be in my bedroom studying.”
Nick buzzed his secretary. “Leah? I’ll be in Lew’s office for a while.” He’d done a little research and had requested this conference. “Hold my calls.” If Reese needed him, she’d phone his cell. But she didn’t need or want anything from him.
He still had the scars from their scalding conversation of three weeks ago. Nothing about their routine had altered since then, but the atmosphere had undergone a drastic change. When they talked about Jamie, everything was civil, but the gloom that had enveloped him after Erica had died couldn’t compare to the darkness enveloping him now. A wall of ice had grown around his nanny. He couldn’t find her anywhere. Her love and animation were reserved exclusively for his son.
Unable to take it, he’d gone off to Martha’s Vineyard with Jamie every Friday afternoon. They’d sailed the whole weekend. Sunday nights he returned to the penthouse, always finding her bedroom door closed. He’d see the light beneath and know she was in there.
Today he knew she was taking her online exam. When he’d told her he would stay home to keep Jamie occupied, she’d told him it wouldn’t be necessary. She’d handle both just fine, underscoring her assertions made during their heated exchange earlier.
On that black night Reese had delivered some salvos he’d never seen coming. Stunned by their impact, he’d barely functioned since then. This morning he’d found himself floundering in a dark sea and knew he couldn’t go this way any longer.
The emotional temperature was distinctly cooler in his uncle’s office. Lew sat at his desk, more or less squinting up at Nick as he walked in. Nick had committed the unpardonable at the club for which he’d been collectively shunned by the family.
That didn’t bother him, but it had thrown Lew out of his comfort zone. The business Nick was about to conduct with him would dissolve what little relationship they had left. This meeting would supply the final punctuation mark.
“What was so important I had to tell my secretary to cancel my last two appointments for the day?”
Nick sat on the arm of one of the leather love seats. “I’m resigning from the company effective immediately and wanted you to be the first to know, besides Leah, of course.”
“What?” Suddenly the mask of implacability fell from his face to reveal a vulnerability Nick had never seen before. “You haven’t told Stan? Not even your father?”
“No. I’ll leave that to you since you’re closest to them.”
“But you can’t resign—this place would fall around our ears without you.”
A genuine emotion for once. Who would have believed?
“I’ve named Greg as my replacement in the resignation letter I gave to Leah this morning. It’s been dated and notarized. Your son has earned the right to head the firm. I’ve earned the right to do what’s best for me.”
He shook his head, clearly aghast. “What are your plans?”
“I’m keeping those to myself for the time being. This is my last day here. Except for a few personal items I’m taking with me, my office is ready for Greg to claim. My accounts are now his. Leah will stay on as his private secretary to make certain there’s a smooth transition.”
His uncle rose slowly to his feet. “Are you dying of a fatal disease?”
Nick made a sound in his throat. Illness was the only reason Lew could possibly imagine for one of the family to do something unprecedented and heretical.
“In a manner of speaking, but that’s confidential. I’ll be seeing you.” He got up from the chair to shake his hand. His uncle’s response reminded him of a person who’d just gone into shock.
On Nick’s way out he stopped by Leah’s office. “Is everything done?”
“It is.”
“Did you get everything I needed?”
“It’s all there in your briefcase. Paul’s waiting out in front.”
“You’re the best friend a man ever had.” The fact that it was a woman didn’t escape him.
He slipped her an envelope with a check in it made out to her, gave her a hug, then rode down the elevator and walked out of the building as if he had wings on his feet. A few minutes later he walked in the door of the penthouse feeling as if he’d been given his get-out-of-jail-free card.
“Reese?”
When she didn’t answer, he headed for the terrace. The second he opened the sliding door he could hear her laughter. Over the hedge he could see her and Jamie in the pool. She’d pinned her ponytail on top of her head and was pulling him around on an inflated plastic duck. Evidently her exam was over and she’d decided to let off some excess energy. She was a knockout in that tangerine-colored bikini.
Since Reese hadn’t seen him yet, he dashed back to his bedroom and changed into his swimming trunks. On his way out he grabbed a couple of bath towels and headed for the pool once more.
To his delight she and Jamie were still moving around in the water. She sprinkled his tummy several times, provoking little laughs from him. Would the day might come when she’d do that to Nick, but it would be more than laughter she’d get in return.
He dived in the deep end and swam underwater on purpose where he could feast his eyes on her long, gorgeous legs. They were an enticement he couldn’t resist, but he had to.
A few feet from her, he surfaced and heaved himself up on the tile. She was all eyes when he came out of the water. “Nick—”
Yes, Nick. For a split second he could have sworn he saw longing in them before she turned to Jamie, who’d become her shield. “How was the exam?” His eyes were drawn to the small nerve throbbing at the base of her throat.
“Maybe I had a different battery than others who’ve taken it, but it wasn’t as hard as I’d thought it would be.”
“I’m sure you’re glad it’s over.”
“Definitely.” She twirled the duck around so Jamie could see him. “He’s been waiting for you to come home.”
What a sight! Her blue eyes were more dazzling than the water. He slid back in the pool and swam over to his son.
“Look at you having the time of your life out here.” Jamie almost fell out of the floater trying to get to him. With a laugh, Nick caught him up to his shoulder and kissed him. While he was enjoying his son, Reese did a backflip and swam to the other end of the pool to get out. It was a good exit line, but he wasn’t about to let her get away with it.
“Reese?” She looked back at him as she was about to walk off. “Whatever your plans are this evening, I need to talk to you first. Give me ten minutes and I’ll meet you in the dining room.”
“All right.”
When she’d gone, he looked down at Jamie. “We’ve got to get out and dressed, sport. Tonight’s kind of important.” He swam over to the steps and climbed out. After wrapping him in a towel, he hea
ded for the nursery and put him in a diaper and shirt.
Since he seemed content, Nick let him stay in the crib with his pacifier. Then he went to his bedroom to shower and change into trousers and a sport shirt.
Fifteen minutes later he gathered Jamie and the swing. Reese was already waiting for them at the table in the dining room with her ponytail redone. The waiter had already brought their meal and had set everything up.
With Jamie ensconced in the swing, Nick was able to concentrate on Reese, who’d changed into a pale blue cotton top and denims. “Do you like lamb?” He lifted the covers off their plates.
“I love it.”
“Then I think you’ll enjoy Cesar’s rack of lamb.” So saying, he poured both of them water before starting to eat.
She followed suit. “Sounds like you’re celebrating.”
“I thought it sounded like a good idea. Your exam is over, and a Greek friend of mine named Andreas Simonides has invited me to spend some time with him and his wife, Gabi, on the island of Milos in the Aegean. We met a few years ago when we were both single and did some sailing together. He has stayed here at the penthouse on several occasions. He’s married now with a three-month-old baby girl himself and is anxious to meet Jamie. So I told him I’d come.”
“That sounds exciting.” She was doing her best to act pleased for him, but she’d been with him and Jamie every day for weeks now. The thought of a separation caused such a great upheaval inside her, she could hardly breathe from the pain.
“I think so, too.”
“When are you leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
That soon? “How long will you be gone?” She fought to keep her voice steady.
“Two weeks.”
She didn’t have time to hide her shock.
“Now that I’ve got Jamie, I feel like a long holiday. You’ll be coming with us of course. His wife is an American, which will be nice for you.”
Reese and Gabi sat in deck chairs on the patio surrounding the pool of the Simonides villa, watching the babies in their swings. Little Cristiana was as golden-blonde as Jamie was dark headed. They looked adorable together. Reese had never envied anyone until now, but she envied Gabi, who had Andreas’s love and his baby.
The Nanny and the CEO Page 13