Babysitting the Billionaire

by Nicky Penttila

  Right. May rummaged in her woven-basket purse, feeling like a lady dressed for a flea market finding herself in BuckinghamPalace. Fingers sliding over the smooth egg of the device, she pulled it out and held it out, or rather up, to the man. He glanced at it, and then glanced at her.

  “We need to talk. Upstairs.” He turned and headed toward the elevator. Sadie looked at May as if to say she was sorry to have saddled her with this tyrant. Sadie didn’t know the half of it.

  The hotel was built tall and narrow. Sadie, sliding into her smooth tour-guide manner, waved at the elevator’s keypad. “The card unlocks the elevator. Only these two cards will unlock the penthouse floor.” Kurck tossed his head—just like a coltish girl, really, except it made May shiver. No, that was the iced-up air conditioning. It could not be the sizzling presence of the man beside her.

  “I know how penthouses work.”

  “Of course. But you don’t know how politics works. We can’t just call the senator’s office and expect her to appear at our table.”

  “Why not? I know she’s your sorority sister. Doesn’t she love penguins?”

  Sadie ignored his snide tone, but May couldn’t. “Leave her be. She’s trying to help you.”

  Kurck’s brow rose in a clean line, beautiful but sarcastic. “Sounds like she’s making excuses for why you are going to fail.”

  “And what was your excuse?”

  Before he could respond, the elevator stopped with a beep and a jerk. He stalked off, leaving his rolling bag behind. May pulled at the handle, and had to pull again. It must be full of bricks.

  In the foyer, Sadie grabbed her arm. “Watch your mouth.”

  “He’s not listening, anyway.”

  “You don’t know that. He was watching us both as if he were going to eat us.”

  “Swallow us whole, more like.” May shook off the arm and looked around. The foyer was as big as her apartment. “Which way is the bedroom?”

  “Don’t go in his bedroom. Jeez, May. Just leave it by the door, there.” Sadie pointed past the kitchen area. Kurck had taken over a giant mahogany dining table and was pulling components out of his computer bag. May tried to ignore him as she walked through the dining area toward what looked to be a bathroom and bedroom.

  He called after her. “There are two wings. I want to use the other one.”

  Of course. She dragged his bag past him again on her way to the opposite bedroom/bathroom wing. She didn’t look at him so she wouldn’t have to see his grin. Pigheaded, too much money, stuffed shirt weasel.

  Out of his line of sight, she sagged against the wall. Why was she reacting so strongly? And why, why was he here four days before the blasted party, if he wanted to be so secret? She was never going to get through this assignment.

  Nonsense. Of course she would. Hadn’t she made it through Rhode Island School of Design without crying? Okay, without crying in public. And she had mad art skills, and people knew it. If she was no good as a babysitter, well, what of it? It wasn’t her job.

  Sadie caught up to her. “May, this is your job. Get a grip.”

  “You might be used to man-bitches, but this is new to me.”

  “It is not, either.” Sadie sighed, exasperated. She would know; she reported directly to Edmondsson.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Don’t worry.” Sadie was biting her lip. “I’m on it.”

  “How?”

  “One of the senator’s aides owes me a favor.” The way she said it made it sound dirty. The story was that Sadie used to be a Hill staffer, but left because of burnout. Or something worse.

  “I’m sorry, Sadie. He really doesn’t even see me, but I will try to be more grovelly.”

  “You don’t have to grovel, sweets. With that perfect China-doll face, all you have to do is stay quiet and they’ll assume you’re docile.”

  “Laotian.”

  “Whatever. Just keep an eye on him.”

  “Wait. I don’t have to stay with him, do I? I was just going to leave him here.”

  “Fine. But check in on him, and if he goes out, you go with him.”

  “And at night?”

  “He should stay in at night. No, really, from what I understand he’s going to want to work Finland hours, so he’ll need to be up at three o’clock or something. He won’t be going out.”

  “Until he sees the senator.”

  “Right.” Sadie set her ruby-red mouth, turned on her heel, and headed for the other bedroom. “Have to make some calls,” she said as she passed the living room. Kurck said nothing.

  May tip-toed back into the living room past the man, who already had a recording studio’s pile of equipment set up on the table. She sank on one of the very plushy sofas.

  “You’re staying?” He didn’t even turn his head.

  “Do you promise to stay here until I come back?”

  “When?”

  “Seven.” She had to get back to work and finish that four-color brochure for the party.

  “Five.”

  “Five? The restaurants don’t open till five-thirty.”

  “Five-thirty, then.”

  She’d never be done by then. She’d have to go back and do more work after.

  “Go ahead and sigh it out, little May in June.” He turned around and gave her one of those movie-star grins.

  May loudly sighed out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. She shuffled in her bag again, and stood up. On her way out, she dropped one of her personal cards on the desk, just outside his reach. “In case you need me sooner.”

  ****

  The Darth Vader theme sounded in May’s dreams, and then she realized it was her phone.

  Kurck. At one o’clock.

  She pulled the phone closer and tapped it on. “Reed,” she said, trying to sound officious.

  “Room service stops at midnight. Who ever heard of that?”

  “What do you need?”

  “Something. Muesli, granola, yogurt. Most of all, coffee. A gallon of it.” He sounded as rough as she felt. She was glad of it.

  “There’s a coffee maker in your kitchen.”

  “Those pods? That’s not coffee. You should have bought supplies. You knew I had to work. Get them.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Twelve forty-five. I have a conference call in fifteen minutes.”

  “Vamp. I can’t be there before one-thirty.”

  She didn’t realize a person could slam a cell phone. Hoping her hearing would return in that ear sometime soon, May lurched out of her bed. She’d left him at the damn hotel at seven, staring at his little screens like he had all though supper, but she hadn’t gone to bed until eleven. This was going to be a long, hard day.

  Pulling on a long knit tunic over her cami and capris, she shuffled into her kitchen. Yogurt she had, but no cereal; he’d have to settle for fruit. The closest grocery closed at ten. He was right. She should have thought about stocking the fridge. But Sadie should have thought about that, too. This was May’s first time.

  She packed the yogurt, fruit, her French press, grinder, coffee beans, power bars, and two apples into a reusable shopping bag. She was cleaned out, except for the package Indian dinners in the freezer.

  Taking an extra minute to run down the list of things she needed for the day, she headed for the door.

  When she got off the hotel elevator, the first thing that hit her was the smell of burnt plastic. Smoke was coming from the kitchen.

  She ran to the stove, but it wasn’t there.

  “It’s the damn pod-thing.” Beau Kurck stood across the countertop from her, glowering at the sink. He was naked from the waist up. The sight slowed her already sluggish powers of mental processing, and she didn’t respond to his words for a full five seconds. Whoa.

  Then she snapped her head toward the sink. The failed coffeemaker lay on its side, coffee detritus spewing from the heating element at its top. She ran some water over the mess, first checking that it was un
plugged, and then turned the stove fan on.

  “That’s a new way to do it.”

  “Where’s your coffee?”

  She set a large black drip from the donut shop on the counter. “Here. To tide you over. You don’t take milk, do you?”

  He swept it up in a surprisingly large hand and turned away, touching his ear, or rather the phone bud in his ear. “No! I said a dozen new levels, not three, not four, a dozen.”

  She tuned him out as she rummaged around the kitchen. The kettle was way in the back of the lower cupboard. She had to practically crawl into the cupboard to reach it. She hit her head on the edge of the shelf as she pulled it out, and heard a snort. Great, now she was a road show, too.

  She ignored him and filled the kettle. Bullfrog-headed early-morning asshole. While it heated, she cut up a peach and set it on a plate next to a bowl of yogurt.

  When the water boiled, she poured it into the French press and counted one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand to four-hundred-eighty-one-thousand. She’d forgotten the timer. As the coffee pressed, she caught the eye of the Titan of Penguin Playtime and waved at the spread. She added the three protein bars from her pack, and left for the spare bedroom. Not five minutes later, she was fast asleep again.

  ****

  This time when the Darth Vader theme sounded in May’s dreams, Vader’s helmet lifted off, and it was the head of Beau Kurck. She rolled onto her back and held the phone to her ear.

  “What time is it now?”

  “Lunchtime, in Finland.” His voice sounded way too boisterous for five in the morning Eastern time. And it echoed in an odd way.

  May sat up and shook her head. “Power bar.”

  “We’re out of coffee.”

  “We’re not.”

  “You didn’t show me how to make it.” The sense of parallel sound was eerie. She rolled to her feet, taking a second to regain her balance. The cobwebs were taking a while to clear from her mind.

  “Three cups of water, three or four scoops of coffee, four minutes and push.”

  “What is a cup of water?” How was he making that stereo sound?

  “Where are you?” She pulled the door open blearily.

  “Here,” he said, leaning against the doorjamb. Appallingly bright-eyed and looking suspiciously like he’d been grinning just a moment ago, Beau Kurck pulled his mouth down into the cutest hangdog mope. “Show me? Then I’ll be able to do it by myself next time.”

  Blasted handsome special assignment, single-minded, pig-headed man. She pushed his shoulder, barely dislodging him from the doorway, and scooted past him.

  “Your hair is sticking up in the back, like an aircraft carrier.”

  She marched away from him.

  “It would lay flat better if it were longer. Just saying.”

  He hadn’t even dumped the grounds out. She turned back to him, accusation in her eyes. “You didn’t even try.”

  He shrugged, all innocence and unshaved god-like man. “You saw what happened the last time.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and flattened her mouth. But that wasn’t getting her back to sleep any faster, so she went to the sink. She dumped out the dregs and rinsed the carafe.

  “One.” She filled it to the line she’d painted on the side. She held it up to show him. “Three cups.”

  She poured the water into the kettle and turned the stove on. “Heat to nearly boiling.”

  “How nearly?”

  Was he making fun of her? She would not look at him to find out. “As long as you can stand. Or first whistle. Meanwhile,” she picked up the large soup spoon.

  “Three, or four?”

  “Yes,” she said, enjoying the truculence in her voice. “For you, four.”

  He was staring at her. She felt his gaze on her shoulders, her back, her ass. “You’re staring at my butt, aren’t you?”

  “Miss Reed, you libel me.”

  “It would be slander, not libel, if it were not true.”

  “You said it. In fact, I was plotting the potential trajectory of a Kurcki on that slope of hair of yours.”

  “That’s penguin? I thought it was Kurck.” He would not confuse her, despite the early hour.

  “Crane, really. I shortened it after I left school.”

  “Like how you shortened Boris?”

  “Didn’t work for me. Some tennis player my Mom crushed on.”

  “We need your phone.”

  “I can do the physics in my head.”

  She shook her head, wishing she’d brushed her stupid hair so he would shut up about it. “No. To set the timer for four minutes.”

  “Ah. Step Five. I’m on it.”

  Blessedly soon, the kettle burbled, and she poured the water back into the carafe. “Now, put the cap on, but don’t push the plunger down.”

  “Don’t want to go off too early.”

  She made the mistake of looking at him, at that schoolboy-innocent look on his rock-hard handsome face. She broke into a ripple of idiot schoolgirl giggles. A smile exploded across his face. Damn, he was even handsomer when he smiled.

  Enough. She ran a hand through her hair, noticing that it did slope nearly straight across in the back.

  “That’s not going to help.”

  “Did you press four minutes? Good. When the timer goes off, you press, and then pour. And then don’t call until dinner time.”

  He called out after her. “So you’re a ‘Star Wars’ fan?”

  “Only for you,” she said sweetly, and shut the door, locking it this time.

  ****

  Somehow, Sadie had done it. As much as May needed job security, she could never have figured out a way to get a U.S. senator, even a junior one, off of Capitol Hill and into the Source Restaurant, just off

  Pennsylvania Avenue

  , on a day’s notice. And nearly on time, six-thirty, when the happy-hour crowd was thinning out and the dinner crowd hadn’t sauntered in yet.

  Kurck was blessedly quiet as they waited in the small private room in the back. May wondered how many of these rooms the restaurant had. All of the tables in the public room stood empty. Maybe the restaurant should build all private rooms.

  When May had finally gotten up on her own, around eight, the Assignment had been relatively docile, too. Jet lag was catching up with him, he said, despite the equivalent of six large coffees. He went back to bed, leaving May a spare half-hour to hike back home, shower and change and make it to work, late as usual. But once Sadie had the meet set up, she had sent May home with orders to get back to her man before he woke up.

  But May had gone to the Whole Foods instead, having forgotten to eat breakfast herself. So the blasted phone rang while she was carrying two full bags of groceries and her computer tote. She let it go to voicemail, which earned her only a five-minute respite. She was fighting with the key to her flat when Sadie’s tone, “The Ride of the Valkyries,” rang.

  “Get to the hotel, now.”

  “On my way, chief.” May clicked off, and then went in and put all her groceries away. Then she watered all three of her plants, looked through her mail (all junk), and waited for his next call.

  On cue, the march thundered again. She answered. “Four minutes. Were you using the timer?”

  “I’m out of coffee. And we have to be at the restaurant.”

  “In three hours. I think we can make it.”

  “I need to be sure.”

  May rolled her eyes. “What else do you want from the store? I’ll pass by on my way to the hotel.”

  “Whatever you eat. Coffee. Crisps.”

  Crisps? “I’m on it.”

  She took her time during her second trip to the grocery, and was rewarded by a mildly ruffled Beau Kurck, in a ratty Green Lantern T-shirt and sweats.

  “How was the gym, Mr. Kurck?”

  “Why isn’t your GPS turned on?”

  Her chin dropped in her surprise. She snapped it shut. “And you know I’m not turning it on now.”

  “You
do want to keep your job?”

  “Look, crispbread.” She tossed it at him. He caught it easily.

  “Finn Crisps?”

  “Sounded right to me.”

  “You’re forgiven.”

  Fuck you, too, she said to herself, taking the rest of the groceries to the kitchen. “So,” she said out loud, “we have to be at the restaurant at six-thirty.”

  “Six-fifteen. I want to make sure everything is ready.”

  May was about to say something smart, but the sight of his face stopped her. “You’re worried?”

  He glared at her. “Of course not. It’s a clean transaction. I’ve met the requirements. It should be no trouble.” But his face took on that abstracted look again.

  May couldn’t help digging herself in further. “If it was no trouble, why did you spend a billion dollars to arrange it?” She immediately regretted asking. How rude could she be? But, to her surprise, he answered.

  “Touché,” he said, sighing. “I’ll go get ready. Do not touch anything on the table.”

  Which she hadn’t. She’d actually cat-napped on the sofa. There was nothing she was worried about at the restaurant. Although work was starting to be a problem.

  The brochure was done and at the printer, thank the stars. But the recent economic downturn hadn’t shown signs of abating in the nonprofit sector, at least in the penguin portion of it. Next time the board met, Sadie had told her, if the investments still looked as peaked, people’s hours would be cut. Since May worked only 35 hours a week already, even a small cut might lose her her health insurance. And she sure as hell couldn’t let that happen.

  “I’ll do whatever you need. Won’t you need maps and guides for the expedition?”

  “We could farm those out.”

  “Probably to me,” said May, hearing a trace of dejection in her voice. “That would be cheaper for you.”

  “I don’t want that. You are valued, and not just for your art skills. Nobody else knows the technical end of our site, and that’s golden.”

  Any clever intern could do what she did on the site, May thought, though thankfully she kept her mouth shut in Sadie’s office.

  And here she was, taking out her frustration on the goose that was planning to hand them a golden egg. Or, rather, the gander.