by P. Dangelico
“What are you doing?” I hear not five minutes later. Right at the part in my audiobook when the hero and heroine meet.
Ignore it, I tell myself.
It sounds suspiciously like Jordan, but it can’t be Jordan because Jordan is at work. Then I hear, “Riley,” and that definitely sounds like Jordan.
I crack my eyes open and squint into the sun. A dark silhouette appears against a clear blue sky, hovering over my lounge chair in a black dress shirt, slacks, and sunglasses like he’s here to claim my soul. Except judging by the tone and the set of his mouth, he doesn’t look very happy to see me. I can see the V between his brows even with his sunglasses on.
“Chillin’ like a Bond villain. What does it look like I’m doing?”
He pulls his sunglasses off and hangs them on his shirt collar. I get a slow blink and a frown. “Showing off too much skin at my private club.”
Oh.
Cringing, I instantly turn a full body shade of crimson no human should ever turn. Not unless they’re being immolated.
“What are you doing here?” Sitting up, I take the buds out and turn off the audiobook, scramble to shove my old T-shirt on over the suit now that he’s made me feel like a kid caught breaking the rules. I don’t think I’m showing too much skin. The bikini is even high-waisted, tasteful. I honestly don’t see what the problem is. I steal a glance around and yep, there are women wearing much worse.
The hard lines of his face relax. His eyes soften, moving to and away from me. “I have a meeting uptown later…I thought maybe we could have lunch.”
He may as well dropped a cinderblock on my head. Lunch? He wants to have lunch? Am I allowed to show joy about this? Or am I required to act blasé, pretend it’s not happening? What are the rules between employer and employee? Nanny and boss.
“I haven’t eaten yet,” I go with, a bland, neutral statement. Better to be safe than sorry. Even though we’ve shared a bunch of little moments, Jordan is basically a turtle in human form. If he senses any sudden movement, he may retreat back into his shell and not come out for another hundred years.
He smiles when he looks at Maisie. That’s his one weakness that he can’t hide from me. “She’s sleeping soundly.”
She’s sleeping so hard she has not moved once. “Playroom and pool. In the shallow end with inflatable arm pillows,” I say quickly, before he starts complaining about safety measures. I finally got him to drop the helmet requirement. I can’t go back to that. The strange looks we were getting could scar her for life.
He nods. I stand and we’re so close I can smell his soap. “Where did you get the swimsuit?”
The question takes me off guard. He searches my face as I’m contemplating why that would matter. But looking for what? I don’t know. It’s not an accusation though. He sounds genuinely curious. Regardless, he’s the man who signs my checks and I’m feeling more and more self-conscious by the minute, fidgety. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.
“I bought it in the shop myself. I mean, I paid for it––”
“That’s not what I meant. And I told you to charge everything to my account.”
“I can go change. I’m sorry If I embarrassed you.”
“You didn’t embarrass me,” he’s quick to clarify. “I just…didn’t expect to see you in a suit.” He looks uncomfortable discussing it, his color a little rosy. It makes me feel better at least.
His eyes meet mine again, there’s a soft smile in them. “It’s a nice suit,” he says, clearing out the tension. “Come on, let’s get a table.”
“Have you found Eli yet?” I ask, biting into the best free-range angus cheeseburger on the planet.
Jordan shakes his head, worry etched between his pulled-together brows.
He redoubled his efforts to find Maisie’s father after the food allergy debacle. Not only do we need to know important information regarding her health, but I suspect Jordan is worried for Eli’s state of mind as well. Besides, it’s been a while. At what point should he get Eli’s family involved?
“I thought you were a crafty, super-sleuth techn genius. Isn’t there something illegal you can do to track him down?”
The big smile startles me. It’s so out of character for him I have to make sure he’s not having a stroke. Except there it is, in his eyes as clear as day, some levity.
“I tried, trust me. No luck so far.” Sinking back to reality, his smile fades.
“I do,” I tell him. Because I do, implicitly. Being trustworthy is a bedrock principle for him. “How did you get into tech? Have you always liked it?”
He looks down at his grilled salmon salad, organic obviously, picks through it. “I’ve always loved it. I love solving problems, building doors where other people see dead ends.”
“Heavy.”
“I spent a lot of time alone when I was a kid. Computers––code was easy to figure out. People weren’t.”
With a mother like his, I can imagine what his childhood was like. I can practically feel it––the loneliness he must’ve felt. Maybe because I felt it too. The well of sympathy I have for him runs deep and wide, bubbles to the surface and pours out of me.
“Are you always the smartest guy in the room, Jordan?” The intensity of his gaze could punch a hole right through me. “Must be lonely.”
“You forgot something,” he says in a low voice, his eyes on my lips.
“What?” I ask, breathless, my heart beating fast.
“Love.”
I blink. Confused. Off balance. “Excuse me?”
“Your tattoo…the quote. It’s love and fortune favor the brave.”
The day I opened my business I marked the occasion on my body. Fortune Favors the Brave along my bra line. To remind myself to never give up.
I swallow. Something is happening here I’m not prepared to deal with. “I like to hedge my bets.”
“West! How’s it goin’, dude,” a big blond guy shouts. His voice is loud and booming in the way voices get when someone is this close to being completely trashed. The blond has the ruddy complexion of someone that spends all day on the golf links, and in contrast, the bright blond hair makes it all the worse.
Looking at me now. “Hey what’s up, girl.” Loud and obnoxious. He reminds me of a few customers I’ve served at the restaurant.
Without asking permission, he pulls out a chair at our table and takes a seat. Jordan’s a brick right now, his body language alone should’ve been enough to shoo the guy off. No such luck. Instead his eyes drift over my breasts without an ounce of shame.
“We’re having lunch, Woodson. What do you want?” Jordan sounds on edge already, all that easy, relaxed atmosphere, we were sharing a minute ago is gone. Not a trace of it anywhere. He was finally talking. We were finally getting somewhere and then Woodson happened. I could kill the guy.
“I wanna know what’s going on with the Winstar deal and I’d also like to know who your lunch companion is?”
The douche winks at me.
“It’s called insider trading. Buy a dictionary. And who I have lunch with is none of your business.”
Ignoring all the signs that are telling him Jordan is not playing around, Woodson returns to staring at me. “Hello, delightful creature. And who might you be?”
What a lech.
“I’m this child’s nanny,” I say, pointing to the little girl sleeping in the stroller. “So please keep your voice down.”
“Nanny?” he says in the filthiest way possible. “Are you for hire?”
“All right Woodson. Get up and walk away.”
He’s drunk, but he’s lucid enough to know there will be consequences. I just hope it doesn’t include me stepping in. The stick and bear spray are in my messenger bag. I never leave home without them.
Jordan leans into Woodson, whispers, “Get up and walk away. I have a baby with me. I won’t tell you again.”
“West, you’re such a––”
A punch flies, lightening-speed quick. Woods
on’s head jerks back and blood explodes across his face. It happens so fast I never saw it coming.
Neither did Woodson.
While he’s hiding his bleeding, possibly broken, nose under his hands, Jordan slowly rises to his feet, wipes his mouth on the cloth napkin, and drops it on the table.
“Let’s go, Riley. Get your stuff.”
Scrambling, I throw my messenger bag across my body while Jordan calmly takes the stroller. With that, we head home. The Club is officially off-limits.
“Oh, good, you’re home!”
We just walked away from a physical altercation. This is the very last thing you want to hear when you step in the door. Neither one of us wants to see company––least of all Joan. How she got inside the apartment is another matter.
“I’m changing all the codes,” her son declares upon walking into the kitchen and finding her at the table, wine glass in hand and scrolling through her phone.
Well, that answers that.
“You’re going to be very happy with me. I brought you someone. Clara!” she shouts. “Can you come in here please?”
A very tall, skinny woman with thin lips and very pale blonde hair enters from the direction of the laundry room. She’s dressed in nurses scrubs and has the expression of someone who operates on a whole new level of emotionally detached.
“I found you a nanny.” Joan smiles like she just won reelection.
Jordan does not smile. Not even a little. In fact he does the opposite.
“Clara’s going to live here,” she starts again. “She’ll take great care of Maisie, and Riley can go back to doing what she does.” Her focus shifts to me. “What do you do, sweetie?”
“Clara,” Jordan says addressing the woman who has not spoken a word yet. “I’m sorry my mother dragged you here under false pretenses, but we are not going to need your services.”
He opens the fridge and pulls out a beer. He almost never drinks, which is how I know he’s in a mood. He gets the bottle opener out of the utensils drawer, pops the top, drinks it right out of the bottle. Yeah, he’s had it today.
The only part that I heard, the only part that’s important to me, is that he’s not taking me off child care because I genuinely love it. And for that, I’m grateful. An enormous sense of relief floods me. Taking care of Maisie has been as much fun and just as fulfilling as renovating my homes. Which is truly unexpected. I may not have the credentials––okay, I don’t have any credentials––but I love taking care of her. Shouldn’t that count for something?
“Jordan, the woman has credentials a mile long. She worked for the Obamas for Christ’s sake!”
Joan’s agitation pleases me. I have zero doubt that if Jordan hadn’t been here––had I been here alone with Maisie––she would’ve packed my stuff, put me out in the hall, and changed the locks.
“Thank you Clara. I’ll be happy to reimburse you for your trouble.”
“Jordan––”
“Riley is taking great care of Maisie,” he says, cutting her off. It’s about time someone did. “We have a routine and I’m not going to disrupt that. It’s not good for Maisie and it’s not good for us. Besides, Riley’s already living here and you know I hate having people in the house.”
I get the impression the last part was meant for Joan. Her green eyes narrow on him so it seems Joan got the same impression.
“Anything else?”
“You were always the difficult one. Your brother,” she scoffs, “he was easy. But you…you weren’t happy unless you broke my heart at least a half dozen times a year.”
“I apologize,” he says, looking mildly harassed and mostly resolute. “Now, if you don’t mind, we have a kid to take care of.”
“Duck, ducky, ducky,” Maisie singsongs, squeezing the life out of poor Mr. Ducky.
I’m in the middle of giving Maisie a bath before she goes to bed. It’s been a long day marked by too much drama. And drama is most definitely not my thing.
It makes me think about Jordan and how much of this he’s carrying around alone. A friend who dumps his problems, and child, without warning on his lap, another friend dead, a mother who’s constantly trying to manipulate and manage him. A business to run. Now I understand why he seems older than thirty-three. And he never complains, never makes it about him. My sympathy for him is growing exponentially. So is my respect.
“Can I help?” He’s standing in the doorway of the bathroom with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his pants, shirtsleeves rolled up exposing the corded muscles on his forearms.
He looks tired. And handsome, more handsome than one man should. But he also looks content, and content is a big deal, a huge step in the right direction from where he started. He’s been changing a little every day, shedding all that heavy armor along the way.
“Rough day, huh?”
Does anyone ever ask him how he’s doing. How his day went? I don’t think so. Must be lonely.
He nods slowly, his thoughts far away. As if he’s replaying the day’s events and finding them just as repulsive as the first time. After Joan left and the threat of her dumping Clara on us was neutralized, he went back to the office.
“Are you almost done?”
“Just started.”
He walks in and sits on the edge of the bathtub while I’m on the floor, arms in the water, T-shirt sticking to my chest because I’m already wet from all the splashing.
“You’re soaked,” he says, eyes crinkling happily.
He doesn’t know the half of it. My nightly sweat sessions have not abated.
“Yeah, well, she’s not happy unless I take a bath with her…Jordan…”
“Mmm.”
“Should we talk about potty training? How long is she going to be with us.”
He exhales tiredly. “I don’t know. Give me a few more weeks and we’ll make a plan.”
“Can you hold her while I get another bottle of baby soap? This one’s dead.” I shake the bottle and toss it in the trash can beside the sink.
Except…well, instead of taking the baby’s arms from me, they way I expect him to, he starts unbuttoning his shirt.
The heck is he doing unbuttoning his shirt?
But he is, that’s what he’s doing. Slowly, methodically. He’s performing what is essentially a striptease a foot away from me, and God have mercy on my soul but I can’t help watching. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen up close and in real person. And yes, it’s safe to assume nothing sexy ever happens to me. Not unless you count Fat Jesus lifting his shirt to scratch his chest hair.
I am at a loss for words, trapped by own out-of-control impulses for a man I should not have feeling for––carnal or otherwise.
He takes the shirt off and tosses it on the ground.
I freeze––this is my reaction to that. I don’t know what to say, or what to do. Where the heck am I supposed to put my eyes! Because they keep returning to his magnificent bare chest despite my brain’s objections.
On the sly, my attention darts to his dark tight nipples, the dusting of hair on his chest, the line of hair that starts at his navel and disappears under the waistline of his light wool pants. He’s a work of art. He really is gorgeous everywhere…everywhere I can see that is.
Then I think, is he doing this on purpose? Is Jordan a major tease?
But no, his full attention is on Maisie. He’s playing with her and that freaking duck. I’m the only one experiencing a crisis of mental focus. I’m the only one distracted. Very distracted. Not endangering a child distracted, but maybe endangering myself distracted.
In an attempt to get a grip, I pour bath gel on my hands and start to wash a pink little body while Jordan continues with ducky duty.
“I have an event this weekend,” he says quietly, gaze trained on Maisie. “It’s a charity thing in the Hamptons.”
This is good. This is exactly what we need to get this business relationship back on track. A little distance. Because the truth is I’m in grave danger o
f falling for this man.
“So you’ll be gone all weekend or just the one day?”
“I want you and Mais to come with me.”
This is not good. Not good at all. In fact this is a major bummer.
“Me? Why me?” I’m genuinely curious. Why would he want a baby and the nanny at a fancy Hamptons party?
“Because I want you there.”
I don’t know what to make of that statement and I won’t even try. I’m exhausted from the mental gymnastics, from fending off his mother’s insults, from life in general.
While he takes Maisie’s hands, I sit back down on the floor, push the hair falling out of my top knot off my face. “I’m exhausted. Mind if I stay here tonight?”
“Stay here every night,” he murmurs.
“Ducky! Peepee! Rie. Peepee,” Maisie screams and giggles.
Maisie’s finally learned my name. As tired as I am, I can’t stop smiling. She’s been using it a lot lately and it kills me softly every time I hear it.
Jordan starts to lift her out of the bathtub.
“Watch out,” I tell him. Apparently he missed the pee pee part. “She just warned you.”
Not heeding me, he pulls her out of the water too early. Maisie’s not quite done peeing yet and lets it rip down his chest. The look of utter shock on his face makes me explode with laughter.
“She warned you!”
Maisie kicks her legs and giggles, proud of her handiwork, while I grab the nearest hand towel and start to dry him off.
It’s a reflex, a nothing gesture, until I realize the only thing separating my hand and his abs is the thin piece of Egyptian terry cloth I’m holding. In the exact moment we both realize what’s happening, the air suddenly shifts, the silence thick with meaning. I can’t be the only one feeling it.
Maisie dangles in the air from his safe and secure grip while I finish drying him off. If I stop now, it will only get more awkward for me and there’s only so much of it I can handle tonight.
Once done, I glance up into his face, doing my best to pretend that I’m completely unaffected, that I’m not insanely attracted to him. But the problem is that, according to what I find there, neither of us are unaffected.
