Her Impossible Boss

by Cathy Williams

  ‘Hello? Are you still there?’

  ‘I am, and to help ease you into punctuality I’ll be sending a car for you. It’ll be there at seven. You forgot to leave me your mobile number.’

  ‘My mobile number?’

  ‘I need to be able to contact you at all times. Remember, you’ll be in charge of my daughter.’

  Unaccustomed to being reined in, Tess immediately softened. Of course he would want to have her mobile number! He might not be demonstrative when it came to his daughter—not in the way that her parents had always been demonstrative with her—but keeping tabs on the nanny showed just how important it was for him to know the whereabouts of Samantha at all times.

  She rattled it off, and turned to find Claire looking at her with a grin.

  ‘Step one in being a responsible adult! Be prepared to be answerable to someone else! Matt’s a fair guy. He expects a lot from the people who work for him, but he gives a lot back in return.’

  ‘I don’t like bossy people,’ Tess objected automatically.

  ‘You mean you like people who don’t lay down any rules to speak of and just allow you to do whatever you want. The joys of being the baby of the family!’

  Tess had always been perfectly happy with that description in the past. Now she frowned. Wasn’t the unspoken rider to that description irresponsible? Her parents had shipped her out to New York so that she could learn some lessons about growing up from her sister. Was it their way of easing her out of the family nest? Had Matt been unknowingly right with his observations? Taking on the job of looking after someone else’s child—a child who had already been through a lot and clearly had issues with her father—was not the job for someone who refused to be responsible. Matt Strickland was prepared to give her a chance in the face of some pretty strong evidence that she wasn’t up to the task. Being labelled the baby of the family no longer seemed to sit quite right.

  She had half expected to arrive the following morning and find herself taking orders from one of those mysterious people he had mentioned who would be there to pick up the slack, but in fact, after her luxurious chauffeured drive, during which she’d taken the opportunity to play tourist and really look at some of the sights from air-conditioned comfort, she found herself being greeted by Matt himself.

  The weekend had done nothing to diminish his impact. This time he was dressed for work. A dark suit, white shirt and some hand-tailored shoes—a combination that should have been a complete turn off, but which instead just seemed to elevate his sexiness to ridiculous levels.

  ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be here,’ Tess said, immediately taken aback.

  ‘I live here—or had you forgotten?’ He stood aside and she scuttled past him, weirdly conscious of her body in a way that was alien to her.

  Under slightly less pressure now, she had her first opportunity to really appreciate her surroundings. It was much more impressive than she could ever have dreamt. Yes, the place was vast, and, yes, the paintings were uniformly drab—even if the portraits were of his family members—but the décor was exquisite. Where she might have expected him to err in favour of minimalism, with maybe just the odd leather sofa here and there and lots of chrome, his apartment was opulent. The patina of the wooden floor was rich and deep, and the rugs were old and elaborate. A galleried landing looked down on the immense space below, and stretching the full height of the walls were two windows which, she could now see, offered a tantalising view of Manhattan. The sort of view to which most normal mortals could only aspire via the tourist route.

  ‘Wow! I didn’t really take much notice of your apartment the last time I was here. Well, office and kitchen aside.’ She stood in one spot, circling slowly. ‘Sorry,’ she offered to no one in particular, ‘I know it’s rude to stare, but I can’t help myself.’ Her eyes were round like saucers, and for the first time in a long time he fully appreciated the privileges to which he had been born.

  ‘Most of the things in here have been handed down to me,’ he said, when she had eventually completed her visual tour and was looking at him. ‘In fact, I could trace the provenance of nearly everything here. How was the drive over?’

  ‘Brilliant. Thank you.’

  ‘And you’re ready to meet Samantha?’

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her last time,’ Tess said with a rush of sympathy.

  Matt, eager to get the day under way, because he had back-to-back meetings, paused. ‘Like I said, she’s been through a very rough time. It can be difficult to get through to her sometimes.’

  ‘How awful for you. I would have thought that she would have clung to you after her mother’s death.’

  ‘Some situations are not always straightforward,’ Matt informed her stiffly. ‘I don’t see you with any books.’

  ‘Books?’ Tess was still trying to figure out what ‘not always straightforward’ might mean.

  ‘Schoolbooks,’ he said patiently. ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten that teaching is going to be part of your duties with Samantha?’

  ‘Not on day one, surely?’

  ‘I’m not a believer in putting off for tomorrow what can be done today.’

  ‘Yes, well…I thought that I would get to know her first, before I start trying to teach her the importance of fractions and decimals.’

  ‘Ah. I’m glad to see that you’ve dropped your defeatist approach and got with the programme!’

  ‘I don’t have a defeatist approach! Really I don’t.’ She had thought a lot about what he had said to her, about her waving a white flag, and decided that he had been way off target. She had always firmly believed herself capable of doing anything. Why else would she have attempted so many varied jobs in the past?

  Matt held up his hand to silence her. ‘No matter. Samantha’s collection of tutors have left a number of books over the course of the past few months. You’ll find them in the study. Most are untouched,’ he added, his mouth tightening. ‘I’m hoping that you prove the exception to the rule.’

  ‘I did warn you that I’m not academic…’

  ‘I’ve tried the academics,’ Matt pointed out. ‘None of them worked out. Why do you keep running yourself down?’ ‘I don’t.’

  ‘If you insist on labelling yourself as stupid then don’t be surprised when the world decides to agree with you.’

  ‘Wait just a minute!’

  He had spun around to lead the way, but now he turned slowly on his heels and looked at her with mild curiosity.

  ‘I’m not stupid.’ Tess had had time to realise that she couldn’t cave in to his much stronger, more dominant personality. It wasn’t in her nature to make a fuss, but she would have to stand firm on what she believed or let him ride roughshod over her. ‘I could have got very good grades, as it happens.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you? Was it easier to fail for lack of trying rather than risk trying to compete with your brilliant sisters and not do quite as well? Okay, I withdraw my remark about your being lazy, but if you want to prove your abilities to me then you’ve got to step up to the plate. Stop apologising for your lack of academic success and start realising the only thing I care about is that you drop the assumption that you can’t teach my daughter. She’s in the kitchen, by the way.’

  Behind him, Tess quietly bristled. While he explained the working hours of his various housekeepers, who took it in turns to come in during the week to ensure that his apartment was never allowed to accumulate a speck of dust, Tess mulled over what he had said like a dog with a bone. She had blithely gone through life doing as she liked, only half listening to her parents’ urgings that she settle down and focus. Claire and Mary were focused. In her own good-natured way she had stubbornly refused to be pushed into a way of life which she thought she couldn’t handle. No one had ever bluntly said the things that Matt had said to her, or implied that she was a coward, scared of looking like a failure next to her sisters. She told herself that he knew nothing about her—but his words reverberated in her head like a nest of
angry wasps.

  She nearly bumped into him when he stopped at the kitchen door. She stepped past him to see her charge sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a bowl of cereal which she was playing with—filling the spoon with milk, raising it high above the bowl and then slowly tilting the milk back in, unconcerned that half of it was splashing onto the fine grainy wood of the table.

  Tess didn’t know what she had expected. One thing she really hadn’t expected was, glancing sideways, to see the shuttered look of pained confusion on Matt’s face, and for a few powerful seconds she was taken aback by the burst of sympathy she felt for him.

  He was tough and uncompromising and, yes, judgemental of her in a way that left her trembling with anger—yet in the face of his daughter he literally didn’t know what to do.

  Frankly, nor did she. Stubborn, sulky ten year olds had never featured even on her horizon.

  ‘Samantha. Look at me!’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and frowned. ‘This is Tess. I told you about her. She’s going to be your new nanny.’

  Samantha greeted this by propping her chin in her hands and yawning widely. She was probably wearing the most expensive clothes money could buy, but Tess had never seen a child dressed with such old-fashioned lack of taste. Clumpy brown sandals and a flowered sleeveless frock. Silk, from the look of it. What ten-year-old ever wore silk? Her long hair was braided into two plaits with, of all things, ribbons neatly tied into bows at the ends. She was dark-haired, like her father, with the same stubborn, aristocratic set to her features. She would doubtless be a beauty in time, but just at the moment her face was sullen and set.

  Tess cleared her throat and took a couple of steps forward. ‘Samantha! Hi! Okay, you really don’t have to look at me if you don’t want to…’ She giggled nervously, which earned her a sneaky glance, although the spoon and milk routine was still in full force. ‘But I’m new to this place so…’ She frantically thought of the one thing she and a ten-year-old girl might have in common. ‘Do you fancy exploring the shops with me? My sister doesn’t wear the same stuff that I do, and I’m far too scared to venture into some of those department stores without someone to hold my hand.’

  ‘Well, it went okay.’

  This was the debriefing. When Matt had called her on her mobile, to tell her that he would expect daily reports of progress, she had been at a loss for words. But expect it he did. In his office. Six sharp, after she had handed over her charge to Betsy, the girl who came in to prepare the evening meal.

  The very same car that had collected her in the morning had duly collected her from his apartment and delivered her, like a parcel, to his offices, which occupied some prime real estate in downtown Manhattan.

  Having seen where he lived, Tess had been more blasé about where he worked. She’d been swept up twenty-eight storeys and hadn’t been surprised to find that his office occupied half of the entire floor, with its own sitting room, meeting room, and a massive outer office with chairs and plants, where a middle-aged woman had been busy packing up to go home.

  ‘Define okay.’ He leaned back into his leather chair and folded his hands behind his head. ‘Take a seat.’

  He could hardly believe how easily and effortlessly she had managed to break the ice with Samantha. Compared to the other nannies he had hired, who had smiled stiffly and tried to shake hands and had thereby seemed to seal their fate.

  Tess shrugged. ‘We’re still a long way from being pals, but at least she didn’t give me my marching orders.’

  ‘She spoke to you?’

  ‘I asked her questions. She answered some of them.’ His low opinion of her still rankled, but she would rise above that if only to prove to herself that she could. ‘She hates her wardrobe. I think we bonded there. I’m sorry but I’m going to have to turn down your request to purchase “loose” clothing. I can’t take your daughter shopping for young, trendy stuff and then buy drab, tired stuff for myself.’

  ‘Young, trendy stuff?’

  ‘Do you know that she’s never owned a pair of ripped jeans?’

  ‘Ripped jeans?’

  ‘Or trainers. I mean proper trainers—not the sort you get for school sports.’

  ‘What are proper trainers?’

  Matt looked at her. She was flushed, her skin rosy and dewy from walking in the heat, and her hair was up in a high ponytail with long caramel strands escaping around her face. In every conceivable way she was the complete antithesis of any woman he had ever gone out with—including his ex-wife. Vicky, his girlfriend, was striking, but in a controlled, intelligent, vaguely handsome way, with short brown hair and high cheekbones, and a dress code that consisted almost entirely of smart suits and high heels. And Catrina, while not a career woman, had descended from old money and had always dressed with subtle, refined, understated glamour. Cashmere and pearls, and elegant knee-length skirts.

  He could easily believe that Samantha had never owned a pair of ripped jeans, or faded jeans, or possibly even any jeans. As far as he could remember neither had his ex-wife.

  He felt his imagination do the unthinkable and begin to break its leash once more, throwing up all sorts of crazy images of the fresh faced girl in front of him.

  She was telling him about ‘proper trainers’ and he was appalled to discover that he was barely taking in a word she was saying. Instead, he was fighting to dismiss thoughts of what she looked like out of those tight jeans and that small green vest with its indistinct logo of a rock band. It was a primitive urge that had no place in his rigidly controlled world.

  ‘Anyway, I hope you don’t mind, but I bought her one or two things. Trainers, jeans, a few tops from the market.’

  ‘You bought her stuff from a market?’

  ‘A lot trendier. Oh, gosh, I can tell from your expression that you don’t approve. Don’t you ever go to a market to shop?’ It was an innocuous question, but for some reason it shifted the atmosphere between them. Just a small, barely noticeable shift, but she was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of his almost black eyes resting on her, and the way her body was responding to his stare.

  ‘I’ve never been to a market in my life.’

  ‘Well, you don’t know what you’re missing. One of my friends used to work at a market on the weekends, before she went to college to do a course in jewellery-making. I know a lot about them. Quite a bit of what gets sold is imported rubbish, but some of it’s really, really good. Handmade. In fact, I thought at one point that I could go into that line of business…’ Her cheeks were bright with enthusiasm.

  ‘Never mind. You’re here now,’ Matt said briskly. ‘Tell me what your plans are for the rest of the week. Have you had a chance to discuss the business of schoolwork with her?’

  ‘Not yet…it’s only been one day! I did glance at those books you mentioned, though…when we got back to the apartment and Samantha was having a bath.’

  ‘And?’

  Tess opened her mouth to let him know in advance that she had never been that good at the sciences, and then thought better of it. ‘And I suppose I can handle some of it.’

  ‘That’s the spirit! Now all we have to do is devise a curriculum.’

  ‘She’s nervous about going to school here,’ Tess blurted out. ‘Has she told you that?’

  Matt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I hope you reassured her that there is nothing to worry about.’ He papered over the fact that he and Samantha had barely had any meaningful conversations since she had arrived in Manhattan.

  ‘It’s your job to reassure her of that.’ Tess looked at him squarely in the eyes. Confrontation had always been something she had studiously avoided. She could remember many an argument between her sisters, both intent on emerging the winner, and had long ago reached the conclusion that nothing was worth the raised voices and the heated exchanges—except she wasn’t going to duck under the radar now and assume responsibility for something she knew wasn’t hers.

  ‘I’ve been thinking…’ she ventured tentatively.


  ‘Should I be alarmed?’

  ‘You have all these rules that I’m supposed to follow…’

  Matt threw back his head and laughed, and then, when he had sobered up, directed a grim look at her. ‘That’s what normally happens when you do a job for someone else. I’ve taken a big risk on you, and you’re being richly rewarded, so don’t imagine for a second that you can start trying to negotiate on some of the things you’re supposed to do.’

  ‘I’m not trying to negotiate anything!’ Tess said heatedly. ‘I just think that if there are all these rules for me, then there should be some rules for you.’

  Matt looked at her incredulously, and then he burst out laughing again. ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘What you seem to consider rules most people would consider their job description. Is that how you approached all those jobs you had? With the attitude that you weren’t prepared to work for anyone unless they were prepared to bend their rules to accommodate you?’

  ‘Of course not.’ When things had become too tedious she had simply given up, she thought uncomfortably. ‘And I’m not trying to bend any rules.’ What was it about this man that fired her up and made her argumentative?

  ‘Okay. Spit it out, then.’

  ‘I made a little list.’ She had scribbled it in the car on the way over. Several times she had ever asked Stanton, the driver, what he remembered about his childhood—what stood out in his head about the things he had done with his parents that he had really enjoyed.

  Matt took the list and read it through. Then he read it again, his expression of disbelief growing by the minute.

  “‘Monday night,’” he read aloud. ‘“Monopoly or Scrabble or some sort of board game as agreed upon. Tuesday night, cookery night.”’ He looked at her flushed, defiant face. ‘“Cookery night”? What the hell is cookery night?’

  ‘Cookery night is an evening when you and Samantha prepare something together. It could be anything. A cake, perhaps, or some cookies. Or you could be even more adventurous and go for something hot. A casserole.’