Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (150 page)

In
that
time, she’d lived dozens of lifetimes, it seemed.
 
She’d experienced the fear of waiting
for things to go wrong, waiting to tell family and friends of the pregnancy
until Dr. Rosen had conducted the sonogram, this time finding the fetus and the
heart beat.

And
then
there had been tears of joy and hugs and phone calls had been made, celebration
dinners had been planned.

But
life
had still gone on.
 
The business was
growing faster than even Red had ever imagined it would—he’d found the
eye of the tiger and he was winning again.
 
He was renewed, it seemed, wanting to prove himself to the world and his
new family.

Nicole
continued
working by his side, faithfully, even as her stomach slowly grew and sleeping
became more difficult, and her hormones raged.

When
they’d
eventually found out the sex of the baby—and that it was a girl no
less—they both agreed that fate had intended it just so.

She
no
longer felt so sprightly and beautiful as she had in the first months of
pregnancy.
 
Now she felt like a
balloon about to pop, and in this red bathing suit, she wondered if some kid
might mistake her for one and try to poke her with a thumbtack.

Red
finally
swam his back to shore and made his way to the umbrella, still dripping
wet.
 
He sat down next to her,
sighing contentedly.
 
“We needed
this, Nicole.”

“I
think
we earned some time off after pulling seventy and eighty hour work weeks the
last six months,” she agreed, picking up a bottle of water that had been
sweating in the shade and taking a long drink.

“How
are
you feeling?” Red asked.
 
He kept
his voice light, but Nicole knew how much weight that question still carried.

Even
though
every test had come back fine and Dr. Rosen told them the pregnancy was
progressing smoothly, neither of them could truly shake the feeling that
something was bound to go wrong.

“I’m
feeling huge,” she said with a grin.

“You
look
amazing,” he replied, and grabbed her hand, squeezing.
 
She knew he wasn’t just saying it.
 
The way Red looked at her, she saw the
love and softness in his eyes.

“Thanks,
babe.”

Suddenly,
Nicole’s
phone was ringing.
 
She picked it
out of her beach bag and looked closely.
 
“I think it’s your mother.”

“Great,”
Red replied, without enthusiasm.

“I
should
answer it,” she said, even though she didn’t want to.
 
Since the first email Erica had sent
Nicole seven months ago, the two had begun tentatively communicating.
 
Red hadn’t been in favor of it, but
neither had he expressly forbid her to speak to his estranged mother.

Nicole
was
conflicted about Erica Jameson, but she thought that ultimately Red would want
to have his mother in his life in some fashion—not to mention the life of
his baby girl.
 
And so Nicole had
continued corresponding intermittently, usually just talking about silly things
like the weather, and Nicole asked about Erica questions about work and her
other son, Jeb.

Things
changed
when Nicole wrote Erica of her pregnancy.
 
The older woman asked for her cell number and then immediately called
her, seeming to be overjoyed by

the
news.
 
Since that time, Erica called once every
few weeks, usually just asking how

Nicole
was feeling and being nice and supportive.

So
why
did Nicole still get that strange knot in her stomach when Red’s mother’s
number showed up on her called ID?
 
She wasn’t completely sure—maybe it was just that little nagging
sensation that Erica had an agenda and she hadn’t revealed it yet.

“Hello?”
Nicole
answered, as Red muttered something under his breath and got up from his chair.

“I’m
going
to grab an ice cream,” he said.
 
“You want?” Nicole shook her head no.

“Nicole,
it’s
Erica!” the older woman squealed.
 
“How are you?
 
How is your
vacation going?”

“It’s
going great,” she said.

“Well,
I
have a bit of a surprise.
 
And I
really hope you don’t mind.” “I’m listening,” Nicole said, feeling even more
uncertain now.

“Yesterday
I came to a work conference in Manhattan
with Jeb. As it turns out, Jeb is so busy hobnobbing with the other doctors,
that I’ve got time on my hands.
 
So
I thought, why not come up to The Hamptons to see you tomorrow?”

Nicole
didn’t
know what to say.
 
The smile was
frozen on her face.
 
“Tomorrow?”
“I’ll take you shopping and to lunch,” Erica said.
 
“It will be lovely to catch up

and
see how you’re coming along.”

Nicole
looked
out at the beach, were Red was standing in line at the little restaurant that
served everything from fried clams to ice cream.
 
There was a very long

line
of
people and Red was at the back of it.
 
He was waiting there, arms crossed, looking annoyed.

“That
sounds
like a plan,” Nicole said, wishing she had more time to consider the offer.

Erica
was
overjoyed, and said she’d call her first thing in the morning to nail things
down.

After
hanging up, Nicole was deeply uneasy.

Everything
had
been going so well up until now, she thought.
 
Was it possible that this was the sign
of their luck turning bad?

“Kallie,
could
you bring the children back here please?”
 
Nicole was once again shaken from her thoughts by the sound of a woman’s
voice, loud and demanding.

“Kallie?”
More insistent this time.

“Coming
Mrs.
Danvers!” the young woman—who Nicole could only assume was the
aforementioned Kallie—called out from the shallow water, where she was
holding a toddler in one arm, as another child splashed in the water beside
her.
 
Kallie started back toward the
beach blanket with the one child in her arm and the other holding her hand.

On
the
blanket, the owner of the demanding voice—a middle-aged woman with
leathery skin and fake boobs—sat spraying herself with tanning lotion.

Kallie
came
back and put the toddler down next to the woman, where he started to instantly
try and get up and walk away.

“Ben,
come back here!” the woman yelled, not
moving a muscle to stop him.

Kallie
laughed
and knelt down, scooping him up.
 
The girl giggled and jumped into the sand, kicking it so that it sprayed
up.
 
Some of it peppered the older
woman, who scowled.

“Kallie,
is
it too much to ask you to keep them from making a mess every single place they
go?
 
For God’s sake…”

“I’m
sorry, Mrs. Danvers,” the younger woman
said.

“They
need
to have sunscreen reapplied every two hours.”
 
She lay back on her beach towel and
adjusted her designer sunglasses.
 
Mrs. Danvers had a manner and tone of voice that Nicole recognized as
coming from someone who’d grown up wealthy, used to ordering people around her
whole life.

Nicole
couldn’t
even imagine treating people that way, but she was used to seeing a lot of this
sort of behavior since marrying Red and moving in social circles that included
the very richest of rich people.

And
now,
vacationing with Red in The Hamptons, she seemed to have found a class of
people that took the word entitled to a whole new level.

Kallie
went
about putting on the sunscreen, diligently applying it to the two children who
seemed intent on keeping her from doing the job at hand.

Nicole
had
to give it to her—the young woman had a good attitude and kept a smile on
her face better than Nicole would have done in that situation.

Mrs.
Danvers
lay on her blanket like a log, occasionally opening her eyes to make a comment
or to critique something about what Kallie was doing with the children—
meanwhile never offering to help even once.

Nicole
was
getting angrier and angrier as she watched the scene unfold.
 
It was typical in its own way,
especially in these parts.

Still,
Nicole
kept her sunglasses on and tried to appear as though she were resting in the
shade, rather than watching every moment of every interaction.

Mrs.
Danvers’s
phone rang and she answered it as Kallie played and laughed with her children
nearby.

“Hello,
Brad?
 
Are you here?”
 
Mrs. Danvers asked, sitting up on her
elbow.
 
Her fake breasts swayed as
she moved.
 
“I’ll bring the children
to the car.
 
Kallie can’t do it by
herself, she’s been having a great deal of trouble all day.”

Nicole
watched
Kallie’s expression, which didn’t change, even as the woman continued to
belittle her.
 
She was a beautiful
girl, with sky blue eyes, honey blond hair, and the body of a dancer.

No
wonder
Mrs. Danvers seemed so annoyed with her, Nicole thought.
 
She was probably sick of looking at this
natural, gorgeous girl and wondering why she couldn’t buy breasts and a face to
equal hers.

Nicole
felt
a little guilty for judging the older woman so harshly, but than again, she’d
behaved terribly every single moment that Nicole had been watching so far.

The
older
woman suddenly noticed Nicole looking in their direction.
 
She stared directly back at Nicole
without moving a muscle.
 
“This is
what you have to look forward to,” she said, in a hostile tone that was couched
in humor.
 
“Enjoy the piece and
quiet while you still can.”

Nicole
didn’t respond, she just nodded slightly
and turned away from the scene.

“Kallie,
it’s
time to go,” the woman commanded loudly.
 
“Could you help me get the children’s shoes on?
 
Please remember to wipe their feet off
beforehand, because otherwise there will be sand all over the Range Rover.”

“Yes,
Mrs. Danvers,” Kallie said.

“And
could you pack up everything and bring it
up to the car, please?”

Soon
after,
Mrs. Danvers collected the children and took them up the stairs to the lot and
the waiting Range Rover, while Kallie was stuck trying to move all of the
family’s beach paraphernalia by her lonesome.

Nicole
decided
she couldn’t just sit there and not say something.
 
So she slowly got up from her beach
chair and walked to where the young woman was gathering the family’s things
together.

“I
couldn’t
help but notice that you needed some help.”

Kallie looked up at her.
 
“Oh, no!
 
Please, I’m fine.”

“Can I say something?” Nicole asked her.

“Sure.”

“And
I
hope this isn’t overstepping, since I don’t know you at all.
 
But I was watching how you handled those
children and I think you’re doing a great job.”

Kallie
brightened
visibly.
 
“I appreciate that,” she
said, laughing.
 
“Sometimes it feels
like I’m just the worst nanny ever.
 
And I wonder if the Danvers’s are going to send me on the first flight
back to Ohio.”

“Is
that
we’re you’re from?”

“Born and raised,” Kallie said.