Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (154 page)

around
here—ask anyone.
 
And I mean anyone.
 
We hire cute nanny’s to take care of our
kids, and then we get a little something extra on the side.
 
It’s no big deal, even though you might
think it is, coming from Ohio.”

“I
just
want to go right now.
 
Please.”

“No.”

She
was feeling like she might cry.
 
“Why can’t I go?”

“Because.”
He
smirked.
 
“Because I said so.
 
I’m your boss.
 
You really don’t get how this works, do
you?
 
Ask anyone, Kallie, and
they’ll tell you.
 
Part of your job
is to do what I say, when I say it—including this little bonus thing I’m
explaining to you.”

“And
does
Trina know about it?” Kallie said, meeting his gaze.
 
“Would she tell me how silly I’m being?”

Brad’s
jaw
set.
 
“Part of the deal is that the
nanny keeps her mouth shut.
 
Of
course, the wives understand that this goes on.
 
Why on earth would my wife be dumb
enough to hire a hot little piece of tail like you if she didn’t know, on some
level, that I would be staring and salivating all day long?
 
If she didn’t know, on some level, that
you and I might be attracted to one another?”

“I’m
not attracted to you.”

He
grinned.
 
“Your nipples beg to differ,
Kallie.
 
They’re hard and I can see
them through that itty bitty shirt you’ve got on.”

“Do
not
talk to me like this.
 
I don’t want
to stand in this room with you anymore. Just let me go, okay?”

Brad
sighed.
 
“Look, obviously we’ve gotten off on the
wrong foot.
 
I’m sorry if I

hadn’t
made things clear between us.
 
I’m sorry if I upset you.
Forgive me?”

Kallie
barely
nodded but didn’t answer him.
 
“Can
I please go now?”

“Just tell me you forgive me.”

“I
forgive you.”

“Now
give
me a hug.”
 
He walked to her again, hugging
her without her reciprocating, and then his lips were on her neck and his hands
were groping her ass, squeezing, pulling her hips into his hard erection.

“No!”
She
screamed.
 
“Leave me alone!”
 
She pushed against his chest with all
her might—fear and adrenaline seemed to give her a burst of strength that
surprised both of them.

Brad
stumbled back and fell over the laundry
basket, his face a mask of surprise. “Fuck!” he shouted, as he landed on his
butt, elbows hitting the floor, the basket spilling clothes everywhere.

Kallie
ran
out of the laundry room and sprinted down the hallway, then out the front
door.
 
Her breath was already coming
in gasps and she was crying in fear and anger and confusion.

The
whole
thing was a blur.
 
She kept running,
remembering her days in track and field in high school, starting to find a
rhythm now, pacing herself as she made her way down the driveway and onto the
narrow forest road.

She
didn’t
even know where she was going.
 
She
just knew that she was going to get far, far away from the Danvers’s home.

***

Sometimes
life
was just plain weird, and you got dragged into situations you’d never imagined
yourself being in.

So
it
was that Nicole found herself at Bottle and Cradle, a boutique baby store, ready
to go shopping for baby clothes with Erica Jameson—the same woman who’d
viciously insulted her not so long ago.

She
didn’t
quite know how Erica was so adept at worming her way into spending more time
together than originally planned, but suddenly lunch had become brunch and then
that had turned into Erica and Nicole meeting at eight-thirty in the morning at
Bottle and Cradle.

Erica
was
standing beside the entrance to the store with a big, sunny smile on her face
when Nicole arrived.

Nicole
got
slowly out of the car, and then walked to greet her mother-in-law with a
hug.
 
Erica squeezed her warmly and
pecked her on the cheek.

“You
are positively glowing, Nicole.”

“Did
you say glowing or growing?” Nicole joked.

Erica
laughed.
 
“I know how it feels when you get to
this point and you just want to get the darn thing out of you already.
 
But believe me, it will be here before
you know it.”

“I’m
sure you’re right.”

“Shall
we?”
Erica asked, and then opened the door without waiting for a response. The two of
them walked into the store, and the little chime announced their entrance.
A perky salesgirl approached and asked if
they needed help finding anything in particular.

“I
think
we’ll just browse for now, darling,” Erica told her, looking around and making
a beeline towards the clothing racks and shelves of baby accessories.
 
“It’s so fun to shop for a newborn or
even a baby that’s not yet arrived.
 
I swear, nothing gives me more pleasure than to buy an outfit and
imagine it on your tiny little baby girl.”

Nicole
smiled tightly.
 
She and Red had agreed that they
wouldn’t be purchasing baby items (not clothes or diapers or any of it) until
much closer to the birth of the child. The truth was, they were being nervous
and somewhat superstitious.
 
It felt
like they’d be tempting fate if they started counting their chickens before
they hatched, so to speak.

Red
hadn’t
even wanted to set up a nursery or paint a room in their house to prepare for
the little girl’s arrival.
 
He was
at least as jumpy as Nicole was about the pregnancy, and the idea of going
through another miscarriage was so horrifying to him that he wouldn’t even
utter the word.

Nonetheless,
Nicole and he both knew the specter of another miscarriage hung over
this pregnancy like a pall, and they avoided it like the proverbial elephant in
the room.

Still,
even
with her fears and doubts, she hadn’t been able to say no to Erica’s kind offer
to buy the unborn baby a few outfits.
 
It was such a sweet gesture, and she seemed to be trying hard to rebuild
the trust that had been destroyed on her fateful visit those months back.

“Oh,
look
at these little socks.
 
Adorable!”
Erica squealed, holding up the tiniest pair of pink socks that Nicole had ever
seen.

“Those
are some cute ones,” Nicole agreed.

“We
should
get them.
 
Don’t you think?”
 
Erica waved at the salesgirl.
 
“Excuse me, but could you bring me over
a cart please?”

Nicole
felt
bad for the salesgirl.
 
They could
easily have walked the twenty feet and gotten their own cart.
 
But the girl dutifully brought one to
Erica, smiling and commenting on how lovely her outfit choices were.

Already,
Erica
had grabbed a little red dress, light blue pants, and a tiny pair of booties.

She
tossed
all of them into the cart, which she then took from the salesgirl without a
word.

Nicole
thanked
the salesgirl as she passed, and then went back to following Erica around the
store as the older woman picked items up, seemingly at random, and tossed them
into her cart.

While
they
walked, Erica talked almost nonstop, while Nicole listened to her various
opinions, non-sequiturs and random observations.

“You
know,
I’m so impressed with how you and Red are managing this pregnancy,” Erica said,
as the cart continued to fill with tiny items of clothing.
 
She flung another dress into the
mounting pile of clothes.

“I’m
just trying to survive,” Nicole said.

“Of
course
it seems that way, but you’ve actually done something I never would have
thought possible.”

“What’s
that?”

Erica
stopped
and pawed through a rack of miniature pajamas.
 
“Red has always dated the most beautiful
women in the world,” she said.
 
“I’m
not revealing any secrets by saying that, am I?”

“No,
of
course not,” Nicole said, but she was getting warning pangs of tension in her
stomach suddenly.

“Because
this
is really a compliment to you, Nicole.”
 
She looked at Nicole with a little smile.
 
“I’m truly shocked that you finally got
that boy to settle down.”

“I
didn’t force it on him.”

Erica
selected
one of the pajama outfits and tossed it into the cart.
 
“Obviously he loves you.
 
Obviously.
 
What I mean to say is, I always thought
he’d be very uncomfortable with a normal woman.
 
I never thought Red could be with a
woman who would age and get pregnant and have perhaps a case of varicose veins,
or maybe even some cellulite on her thighs.”

Nicole
suddenly
felt more unattractive than she’d felt in quite some time.
 
“I don’t think I have varicose veins,”
she said sharply.
 
“Maybe you can
point them out for me.”

“Not
you,
darling.
 
I was speaking in general
terms.
 
The notion of Red being with
any woman who might start to be less than perfect with age, or because of life
circumstance—I just couldn’t picture him doing it.
 
Until you came along.”

“Thanks,
I guess.”

“It’s
a
big compliment.
 
He must really love
you, Nicole, because I would have sworn that man would end up like Hugh
Hefner—in a series of vapid relationships with empty headed beauty queens
who wanted nothing but fame and money and their face on the cover of some
ridiculous magazine.”

“I
didn’t realize you
thought so little of Red.
 
He’s not
like that at all.”

Erica
smiled and gave her a narrow-eyed sidelong
glance.
 
“Are you sure about

that?”

“Yes.”

“Good,
then.
 
I like to be proven wrong, as much as it
may seem otherwise.”
 
She threw
another pink shirt into the cart.
 
“And look at how happy you are.
 
The best revenge, as they say, is living well.”

Nicole
nodded
brusquely and then they continued up to the register to check out. When they
arrived, Erica yawned and shook her head.
 
“Excuse me, but is there a restroom I can use?”

The
salesgirl
was unsure.
 
“We have one, but it’s
usually reserved for employees.”

“Oh, I’ll just be a minute.
 
If you could ring her up and I’ll just
run and powder

my
nose.”

“Sure.
Just go back through the door behind me
and it’s on your right.”

Nicole
watched
as Erica basically left her holding the bag at the register, prancing off to
the back of the store so she could use the restroom while Nicole paid for everything.

The
salesgirl
started ringing up the nearly two-dozen items that Erica had so generously
picked out for Nicole’s baby.

Nicole
was boiling inside, furious at herself for
being duped so easily by Red’s manipulative mother.
 
How could she have let herself believe
that this nasty old crone had suddenly become the world’s sweetest pussycat?

She
knew
that she should have refused to pay for the things that Erica had so brazenly
handed to her at the last second.
 
But then again, Nicole thought that it was easier to just get through
the next little bit of time she had to spend with the woman and then make sure
to never fall for her crap again.

Erica
was
probably hoping that Nicole would be angry or give her a piece of her mind for
being so thoughtless and presumptive.
 
But Nicole wouldn’t make the same mistake she’d made the last time
they’d had words, when she’d let her temper flare. Erica had used that moment
to capitalize and create more drama.

When
the
items were all nicely folded and put away in bags, the salesgirl gave her a big
smile.
 
“Your total comes to six
hundred and seventy-nine dollars.”

Nicole
sighed and handed over her credit card.

Erica
was
still nowhere in sight as Nicole brought her bags to the car and loaded them in
the trunk.

Finally,
just
as she was slamming the trunk closed with an angry ka-thunk, Red’s mother came
waltzing out of the store.
 
“So, are
you ready for lunch?”

Nicole
was
about to reply, but Erica answered her own question.
 
“Of course you’re ready for
lunch—look at you.”

Nicole
almost—almost—told
her what she could do with her baby clothes and her opinions.
 
But just when she was almost ready to
blow her stack entirely, she heard the distinctive sound of her cell phone ringing.

The
nasty
comeback died on her lips and she gratefully reached into her purse and
retrieved her phone.

The
Caller ID read:
 
Kallie.