Babysitter for the Single Dad Page 6

  I gasp at that, blood flooding to my core, my nipples. I didn’t expect this game to have that kind of effect on me. It’s as if he really has control of me and what my body does. I know I can get up at any moment, or just tell him to stop, but I don’t want to. I want to see where he’s going with this, how this game feels.

  “Five,” he says, “on the bare, ten if you make a sound. Are you going to stay quiet so you don’t get double?”

  “Yes, sir.” I get a fit of the giggles again.

  “That’s ten already. You’re no good at this, are you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Maybe you need more practice.”

  “Maybe I do.”

  He yanks down my panties, and wallops me once on my behind. I squeal. That hurts! But then blood floods into the area and there’s nothing but warmth there, a tingling.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

  “No, sir.” I’m already anticipating new sensations to come.

  “Okay then. I’m going to spank you another nine times. If you want me stop, your safe word is Palma.”

  He holds my hands down behind my back and I feel his other hand strike me over and over, each stinging blow adding to heat on my skin until I feel it glowing.

  After five or six, he runs his hand over the redness, massaging away the sting, soothing me, but I don’t need soothing, I want more. There’s something building here. I moan as his hand brushes between my legs. He has to realize how aroused I am now.

  “So wet,” he says, his voice rough. “You know what happens to wet girls?”

  “What?”

  “You forgot the sir.”

  “What, sir?”

  “They get extra spanks and extra hard fucking for good measure.”

  I gulp, it feels so shameful to be lying across his lap, but I’m practically trembling with desire. I can’t imagine letting anyone else do this to me. Yet, I don’t stop him.

  He spanks me fifteen, maybe twenty times, maybe more. I lose count, and I never say Palma. But I make a lot of noise. Every spank seems to burn a path to the very core of me, inflaming not just the surface of my skin, but my whole body. I love what his hands are doing to me. I don’t understand it, but I don’t want to stop.

  And on the last stroke I come hard on his lap, the whole thing an eye-opening experience. Who knew?

  “Fuck, Jenna,” he says, rolling me over, pinning me to the bed. “You push every button there is. You’re gonna kill me.”

  And then he shows me just how much that “game” turned him on with his body, and I show him right back.

  CHAPTER 24

  Elliott

  My stomach gurgles, and she laughs. “One appetite satisfied and now the other one makes itself heard.”

  “That chicken is calling out to me, I can’t deny it, but you’re wrong about the other appetite.”

  “What?”

  “That appetite will never get enough of you.” As I say it, I think I’m making a joke, but having said it, I realize I actually mean that. I don’t think I’ll ever have enough of Jenna.

  After the chicken and the wine, I take her back to bed. And after that, she lies in my arms and we talk and talk about nothing and everything, about her childhood and mine (both happy) and more about her parents and mine (and how we feel about losing a parent—both in Jenna’s case), about my sister (and how we get on much better now than when we were younger), and about the pets we had (but don’t have now).

  And we talk again, like we’ll never run out of things to say, the next day over breakfast as she spoons cereal into Sophie and tries to get her to eat more by pretending the spoon is an airplane coming in to land in her mouth.

  “You might put her off flying, too, if she barfs up that cereal.”

  “Very funny. She’s hardly had any, but maybe she’s holding out for something tastier, like bacon and egg.”

  “Bacon,” Sophie says and laughs. I cut up some pieces for her as I put breakfast on the plates.

  “That’s my favorite food, too,” Jenna says, watching Sophie gobble up the bacon. “What’s yours?”

  “I used to say langoustines with orange-saffron butter. I had that once in Marseilles, but now it’s actually fish and chips. I got addicted in London.”

  “Favorite book?” she asks.

  “Anna Karenina.”

  “You’ve read that?”

  “I read the script. I was going for the part of Vronsky, but a better offer came up. I should have gone to Russia instead of LA, but then there would have been no Sophie, and I can’t regret that. Just meeting her mother. She’s a piece of work.”

  A cloud comes over Jenna’s face. I shouldn’t have mentioned Angelica. It just slipped out.

  “Maybe you’ll say that about me in the future,” she says. “Or something else. That I’m like Ruth or something after you fire me.”

  “You’re nothing like either of the witches, and their names shall never henceforth pass my lips.” Stupid, stupid me, talking about the past. But then it’s better for Jenna to know, because sure as eggs are eggs, rotten ones in this case, Angelica will turn up sooner or later, and I don’t want it to be any kind of shock.

  CHAPTER 25

  Jenna

  Ben drops us all off in Palma City after breakfast. It’s a beautiful day for a stroll. Elliott picks up a newspaper and I get a couple of celebrity magazines. These things seem more interesting than they used to. We have coffee at a pavement cafe and I flick through them.

  There’s nothing about Elliott in there. I’m disappointed. But Angelica has one picture attending the premiere of her latest movie in New York. She’s so stunning it frightens me all over again.

  “I don’t know why you bought those. Don’t believe a word you read in there,” Elliott says. “You think they’re happy?” He points to a page with a couple holding hands at their palatial home.

  “They look like they are.”

  He shakes his head. “They’re on the verge of divorce. At each other’s throats the whole time, last I saw them. They must have needed the money to pay their lawyers for that little photo shoot to take place.”

  I turn back to the article I was looking at, with Angelica looking stunning at her premiere.

  “You should see the makeup artists involved in that charade,” Elliott says. “She looks nothing like that without hours of effort. Not even her own effort at that. Seriously, don’t worry about Angelica.”

  But I can’t help being just a little bit concerned. If not about her, then about all the other glamorous actresses he knows. They can’t all put their makeup on with a trowel. The ladies in these magazines are beautiful.

  But we’ve finished our coffee, and I’ve given Sophie her juice. “Come on, let’s go shopping,” Elliott says. “There are some great places here.”

  We find the cutest little outfit for Sophie in the big department store and as we pass a rack of beautiful and expensive clothes, he grabs a dress in the deepest coral. “That would look great on you. Go try it on.”

  When I don’t take it from him right away, he says, “Go on. For me. I want to see you in it.”

  The sales assistant pounces and has me in the dressing room before I can protest. The dress is gorgeous, but I didn’t even plan on going shopping.

  “You must show him,” she says in her Spanish accent when I try it on.

  She leads me out by the hand.

  “Wow!” he says, holding Sophie, who must have wanted to get out of her stroller again. “We’re buying that. What about shoes and a purse?” he says to the sales lady whose eyes light up.

  “I really can’t,” I say. He must know how much he’s paying me. It’s generous, but not enough for expensive designer clothes like these.

  “You really can,” he says. “My treat.”

  And because the dress makes me feel like a million dollars, like Angelica on the catwalk, I hug and thank him.

  “There has to be a perk or two when you’re dating a movie star,�
�� he whispers in my ear.

  “We’re dating?”

  “We sure are.”

  And I glow like the coral color of my new dress.

  CHAPTER 26

  Elliott

  Two weeks with Jenna, and I feel like I never want to leave the island. My next shoot is just a few days away in Paris. Jenna and Sophie are coming with me, of course, but I know it won’t be the same with all the mad pressure of filming. I’ll get very little free time, and there will be so many more people around. So I make the most of the time with Jenna and Sophie here—both of them during the day, and Jenna at night in my bed.

  The weather remains good despite it being almost November, and we spend the last day on the beach. “You seem really at home here on the sand.”

  “I always loved the beach. We used to go to Blackpool when I was a kid. Miles of sand to play on. Donkey rides. There was a tower and a pier. Everything. Well, everything except warm water. That was freezing, but we didn’t seem to notice.”

  “I hate to drag you and Sophie away from here to Paris.”

  “You’re going to leave us behind?” She seems dismayed at the idea.

  “No; although my arm might suffer on the flight, there’s no way I’m not taking you two. I just wanted to warn you that Paris is not like Palma. I’ll not get to see you much and there will be a lot more media attention. The paparazzi will find out we’re filming there pretty quickly.”

  “I’ll keep out of your way. I’m just your nanny and no one is going to be the least bit interested in me.”

  But as soon as we are there, it starts. The paparazzi are at the airport, and they get pictures of us arriving. They must have been staking out the place for someone else, but they still get Jenna and me together on camera for free.

  By the next day my agent sends me copies of the articles that are already out there asking, “Who is the mystery woman?” It doesn’t take them long to find out. It never does. And then the questions start. “Is the mystery woman (now known to be Jenna Matthews) just my nanny?”

  It’s difficult to deny anything, seeing as I’m kissing her and looking into her eyes in one of the pictures. Any fool can see this isn’t an employer-nanny relationship. But they always have to get their quotes, and if they don’t, they’ll make them up. So without saying much, I admit I’m dating Jenna and hope I won’t be misquoted.

  I let my agent handle it all, and I don’t upset Jenna with any of it. Hopefully it will all die down and they’ll go away and bug someone who will fill more gossip column pages than I ever could.

  But then, a day later, my agent sends me an article featuring an interview with Ruth. It’s bad, implying all kinds of things, but there’s nothing much a lawyer can do anything with. She doesn’t name me as her employer or talk much about herself. She tells a tale of what it’s like to be a nanny to “the stars,” and the sort of things that go on because “celebrities get away with murder.”

  And I have to admit, it’s true, there are a few black sheep, but none of it applies to Ruth or her time with me. And definitely not the bit where she says many nannies are dumped and blacklisted because they refuse to sleep with their employers. It doesn’t help my mood when the next sentence says that Ruth is currently looking for work, as if she’s also blacklisted and that has anything to do with me.

  I’m so happy Jenna doesn’t see that article. She’s as carefree as ever, enjoying Paris, taking Sophie around in her stroller, and in my bed at night I can tell nothing is troubling her.

  “I saw your picture in Paris-Match, today,” she says. “I’m not sure exactly what it said, but there was something about your garde d’enfant and nounou. I’m guessing those are words for nanny. They only had your picture there.”

  “You don’t mind that they are starting to print stuff about us?” I ask her. “There are some pictures with you in them, too.”

  “Should I mind?” she asks. “Do I look fat? Are they asking why you’re with someone like me?”

  I’m careful with my answer, hating how I can’t be open with her. “They’re not always kind, but why would they ask that? You’re beautiful.”

  “You’re demented,” she says, laughing.

  “I think I might be. You mesmerized me.” And I show her how demented I can be with my body. We don’t get to sleep for a long time after that. The makeup artists will earn their keep dealing with the shadows under my eyes next day.

  But by then I have more to worry about than a rough time in makeup. There’s a second installment from Ruth going on about outlandish behavior at celebrity parties. I know that crap is all made-up, or it’s from her time with Angelica, because she wasn’t with me long enough to attend any parties. She repeats some of the stuff about nannies being required to do all kinds of things to keep their jobs, and she says some of them will do anything.

  There’s no reference to me again. But my agent also sends a snippet from the gossip section of the paper. “Sorry, but I thought you should see this, too. It looks like they are trying to link the two stories.” There’s a picture of Jenna in the few moments she was topless on the beach, insinuating she’s some kind of harlot because the photo was taken soon after I switched nannies, information probably supplied by Ruth. The picture was taken by someone on the beach that day, probably in the background of the shot. It’s blown up and blurry but it’s unmistakably Jenna and me.

  I hope Jenna never sees the articles. I don’t want her feeling bad about something as innocent as Sophie pouring cold water on her when she’s sunbathing. It’s lucky we’re in Paris where there’s less exposure to the foul British media, and less fuss in a country where every other woman goes topless on the beach.

  But I forgot about Jenna’s friend.

  CHAPTER 27

  Jenna

  I’ve kept Katie up to date on everything since I first kissed Elliott in the kitchen. How could I not? She’s sworn to secrecy, of course, but she’d never hurt me anyway. She admits she’s green with envy, but she says, “Just as well I love you. Tell me everything.” So I do, leaving out the bed parts. Some things are too private to share.

  When I travel to Paris with Elliott, it’s so close to London Katie wants to meet me there, just for a day or two when I’m not too busy. She hops over from London, and she’s here. Elliott got her a room in the same hotel as us, so it’s easier for us to get together. It feels like a million years since I saw her.

  “Look at you,” she says, when I first see her in reception. “You look different.”

  And I guess I do, because I picked up a few things. I don’t want to look dowdy with Elliott being around actresses all day, and maybe there’s a pep in my step because I feel on top of the world too.

  “It must be living in luxury that does it,” Katie says. “I loved having a limo pick me up at Charles de Gaulle. Did you organize that, as well as the room?”

  “Elliott did that. He wants you to enjoy yourself.”

  “I’m going to love him as much as you do at this rate.”

  I laugh. Katie loves all kinds of celebrities already.

  “And this little lady is such a cutie,” she says. Sophie beams back at her and holds tightly onto my hand.

  “What do you want to do?” I ask Katie. “Do you just want to go to the Jardin de Luxembourg for a walk and then somewhere for lunch?” She and I did all the tourist spots on a break here a couple of years ago, and catching up is much more important than standing in line to see all those things again. By the time we get there, Sophie is fast asleep in her stroller, and it’s cold so we make for a cafe.

  “How’s Elliott?” Katie asks after she has filled me in on all the news from home.

  “He’s good. You’ll see him later. I’ll take you over to the set after lunch. He wants to meet you, and he says he’ll introduce you to all the rest of the cast, too.”

  “Wow! That’s fantastic.” Katie beams. “You’ve met all of them already?”

  “Yeah, just briefly. They keep themselves to themse
lves mostly in their big trailers, but they said hello.”

  “This is surreal. I’m so jealous. One moment you’re off to be nanny to some businessman and the next you’re meeting stars at celebrity parties.”

  “Not quite that glamorous, but I know what you mean. I keep having to pinch myself, but it’s not really that. It’s Elliott. I think I’m falling for him, hard.”

  “You think? I know. I can tell when you talk about him on the phone. And now I see how you get that dreamy look on your face when you talk about him. It’s the same one you used to get when we were thirteen, talking about the kind of weddings we wanted to have.”

  I laugh. “I’m sure nothing is further from Elliott’s mind than white dresses and bouquets.”

  “Maybe, but it seems like this is something special. Not like all that stuff they write about the stars and their nannies. You wouldn’t stay with him if he was like that, would you?”

  “I guess not. What do they say, anyway?”

  “There was an article last week from Ruth somebody. She was so full of herself. I guess it didn’t reach Paris.”

  “Ruth? His last nanny was called Ruth.”

  “No!” Katie colors. “It’s probably not her. Anyway, it was nothing.” She looks uneasy. There’s something I need to know about this.

  “Why? What did the article say?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Not much. Forget I mentioned it.”

  “You’ve got to tell me, Katie. Don’t leave me hanging like this.”

  Katie hesitates, but I scowl at her. She knows I won’t give up until she tells me now. “Ruth said that a nanny is like a personal possession, like the star thinks he owns you. She said when nannies say no to their celebrity employers—she didn’t name hers at all—they get fired. But there are a lot of girls called Ruth.”

  “Girls called Ruth who are nannies to stars and get fired. He said she came onto him and when she got over the top he had to let her go.” My stomach feels like I swallowed a brick.