The Billionaire's Nanny: A BWWM Romantic Comedy (12 page)

Corbin laughs and stays put. “Oh no, I think that’s what I’m paying
you
for, esteemed Nanny.”

I give him my Grandma’s “
What
did you just say?” look.

“Coming, ma’am, right away ma’am!” he says, scampering for comic effect. That man can look hot while
scampering
.

I play it cool, though. “I’ve got the wet diaper off. Here, entertain her while I get her some clothes. Normally I take her to breakfast in her jammies and then give her a bath after, but she’s soaked through.”

Corbin steps to the changing table, saying “Hey kiddo.” I grab a romper from her dresser and come back to find him playing peek-a-boo. “Say, did she grow already?” he asks.

“Probably, that’s a thing they do.”

He gives me an eyebrow. “Thanks. But has she grown, like, overnight? I could swear she looks bigger.”

“Grandma says they do, actually. And she clearly slept like a log last night–for which I am grateful.”

Corbin smiles at me and reaches out to put his hand on my pajama’d ass. “Me too.” He turns back to Maeve. “Good baby.”

His expression clouds suddenly and he places his hand on Maeve’s tummy.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “It’s hurting my brain a little to know that her mother is dead and I’m banging her dad. I’m sure it’s even weirder for you. But we can say it out loud and admit it and try to make it okay.”

When he looks at me, he looks so sad that tears well up in my eyes. But he smiles that smile that doesn’t quite make it all the way to his eyes. “You’re right. And thank you for saying it.”

I get a sudden burst of brilliance. “Corbin!” I say, excited, “Stay with us today. Don’t go down to the office, just hang out.” I can see he’s about to say he can’t, so I forge on. “No, it’s like immersion therapy. You want to compartmentalize Nanny Vanessa from Bedtime Vanessa. No dice, that just makes it weird for
me
. You said you wanted to try harder with Maeve, this is the perfect opportunity.”

He hesitates. I can see he really wants to say no. But knows that he really
needs
to say yes.

“C’mon. It’ll be fun. We’ll go swimming. I’ll put on my skimpiest bikini,” I tease.

He smiles, for real this time. “Okay, if you’re going to bribe me. But I need to make some calls this morning, to clear my schedule. I’ll meet you after breakfast.”

In a surprise twist, Maeve has rice cereal for breakfast with Marta. I down a yogurt before I head up to my shower.

When I peel off my pajamas, I can smell Corbin’s scent on me, a nice reminder of last night. I’m almost reluctant to step into the spray. I’m a little worried by how smitten I feel. The sex was good, no doubt–maybe the best I’ve had, but his willingness to be so open with me has really gotten him under my skin.

I read about so-called alpha heroes all the time, successful men–usually rich–who are the masters of their realm. I never really like the ones that are needlessly cruel or who tear the heroine down first. But I always liked the way they knew their own mind. I liked that they were confident and sure, probably because I so seldom feel like I know what I’m doing. I figured the ideal man would have enough confidence for both of us.

Corbin seems to know what he’s doing at the winery, even if he claims it was just a job he couldn’t screw up. I’ve heard enough of his phone calls to know that he’s an experienced businessman, even if this particular business is new. But his willingness to admit that he doesn’t really know what he’s doing with Maeve, to admit that he screwed up–badly–is strangely appealing. Reassuring almost. There are different kinds of strong, you know?

Here’s this guy with more money than he probably even knows about, all the advantages of life, and he still makes mistakes, admits them, and tries to move forward. Maybe I’m the weirdo here, but that’s hotter than a guy that would…I don’t know, brood, or go work on his motorcycle after some grunting, right?

Reluctantly, I let the soap and water wash away his scent, get dressed, and go back to the kitchen to get Maeve. Good lord, it was only yesterday that I was slipping down the halls hoping I wouldn’t run into Corbin. Seems like a week.

I’m buckling her into her stroller for our morning walk around outside when Corbin turns up.

“Okay, schedule mostly cleared. I’ll need to take a call at two, but otherwise I’m all yours.”

“Ooo, lucky me!” I say with a smile. “We’re just about to go for our walk, maybe you can be our tour guide this time.”

As we walk around the gardens that Maeve and I have circled so many times, Corbin makes it all come alive for me. What had been just a retaining wall becomes an old fort where Corbin lay in wait for his sisters, who didn’t know that they were an invading force. Well, until they were hit with the cold spray from Corbin’s water gun.

The little lily pond was revealed to be the site of marine battles with remote control boats. He pointed out the remains of a tree fort in a eucalyptus tree. The Pierces used to come down over Easter break, he said, since it was still cold in Boston, but already full spring in Napa. “I didn’t realize how much like a desert it is here until I moved here. I’d only ever been here in early April, after the rains.”

“After Laura, the sister closest to my age, went to college and stopped joining us for spring break, it just wasn’t fun any more. I was about eleven or twelve and after that we stopped coming. I haven’t been back until now.”

“So your sisters are much older than you?”

“Yeah, Sarah’s the oldest, she’s ten years older, then Emily is eight years older, then two years later was Laura. My mom lost baby Frances, two years after that and declared she was done. Then I came along–surprise!–six years after Laura. My sisters imagined that my parents saw me as the longed-for son and the spoiled baby. I imagined that I was an unwelcome interruption and a foreign creature. Probably the truth is somewhere in the middle.” He chuckles ruefully.

“I’ve always been fascinated by big families,” I say, “probably because mine was so small. Both of my parents were only children, so it’s just Grandma and me. I always seem to make friends with people from big families. Asia is one of eight kids. That’s a lot of kids.”

“Yeah, four seems like an awful lot when it’s my family. Of course, I envied the only children.”

We walk on, the sun gradually going from warm to way-too-hot. We retreat to the air conditioning and I show Corbin all of Maeve’s favorite toys, teach him the wonders of the putting-things-in-the-box game, blowing his mind with the taking-them-back-out game.

After lunch–and after our required wait, even hot billionaires can’t talk me out of waiting an hour–I get into my bikini as promised and meet Corbin at the pool.

“Wow,” he says looking me up and down quite shamelessly, “well worth taking the day off.”

“What about Maeve?” I say, thrusting her forward, “Don’t leave her out.”

He pokes her belly, causing her to giggle. “You look like a movie star, Maeve, giant polka dots really suit you.”

In the pool, Corbin delights his daughter by popping out from under the water directly in front of her floaty. He swims below her and grabs her feet, causing her to scream with delight.

Returning from a tug boat trip around the pool, he swims up to me, saying, “I am so glad you convinced me to do this. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.” And when I watch them, it’s clear he’s already so much closer to Maeve, so much more her daddy and not just her guardian.

Something sexy about a good father, I’ll tell you that.

When Maeve starts to doze off in her ring, Corbin notices that it’s almost time for his call, so we head inside again.

I get her into dry clothes and into her crib, but she’s perked up a bit and babbles to herself in bed. While I wait for Maeve’s breathing to get regular, signaling that I have an hour or two of nap time, I check my email. There’s a continuation of yesterday’s roll call for who could make the Board of Directors meeting, but dropped into the middle of it is a message from the treasurer. She writes that it would be a good idea for all of us to keep our ears open for job opportunities. She says that the funds just aren’t there and she challenges anyone to dispel the rumor that the school’s air conditioning had broken and had to be replaced before we’d be clear to open. No one does.

My stomach is in knots and I feel angry. Briefly, I even recall Corbin joking that he’d shut down the school to keep me. He didn’t, right? He couldn’t. I don’t really think he would but I wish I had the guts to challenge him, to ask him to keep it open.
Just get through the Board meeting,
I think,
See where we are then
.

I’m responding to emails, brainstorming and trying to calm down the Voices of Doom on the list. A knock at my door startles me and I realize I’ve been at it almost an hour, completely forgetting to text Corbin.

He’s there when I open the door, smiling as happily as I’ve ever seen. “I just had a great idea!” he says.

“It must be, you look pretty pleased with yourself, c’mon in! Sorry I forgot to text you, I got wrapped up in school stuff.”

“No problem,” he says, sitting down on the loveseat. “I was making phone calls anyway. What would you say to going to the Adirondacks?”

“Um, I’d say ‘Why? When? What are you talking about?’”

“To camp!”

I shake my head. “Oh no, you are not dragging me off on one of these white people adventures where you give up a perfectly good bed to sleep on the ground. I am happy to hike and kayak and make a s’more, but at night I want to be well off the ground. And not in a hammock, either.”

Corbin laughs and says, “No, not that kind of camp. My family’s camp–it’s a…well, a compound, really. A bunch of cabins on the lake. We used to go every year, but lately it’s only been my folks and a sibling or two. I haven’t been in years. I’d told them I wouldn’t come this year, either, since I really just got out here and started work. But it turned out all three sisters could make it and I thought hey, this place really does run itself and I was having such a nice time with you and Maeve that I thought it would be nice to take a week, go up to New York, be with family like old times,” he takes a breath at last and adds, “and start new times.” His eyes are shining, he’s so excited by this idea, but I’m starting to feel sick. “So what do you say? I called Mom and Dad and told them I’d bring you along.”

I hesitate, wanting to choose my words carefully. “It…feels like a lot. I’m not sure I need to be there. You’d have all those extra people to help out with Maeve. I don’t think you’d need me.” I
don’t
say
Actually, I think I’d rather face a firing line than to drop myself into your huge rich family so they can judge me
and see if the waitress you picked up as a nanny is a fit replacement for the sainted dead mother.
But that’s totally what I meant.

He takes my hand and pulls me onto the couch beside him. “But I want you with me. Things are more fun with you along. And I want them to meet you, to see how great you are.”

It is disarming to have a hot man tell you that you’re so great you should meet his family. But it doesn’t make it a less terrifying prospect. I decide to come clean, at least a little. “Corbin, the very idea of meeting your whole family at once, on their ground, scares the crap out of me.”

He nods. “Oh, yeah, that makes sense. But here’s the thing–they
already
think I screw everything up. So if you manage to keep from dropping Maeve into the jaws of a bear or feeding her rat poison, you’ll have exceeded their expectations. I’m the little brother. My sisters have their own kids to worry about, they barely even notice I’m there. Then, at night, you and I can go down to the dock and laugh about them behind their backs. It’s great fun, I promise.”

Okay, that part does sound fun.

“Say you’ll come,” he says in that way that powerful men have of making a request that sounds like an order.

I don’t know whether it’s his boss-man mojo or his infectious excitement or just that stupid need to please a new boyfriend, but I nod. “Okay. I’ll go. When?”

“Next week. We’ll get there on Sunday.”

We hear Maeve start to wake on the monitor. “You promise no sleeping in a bag on the ground, right?” I ask, standing up.

“I’ll make sure you get the best bed in our cabin.” He smiles. “It’ll be the one with me in it.”

“Presumptuous,” I say with a toss of my head as I open the door to the playroom.

“Your daddy is crazy,” I say to Maeve as I pick her up from the crib. “He’s lucky he’s cute.”

“I can hear you!” Corbin calls from the bedroom, but I knew that.

I change Maeve’s diaper and bring her into the playroom. I’m about to set her on the rug with her busy box when Corbin comes in, tapping at his phone.

“Sarah texted me and asked me to bring her old camp sweatshirt. She’s sending Zoe, her ten year old, to sleepaway camp for the first time and wants to give her the vintage Camp Wakota sweatshirt. She says it’s in the pink room.”

“The pink room?”

“Yeah, so your room is just called ‘the au pair suite’ but most of the other bedrooms are called by the color of the walls. I guess it was homier than just putting numbers on the doors so anyone could know what you were talking about. So there’s a Grey Room, a Green Room, and so on. Even when Elise came out here while I was on an India trip and ordered all new everything, she kept the room color the same. Sarah used to sleep in the Pink Room if we came out here. Guess she tucked her sweatshirt away some time in the late 80s and it was never seen again.”

He heads for the hall, so I set the box down and tag along with Maeve.

“Hey, how come I have to be ‘the nanny’ instead of ‘the au pair’?” I ask as we walk.

He waggles his eyebrows at me. “Because you are not a sylph-like young French girl with impeccable credentials, sent from the agency.”

I punch him.

“See? Babette would
never
hit me in front of the baby.” He grins at me and opens the door. Cad.

The Pink Room is well named. The walls are so pale that they’re nearly white, but the bedspread and that giant pile of throw pillows all the beds seem to have are shades of pink from shell to magenta. And, like all the other rooms I’ve seen, it is immaculate and unused.