CHAPTER NINE

Reva

 

I’m breathless. I have never felt closer to another human being in all my life before. The way he lay on top of me, putting every part of my body in full erotic contact with his had been incredible. I felt so joined to Ridge, so connected, body and soul. His kiss made me shake, made me want more, want everything.

It all happened so fast. He opened up to me about his childhood. I saw him, the real him, as vulnerable as he is strong. He was holding my hand. It was so easy to go into his arms once that link was there. Up against the muscular wall of his chest, I’d been the one who felt sheltered and protected. I reached out to comfort him, but it was like Ridge absorbed me into his chest. I could feel his heartbeat. When I lifted my face to his, he kissed me. His kiss was ecstasy all on its own. I won’t lie—I felt like a goddess in his arms. Ridge was so gentle, so tender with me. His kiss was heartbreaking in its intensity. I melted into him. His every touch sent me nearer to the edge of paradise.

When I was spent in his arms, I whispered how amazing it was.

That must have been my mistake. Maybe if I’d stayed quiet, the spell wouldn’t have been broken. I could have stayed in his arms that way, perhaps. I saw it in his face. His eyes seemed to shutter, to block me out. He had been so open to me. We’d been so connected. It felt harsh and icy—a shock. I felt him pull away from me, inch by inch. His grip on me loosened, his fingers sliding out of my tangled hair. He withdrew as surely as if a candle had been blown out.

“What’s wrong?” I say, hearing the high note of panic in my voice.

“Nothing,” he says. I hear the lie in his voice.

“What happened?” I press, reaching for his hand.

Ridge gets to his feet and pulls on his pants. I want to cry. I want to cover myself and howl with frustration and sadness. I want to sleep in his arms tonight. I want to wake up hours from now in his bed because he’s kissing me, because he can’t get enough of me. That’s not going to be real now. He’s done with me. I make a little choking sound in my throat. I look around and reach for my shirt, pulling it over my head. It should make me feel better to be covered up, but I still feel exposed.

“My apologies,” he says.

I think I die. I actually die. I am sitting on his couch with no panties on while he says he is sorry about what we just did. I feel crushed. Destroyed. Discarded. I think I make a strangled noise.

“There is no excuse for my behavior tonight. I’m ordinarily far more responsible in my personal choices. I seldom have sex with women I know well. I find one-night stands to be more convenient for everyone, when I’m out of town on business, of course. I have no idea what got in to me this evening, but I do apologize. Clearly a mistake, and a bitter one at that. Fouling one’s own nest and that sort of thing…” he rambles.

“What? Did you just say you—you consider what we just did to be like—like fouling your nest?”

“I meant no offense. Only that an employer should never engage in—”

“Oh my God. You’re playing the boss card,” I say, scrabbling into a sitting position, my knees drawn up to my chest in horror.

“I think the best course of action at this point is to admit that the arrangement with you as a residential nanny isn’t working,” he says.

“You’re firing me,” I say dully.

As if this could get any worse. Sitting here. Being rejected. Being talked down to. In no panties. And now he’s going to sack me. I shut my eyes. All I can think is—fuck my life. It’s not a word I’ve used above twice but right now seems like the moment for it. I take a long breath and try to be calm.

“No. Your job performance is not at issue. This is an interpersonal or, I suppose, in a larger establishment, an HR difficulty. You can’t stay here. I would like to propose that you continue as Lydia’s nanny full time, but that I provide you with a housing stipend to stay somewhere else. You would work, let’s say, seven to seven at the same salary, but you would remove your belongings and live elsewhere.”

I gape at him. He’s kicking me out. Like the next item on his to-do list. Bang the nanny, check. Evict the nanny, check.

I can’t even say anything. Because this hurts so much. I feel like my legs were just kicked out from under me. Like there was a secret trapdoor right where I was standing. Ask me to stay, I think, tell me you don’t mean it! But I don’t say any of that. It wouldn’t be fair to say I still have my pride—that’s long gone obviously—but I don’t want him to see how craven I really am. How I would stay with him in a heartbeat if he wasn’t asking me to leave.

I think I nod.

“Good, very good. I’ll make arrangements to interview a relief nanny for weekends and occasional nights. Since you’ve established a good relationship with Lydia, I prefer to keep you a stable presence in her life for the time being,” he says. I suppose that passes for explaining himself. He doesn’t want his daughter to lose her nanny. Which I understand. I don’t want to leave Lydia. I would never do that to her. Unless her dad, you know, demands I leave.

“How will you explain to her why I move out?” I manage, my concern for Lydia overpowering my humiliated silence.

“I suppose you’ll tell her that you have other business to take care of, but reassure her you will still take care of her,” he says.

“I have to tell her? This isn’t my decision, Ridge,” I say, “You’re the one kicking me out.”

“I’m not kicking you out. There’s no need to be dramatic. I’m sure you’ll agree that if my daughter had awakened earlier and come looking for either one of us, what she saw would have been highly problematic.”

“A door with a lock would take care of that,” I blurt out. I might as well beg him to shag me again, suggesting we go behind locked doors.

“That isn’t suitable. The situation is such that I want vigilant care for my daughter in my absence, but that the redundant residential aspect of your employment is not working. I prefer to have you reside elsewhere, and never to speak of this again.”

“Ridge,” I say, hoping to reason with him, hoping mainly to ward off tears.

“My daughter could have found us like that,” he says brokenly. Not just his words but the shattered sound of his voice strike me in the heart.

“She didn’t. We shouldn’t have taken that risk, you’re right,” I say, hoping to find a common ground, to agree on something. Maybe he’ll see that his objection was to where we did it, not the fact that we did it at all.

He shakes his head. I’m grappling here for anything I could say that might mend this. The problem is that I’m torn. Half of me wants to cry and weep and wail, and the other half wants to scream that, no, goddammit, he does not get to have sex with me and then whine about it.

“At least we can agree that it was a mistake,” he says.

“No,” I say, before I even realize I’m forming the word. Apparently, the angry half of me has won. “Doing it on the couch was a stupid, heat of the moment thing. I regret that. I don’t regret that we—what we were to each other,” I lose my nerve and can’t even say ‘we had sex’ out loud to him right now. I quail before the look in his eyes. It’s not just grief, it’s pity too. He feels sorry for me. I bite my thumbnail.

“I would never do anything to hurt Lydia,” I say, “I hope you know that.”

“We were careless. It was completely the wrong thing to do, regardless of where it happened. As I said, I apologize. I’ll speak to my business manager about a fair living stipend for you to relocate. In the meantime, can you stay with your friend Angela again?”

“Do you want me out, like, now?” I say, dumbfounded.

“Well, not tonight certainly. Tomorrow will be soon enough. Perhaps Mrs. Whitman can mind Lydia in the afternoon while you move your things out of the room.”

“Or maybe I can stuff them in a Hefty bag and toss them out the window. It’d be faster!” I say hotly.

“I see that you’re upset and emotional now. I’m sure in the light of day you’ll see that I’m right. We have an impossible living situation that has to change as quickly as possible in a practical sense. The purpose of your employment is to provide care and supervision for my daughter when I’m not at home. The redundancy was a luxury in theory, but in practice it’s—intolerable.”

“You find me intolerable,” I say flatly, “I find you condescending and a real asshole.”

“I never suggested I was otherwise. I believe most of my associates would agree with your statement.”

“You know, maybe it’s best that you do hire another nanny to replace me. This isn’t a good fit,” I say pointedly, “I’m sure you’d be happier with another caregiver for Lydia.”

“No,” he says, “I don’t want to do that. She needs you to be a stable presence in her life; however, there’s no need for you to live on property. Mrs. Whitman has an apartment. If the housekeeper can live away, so can the nanny.”

“Fine,” I say, cheeks flaming from being put in my place and classed with the maid.

I’m out of replies. He doesn’t want to live with me or kiss me or sleep with me. He thinks it’s intolerable and regrets it all. There’s nothing left for me to do besides drag stuff out of the dresser drawers and dump it into bags. I’m halfway done with the third drawer before I start crying.

I heard his door shut—calmly, quietly, no passionate slams that might wake anyone—a few minutes ago. I mutter and swear under my breath. I’m tempted to charge out of the house and take a taxi to Angela’s. Let him deal with the fallout of why I’m gone and where, let him answer all the questions. Except that hurts Lydia. I don’t want to hurt Lydia. I want to hurt her father the way that he crushed me. What we shared had felt so intimate, so magical. I’ve never been so wrong, not even about giving my credit card to my then-boyfriend who trashed my credit and left me with piles of debt. This is so much worse. Debt can be repaid. Trust and emotional connection—those things can’t be rebuilt once they’re destroyed. I felt so close to Ridge when he told me about this childhood. It wasn’t just attraction. It was understanding and affection and the start of something intense and deep and real. At least, for me it was.

For him, apparently it was a catastrophic mistake that he can’t wait to erase. He will literally pay me to move out tomorrow. I call Angela. I didn’t want to tell her. That would make it real. I would have to admit that I did the unbelievable thing of sleeping with the hottest guy I’ve ever met and been rejected. But I had to call her or be homeless.

“Ang? It’s me,” I say when she picks up the phone, clearly asleep.

“I’m awake. I’m awake,” she says, “I was totally still up. What’s wrong? You sound horrible.”

“I’m gonna need a place to stay again.”

“He fired you?”

“Worse?”

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“No—no—nothing like that!” I say, picturing Angela headed for the door with a Louisville Slugger in hand ready to take Ridge down.

“Then what? Tired of having a housekeeper and cook full time? Steam shower getting on your nerves?” she teases. I clear my throat so I don’t sound so weepy.

“It’s no longer a residential position. He doesn’t want me to live here anymore. After tonight.”

“Wait, what happened tonight? Did you two? Did you fuck the paranoid hot guy?”

“Yes,” I say miserably.

“I’m so proud of you! I never thought you’d go wild like this.”

“Well, it’s worked out just great. I’ve been dumped and evicted. I offered to quit. He didn’t want me to. He wants me to take care of Lydia. He just basically doesn’t want to have to look at me.”

“He sounds like a real asshole,” Angela observes.

“That’s what I told him.”

“I am beyond proud of you. It needed to be said, and you said it. Way to go.”

“You mean way to get kicked out of the house? This is going to be beyond awkward.”

“That’s why you should never screw anyone you work with.”

“Is that why you’re chasing after the Muffin Hottie?” I ask.

“I don’t work with him. He is a customer. I work at a grocery store. If I disqualify dating anyone who goes to the grocery store, I don’t know what’s left. Everyone goes to buy food. I can’t just give up seeing him and talking to him because I manage the bakery—”

“Calm down. I hope you and Muffin Hottie have a houseful of mini muffins together, believe me. And if he ever sleeps with you and then says he regrets it, I will personally kill him with a tablespoon for you,” I say, “I’ll come by tomorrow to drop off my stuff. I basically get the day off as an incentive to get my stuff out of his sight.”

“I’m sorry,” she says, and I know she is. She wanted this to work out for me.

We hang up. I go to Lydia’s room to check on her. I pull up the covers she’s kicked off and smooth back her hair. I look at her and feel so sorry that I messed things up. The temptation was too much for me. I should never have touched Ridge. I should never have kissed him or let him get my clothes off. I was weak, and now I’m sorry. Because it was a mistake. The worst of my life.

I go swiftly to sleep. I expect to cry and toss and turn, but I am exhausted. I wake early, dress, and make an effort to be cheerful for Lydia’s sake. I tell myself that she doesn’t notice something’s off. But Ridge comes in as I’m zipping her jacket.

“I need to talk to you for a minute. Have a seat,” he says to her kindly.

Just act like an asshole, I think, don’t be so confusing. It’s hard to hold on to hating him when I see the way he treats his daughter.

“What’s up?” she says.

“Reva is going to go back and live with her friend Angela now. She will still take care of you and get you ready and be here when you come home and spend the afternoon with you.”

“Why?” she says, perplexed. The worried crinkle of her eyebrow wrenches my heart.

“Because it’s better for everyone if Reva lives somewhere else.”

“Not better for me. Sometimes I need her at night. Did you make her mad?” Lydia says.

“The grown-ups decided it was the right thing to do. That doesn’t mean I won’t miss you, or that you won’t miss me. But we’ll still see each other,” I say brightly. I feel like I’m reading off a bad script from an after-school special about mommy and daddy getting divorced.

Lydia crosses her arms. I thought she might run into my arms and cling to me. But she’s pissed off. I am too. We worked so hard to build a routine that works for her. I wanted better for her than this. I wanted to socialize her more, help her to have a less isolated life. I look at her, trying to tell her silently that I love her and I’ll still be here for her. I don’t know how to make her understand. I don’t even understand what’s going on here, to tell the truth.

I kneel down to her, “What questions do you have? I’ll answer them.”

“Will you be here when I get back?”

“Not today, no. But tomorrow I will,” I say, “I have to take my stuff to Angela’s and get settled in. But after that, I’ll be here every day when you get home from school like always.”

“Can’t the driver take your stuff?”

“Honey, I have to unpack it and put it away,” I say.

“Mrs. Whitman does all that.”

“Not everybody has a Mrs. Whitman, Lydia,” I tell her, “It’s okay for me to take care of myself. I’ll be back.”

“Why can’t Mrs. Whitman take care of you? And the driver? And us? We were taking good care of you. Why do you have to leave?”

She doesn’t sound sad or plaintive. She sounds annoyed. She’s small, the center of her world, and this is disruptive and inconvenient. I get it.

“There’s not room here for me, Lydia,” I say honestly.

“There’s nine bedrooms!” she argues.

“There are different kinds of room. I’m not talking about closet space. This house is a home for you and your dad. Staff doesn’t live here.”

“What’s staff?” Lydia says.

“People who work for your dad. People who aren’t part of the family,” I say.

She looks confused. I am trying to reassure her, but I think I’m making it worse.

“Mr. Carter,” I say pointedly, “perhaps you can explain it better.”

I stand up. In fact, I go in the kitchen and get some orange juice. I don’t want to listen to this. It’s not like I’m delighted with being referred to as the help. He can tell her whatever he wants. She’s his daughter. He made that very clear. I love her, but I haven’t been in her life that long. I meant to cut him by calling him Mr. Carter. I doubt that he noticed.

After Lydia leaves for school, I’m alone in the house with Ridge. He looks at me, eyes shuttered and cold, and walks out. He leaves me there to wait for the driver. I feel abandoned. I am impossibly sad. I ride to the apartment. The driver carries some of my bags. Angela is waiting at the door. She opens her arms and hugs me.

“I took the day off,” she says, “I did a fake cough. Thought you could use some company.”

“Thank you,” I say, “thank you.”

I crash on the couch. “This sucks,” I say, “I don’t know why I’m so torn up about this. I’ve only known the guy a month or so and—”

“And you fall hard and fast, just like with Danny.”

“That’s a good comparison. I fell for someone who didn’t give a damn about me. Now I feel stupid and alone.”

“But you’re not alone. You’ve got me. You’ve got your parents and Benny. You’ve got this kid.”

“Yes. I hate that I still have to work with Ridge, which I guess is what he was saying when he said the situation is intolerable. I wish I didn’t have to see him ever again. I still want to take care of Lydia, though. I’m planning a play date for her and some friends. She’s really isolated. That house is fabulous, but it’s lonely for her. I just—I’m glad I have today off to get my head together before I go back in there tomorrow. He’s getting a weekend nanny too.”

“So he doesn’t have to be alone in the house with his child and the scary, scary weekday nanny?”

“Yeah, I’m terrifying. It’s my ferocious seductive side. I bet he has nightmares,” I say.

“Want a cup of hot tea?”

“I guess. Unless you have coffee and Kahlua. This feels like a coffee and Kahlua occasion,” I sigh and wander in to unpack my stuff.

When the coffee is ready, Angela brings me a mug. I take a long drink.

“Is there any coffee in this? Or did you just microwave straight Kahlua?”

“There’s a little coffee. I figure if you’re wrecked enough to day drink, we might as well go hard core.”

“Works for me,” I say, taking another drink.

I have two of those coffees. We watch daytime talk shows and make fun of everyone on them. I’m pretty sure I start crying during The View. I must have fallen asleep because I wake up on the couch with a blanket over me, the TV switched off, and no Angela in sight. Maybe she got tired of my pity party and left. I rub my eyes and just lie there.

I stare at the crack in the ceiling. I replay last night in my mind. It’s hard to pinpoint the worst thing about it—how amazing it was or how lost I feel now or the tragic fact that all future sex, solo or otherwise, will be compared to that night, to that one earth-shattering encounter. I know deep down that the most romantic, most intimate and satisfying sex of my life is in my past. That is a miserable feeling. I shut my eyes and go back to sleep.

When I wake again, Angela is storming in with pizza.

“Go ahead, ruin yourself, it’s pepperoni and pineapple—your favorite. None of this one-slice-limit where you have to watch your weight. It’s rejection binge time.”

I start to push myself up when she brings the pizza box and a wad of napkins to the couch. I slouch against the cushions, bite into the spicy hot pizza gratefully. I lean my head on her shoulder. “Thank you,” I say to Angela, “you’re the best.”

“I know it. And one of these days when I get up the nerve to ask Muffin Hottie out and he shags me and dumps me, I expect you to bring the pizza. Olives and sausage when it’s my turn.”

“Deal,” I say, toasting her with my slice.

Three slices in, my phone rings. Startled, I drop it as I reach for it. I hope it’s Ridge. And I hope it isn’t.

Maybe he’s calling to say he realizes how much he needs me in the house, how we can make this work between us. Maybe Lydia’s had a bad day at school and needs to talk to me.

I reach the phone, flip it over and see a number I don’t recognize on the screen. I answer it.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Sloan, this is Bonnie Black at Winchester Children’s Academy. We would like to make an appointment to discuss your application.”

“Ms. Black! Thank you for calling. I’d—I’d love to speak with you about a vacancy at the academy, but I’m presently employed.”

“Ah, are you in the educational field still?”

“I’m in a related field. I’m currently working as a nanny. I sent a number of applications when I was RIF’d from the charter school. I admit I accepted the first job on offer.”

“That’s our loss, Ms. Sloan. If you should become available, please let my office know.”

“Thank you. I’ll do that.”

I hang up the phone, bewildered.

“That was a call for an interview at the Winchester Academy, Angela,” I say.

“Is that good?”

“Well, let’s just say I haven’t had sex with anyone at that school so it’s got that in its favor. It would be more in my field than being a nanny, which is one step closer to learning about how to administer an educational center.”

“You mean Benny’s Place?”

“That’s just the working name, but yeah. It’s what I’ve always wanted. And this would be an opportunity to learn more, get one step closer.”

“Are you going to do it?”

“No. I don’t know. I’ve committed to Lydia. I don’t feel right about walking out on her. It’s just reassuring to know that there are other jobs out there for me. That it’s not work for Ridge Carter or nothing.”

“It was never Ridge Carter or nothing,” Angela says.

Somehow I don’t agree with that statement. Because last night it sure as hell felt like I wanted him or nothing. That’s a feeling I’m just going to have to get over.