Chapter Two
Vanessa
My hands shook as I stepped into the multi-storied building in Claremont. Melinda May’s agency was on the fourth floor, and while I rode the elevator, I looked at the mirrored wall and smoothed my wavy strawberry blonde hair down, trying to ignore my trembling fingers.
The elevator pinged, and I walked out and toward the receptionist’s desk, my legs somehow carrying me even though I was sure they’d collapse under me at any moment. When the receptionist spotted me, she gave me a polite smile and raised a questioning brow. “Are you Vanessa Ryan?” she asked.
I nodded. “Yes,” I said timidly. “I have an interview at twelve.”
“Ms. May will see you soon. Just take a seat over there.”
She waved toward some chairs on the far side of the small room, and I smiled weakly and did as she said. As I sat down, I smoothed my skirt and did up another button on my blouse just to be safe. They were the nicest clothes I owned; hand-me-downs from Emma. Hopefully they’d be enough to convince the agency that I was a trustworthy girl from a good background. It was unbelievable how much people judged you from your appearance alone.
As I waited, I wondered if I was even halfway qualified for a job like this. Or would Melinda simply laugh in my face when she saw my résumé? The only real job I’d ever had was at Boci. I did have some experience with kids, though—Emma had three younger brothers and sisters, one of them a baby, and I’d helped out a lot with them in the time I’d lived at her house. It was the least I could do.
My phone buzzed in my purse, and I leaned down and looked at the screen. It was a private number calling me, so I ignored it and shut my phone off. I’d been getting odd prank calls from a private number a lot recently. Whenever I answered, the person on the other end of the line never said anything. Just silence and breathing.
I sat back up straight and grabbed a magazine from a nearby coffee table to read while I waited. It was just a silly celebrity gossip rag; the perfect distraction. Idly flipping to halfway through, I saw an article about a man named Jacob Baldwin, and I stared at the main photo of him, fascinated. He was a local multi-millionaire—he owned a small investment bank and also our city’s football team, I think—and while I’d heard of him in the past, I never knew he was so….hot.
He was in his mid-thirties at least, if not a bit older, and he definitely wasn’t the kind of guy my friends would go for. They all went for young meat-heads with football scholarships, and Jacob Baldwin was anything but. He looked like a perfectly clean-cut gentleman with a serious nature, aside from the very vague spark of mischief in his blue-green eyes (although I suppose that could just be Photoshop), and his dark hair and chiseled features made my heart skip a beat. I’d never been one of those boy-crazy girls—that was probably why I’d still never had a boyfriend at this point in my life—but this man made me want to conjure up all sorts of wild fantasies in the privacy of my mind. He wasn’t a boy like the guys my friends went for.
He was a man.
He looked like the sort of guy who took charge and took care of things. The sort of man who could make anything happen. I suppose it’s easy to make things happen when you have millions of dollars at your disposal, though.
“Ms. Ryan?”
I glanced up to see a tall, statuesque redheaded woman standing near the reception desk, and I swallowed hard. Compared to my petite frame, she was a giant, and it was intimidating as hell. I nodded and stood up, ignoring my shaking legs and hoping they wouldn’t buckle under me as I approached the woman.
“I’m Melinda May. Would you like to follow me?” she said.
She led me into an office with a view that overlooked the park outside. Birds chirped just outside the window, and I smiled, imagining them all flying in and helping me out like they always did on Disney movies.
“Nice view, isn’t it?” Melinda asked, gesturing for me to sit.
“Yes, it’s lovely,” I replied quietly, wishing for a view of my own one day.
“Anyway, let’s get started,” she said, briskly tapping her pen against a file. “You have your résumé and police clearance papers with you?”
“Yes.”
It hadn’t been easy to get the police check on such short notice—there was a lot of paperwork and red tape involved—but I’d managed somehow, and I’d even borrowed my neighbor’s computer and printer so I could whip up a fancy new résumé.
After glancing over it, Melinda asked me a lot of general questions about myself. I answered as best I could, hoping I came across as mature despite my age.
“Do you have a car?” she asked about ten minutes into the interview.
I nodded. When my mother passed, I inherited her car—it was one of the few things in the world that she actually owned. It was just a beat-up old thing, but it did the job of getting me from A to B.
“Good,” Melinda said. “It’s important to have your own transportation in a line of work like this. In case there’s an emergency with one of the kids, for example.”
My heart leapt. Did this mean there was a chance that a position at the agency was actually mine? It certainly sounded like it. But then came the question I’d been dreading.
“Do you have a lot of experience with kids? Brothers and sisters, or work experience during high school?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to lie; it didn’t seem right, even though I knew a lot of people padded their work histories and talked themselves up in interviews.
“Not exactly a lot,” I admitted quietly. “I lived with my best friend and her parents for two years recently, though, and they had three young children there. One was eight, another was four, and the third was a baby. I helped out a lot in return for them letting me stay with them.”
“So you have experience with a wide variety of ages. That’s good,” Melinda replied with a satisfied nod. “And thanks for your honesty. It’s rare these days; you wouldn’t believe some of the lies I hear.”
I breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
“I’ll be honest with you, Vanessa,” Melinda continued. “Several of our nannies have just left us—apparently there’s some new au pair program in France that they all wanted to try out—so we’re currently a bit shorthanded. If you accept the job, we’ll be throwing you in the deep end. At least three families are in need of a new nanny right now. You said you were looking for part-time hours?”
“Yes. I’ll be starting college soon, so I need to work around that.”
“That’s fine. Most of the positions are part-time hours, anyway—they usually want someone to get their kids ready in the morning and drop them off at school, then pick up and babysit at the end of the school day. I’m sure you could fit that around your classes.”
I nodded, my confidence growing. “Yes, I think I definitely could.”
“So can I offer you a position with our agency? I think Nina was right about you. You seem like a wonderful fit.”
My heart began to race again, but this time out of delight and anticipation. “Yes. Thank you. I’m really excited,” I replied.
Melinda smiled. “Like I said, I’ll be throwing you in the deep end. I’ll need to send you out today to meet a potential family and see how you get on with them. How does two o’clock suit you?”
I gulped. Jeez, she really was throwing me in the deep end. That was only an hour and a half from now.
“Um. That should be fine,” I said. It wasn’t like I had any hours to work at Boci today, anyway.
“Great.” Melinda was silent for a few seconds, and then she pulled out a file from her desk drawer. “One thing Nina told me about you was that you’re extremely trustworthy and dedicated. Discreet, too.”
If by discreet Nina meant ‘never reported her to the Fair Work Commission’ for taking my tips, then sure, I was discreet.
“Um. Yes, I pride myself on being reliable and trustworthy,” I squeaked out, unsure where this was going.
“The client I want to send you to interview with today will require you to sign an NDA if you mesh well with the child and accept the nanny position.”
“An NDA?” I arched a brow.
“A non-disclosure agreement. It legally prevents you from speaking about your position to anyone.”
“Oh. I see.”
I wondered who the client was. Maybe the parents were famous actors. I was quite certain Angelina Jolie didn’t have a residence in our city, but still…I could always dream.
“He’ll explain it all to you when you go to see him for an interview,” she said. “I can’t say more than that right now.”
“Oh. Okay.”
I guess it was a single father, then.
“Try to make a good impression. This is one of our most prominent clients, and we’ve had trouble securing nannies for him before. He can be…difficult to get along with sometimes.”
“I’ll do my best. Thank you so much for the opportunity.”
This was all very mysterious. Although, I supposed it added another element of excitement to my dreary day; one I hadn’t been expecting. I hadn’t even expected to score a position at Melinda May, let alone be sent out almost immediately to a strange and secretive client.
Just over an hour later, I was cruising down the highway, heading toward the client for my interview to see if I fit in with the family. If they liked me, Melinda said I would likely have to start immediately, and that was great. The sooner the better, really. I needed money like most other people needed oxygen, because the bills piling up on my kitchen counter had to be paid somehow, and soon.
My GPS directed me to make a right turn, and my eyes widened as the houses grew bigger and more imposing with each mile I drove. I knew this area was a wealthy neighborhood, but I’d never actually been here before and seen just how prestigious it was. I’d never had any reason to come here before now.
Up ahead on the street I was currently on, several trucks were parked, and orange cones marked out the road as unavailable while work was being done. This was the only way through to the gated neighborhood where I was headed, so I pulled over on the curb, and a man trudged over to my window.
“Sorry, miss. The power lines that run under the road have an issue. We’re almost done, though. Twenty minutes or so and you’ll be able to go through.”
“Twenty minutes?” I said, glancing anxiously at the clock. I’d timed things perfectly in the hopes of getting to the interview right on time, so this was a real spanner in the works.
“Yeah. Might even be more. Sorry.”
He walked away, and as if the universe were conspiring against me, the heavens suddenly opened up, and it began to pour with rain.
“No!” I said out loud, tapping one hand against the steering wheel. “This can’t be happening!”
No doubt the rain would extend the road works even longer, and to confirm this, the man I’d just spoken to looked over at my car and gave me an apologetic shrug.
Dammit. I was going to have to walk if I wanted to get there within the next hour.
I looked in the back for an umbrella, and then I grabbed my bag, locked the car and started to make my way up the road, being careful not to trip on the wet sidewalk in my low heels. If I walked quickly enough, I could still make it in time. Maybe.
Almost as soon as I had that thought, I slipped and fell like some sort of idiotic cartoon character, landing face-down on someone’s front lawn. I groaned as I stood up and brushed myself off. I was practically soaked through from the wet grass, and I looked like a complete mess. Not only that, it was ten past two now, so I was already late. I thought about calling Melinda and telling her what happened, but I figured it was just ten minutes. I’d be there in another five, and being fifteen minutes late wasn’t the worst thing in the world. No one was ever on time for anything these days, anyway, right?
When I finally arrived at the address I’d been given, I took a deep breath as I stared up at the colossal house. Creeping ivy trailed through the crevices of the old wall surrounding the property, and tall poplars lined the short driveway which led up to a beautiful garden filled with pink and white flowers. Beyond that lay the house itself; a white Colonial-style mansion.
This place totally belonged in one of the fairytale books I used to read as a child.
With trembling hands, I clutched my purse close to my body and stepped up the driveway, hoping the client wouldn’t be too angry that I was late and covered in wet grass-stains. All I had to do was explain about the roadworks and the rain, and surely he’d understand.
I rang the doorbell, and two minutes later, a man finally opened the door. He was tall, very tall, and clad in a grey suit that brought out his tan and rippled over his perfectly muscular form. Not that I noticed or anything. This was a job interview, not a reality dating show—it didn’t matter if he was hot or not. It was just a guy who was possibly hiring me to be a nanny for his kid.
But when I got a proper look at his handsome face, I bit back a gasp.
This wasn’t just any guy. It was Jacob Baldwin.