Laken
We regret to inform you that you have not made it to the second round of interviews for an internship at Tate & Cane Enterprises. While your skills are impressive, there were candidates with qualifications more suited to our immediate needs. Please feel free to reapply in the future.
Increasing my pace across the snotty Upper East Side neighborhood in New York City, I ball the form letter in my hand and toss it into the nearest trashcan. Of course, I’ll reapply. The three previous attempts were just a practice run for the main event. No sweat. Fourth time’s the charm, right?
Wrong.
Fourth time will be a repeat performance of the epic failure that would soon be my professional career. After four years of undergrad and two years of busting my ass in graduate school at NYU, it’s now obvious I’ll live out the rest of my days as a nanny for Satan’s mistress. Even sucking up to Olivia Cane’s sister at NYU did nothing to advance me up the corporate food chain.
Growing up, adults feed us all the same line of crap, and we fall victim to the biggest lie told on the face of the Earth.
You can be anything so long as you work for it.
Bullshit. I aced all the tests. I brought home all the medals. I was praised with the honors, and where did it get me? Hoofing it up the steps to the most hateful bitch in Manhattan. All the pie in the sky ideals I’d been force-fed by the authority figures of my youth backfired when I’d graduated college and had nothing to show for all that work but a stack of rejection letters.
It’s always the same song and dance. You’re overqualified, Miss Cavanaugh. You’re underqualified, Miss Cavanaugh. You don’t have enough experience, Miss Cavanaugh. You’re wearing blue today, Miss Cavanaugh. You don’t have a dick, Miss Cavanaugh.
Okay, I may have made that last one up, but still. You get how unfair it is, right?
Pressing the numbered code to the massive wrought iron gate that leads to the estate I’d nicknamed Bitchtopia, I laugh at the irony that’s my life. The interesting thing about where I’ve ended up career-wise is that I’m not particularly fond of children. I’ve never had any desire for my own. However, when I don’t have my nose shoved in a book, I spend most of my time babysitting the kid from Jerry McGuire.
Okay, he’s not really the kid from Jerry McGuire. That would be super creepy and a little disturbing considering that kid has to have a couple years on me, at least. He sure as hell looks like him though. What the hell is that actor’s name? Jonathan somebody?
And what a great movie line about her completing him.
Actually, it isn’t a great line. That line gives women unrealistic expectations of love and commitment. Screw you, Tom Cruise. Screw you and your meaningless bullshit. Renee Zellweger should’ve never fallen for that crap. The woman had a good, stable job with a respectable company, and just because old Tommy boy gave a rousing speech that stirred up her lady bits, she up and quit to work in a broom closet?
No, thank you.
I can’t help the involuntary eye roll as I climb the marble steps leading to the front porch. Front porch? Do four-million-dollar homes even have front porches, or is there some rich, pretentious name for them like podiatry landing plateaus? Rich people are funny like that.
Thankfully, my eyes stop rolling for a second time before the door opens and dressed in a crisp, battleship gray maid uniform, Lollie forces a tight smile of sympathetic comradery on me. It means only one thing.
Oh shit. Lady of Bitchtopia is home.
“Seriously?” Dropping my head back, I shake it and sigh dramatically.
Lollie just nods, the corners of her eyes pulling down with worry as she wrings her hands. “I tried to warn you, but you didn’t answer your texts.”
In the year that I’d sold my soul to the devil, Lollie had become a sounding board for my disdain of all things Hammerle. She shares my opinions, yet remains less vocal, happy for me to take the lead in the Lady Hammerle character roasts. She’s a little skittish of any blowback, which I guess I understand considering she lives with the woman and depends on her for things like shelter and not being smothered in the middle of the night.
And can we please talk about the name Lady Hammerle for a minute? Who the hell decided she was a Lady? The woman has no blood ties to royalty whatsoever, and if she’s British, I’m a Transformer.
I pat the canvas backpack on my shoulder. “Turned it off. I didn’t want to deal with any more inquiries from home.”
Her face falls as she smooths the gray-streaked hair in her tightly pulled bun. “Oh, dear, another rejection?”
Groaning, I roll my eyes again, something that’s become a habit these days, when a shrill voice from inside the house carries through the foyer and invades my ears.
“Preston Bartholomew Kingsford Hammerle! What is this vile thing?”
I wince at hearing his full name.
Did she want him to get his ass kicked?
Preston’s little six-year-old voice floats past my ears. “It’s a butterfly rainbow, Mama. I made it for you.”
She grunts, the loathing in her voice balling my fist on instinct. “Ugh, they’re dead and disgusting. Get that thing away from me.”
“But it’s a present.”
“Now, Preston! Don’t test me.”
“Yes, Mama.”
At the sound of the familiar sweet voice, I take in his crushed face and big, sad eyes behind his thick Coke bottle glasses. His lip quivers as his small hand balls up a piece of paper boasting dozens of meticulously taped butterflies, just as I’d done with my own letter only moments ago. Murderous thoughts fill my head as I shift my stare to the cold-hearted woman standing next to him sporting a well-honed bitch face.
I mentioned that I hated children. Well, most children. All except for Preston. I had one focus in taking this job, and it wasn’t warm fuzzies from sticky-fingered hugs. Business was business. I’d wanted to stay detached, but I dare anyone not to love Preston. The kid reaches in and grabs your heart when you aren’t looking, rubbing it all over his squishy little face.
“I think it’s beautiful, Pres,” I call out, hoping to erase his devastated frown. The moment he hears my voice, the corners of his eyes crinkle and his lips lift into a wide grin.
“Butterflies,” he states, as if that says it all.
And it does. To me.
“Butterflies,” I repeat, returning his smile.
However, blinding bleached teeth encased in fuck-me red lipstick ruins the moment. “Laken.”
Mrs. Robinson…as I live and breathe.
“Lady Hammerle. I’m surprised to see you home.”
And sober.
Glancing at her diamond-encrusted Rolex, she taps the crystal face and purses her inflated lips. “You’re late.”
“Only a couple of minutes.”
“A couple of anything in my world can mean thousands of dollars.” Her judging gaze sears into me as I fight to control my temper. “Time is money, and money defines your time.”
Too bad your time is spent underneath anyone other than your husband.
Unfaithful from her acrylic toenails to her platinum dyed roots, Mrs. Winston Hammerle is the walking, talking embodiment of a Stepford Wife. According to Lollie, her favorite recreational activity is pole vaulting from one available cock to the next in between her husband’s European business trips. Refusing to grow old gracefully, she appears to believe the fountain of youth comes directly from the tip of a twenty-year-old dick. Lollie lost count of all the boy toys she’d caught pulling out of the estate in the early mornings, sporting fresh scratches all over their necks.
“It seems you have issues managing both, darling.”
Lollie shoots an arm out as I step forward, a warning in her eyes. With my mouth opening and closing like a fish, I push against her, inherently knowing my bank account and future need me to shut my mouth while my pride wants to force-feed her butterfly carcasses until she chokes.
I’ve lost my mind. It’s the only logical explanation I can come up with for still being on her payroll. No, there’s more to it than that. Mrs. Hammerle has connections at Tate & Cane Enterprises. She’d invested a couple million into the business and in return has the ears of executives. I need those ears, so I take her bullshit.
“You just have issues,” I mumble under my breath.
Okay, I take it starting…now.
Lollie just shakes her head as I shoot her an apologetic grin. “Grab your things, Preston,” I call out. Reminding myself of the brass ring dangling at the end of this merry-go-round, I stuff down the natural instinct to tell her to shove this job straight up her ass.
Ushering him out the door, I mumble a half-hearted goodbye to Lollie and get us both the hell out of there. The entire trip to Central Park, I repeat the mantra I’d come to survive by when dealing with that woman. If I want something bad enough, I can deal with just about anything to get it. Determination and success walk hand in hand with self-control.
I want an internship with Tate & Cane Enterprises.
Lady Hammerle is my ticket through the door whether I like it or not.
The ends justify the means, and anything that happens in between is just a necessary casualty of war. All’s fair in business and getting ahead.
Does that sound harsh? Probably, but don’t blame me. I don’t make the rules.
But I’ll damn sure play by them.
***
Ten months, one week, eight hours, twenty-one minutes, and seventeen seconds since I’ve had sex.
Not that I’ve kept track or anything.
Holy shit, has it almost been a year? No, that can’t be right. Closing my eyes, I try hard to think back to the last time my vag saw any kind of action that wasn’t battery operated. His name was Kurt…or was it Kyle? Hell, maybe it was Kurt Kyle, I have no idea. All I can remember about him is that he stuck his fingers inside me as if he were mining for gold and used phrases like “giddyup” and “boink.” I don’t care who you are, you can’t respect a guy who growls that he’s going to boink the fuck out of you.
But this guy? I’ll bet money he’s never said the word boink in his life. I’ll bet my life savings—which currently stands at about one hundred thirty-two dollars and sixty-eight cents—that his bedroom dirty talk would make my eyes roll back into my head.
He sits about twenty feet away from me at the western corner of Heckscher Playground, his chocolate brown hair sticking up every which way and dusting carelessly over his ears. A sexy as hell beard fills in his cheeks and skims his chin, giving off a clear rebel with a few worthy causes look. I usually go for the darker, brooding types, but something about the way the sunlight reflects off the strands makes him seem like a breath of fresh air.
That has to be the corniest thought I’ve ever had, because I honestly gag a little.
However, gagging doesn’t stop me from forgetting all about cramming for my business law exam and concentrating more on the way his hunter green t-shirt clings to the muscles in his chest and strains against well-defined biceps.
He’s alone, which is a bonus. Trust me, I’ve watched him long enough to make the assumption. He also has a habit of licking his bottom lip, then biting down on his tongue when he stares at something. I wonder what it would be like to kiss him? I bet he’s a good kisser. Men who absentmindedly play with their lips and tongue usually know how to use them in other ways. The whole package is delicious and almost makes me ignore the fact that he’s holding a camera and taking pictures of little kids.
Oh. Well. Ew.
Perfect, pretty, and pervy. Two out of three don’t win the race, sorry, dude.
“Whatcha doing?” Knocked out of my lusty trance, my face flames as I refocus on my entire reason for being in Central Park in the first place. Preston wrinkles up his red nose and sniffles as he pushes his falling glasses back up with a crooked finger. Springtime in the city is murder on a kid allergic to everything but sleep and water. With glassy, watery eyes, the poor kid looks like he’s gone a couple rounds with a joint and lost.
“Studying,” I answer with a groan.
He cocks his head and sneezes. “About bugs? I can help.”
“Bless you.” He looks so serious, I can’t help but ruffle his perfectly gelled hair. “Thanks for the offer, but this is more like statistics and due diligence laws.”
He seems to mull it over in his head. “A roach can live nine days without a head,” he says after a long pause. “Did you know that?”
“Nope,” I say, unable to hold the laughter in. He stares at me, blinking rapidly as if I’m a complete moron. “I wasn’t aware, but I’ll keep that in mind for my next beheading. Thanks, Pres.”
His answering grin forces one of my own right before he sneezes again, spraying snot all over my textbook. “Laken, can I go play on the slide?”
I nod, feeling a smile stretch across my lips. “Stay where I can see you. I don’t want you getting so popular that all the other kids fight over you.” I give him a wink and he rewards me with a wider smile.
“You’re so silly.” Giggling, he bounds off happily in search of his next big adventure.
Returning to the exam I’m destined to fail, ensuring my future as Lady Hammerle’s foot soldier, I push tall, hot, and twisted out of my mind. My stomach churns as I remember the balled-up rejection letter, causing me to grip my pencil so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t snap. My life may be on constant derail, but I still have a 4.0 GPA going for me. It’s not much to hold on to, but if I play my cards right, and stay on track, I could live out my days as the smartest, most frigid Waffle House waitress to ever flip a pancake.
I continue berating myself well into the third chapter of my text book when five solid years of my life are cut short. The minute that Preston’s congested cries for help hit my ears, I fling my pencil across the grass in a panic and scan the playground for his preppy vest and tailored khaki pants.
Because God forbid the kid is caught dead in a pair of shorts.
The moment I see him on the ground, my mouth drops open, and I take off in a full sprint toward the playground like my ass is on fire, swearing the whole time. Preston lay on his back in the sand, his glasses twisted and bent, fending off punches from another kid who’s straddling him. It’s like a scene from The Sandlot meets Orange Is the New Black as a group of elementary school kids crowd around them chanting and egging it on.
“Preston!” In a blind panic, I grab the bully’s wrist and pull him off Preston’s waist while the kid still swings in the air like some tiny version of Rocky.
Hurried footsteps crowd in from behind. “Get your hands off my daughter!” A defined, tanned arm snakes in from the side, scoops the brawler out of my grasp, and runs an attached hand down the boy’s pigtail braid.
Oh, yum. Pervy guy has a hot accent. Scottish? Irish? Hell, he could be from Mars for all I care. So long as he kept—
Wait. Backup—daughter?
Unable to process what happened, I loosen my hold and step back, forcing my mind to focus on his words and not his delicious accent. “Your what?”
Pervy, hot accent guy with the camera hugs the bully kid to his chest, raising his eyebrows as if I’d just asked him to smell the number nine. “My daughter. Are you finished manhandling my kid, for Christ’s sake?” His last words trail off as he brushes a hand over her cheek. “Sophie, are you all right?”
Fun fact for anyone paying attention. With me, mad equals verbal. Things fly out of my mouth with wild abandon that should probably stay tucked behind my lips. “Of course she’s all right,” I yell a little too loud. “She was beating Preston like a street thug.”
Quirking his mouth, he gestures to her as if to imply I’m the stupidest being to ever breathe air. “Maybe you missed the fact she’s a girl.”
“Maybe you missed the fact that she could kick Mike Tyson’s ass?”
“Maybe you should’ve been paying attention instead of having your nose in a book?” he counters, taking a step forward.
Fun fact number two about me…I like to argue. I’ll argue about anything. You like apples? I like oranges. It doesn’t matter if apples are really the nectar of the Gods and I think orange juice tastes like a freshly squeezed asshole. If it’s debatable…I’m debating it.
“You should try books sometime. Or reading in general. Maybe you could start with consent forms for everyone to sign for all those pictures you’ve been taking instead of letting your kid run around unsupervised.” Feeling smug, I point to his camera. “Or are they for your own personal enjoyment?”
See? Asshole juice.
His eyes narrow, little flecks of gold swirling in a sea of espresso. “Are you calling me a pedophile?”
“Are you calling me negligent?”
A tug on the hem of my shirt breaks our stand-off as Preston sneezes and wipes his nose on the back of his hand. “I’m okay—”
“Stay out of it!” the perv and I both yell at the same time.
Preston and Sophie back up, their little mouths rounding in matching Os. It’s not until then that I notice everything is deathly quiet. Managing a weak smile, I take in the crowd of onlookers who’ve gathered during my verbal volleyball match with the Ansel Adams protégé standing beside me.
Shit.
The name Laken Cavanaugh doesn’t mean much of anything in this city, but Preston Hammerle is a different story. The last thing I need is some social trash magazine reporting that the Hammerle nanny let the heir apparent get the shit beat of him by a miniature Ronda Rousey while duking it out with her dad on the sidelines. I’ll have to eat a little crow on this one.
But the brawler’s dad beat me to it. Bending down, he holds the little girl’s stare. “Sophie, did you hit this boy?”
She never flinches, her eyes steady on him and her tone flat. “Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“He went too slow on the slide,” she says, cutting her eyes toward Preston. “Don’t get up there and be a baby.” With dark braids, pale skin, and the apathy of a serial killer, this kid reminds me more of Wednesday Addams than a normal kid.
Hot foreign guy scrubs a hand down his face and groans. “Soph…” Pursing his lips, he shifts his gaze to me, letting his amber eyes settle on my denim shorts before trailing leisurely up my tank top to rest on my face. He seems to be appraising me, taking in every curve of my body and feature of my face.
An unfamiliar warmth spreads through my veins, and I swallow hard.
“Look,” he nods to Preston while still holding my stare. “Sophie didn’t mean any harm. You know how kids are, right? Why don’t I buy you both ice cream to make up for it?”
Preston’s eyes light up like a megawatt microscope behind his glasses “Please? I never get to have ice cream.”
And this is how I get killed.
Because all crime documentaries begin with a young, single woman alone in a park with a strange guy taking pictures of her. She probably isn’t even his kid. This is all most likely a ruse to lure me into the back of a van.
“What do you say?” he repeats with a wink. “That is if you’re okay having ice cream with a reformed pedophile?”
Despite myself, I smile. “Double scoop with sprinkles and I won’t call the cops. But don’t press your luck.”
Grinning a wide smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, he nods to Sophie and tells her to collect their belongings. After bouncing her eyes back and forth between us, she narrows a warning stare at me and regretfully storms off toward the bench.
There are kids who just seem wise beyond their years—old souls trapped in a child’s body. From her hostile reaction, I wonder how many actual souls she’d claimed and trapped inside her.
With the two of us standing there awkwardly staring at each other, he finally extends an arm and holds his hand out by way of a formal greeting. “By the way, I’m Niall Mackay.”
Don’t tell him your name. Do not tell him your name.
“Laken Cavanaugh.”
Shit.
“Don’t worry, Laken,” he says, giving me a wink. “It’s just chocolate ice cream. I don’t pull out the chloroform and gags until the second date.”
“Very cute. This is not a date; it’s a peace offering,” I assure him, taking a few steps toward the bench where I’d thrown everything to run after Preston. “And besides, I’m a vanilla girl.”
“Suit yourself.” Collecting Sophie, he high-fives an overly-excited Preston and turns a glance at me over his shoulder. “Oh, and about the chocolate? Never knock something until you’ve actually put it in your mouth and tasted it.”
His words reignite the flush from earlier and I feel my cheeks heat on impact. Images of what he’d look like underneath those tight jeans and t-shirt instantly dries my mouth and then makes it water. Slinging my backpack over my shoulder, I grab Preston’s hand and speed walk to catch up with him.
Slap my face on a milk carton…I’m in.