Chapter 27: Dell
I clip on a set of silver cuff links. The tux is new, another original by a local designer. I’ll be expected to pose for pictures in it. She’ll want the suit to be seen. It’s fine. It’s always fine. Part of the lifestyle.
I heard the door buzz a half hour ago. Should be Arianna. I’m sure she’s down in Grace’s room so that she and Carrie can have a changing of the guard.
This isn’t so hard. Nannies. Babysitters. There are many good ones to be found.
I check the mirror. Everything is classic. Black tux. White shirt with pleats, bow tie in a burnt-red color. Perfect pants crease. Something about the vest is signature to this designer, but the detail is too subtle for me to recognize.
I head out of the bedroom. Down the hall, the door to Grace’s room stands open.
Bernard appears. “Sir, Miss Carrie has taken her leave. Madam Arianna is here now.”
An irate voice comes from the room. “Why is Carrie a ‘miss’ and I am a ‘madam’? It’s Arianna.” A smile forms on my lips.
“You better not answer that,” I tell Bernard. “It’s a trap.”
Arianna appears at the doorway with Grace in her arms. My eyes want to pop out of my skull. She wears a ribbed tank top that makes her breasts look so perfect and so round that I actually salivate. Then jeans again, low on her hips, leaving a tempting inch of creamy skin exposed below the hem of the shirt.
She’s wearing a bra, which is clear from the straps that show beside the top of the tank. But it can’t be much of one. As she watches me watch her, the nipples harden and make themselves known.
It’s hard to control the stirring in my cock.
Bernard murmurs, “I’ll take my leave,” and turns on his heel.
When I get back to Arianna’s expression, it has completely changed.
“You’re in a tux,” she says. Her voice is filled with disbelief.
“Of course,” I say. “That’s why I needed a babysitter.”
Her eyebrows shoot up.
“Nanny,” I correct. “Sorry.”
She clamps her jaw a moment. Then she says, “I’m neither a babysitter nor a nanny. I thought I was helping you.”
“You are!” Shit, I’ve pissed her off. “You are saving my skin.”
“Where are you going?” she demands. “Please tell me it’s a charity event where you are saving thousands of dying children by donating a ridiculous sum of money.”
“Actually, you’ve nailed it. Well, adults too. It’s a famine something.”
“Famine something?” she repeats, taking a step toward me. Her eyes flash. God, I love it when she’s angry. Little sparks fly right off her.
“I don’t recall the charity,” I say. “But you’re right. It’s for a good cause.”
She lets out a huff and steps back. “Fine. But don’t be out late.” Her demand sounds so much like an angry mother of a teen that I have to work hard not to smile while I’m being chastised.
“Scout’s honor,” I say, holding up both hands.
“You don’t even know the scout salute,” she says. “You were probably never a scout.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, putting three fingers to an imaginary cap. “I just…outgrew it.” Actually, I had to quit when I took on a second shift after school at the racetrack to help out with bills. But I won’t tell her that.
She seems taken aback. “Oh! Well, I stand corrected.” She turns back to Grace’s room, her anger melting into something else, something I can’t quite put my finger on. Disappointment, maybe. Or resignation.
“Hey,” I say. “I mean it. You’re saving me. A third time.”
She nods. “Have a good night.”
She kneels by the fancy swing and sets Grace in it. The baby instantly reaches up for the lighted toys.
I watch them interact for a moment, an uncomfortable feeling settling over me.
But it’s Friday, and I’m expected at the charity dinner. And in precisely thirty-four minutes, I’m supposed to be picking up a perfectly lovely young woman named Meredith Sing.
Arianna doesn’t look up. Eventually I turn away.
“Bernard, is the car downstairs?” I ask. Meredith is in midtown, so it will take a while to get there.
“Yes,” he says, stepping from the kitchen.
I cross through to the breakfast nook, then the atrium. As soon as I open the door, Maximillion darts out without paying me the least bit of attention. I watch as he takes off across the house.
Back to the baby’s room. I see how it is. Carrie showed abject fear of the dog, so we’ve kept him locked up. But no doubt he’s figured out the kinder, gentler, more dog-friendly Arianna has arrived.
They can manage him. I move on to the door. I’m three minutes ahead of schedule. It’s a good place to be.
The drive to her building is typical weekend fare, busy and irritating.
Meredith herself is pleasant, smelling of lilacs as she enters the limo. She wears a long slim wine-colored dress, backless, fitted from neck to ankle. A long slit allows her to walk, and I appreciate a generous reveal of her slender leg as she steps in and slides onto the seat.
I pass her a vodka and cranberry, a drink I noticed she ordered from the bar at the last Met gala. It’s where I first spotted her.
“Thank you,” she says, lifting it as if in a toast. “You are both handsome and observant.”
“When it’s important,” I say.
But instead of considering my next point of pre-conquest banter, I recall those same words from Arianna, inside the baby superstore. When I noticed the baby bucket seats.
“What’s in your glass?” Meredith asks.
“Brandy,” I say.
“I hear brandy kisses are the best,” she says coyly, taking a sip of her own drink. Her eyes watch me from over the rim.
Usually that’s my cue. I would normally say, “Shall we test that theory?” And then scoot closer.
And the night would begin in earnest.
But I don’t. I just nod. “I can pour you one if you like.”
She hesitates. “I’m fine with this,” she says. The coy look is gone.
I don’t know this woman well. She doesn’t seem the social climber type, like Camellia. But she’s no innocent ingénue either. She’s the daughter of a prominent developer in upstate New York.
That’s all I was told by Ram, the friend who filled me in when I asked who she was.
The venue isn’t far from her building, so we arrive before we can even finish the drinks. Meredith sets hers carefully in a cup holder and waits for the driver to open the door.
She’s cooled, and I find I don’t particularly care. We exit the limo and are greeted by a doorman.
“This way, sir,” he says.
Limos line all the curbs. Otherwise this part of town is quite deserted. No place to escape to, no good bars, no nightlife.
Just this night with a tepid date I have no interest in warming up.
My memory flashes to Arianna, the tank top, those jeans, that strip of skin.
And as we pause to have our photo made just inside the overdecorated foyer, I realize maybe I should have just stayed home.