THREE
Breakfast was amazing. There were plates of little sausages and bacon and little round meat patties. There were also trays of freshly cut fruit and individual containers of yogurt. Pancakes, too, with three kinds of syrup.
Brandon was chomping down a bowl of sugary chocolate cereal. He looked up at her with a smile, mouth full of food. He was already changed out of his pajamas. His shirt had a green dinosaur riding a bicycle on it; it made Malinda smile.
Garrett was nowhere to be found.
“Good morning,” she said to Brandon. “Wow, is this what breakfast is like around here all the time?”
He took a few seconds to chew and swallow his oversized bite. “Yup. Lots of food and lots of quiet, too. Dad usually wakes up real early. Him and me have breakfast on Saturday morning. Every other day we don’t see each other.”
How awful, she thought. She kept it to herself.
Sitting down, she took a plate, brushing her hair back over her shoulder. Pancakes and some melon. She turned her nose up at the sausages and bacon. “Your dad likes meat, I take it?”
“Yeah. I like bacon, I guess, but those sausages gross me out.”
She laughed. “Me too. So. What do you want to do today?”
“Ugh. I got lessons with my tutor starting at nine. They go all day.”
“All day?”
“Well, until three o’clock.”
The question hung in the air, and she almost didn’t ask it, but it was just too big to ignore. She pushed her pancakes around with her fork, cutting a small piece off but then leaving it where it was. “Brandon, why don’t you go to school with other kids?”
He shrugged, shoveling more cereal in his mouth that he talked around. “Dad doesn’t want me to.”
“Why?”
His little hazel eyes looked up from his bowl. “I don’t know. He just always says it’s best for me to stay at home.”
“Do you have friends? You must have friends.”
His eyes looked down again, and he didn’t answer.
Poor kid, she thought to herself. She wasn’t helping things with her questions but what else could she do? Why in the world would Garrett keep his son isolated like this? Maybe he was sick and Garrett just didn’t want to tell him. On the other hand, she knew that some uber rich types liked to keep their children away from other kids simply because they didn’t want to mix with “regular” people. Didn’t Michael Jackson do that with his kids, along with hanging them upside down out of windows? Could Garrett be that shallow?
“Dad doesn’t tell me why,” Brandon said to her, correctly guessing what the look on her face meant. “I hate it. He won’t even take me to play in a park.”
“Wait, you’ve never been to Central Park?” She couldn’t believe it. People came from all over the world to visit Central Park. Everybody who lived in the City had been to Central Park at least once. It was one of the best things about New York, for crying out loud. “I tell you what. How about after your lessons today you and I go for a walk.”
His whole face lit up. “In Central Park?”
“Sure. I can’t show you the whole park, not in one day at least. It’s even bigger than your dad’s front lawn.”
He gave her a look that said she might as well have called water wet. “I’m not dumb, you know. I don’t go out but I read and watch television and I know stuff. I might even be smarter than you.”
“Oh, you think so?” She finally felt like eating and took a few bites of the pancakes. They were really good. “Then who’s the king of Canada?”
“Canada doesn’t have a king,” he said with all the knowledge a ten-year-old boy could muster. “Canada has a Prime Minister.”
“I’ll bet you don’t know how many fingers an ostrich has.”
He laughed, enjoying their game. “Ostriches don’t have hands.”
“Well, I know you can’t say your alphabet backwards.”
“What? No one can do that.”
From Z to A, Malinda rattled off the whole thing without missing a beat. When she was done, Brandon sat with his mouth hanging open and his spoon paused in midair. “Wow,” he said. “How did you learn that?”
“I got really bored in science class one day. It just takes practice.”
“Can you teach me?”
“Sure I could. You and me, after your regular lessons today. Okay?”
He nodded then shifted in his seat. “Are you really going to take me to Central Park?”
Malinda had a few nieces and nephews. She might not know as much about raising children as someone who had kids of their own but she knew a few things. For one, you never made promises to kids unless you intended to keep them. If you said you were going to take them somewhere, then you had better take them, unless the world ended in a fiery inferno.
“Yes,” she promised. “I’m really going to take you to Central Park.”
He came around the table in a rush to throw his arms around her neck. “Thank you. Know what? I think we’re going to be best friends.”
Before Malinda could say anything, he was gone, running out of the room.
***
“You know there’s, like, eight hundred acres in the Park, right?”
Brandon looked up at her, his brow scrunched up tight. “I don’t know what that means,” he said. Then he shrugged. “But if there’s eight hundred hot dog stands here then I want to come to Central Park every day!”
He took another bite from his oversized dog, topped with onions and cheese sauce. After all, what was a trip to Central Park without a hot dog from a vendor? Malinda had come here several times with her boyfriend. Back before he’d dumped her. Bastard. Anyway, they’d always gotten dinner here when they came. Hot dogs, ice cream treats and sodas. For her, this place had been the best part of moving to New York City.
There were waterfalls and lakes and bridges and trees everywhere. She was used to what nature looked like; her hometown had been very rural. Trees and flowers and grass were nothing new to her. But here in one of the world’s largest cities, it was like walking into an oasis in a desert. Looking in any direction they could still see the tops of skyscrapers looking down at them. Modern art sculptures lined the streets all around. In here, in this place, they were alone in a world of growing things.
Malinda had already taken Brandon to see Belvedere Castle, with its high gray stone walls and its tower that held the weather station for the city. The boy had kind of shrugged at it and they’d gone off to find other hidden treasures in the Park. She could understand why. His father’s mansion was bigger and more grandiose by far.
So they had gone off to the Pineturn Playground for a while with all of its evergreen trees. Malinda had watched while Brandon ran and jumped and played with other kids, something she now understood he didn’t get to do, ever. Standing there, watching him and waving every time he turned around to find her, she still had to wonder why his father treated Brandon like a virtual shut in.
Now, they were walking around with hotdogs and sodas and Malinda knew that she would have to take Brandon home soon. It was only about an hour before sundown. They hadn’t exactly told Garrett that they were coming here, either. She’d left a note with one of the many servants saying only that they were going out for a while; that was all. She wasn’t sure how far her nanny duties extended but she didn’t think taking him out into the world for a little bit could be wrong. Wasn’t that what nanny’s did?
There was a statue of a dog in the park somewhere. A sled dog or something. A husky. Maybe she could find an information kiosk and ask, or even better a map. There were always maps getting dropped on the ground…
“Hey Malinda,” Brandon said suddenly, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
She crumpled up her paper hot dog holder and dropped it into a garbage container they passed by. “That’s kind of a grown up question, buddy.”
“So? I’m a grown up kid.”
He slurped from his soda bottle and she had to hide her smile. Grown up. Right. “No, I do not have a boyfriend. Why do you ask?”
“My dad doesn’t have a girlfriend either,” he answered.
“Brandon, um.” That was all she could think to say. She wasn’t looking to start a relationship with anyone. Not right after the breakup she’d just had. Most of all, she wasn’t looking to start anything with Garrett Millieur.
Although, the shower really had been nice. This morning’s episode came to mind, with her naked and exposed while his eyes devoured every inch of her. She could feel her face heating up again. Her brain might not want to start anything with him, but apparently her body didn’t get that message yet.
“We should probably get back,” he said to her, chewing on the last bite of his hot dog. “Dad’s going to notice if we’re gone too long.”
“We just went to the Park,” she said. “He won’t be mad. Every father wants to see his son have fun, Brandon.”
“Oh, we have fun. We play board games and have video game tournaments sometimes. We never go out, though.”
“Ever?”
He shook his head.
“You must have gone to a movie, at least? Right?”
“Of course we watch movies,” he told her. “We’ve got a big screen television in the family room. We watch movies there all the time.”
“No, I mean at a movie theater.”
“Uh-uh. Never.”
What was going on with this family? Malinda had asked that question dozens of times already. She still couldn’t begin to see the answer.
Brandon was right about them needing to get him back home. The sun was already dropping behind the tops of the skyscrapers. This had been a great first outing for them. Garrett must have his reasons for not taking Brandon out of the house but now she was here. She’d do her best to show him what he’d been missing. They were going to have a lot of fun together. She couldn’t wait.
“Hey, would you like to come back here tomorrow?” she asked him. “There are a lot of museums around the park. What do you say we go exploring and see what they have to show us?”
He surprised her by taking her hand and saying, “I think I’d like that. Time to go home?”
“You bet. I can’t wait to tell your dad all about today.”
*
“Are you insane?”
At first, Garrett had displayed a dead calm. Malinda and Brandon had come in through the front doors and told him all about the wonderful day they’d had out in Central Park. He had stood, hands folded behind his back, a thin smile on his face and without any expression in his eyes at all. He was a living and breathing statue.
Brandon’s excitement had slowly waned, his voice had gotten smaller and slower, until finally he stopped. “It was fun, Dad. It’s the most fun I think I’ve ever had.”
Garrett had reached out and taken Brandon by a shoulder, a cold but loving gesture. “Go upstairs to your room and get ready for bed,” his father had told him. “I’d like to discuss some things with Malinda.”
The way Brandon had looked at her, Malinda could tell he knew better than she did what was coming next. For the next ten minutes, Garrett had demonstrated just how quiet he could keep his voice while he chewed her ass out.
“What gave you the right to take my son out into that city?” Cold, contained fury.
His usually crystal green eyes, the color of pale emeralds, were now dark as coal. His body was stiff and tense and Malinda took an involuntary step back as he continued to rail at her.
“You are his nanny! You are not his mother, you are not his sister, and you have no right to take Brandon anywhere that I have not expressly allowed! You are in my employ, Miss Rose. At least you are for now. Perhaps I made a mistake in hiring you. Perhaps I neglected my better interests in hiring anyone to care for my son. Perhaps I was better off the way things were!”
That struck a bad chord inside of her. “Maybe you were better off but what about Brandon? Was he better off living the life of a shut in?”
In the next blink he had closed the distance between them and was standing right in her face and she was sure he was going to hit her.
Instead his voice assaulted her with quiet anger. “I keep Brandon in this house, safe from the outside world, for my own reasons, Miss Rose. You can accept that, and you can agree to follow my rules, or you can leave. Now.”
He turned on his heel and stalked the length of the room, and only then did Malinda realize that she’d been holding her breath. Letting the air out of her lungs, allowing her heart to ease back down from her throat, she collected her thoughts and decided she had to stand up to this spoiled rich man or else back down and let Brandon suffer for it. After all, what did she have to lose? She had been ready to leave the city anyway. If she lost this job, she could still go back home to her mother. What was the worst he could do to her?
Oh, Malinda. When will you ever learn? Not today, she told herself.
“Garrettt,” she said, her voice amazingly steady, “Brandon is a ten-year-old boy. He needs to explore the world around him. He needs to do things. More than that, he needs friends. His own age, I mean. Keeping him here is keeping him from being able to grow up—”
“I decide when he’s ready to grow up!” he almost shouted, forgetting to keep his voice down so that Brandon wouldn’t hear them upstairs in his room. “I will decide what is best for my son and if I decide that includes keeping him in this house for the rest of his life, you will accept that and follow my wishes. Do you understand me?”
“No,” she shouted back, surprising even herself. “I don’t understand that. Not at all. Why don’t you explain it to me?”
He fisted a hand so hard that his fingers popped, but he didn’t shout her down again, and she took some strength from that. “Why don’t you explain to me how it’s in his best interests to live like a hermit. He wants to run and jump and play and do things, Garrett. You should have seen him today. He made friends, for the love of God!”
“I don’t care. This is my house. You will respect our rules.”
“What rules?” she asked, knowing that she was pushing things too far but feeling she had to, for Brandon’s sake. “What do you think is going—”
“I said this is my house!” His voice was a raspy growl, and his fists beat against his thighs, and he bared his teeth. He scared her.
Their eyes locked for one second and no longer than that. It was enough to make her turn away with a gasp.
“Leave me now,” he demanded. “Go to your room. We will discuss this tomorrow.”
“Garrett, please, hear me out.”
“Tomorrow!”
Malinda didn’t try to argue anymore. There was something in his voice that told her arguing would be a mistake. Saying anything would be a mistake. Standing here was the worst mistake of all. Instead, she rushed from the room and to the stairs with the curving banister. She took them two at a time.
In her room, she slammed the door and locked it and backed away from it as far as she could until she bumped up against the bed. The edge of the mattress took her legs out from under her. When she fell she crawled her way into the sheets and hid there, hoping the monster behind the beautiful face of Garrett Millieur wouldn’t come to find her.
She found herself repeating the same words, over and over.
“Life goes on. Life goes on.”
At least, she hoped so.
***
“If you don’t mind my saying,” Wilson told Garrett, slipping into the room after the young nanny had fled, “you were rather harsh with Miss Rose.”
Young. Garrett nearly laughed at himself. As if he was that much older. Well, in some ways he was, but not in any way that showed.
Beating his fists against his legs again he tried to purge himself of those thoughts. She was slim, but strong; beautiful, but not vain; caring and kind. He’d found himself attracted to her in the first hour after meeting her. He found himself desiring her every time she came near. Own her. Use her…
But that was not the point. Nor was it the reason that he’d hired her. He was such a fool!
Wilson mistook the target of his anger. “I only meant that she was trying to help,” he said, standing taller and straighter and holding out his chin. He stood his ground, too, when Garrett spun around on him. That was something not a lot of men—or women—could do. It was another reason why he was so helplessly drawn to Malinda.
He could already hear in his voice how he was losing control. Damn it. He’d tried so hard to keep himself in check. Calm. Emotionless. It had been three days since he’d suffered an attack but when he’d come home today after a particularly heinous meeting of the executive board and found that Malinda had taken it upon herself to take Brandon out into the city…well, if he hadn’t kept a tight leash on himself then she might be dead now. Or else, wish she was.
That was how badly he was losing his grip. He felt himself slipping away. Felt the beast rising up. And there was no one around except Wilson.
The butler was tall and thin and prissy looking with that manicured mustache of his. People underestimated him. He was whipcord strong and knew five foreign fighting styles, which was two more than Garrett himself knew.
Still. If he lost control here, in this room, he would break Wilson in two with no more effort than it would take to break a toothpick.
“Leave me,” he snarled.
“Sir,” Wilson said without moving an inch, “I’ve seen you in this state before. I’ve nothing to worry from you and I can help you with what is to come.”
“Not this time.” He knew it was true. This time would be bad, worse than bad.
A hot pain lanced up his spine, a thin red line that cracked him open and began to reveal the true self he kept hidden behind a thin wall of flesh and blood. His blood.
“Nonsense, Mister Millieur.” Wilson took one step. “Let me help—”
“Leave.”
“We’ll get you to your room. Things will be fine.”
“Leave me.”
“Sir. Garrettt. I will not leave you here. Come, now. Up to your—”
“Leave me!”
His arm swung out, and he felt the impact down to his toes. It felt good. He wanted more.
“Leave me,” he managed, his voice tight and strained as more red lines of pain traced along his veins and his sinews and his soul. “Now!”
Getting back to his feet, wiping away the blood from his cheek and his split lip with the back of one wrist, Wilson staggered in place until he had his balance. Then he left without another word. He didn’t exactly run.
“Leave the back door open,” Garrett called after him. “Send the staff to their rooms for the night. For the love of God, hurry!”
That was all he had time for. The pain burst through his skull, multicolored explosions detonating behind his eyes in time to the pulsing rhythm of his heart. He smiled, and his lips pulled back from his teeth. Further. Further.
Now the fun begins.
The impulse to find Malinda in her rooms and do certain things to her was overpowering. Tearing off his clothes, pulling and fighting and struggling to free his naked self, he knew he would have to act on that impulse.
Sooner, or later.
*
The night surrounded him and cradled him. This was his world. This was where he belonged. Not the other world where he had to be careful of every step and every thought and every emotion. Here, he was only himself. Nothing between the ground and his feet, nothing between the night air and his skin, nothing between his teeth and the flesh he tore into.
Warm and silky soft meat squished between his teeth. His meal fought back. His food struggled. It made his heart race and his muscles quiver. Yes, fight me. Fight! Make me work for each bite, each taste of blood and meat! His eyes rolled back in his head as bone cracked between his jaws. Yes.
Raising his massive paw with its claws hooked and sharp, he smashed it down into the body, the gore, the quivering heap that had once been…something. Ribs broke and splintered. Muscles tore. The beating heart was exposed. He fed.