Chapter Fifteen

 

ERIN

 

He’s here. My worst nightmare is here, at a freaking charity golf event. Eight years ago he didn’t even like golf. He was a football guy, through and through. Even played in high school, then went to a Class D college so he could hold onto the glory days for another four years. That’s where he met his wife. She didn’t know jack about sports, he once told me. But she’d been a virgin when they met. He’d been her one and only, from that point on.

I should have known Peter Wilkins was a jackass the moment he told me that story, which, in retrospect, was all part of his screwed up game to lure me into his bed. The nanny. The woman responsible for taking care of his kids. The woman his wife taught to cook. The woman he used as a substitute when his wife traveled with her job. God, I was so naïve back then.

My anger is fueled by too much champagne, too many bad memories, and that little exchange outside the clubhouse, when Garrett couldn’t fucking tell Fiona how he really felt about me. Jesus, why didn’t he just say, ‘She’s a great lay and my daughter loves her’? Even that would have been better than saying nothing at all.

Good thing none of them asked me. Wonder what Garrett would have said if I had shouted, “Yes! Yes, I’m in love with him, okay?”

And if that isn’t bad enough, Callum wanders over and asks the same damn thing. Apparently, it’s the question of the night. Do you love your nanny, Garrett? Do you? Do you? Huh? Huh?

While Garrett stumbles over his answer, Peter is holding up the wall and staring at me like a goddamn spider waiting for its prey to get trapped in its web. The analogy gives me the willies. Garrett doesn’t notice my shiver because he’s too busy staring across the room at—shit—he’s looking at Peter, too.

Peter knows who Garrett is, knows where he lives, knows I’m his nanny. Considering the golf media gossips about us like we’re Brad and Angelina—no, that’s a bad example, since they’re broken up now—anyway, Peter must realize Garrett and I are sleeping together.

I don’t know his intentions, why he’s trying to get me fired, and frankly, I don’t care. I just want him out of my life, once and for all, without Garrett finding out he’s still in it in the first place.

It has come to our attention … that you have a history of, er, dallying with the husbands of your employers.

Suddenly it all makes sense. Every single nanny gig I’ve had since I left Peter, they’ve all said some variation of the same thing. The man has systematically ruined every job I’ve ever had since I left his employment.

Part of me wants to stride over there and punch the guy in the nose for all the grief he’s caused me over the last eight years. But a bigger part needs to figure out how to keep him away from Garrett so he can’t fuck up whatever the hell it is I have going with my current boss. Boyfriend. Whatever.

Although it’s quite possible whatever I thought I had with Garrett is non-existent anyway, so maybe I don’t need to worry about Peter saying or doing something to damage our relationship. Maybe I have nothing to worry about. Hell, maybe I should introduce the two men.

“Hey, Garrett, this is the first sexy, bad daddy I thought I was in love with. You know, like I feel about you. I know, I know, you don’t feel the same, but hey, I can’t control my emotions.” Yeah, that ought to go over well.

I need some air, or at least some space, away from Garrett and Peter both. Excusing myself, I slip away from Garrett’s side to do the first thing that pops into my head: I text Danny an SOS. After that, I hover in the hallway outside the restrooms, stealing a glass of champagne off the tray every time a server passes enroute to take their wares to thirsty guests. I have zero desire to go out there and paste a fake smile on my face while Fiona peppers me with questions about my relationship with Garrett, and my brain can’t seem to work out a way to get Peter out of this party and preferably out of my life for good.

“There you are.”

Crap. That oily voice, the one I used to think was so sexy. Now it makes me think of a used car salesman. Or Fiona. Maybe I should introduce Fiona and Peter. Nah, that’s a lousy idea. The two of them together would be scary as hell.

“Erin, you look so beautiful tonight. I can’t believe how you’ve blossomed. I mean, you were gorgeous when you were eighteen, but now. Wow.”

Another server walks by, this one carrying a magnum of champagne, and I grab it from his hand and bare my teeth at his protest. I must look crazy, because he rushes down the hall and disappears from sight without taking back his bottle. Lifting it to my lips, I chug the fizzy liquid.

Where the hell is Danny? If he doesn’t hurry up, I may end up smashing this bottle over Peter’s head. Maybe that’s not such a bad idea anyway.

Shit, I am so not rational right now. As much as Danny makes Garrett nuts, he’s actually a rock for me. In situations like this—not that I’ve ever been in this type of scenario before—but anyway, in tricky circumstances, he’s good at helping me maneuver my way out of them.

I glance over Peter’s shoulder, like Danny’s suddenly going to appear behind him. He doesn’t live that far from this place, and I know he didn’t have plans tonight. He and the waitress have called it quits; she’s actually babysitting Abby at the moment. She’s great with kids and is going to college to be a preschool teacher.

“Go away, Peter.”

My gaze takes in the slicked back, dark hair, graying at the temples, and chocolate-brown eyes in a tanned, faintly lined face. His bulky arms strain against the fabric of his dress shirt, and there’s no paunch in his belly. He still looks as fit as he did eight years ago, and he’s, what, in his mid-forties now? To a naïve, eighteen-year-old, first-time nanny, he’d been like a god, so strong and masculine and dominant.

There’s earnestness in those eyes, and I’m so glad I’ve enough life experience now not to buy into it. Because all he wants is me in his bed—just like Garrett does, actually. Man, I hate that Danny was right. I do have a type, and that type wants nothing whatsoever to do with happily ever after.

“I’ve missed you, Erin.”

“You’ve missed being in that warm spot between my legs.”

He gasps, like he’s shocked by my crudeness. Maybe he is. I never talked like that when I worked for him. He liked girls to be girls, sweet and innocent and quiet and gentle. Garrett, on the other hand, finds my occasional crudeness funny and my openness attractive. So maybe the two men aren’t much alike after all.

“Come home with me,” he says. “I need you. The kids need you.”

The kids are hopefully not screwed in the head after what their father has put them through. The oldest would be fourteen now, the youngest, twelve. Terrible ages to try to figure out this big, bad world under the best of circumstances.

“Teenagers don’t need a nanny. They need their parents.”

“No. They need you. They ask about you all the time.”

I doubt that. “If they do, it’s because you still talk about me.” Which is disturbing, frankly.

“I do. I tell them all about you. Well, when I can find you. Sometimes you make it difficult, going to work for people who like their private lives to remain private. It was so nice when you went to work for this golf pro. Your life is an open book. I know everything about you now.”

Holy shit. I press back against the wall, the bottle in one hand, the other splayed against the painted brick, as my chest rises and falls in rapid succession. Is he for real? He sure as hell looks serious.

“What you need is therapy,” I mutter, not really caring if he hears me.

But he does, and his face contorts like he’s suddenly furious, while he wags a finger in my face. “Don’t you dare say that. I don’t fucking care what anybody says. I do not need therapy.”

I whip my head from side to side. I have nowhere to go to get away from him. He’s trapped me at the end of this hall. He might actually, physically harm me.

“I—I—”

“My stupid ex-wife,” he spits out. “Her mother. My own parents. Even the kids tell me that. Why does everyone think there’s something wrong with me?”

“Uh, maybe because there is? I mean, come off it. I left eight years ago and you haven’t been able to move on? Who does that?”

“It’s you, Erin.” He steps closer, so close I can smell the whiskey on his breath. Guess I’m not the only one who’s overindulged tonight. “You do this to me.”

I lift my arm, press my palm into his chest, which is still as rock hard as it always was. “Blaming someone else for your problems isn’t going to solve them, you know.”

“My only problem is you won’t come back to me. You’re my nanny. No one else’s.”

Geez, when Garrett gets this overbearing and protective over his daughter, it’s heart-warming—and admittedly, sexy as hell. But when Peter does it over a woman who left him years ago, who now feels nothing but a great deal of regret and a healthy dose of fear, it’s damned creepy.

“Look, Peter, I need to go. I need to—” I try to move around him so I can head down the hall to return to the party—even Fiona’s questions are preferable to this—but he won’t let me. He grabs my arm and I instantly lift the champagne bottle and swing, connecting with his shoulder. His body flings backward from the impact, and I skate around him, rushing to the nearest door, which takes me into the kitchen.

Darting past stainless steel tables piled with plates of filet mignon, around which a bevy of people all wearing those paper chef hats work their food-prep magic, I hurry toward another door. Outside, there’s a golf cart, one the kitchen uses to carry supplies between the clubhouse and the snack shack on the ninth hole. I leap into the driver’s seat, even though I have no idea how to drive one of these things. It can’t be that hard, though. I see kids do it all the time.

But it is, or maybe that’s the champagne and my fear. Either way, after several false starts, I manage to convince the machine to lurch forward, and I’m puttering away from the party.

I hear a shout and glance over my shoulder at Peter, who’s chasing after me, calling out something about women and nannies. I turn back around, and a white rock that’s actually a duck jumps to life, waddling along in front of me, flapping its wings and quacking up a storm. I jerk the wheel to the left.

At this point, I sure as hell can’t stop, not with the entire freaking party clamoring from French doors, pouring onto the patio to watch me make a complete and utter fool of myself, so I aim for a narrow path between two ponds, my champagne-soaked brain convinced I can disappear behind the draping branches of that cluster of weeping willow trees on the other side.

I hear more shouting. I swear that sounds like Garrett—and is that Danny’s voice, too? Oh God, Garrett’s going to hate me, and Danny’s never going to let me live this down. I press the gas pedal to the floor, but that does nothing at all as the cart zips along at a top speed of probably five miles per hour.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Garrett running toward me, but he’s on the other side of the pond, and I’m not sure how he’s going to get to me. Danny’s right behind him, and he veers left, like he’s going around behind the golf cart, but Garrett keeps going, and without breaking stride, he splashes into the pond in his Armani suit, wading through the thigh deep, murky water with his gaze locked onto me. I slam my foot against the brake and the cart lurches to a stop seconds before I attempt to cross between the two ponds and probably submerge myself, too.

Garrett stops and drops his hands to his knees in the water while he catches his breath for a minute. “What the hell are you doing?” he finally manages to ask.

“Trying to get away from you,” another voice answers before I can open my mouth.

“Holy shit. Is that who I think it is?” Danny says. He’s standing a few feet away from Peter, who’s behind me, inching closer while keeping an eye on Garrett.

“I’m not the one who was chasing her, asshole,” Garrett says. His words are punctuated by a quack and flutter of wings, and then the white duck I’d nearly decapitated lands on the seat next to me.

“I was chasing her because I was worried,” Peter says. “She doesn’t drive very well, you know.”

What? I’m a perfectly fine driver.

“How the hell do you know that?” Garrett asks, but he’s looking at me.

Peter chuckles, like we’re standing around rehashing the good ole days. “Because I used to always get on her about staying between the lines whenever I let her drive my Maserati.”

“Your Maserati?” Garrett asks, sounding confused.

“That was eight years ago,” I say, throwing my hands in the air.

“Has she gotten any better?” Peter says, looking at Garrett like he expects an answer.

“Who the fuck are you?” Garrett responds.

Peter smiles cheerfully and extends his arm as he walks toward Garrett, but then he pauses at the edge of the pond. Looking down at the spongy ground, he frowns and drops his hand. “I’m Peter Wilkins. Erin’s lover.”

“What?”

“No!” I cry out. I know this thing I have with Garrett isn’t perfect, but goddamn it, I don’t want it to end. Not yet. And not on someone else’s terms. Especially not because of Peter. “That’s not true.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Erin,” Peter says, his voice still far too cheerful for the situation. “I divorced my wife for you. So we could be together.”

“No,” I say, turning to Garrett. “It’s not the same…”

Lights are flashing all around. A wall of people stand behind Peter, every damn one of them holding up either a phone or some other sort of device that records things you’d rather not save for posterity.

“She used to be my nanny,” Peter says in that same happy tone, like he senses victory is his for the taking. Or he’s just batshit crazy. Probably a combination of the two. “And then we became lovers.”

Garrett’s looking at me, like he needs an explanation, which I most definitely want to give him. I lift my arm, my fingers extended. I don’t know why or what I plan to do. My mouth opens, but my tongue can’t seem to push out words. I probably look like I’m emulating that game, Plants vs. Zombies. Except instead of brains, I want Garrett. The one thing I can’t have.

Danny skirts around Peter and climbs onto the golf cart, edging me out of the driver’s seat. I scoop the duck into my lap and bow my head. I’ve ruined everything. Garrett had only just managed to pull his reputation back from the brink, and my past has destroyed it all, probably for good this time. I can already envision the headlines, and I cannot imagine Callum will be able to fix this one.

Garrett’s sponsors are no doubt already calling, and they’re ripping up their contracts, trying to distance themselves from the bad boy golfer who diddled with the nanny who makes a habit of fucking unavailable daddies.

“Nothing to see here, folks, nothing to see,” Danny says as he grabs the steering wheel and presses on the gas pedal. The cart lurches forward, heading over the narrow passage next to where Garrett still stands in the pond with water soaking his dress pants.

“Erin—” Garrett says.

“I love you, Erin,” Peter calls.

The words I’ve wanted Garrett to say for months, the words the media has been hounding him about, and in the end, the wrong man said them.