Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (155 page)

Normally,
she’d
never take a non-emergency call when she was spending time with someone else,
but Erica didn’t deserve Nicole’s courtesy.
 
“I just need to take this call,” Nicole
said.

Erica’s
lips pursed, but she kept quiet.

“Hello?”
Nicole answered.
 
There was no reply.
 
Maybe it had been an accident—

maybe
Kallie hadn’t meant
to call her at all.

“Hello?” she asked one more time.

And
then she heard crying.
 
Faintly, someone tried to speak.

“I
can’t hear you,” Nicole said, putting a
hand over her ear and turning away from

Erica,
as if trying to
block out the woman’s presence entirely.

“Ni…Nicole?” the girl stuttered on the other
end.

“Kallie, is that you?”

“Ye—yes.”

“What’s
wrong?”
she asked.
 
Suddenly her heart was
pounding.
 
She could tell something
awful had happened, but couldn’t even begin to imagine what it was.

“I…I
didn’t
know who else to call.”

“It’s okay.
 
Tell me what happened.”

“I
had to leave the house.
 
I ran…I’m…I’m on the corner of Burk and

Hawthorne.”

Nicole
wasn’t
sure where that was, but she could use the GPS to find her.
 
“Are you safe right now?”

“I…I
don’t know.
 
I think so.”

“Do
you want me to call the police?”

“No.”
The
girl’s voice grew louder, more insistent.
 
“Please, please don’t call the police.”

“Are
you hurt in any way?”

There
was a long pause.
 
“I’m not hurt.”

“Listen,
I’m
coming right now—I’m on my way, Kallie.
 
Tell me the address again?
 
Give me a house number.”

Kallie
told
her an address and then Nicole got off the phone and looked over to Erica, who
was watching her with an anxious and somewhat mistrustful expression.
 
“Is something wrong, Nicole?”

“I’m
so
sorry, Erica, but something’s come up.
 
An emergency situation.”

“Tell me what’s happened.”

“I’m
not even sure, but I have to go.
 
I’m sorry.”

Erica
came
towards her.
 
“Well, let me come
help with whatever’s going on. You’re in no position to deal with any intense
stress right now—“

Nicole
shook
her head.
 
“I need to go by myself,
Erica.
 
I’ll call you and…” she
started for her car.
“We’ll talk,
okay?
 
Thank you so much for the
baby clothes!” she yelled, getting in the front seat.

Red’s
mother
stared after her, and Nicole couldn’t help but be grimly satisfied that their
little date had been unceremoniously been cut short.
 
She didn’t want to spend another
millisecond with that woman, and now she didn’t have to.
 
And she wasn’t feeling guilty about it,
either.

She
drove
out of the lot and watched her rearview mirror as Erica Jameson grew smaller
and smaller and then faded entirely from view.

***

The
sky
had darkened soon after Kallie had hung up after speaking to Nicole, and the
clouds had rolled in.
 
Then it had
begun to spit and drizzle and now it was a drenching downpour.

Kallie
stood
by the side of the road and shivered in her shorts and thin halter top, water
dripping into her eyes.
 
She felt
like a wet poodle.

When
Nicole
finally drove up alongside her and stopped, Kallie burst into fresh tears, she
was so relieved.

She
opened
the passenger side door and got inside, ashamed to even look at the kind woman
who’d known her for all of five minutes, and yet she’d driven out here to pick
her up upon request.
 
“I’m really
sorry about this,” she said through chattering teeth.

The
pregnant
woman (who didn’t even look a day over twenty-one) just gazed at her with
concern.
 
“Are you sure you’re not
hurt?”

Kallie
nodded.
 
“I’m fine.
 
I’m just kind of shaken up from
everything.” “Where do you want to go?”

Kallie
sat
there.
 
“I guess I don’t have
anywhere to go.
 
And I don’t know
anyone around here.
 
That’s why I
called you.”

“Well
do
you want to come home with me for now?
 
We can figure it out from there.
 
But either way, it’s up to you.”

“I
don’t want to put you out.”

“It’s
no
trouble,” Nicole said.
 
“Come on,
we’ll get you warm and dry and give you a meal and then you can decide what’s
next.”

Kallie
nodded
with relief and gratitude.
 
“Thank
you, Nicole.”

“No problem.”
 
Nicole started to drive.

Kallie
couldn’t
help but watch the woman from the corner of her eye.
 
Something about Nicole was so unique, so
different from anyone else Kallie had met around here. She was clearly young,
but at the same time, possessed a self-assuredness that was very rare.
 
Kallie could tell that Nicole wasn’t
afraid to stand up and do the right thing, to take chances.
 
This woman wouldn’t have let Brad and Trina
treat her so poorly.

And
the
other thing that was totally different about her: most people would have been
peppering Kallie with all sorts of questions right now, but Nicole was just
driving and staying quiet.
 
It was
obvious that she’d be open to talking if Kallie felt up to it, but she wasn’t
forcing the conversation.

After
a
few minutes, Kallie was relaxing and her shaking had subsided a little. “This
must seem kind of strange to you.
 
I
mean, getting a frantic call like that out of nowhere, from a girl you just
met.”

Nicole
smiled.
 
“Actually, given where I was when you
called—it couldn’t have come at a better time.”

“Where
were you?”

“I
was in the clutches of an evil witch.
 
Literally.”

Kallie
grinned.
 
“There are a lot of those around The
Hamptons.”

Nicole laughed.
 
“Us human girls have to stick together.”

Kallie
found that she liked Nicole more and more
with each passing second.
 
It felt
like she could have been her sister, which was nice, since Kallie’s siblings
were all brothers.
 
She’d missed
having a sister her age to talk to about life and school and boys.

“There
aren’t
just witches here.
 
There are nasty
rabid dogs, too,” Kallie said, thinking back to the laundry room—the
smell of detergent and Brad’s alcohol-laced breath as he pushed his erection
against her, his hands squeezing her buttocks.

Nicole
glanced
worriedly over.
 
“You can tell me
what happened if you want.
 
Or
not.
 
I don’t want to make you
uncomfortable.”

“No,
it’s
okay.
 
I can talk about it.”
 
Kallie laughed and wiped tears from her
eyes. “I’m just being stupid.
 
I
mean, he didn’t even really
do
anything to me.”

“Who
didn’t?”

“Brad
Danvers.
 
I nanny for him and Trina.”

Nicole
nodded
as if this all made sense.
 
“Did he
try and make you do something you didn’t want to do?”

Kallie
nodded.
 
“It started out mostly normal, although
I guess there was a little part of me that sensed something was off from the
beginning.”

And
then
Kallie proceeded to tell Nicole everything, even more than she’d intended.
 
How she’d started working for Danvers
family and wanted nothing more than to make a good impression.
 
That she’d assumed all of these rich,
educated, powerful people would also be fair and decent and trustworthy.
 
How quickly her perceptions had changed
when they’d begun treating her rudely, insulting her, berating her, telling her
that she was no good at the job.

Finally
she
made her way to telling Nicole about that very morning, when Brad had started
to insinuate that he was attracted to her, refusing to listen to her polite
rebuffs, following her into the laundry room, and finally forcing himself on
her at the end.

“I
ran
out of the house and just kept running,” Kallie said, catching her up to the
most recent moments.
 
“After awhile,
I realized that I didn’t know where I was and I had no money and nowhere to go.
 
All I had was my phone, and somehow when
I saw your number—I thought I should call you.
 
I don’t even know why, really.”

Nicole
didn’t
say anything for a while.
 
And then
she said, “I’m glad you called me, Kallie.”

“Thanks
for saying that.”

They
arrived
at what Kallie assumed was Nicole’s house, and she was frankly stunned at what
she was seeing.
 
However nice the
Danvers’s home was, this place must have been twenty times bigger and nicer and
more expensive.
 
If the Danvers
family was rich, than this woman was practically royalty.

“You
live here?” she squeaked.

Nicole
chuckled.
 
“We’re just renting.”

“It’s amazing.”

“Thanks.
I’m still getting used to it myself.”

Kallie
didn’t
know what she meant, but decided to keep her questions to herself for now.
 
The last thing she wanted was to get on
this kind woman’s nerves and make her regret helping out a virtual stranger.

Before
they
went inside, Nicole turned to her.
 
“My husband’s home, and although
I
told him I was picking you up—and likely bringing you back here—he doesn’t

really
have a clue what’s
going on.
 
So, I just wanted you to
be aware that he’s probably curious and maybe a little confused.”

“I
understand
totally,” Kallie said.
 
She looked
down at her soaked shirt and tiny shorts and felt more vulnerable than ever.

Nicole
saw
her expression.
 
“We’ll get you
right upstairs and I’ll find something for you to change into, okay?”

“Thank
you.”

When
they
walked inside, Nicole announced they were home.
 
From somewhere in the enormous house,
Kallie heard a man call back.
 
“I’ll
be right there!”

And
then
he was coming into the foyer with a big smile on his face and Kallie was
instantly at ease.
 
Even though he
was gorgeous—dark hair, dark eyes, a strong jaw and muscular
frame—she instantly saw how connected he was to his wife.

“Everything
okay?”
he said, more concerned for his wife than anything else.

“Yeah, we’re all fine.
 
I’m just going to bring Kallie up and
give her some clothes

and
stuff.”

He
nodded.
 
“Of course, of course.”
 
Then he turned to Kallie and smiled reassuringly.
 
“I’m Red Jameson, by the way.”

“I’m
Kallie.
 
Nice to meet you.”

“Please
feel
free to just relax and let us know if there’s anything at all that you need.”

“I
appreciate that.”

“And,
let
me ask something.
 
Do you like
steak?”

“I do.”
 
She laughed.