The Nanny and the CEO (11 page)

Nick brought out two adult life vests and an infant life jacket. While he went about getting the boat ready and undoing ropes, she laid Jamie down on one of the benches and changed his diaper. He loved being bare and kicked his strong legs as if he was doing exercises. She laughed with pure pleasure before putting a fresh diaper on him.

With him propped against her shoulder, she went down to the galley. There was a microwave so she could warm his bottle. By the time she climbed the stairs with him, Nick had everything ready to go. She put the bottle down. Together they helped put Jamie's infant vest on, but she was unbearably aware of Nick and his potent masculinity. Their hands brushed, sending rivulets of yearning through her.

He kissed his boy's tummy before snapping everything in place. “I know you don't like it, sport, but that's the rule.” He fastened him back in his carryall. “You'll get used to it.”

With a speed that took her breath, Nick's gaze unexpectedly flicked to hers. “Now it's
your
turn.” The message in his dark brown eyes was unmistakable. They traveled over her features and down her body, melting her from the inside out. She got this heavy sensation in her legs. Her hands felt pains that traveled up her arms.

His male mouth was like a vortex drawing her in. Thrilled and terrified because her desire for him was so palpable he had to know it, she put out her hands to take the vest from him so he wouldn't touch her. Instead his hands closed over hers, pulling her against him, sending a paralyzing warmth through her body.

“I'm going to kiss you, and I very much hope that you won't fight me.”

She couldn't have if she'd wanted to. From the moment she'd climbed in the back of the limo and had discovered a man who surpassed her every notion of the ultimate male, she'd wanted
him
. It was that simple, and that impossible, but right now she couldn't remember the reason why and didn't want to.

In the next breath he found her softly parted mouth. Incapable of doing anything else, she melted against him and let herself go, craving the taste of him as he took their kiss long and deep. Oh… She'd never felt sensations like this in her life. He drew her closer in a quick compulsive movement. The vest fell to her feet, but she was barely cognizant.

It came as a shock to realize his hunger matched hers, sending fire licking through her veins. Reese felt the low groan way down in his throat before it permeated her body. As it reached her inner core, her helpless cry drew a response of refined savagery from him.

“You couldn't possibly know how beautiful you are.” A fever of ecstasy consumed her with each insistent caress of his lips on her face, her hair, her throat. “I want to take you below,” he whispered against her lips, swollen from the passion they shared. “If I've shocked you, I've shocked myself more.”

She took an unsteady breath and eased herself out of
arms that were slow to relinquish her. The slight rocking of the boat didn't help her equilibrium. “What's really shocking is that I'd like to go downstairs with you,” she admitted because total gut honesty was required right now.

“But after I broke off with Jeremy, I made a promise I wouldn't let anything get in the way of my goals. A man can make you lose focus. Who knows what could happen to me after a glorious day on the ocean in your arms. I—I know it would be wonderful,” she stammered, “because I've just had a taste of you and crave more.”

Nick's eyes narrowed on her mouth. He might as well have started kissing her again. She had to look away or she'd fling herself back into his arms.

“Your honesty is another quality about you I admire.” Out of the periphery she watched his hard body lounge against the side of the boat. “What happened between you and Jeremy?”

“Probably the kind of thing that went wrong with you and Erica.” She'd reached the tipping point and needed distance from this man who'd caused her world to reel.

Jamie wasn't fussing yet, but she knew his hunger had been building. She pulled him out of his carryall, then sat down and settled him in her arms to feed him.

“You mean you allowed yourself to drift into your engagement?” he asked in a benign tone.

Her head flew back. “Is that what happened to you?” she asked before she realized how revealing that question must have sounded. All along she'd been thinking Erica had to have been his grand passion because he could have had any woman he wanted.

“Why don't we concentrate on you and Jeremy first.”

“He's not in my life anymore.”

“Humor me anyway,” he insisted.

“Well, we met at the bank where my father does business. That was the summer before I started at Wharton. We fell in love and dated until I went away, then we relied on emails and phone calls until we could be together. I went home at every vacation opportunity. He came to see me twice.

“Last fall he asked me to marry him and gave me an engagement ring. He knew I didn't want to get married before graduation, but when I went home at Christmas, he wanted to be married right away. No more waiting.

“I told him I would, but that we'd have to live apart while I was still away at school. That's when he gave me an ultimatum. Either I marry him before the end of the month and stay in Lincoln, or we break up.”

The baby had finished his bottle. She pulled a receiving blanket out of the diaper bag and put it over her shoulder to burp him.

“I thought I knew him, but I didn't. It finally came out that he didn't want a working wife. He made enough money and wanted me to stay home so we could start a family. I told him I wanted children one day, but my education and work came first.

“I was amazed that my scholarship to Wharton meant nothing to him. He had a finance degree and aspirations to rise to the top, but didn't take mine seriously. It's too bad he didn't realize I meant what I said. It would have saved us both a lot of pain. I gave him back his ring and told him goodbye.”

“Have you seen him since?”

“No.”

“He's probably still waiting for you to change your mind.”

“Then he's waiting in vain.”

In the silence that followed, Nick reached for his life vest and put it on. Clearly he considered this conversation over. She'd learn nothing more from him about his marriage because he'd come out here to sail.

After their brief, intimate interlude that could have ended in her making the most disastrous mistake of her life, he was ready to head out to sea, the rapture of the moment forgotten. She had the gut feeling that the invitation to join him below wouldn't happen again on this trip or any other trips he planned in the future.

If he thought she was still feeling needy after her broken engagement and that's why she'd been an ardent participant in what they'd just shared, then let him go on thinking it. She didn't want him knowing her guilty secret.

To have fallen in love with her employer went against all the rules of being a nanny, but that's what she'd done. She was madly in love with Nick Wainwright. Between him and his son, she would never be the same person again.

No one could tell her Erica Hirst hadn't been desperately in love with him, too. You couldn't be in his presence five minutes without wanting any love he was willing to give. If anyone had
drifted
into a permanent relationship—if that's what had really happened—it would have been Nick.

Erica must have been shattered when he'd asked her for a divorce. Reese wanted to believe that the knowledge she was pregnant with Nick's child had brought her
some solace in spite of her grief. If Reese had been in her shoes, she knew she would have grieved over losing Nick.

How tragic that she'd died. Tears pricked her eyelids. She loved their beautiful boy with all her heart.

“Reese?” His voice had a deep, grating quality. “Are you all right? I didn't mean to dredge up your pain.”

Maybe it was better he thought Jeremy was the source of her distress, but nothing could be further from the truth. She shook her head. “You didn't. I thought you and I were having a simple conversation. Naturally our pasts would come up.” She put the baby back in his carryall. “I think your son is on the verge of falling asleep again. Where shall we put him while we're out sailing?”

“Keep him right next to you. I'll do all the work, but put on your life vest first.” He handed it to her.

Back to square one, the place where she'd gotten too physically close to Nick and had given in to her longings. Not this time around!

She slipped it on and fastened the straps.

“Are you ready?”

Reese nodded.

He walked to the rear of the boat and started the motor at a wakeless speed. Slowly they headed toward the water beyond the buoys. Once past them, he cut the motor and raised the white sail. A light breeze filled it and then there was this incredible rush of sensation as the boat lifted and skimmed across the water. She found it wasn't unlike the feeling of Nick kissing her senseless.

When she was an old woman, all she would have to do was close her eyes and remember the sight of the gorgeous, powerfully built man at the helm with the wind
disheveling his black hair. For a little while she would relive being crushed in his arms and invited to visit paradise with him. That kind of joy only came once.

She dreaded for the day to be over, but the time came when Nick had to take them back to the port. Twilight had fallen all around them. After they'd floated alongside the pier and he'd jumped out of the boat to tie the ropes, she rummaged in the big diaper bag for the gift-wrapped package.

While he was still down on his haunches, she handed it to him.

“What's this?”

“It'll be Father's Day in a few hours. Before Jamie fell asleep, he asked me to give this to you. He told me to tell you he had the most wonderful day of his life out here with his daddy.”

A stillness surrounded Nick before he undid the paper and discovered the sailboat. In the semidarkness his white smile stood out. He turned it this way and that. “The
Flying NJ?
”

“Yes. A Nick and Jamie partnership. He thought you might like to put it on your desk at work.”

“Reese…”
He stepped back in the boat. With his hand still holding his gift, he cupped her chin with the other, lifting her face to his gaze. “No one ever gave me a present like this before.”

“That's because it's your first Father's Day and your son isn't very old yet,” she teased to cover the intensity of her emotions.

He brushed his mouth against hers, melting her bones. “Where did you come from, Ms. Chamberlain?”

“The East 59th Street Employment Agency.”

“My secretary did good work picking you. I'm going to have to give her a bonus.”

“I'm glad she picked me, too. Jamie's…precious.” Her voice caught before she moved away from him. She was in danger of begging him to take her below. If that happened, then a whole night alone with him would never be enough.

T
WO
weeks later Reese entered the apartment building with Jamie after an afternoon of walking and shopping. The concierge called to her. “You have mail, Ms. Chamberlain.”

She saw a postcard from Rich Bonner, his fourth, forwarded from the post office in Philadelphia to her temporary address here. His persistence irritated her. There was also a letter from Wharton. The school was no doubt reminding her of the test coming up in two weeks. She'd registered for it and would be taking it online.

“Thank you, Albert.”

Once she'd tucked the mail in the sack, she went on up to the penthouse. Before she read anything, she had something more important to do. Jamie would be four months old in another week, but she couldn't wait for his birthday.

Her sister had one of those fold-out colorful quilts with the ends of a mobile sewn in. When you opened it and set it on the floor, the mobile sprang open. The baby would lie there on his back entertained with all kinds and colors of small blocks and shapes and mirrors dangling above him. When she'd been walking through the toy store, she saw one like it and had to buy it.

“You're going to love this,” she told Jamie as she wheeled him down the hall to her bedroom. As soon as she washed her hands, she pushed him through to the nursery and changed his diaper in his crib. She left him long enough to wash her hands again, then hurried back.

The little Tigger clock she'd bought for him last week said it was five after four. Nick would be home any minute. She lived for this time of the day when he walked through the front door and said he was home. Today was Friday, which meant he'd be home for the whole weekend.

He was always the perfect employer, but since their outing on the boat when she'd come so close to making love with him, he hadn't touched her and the deprivation was killing her.

“Come on, sweetheart.” She picked up the baby, pouring out all her love on him. “You're getting heavier, do you know that?” With a kiss, she knelt down on the floor with him where she could place him under the mobile on his back.

“There.” A red ladybug hung from a coil so you could pull on it. She put it in his hand. His fingers tried to crush it and it sprang away. Reese laughed and put it in his hand again, thus commencing a game that had them both laughing. She was so involved, she didn't realize Nick had come in the room until he'd gotten down on the floor with them.

“This looks so fun I think I'll try it myself.” His hip brushed against hers as he put his head inside to kiss his son.

Jamie was overjoyed to see his father. In the excitement his hands knocked several objects so they swung.
Reese was so excited to feel Nick's body next to her, she almost forgot to breathe.

His deep laughter rumbled through her, enchanting her. When he backed out, he suddenly pulled Reese closer so she was half lying on top of him with her face over his.

“A man could get used to looking up when there's so much to entice him.” He undid the ribbon on her ponytail and her hair cascaded around her face. “I've been wanting to do this for weeks.”

It was his fingers twining in her hair that opened the floodgates. With no immunity against the intensity of his desire, Reese couldn't help but lower her mouth to his, aching for the assuagement only he could give.

With slow deliberation he began to devour her. His breath was so sweet, so familiar, her senses swam. They kissed as if obeying some primitive rhythm. His lips traveled to the scented hollow of her throat. “You smell divine, do you know that? You feel divine.”

“So do you.” She let out a small gasp because the pressure of his mouth had changed, becoming so exquisite and loving, she would have fainted from pleasure if she weren't already on the floor with him.

He rolled her over on her back and kissed her passionately again and again until she couldn't tell where one kiss left off and another one began. Caught up in a euphoria such as she'd never known, she had no idea what time it was or how much time had passed until Jamie started to make hungry noises. Good heavens, the baby—

“He can wait for his bottle one more minute, or two, or three,” Nick said in a voice raw with emotion, pressing
another hot kiss to her mouth, each one growing more urgent than the last.

Reese agreed as she gave in to the needs building inside her. His charisma had drawn her to him from the start, but now it was his sheer, potent male sensuality that had ensnared her. The slight rasp of his jaw brought out a wanton side in her she didn't know she possessed. His hunger, never satisfied, was making her feel immortal.

Only Jamie's cries becoming louder had the power to bring her back to earth. “Nick—”

His answering groan of protest meant he'd been brought back, too. She felt his hard-muscled body roll away. Reese caught a glimpse of dark eyes glazed with the heat of their passion before he got to his feet.

She looked around, surprised to see his suit jacket and tie on the floor. He had to have discarded them in a hurry after he'd walked in. Reese lowered her head. What had she done? What was she doing?

Nick left the room with Jamie to get him a bottle. By the time she got to her feet, her body couldn't stop throbbing. She was completely dazed by emotions and feelings that had overwhelmed her. In a way it really frightened her. Nick had the power to take away her heart, soul, mind, will,
everything
—without even trying.

But it was
her
fault, not his. There was no force involved with him. All he had to do was touch her or say something and she was incapable of denying him or walking away. To do that, she would have to break her contract. But giving up Jamie would break her heart and leave Nick in a crisis until he found another nanny.

You've gotten yourself in a terrible mess, Reese.

In a druggedlike stupor, she picked up the sack and
almost threw it away before she remembered the mail inside it. After pulling it out, she tossed the bag in the wastebasket and looked at the postcard first. Laguna Beach.

Hey, beautiful— Wish you were here surfing with me. There are some waves rolling in with your name on them. By any chance did you get a letter from Wharton?

Reese stared at the unopened envelope in her hand.

I got one the other day. Email me either way, okay? Hope you are ready for the exam! Ciao for now. Rich.

She had no intention of contacting him, but she did have to admit she was curious about his mention of a letter. He wouldn't have said anything if all that was in it was the reminder of the exam coming up.

Nick must have carried Jamie out to the terrace to feed him. Thankful he'd disappeared to give her time to gather her wits, she wasted no time opening the letter. It was from the dean of her department no less.

Reese pressed the letter to her chest. Miroff and Hooplan was on the top-ten list of brokerage companies in the nation. She couldn't believe it. This truly was a dream come true.

Was it the dean Mrs. Tribe had talked to when she'd been checking on Reese's background?

As for Rich, his question meant he'd received the other internship. She wondered where he would be working. All she had to do was email him and she'd find out. Maybe it was uncharitable, but she hoped it wasn't next door or across the street from Miroff and Hooplan!

Though an internship meant being on call 24/7 as a grunt, she would be a grunt in an exclusive brokerage house. She felt a shiver of excitement run thorough her. She read the letter over again. Her parents needed to hear about this. They'd loved and supported her all these years so that she could realize her dream. She owed them for many things, but especially for their belief in her ability to succeed. Now would be a good time to reach her mother.

After moving the quilt mobile away from the crib, she left the nursery for her bedroom to make the call. “Where are
you
going in such a hurry?” Reese had been moving so fast, she'd almost run into Nick in the
hall. Jamie was resting against his broad shoulder. After the way she'd lost it in his arms, she could hardly look at him yet without blushing or feeling the strong passion between them again. “When I stopped for my mail, Albert told me you received some, too. By the rate of your speed leaving the nursery, it must be important.”

Nothing got past Nick. Nothing.

“Something from Jeremy maybe?”

Jeremy—

After kissing Nick as if her very life depended on it, her ex-fiancé had been so far from her mind, she'd forgotten he existed. Reese struggled for breath. On a burst of inspiration, she handed him the letter. She needed to prove to herself as well as to him that no matter how attracted she was to him, she was still on the path to forging a place for herself in the business world.

She felt the full force of his penetrating gaze before he scanned the contents. As she watched him, his demeanor began to change. He'd been so certain this was about her ex-fiancé.

When he lifted his eyes, she saw an expression of incredulity stamped across his striking features. “I knew you were a student, but I had no idea you were the caliber of scholar to have earned this kind of entrée into Miroff's.”

“The letter came as a complete surprise to me,” she said in a quiet voice. “I was about to phone my parents with the news.”

There was a pause before he said, “When you asked me about the stock market, I understand now that it was no idle question.” He didn't sound accusing exactly, but he didn't sound himself, either. She couldn't decipher his reaction.

“It wasn't an in-depth question, either.” Reese felt strange having to explain herself to him. Until now there'd never been this void between them. She didn't understand it.

“Jeremy really didn't know the real you, did he.”

Jeremy again. Why did Nick sound so cold? That was the only word that came close to describing his response. Anger or rudeness she might have tolerated, but this aloof side of him was something new. If they could just get on a better footing.

“Can I do anything for you or Jamie?”

He shook his dark head. “Now that I'm home, you're free for the weekend.”

To hear him say that in an almost wintry tone of voice was like being banished to the outer darkness. This was pain in a new dimension. For once she didn't dare kiss Jamie.

“Before I forget, your house phone rang this morning. I picked up so it wouldn't waken the baby. Someone named Greg called, but he didn't leave a message. About an hour later a man named Lew phoned wanting to speak to you. When he realized you weren't here, he said he'd catch up with you at the Yacht Club tonight. If you need me to watch Jamie, I—”

“I don't,” he broke in, “but I appreciate the offer.” He handed her back the letter. When she took it, the postcard fell out of her hand. Nick grabbed it up before she could. If he'd looked for Jeremy's name before returning it to her, then he would be disappointed.

Summoning all her strength, she picked herself up off the ground mentally and smiled. “If something should change, I'll be in my room studying.”

“For what exactly?”

“The G7 and G65.” He knew what they were. Once upon a time he'd had to study for them, too. “My exam is coming up before the end of the month.”

“I have no doubt you'll crush it.” Why was there that glitter in his eyes? Just a little while ago they'd been glazed with desire.

“We'll see.”

 

The quilt mobile Reese had bought for Jamie was another hit out of the ballpark. Nick sat in the rocking chair and leaned forward, watching his son play beneath it. All the objects stimulated him so much, it took him a long time before he fell asleep. That suited Nick, who needed time to wind down before he exploded with emotions so foreign to him, he didn't know himself anymore. This was Leah's doing.

—I've found someone I believe will suit you and the baby.

—As long as she likes children and is a real motherly type and not some cardboard creation, I bow to your wisdom. Tell me more about her.

—You once told me you prefer to attack a new project without listening to any other voices first while you form your own opinion. I think that's a good philosophy, especially in this case.

This case meaning a young woman who played dual roles to perfection.

Nick bit down hard. Reese had wanted a job that only lasted three months and she'd meant it! Jeremy-whatever-his-name was a fool for not having realized he'd never been in the running for the long haul.

But now that Nick had taken the time to calm down, he realized his anger at Jeremy had been misplaced. The
fault lay in himself for assuming he could talk Reese into staying on as his nanny longer than just the summer. When he thought of her leaving now, he couldn't handle it.

Filled with fresh panic, he pulled out his cell and called his secretary.

“Nick? I'm glad you phoned. Greg, Lew and your father have been trying to reach you. He told me to tell you the time for the Yacht Club party tonight has been changed from six-thirty to seven. I left the message on your voice mail.”