The Price of Fame: A Price Novel (The Price Novels Book 2) (16 page)

Slayde still had to go to Houston, and Milly was able to work it out to stay with me for the first two nights I was home. But she managed to make it fun. We ate junk food and stayed up late watching
Saved by the Bell
reruns and looking at bridal magazines. Milly was the kind of person who got all into the wedding thing, the complete opposite of me.

“I hate that you’re too preggo to go look at venues with me next week,” she said with her lip poked out.

“Me too, but I know your mom is going to have so much fun ordering you around. I really hate that I am going to miss that.” I elbowed her.

“Ha-ha! You know Mom’s not too thrilled that I won’t have a big ol’ Texas wedding,” she said in a really country accent.

“Yeah, how did you get her to be OK with you getting married in California?”

“She was upset at first, but I just told her I’ve been in California for almost ten years now. Texas isn’t my home anymore. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but it was the truth.”

“It is your wedding,” I reminded her.

She looked at me seriously. “Do you ever regret having such a small wedding?”

“Absolutely not. I got exactly what I wanted, and that was Slayde.”

“That you did.” She laughed. “I can’t believe you are going to be a mom in few months. That’s so weird.” She reached across, rubbing my tummy again. She and Slayde did this all the time. However awkward it was when anyone else did it, to me it was not when they did it. Not anymore anyway.

“Me either. I’m really scared. I don’t know one thing about babies,” I admitted.

“What are you talking about? You practically raised your sisters.”

“They weren’t babies, though. I don’t know, Mills—I resented having to take care of them. I’m scared I’m going to be a terrible mother. Slayde would be so disappointed.” I really was worried about this, but I had never said it aloud before.

“Arden, that’s crazy. Slayde loves you. Don’t think like that.” She put her arm around me. “Don’t you think every first-time mother feels the same way you do?”

I hoped she was right, but I wasn’t so sure.

I really was nervous about hiring a stranger to watch my babies, but I didn’t really have a choice. Lexi had told us her friend was moving in a few months, and she had a nanny whom she had used for years and loved.

Once I was allowed to leave bed, Lexi set up for her to come to the house and meet us when Slayde wasn’t home. That way we could form our opinion, and then if we liked her, we would ask her to come back when he was there. It was kind of strange, but some people did seem to act differently around him than they did when he wasn’t around. And I wanted to get a good sense of how she felt about him. She would be home alone with him from time to time, and I didn’t want to even think anything crazy. Not that I didn’t trust him, but why put it out there for him?

“Are you sure about this? Do you really think a stranger is the way to go?” I asked nervously as Lexi and I were eating lunch.

Lexi looked up at me from under her long lashes. “Honey, unless you are planning on staying home indefinitely, you need to hire someone. The sooner, the better. That way she isn’t a stranger by the time the babies get here.”

“Can’t you do it? You know. You, Slayde, and me? Will you move in with us?”

She smiled and grabbed my hand across the table. “And you need to remember this is babies, plural. One is hard enough. Two, we’re going to need reinforcements.”

The nanny showed up about five minutes early.

“Punctual. I like it,” Lexi said as she stood up to let her in.

“Hey, Casey,” Lexi said, offering her hand to the short, round brunette.

Casey shook it. “Hi.” She looked at me. “You must be Arden.” I nodded and smiled while shaking her hand. “When are you due?” she asked, looking at my tummy.

“Four months,” I said.

“Twins?”

“Yep, and I have never changed a diaper. Is that bad?” I asked, nervously laughing.

She smiled and grabbed my hand again. “Nope. Not at all, but you’ll be a pro in no time.”

Casey was very warm and friendly. She was easy to talk to and seemed very down to earth. When we showed her the nursery, she immediately told me some things I should change for safety reasons. I liked that—maybe she could teach me how to change a diaper. She was also engaged, which was definitely a plus. She spent several hours with us before she left. I liked her. I wanted her to stay and hang out.

“I love her,” I said after she left.

“I do too,” Lexi said. “I wonder if she has any advice on moody teenage girls.” We both laughed.

“I wonder how she would do in this crazy life? I wonder if the paparazzi being outside every day, and never getting to go in public, will make her not want to work for us.”

“The only way to find out is try and see.”

Slayde came home a few days later, and Casey came back over. She didn’t even give him a second glance unless he was speaking to her. She was a keeper. After I talked to Slayde and knew he felt OK about her, I called her back and offered her the job. We were paying her more than her previous employer, and we would provide her a vehicle. She accepted the job and said she could start in three weeks. Even though the babies weren’t due for a few more months, I wanted her around to get to know us and teach us some stuff. I wanted us to all feel completely comfortable with each other by the time the babies were born.

A
rden had been released by Dr. Wells to go back to work. This wasn’t something I was excited about, and I really had hoped she’d stay home, but nonetheless, she didn’t.

I knew Arden was stressing about work and the babies coming. Throwing anything else on her plate right now would probably be overload, but our house was only four bedrooms. And two of the four were tiny.

We were having two babies, and they’d share a room for now. So that left two rooms. One for the new nanny, Casey, and one for possible future help. Which was more probable than possible. Casey couldn’t do it all, all the time, and I felt we needed someone there all the time. Even when we were both there. So, we’d be outgrowing this house very quickly. I’d rather move only once. So I wanted to use the little bit of time that we did have to build the perfect house for our family.

One that would have all the room that we would need as we had more kids and as they grew and needed more space. We would need a big yard and no fewer than seven bedrooms.

I was explaining this to Arden as she stared at me like I had three heads. “Seven bedrooms? Why do we need seven bedrooms?”

“OK, so we know at some point we will have another kid, right?”

She was still staring at me like I was insane.

“OK, let’s say it’s a possibility. Am I wrong?”

She nodded slightly. “It’s a possibility.”

I was freaking her out. I could tell. I tried to keep from laughing. “You wanna move more than once?”

“No,” she answered, much more sure of that answer than the previous.

“Then maybe let’s do ten bedrooms to be safe,” I teased, and before she could slap me or tell me how I would never touch her again if I wanted that many more kids, I wrapped my arms around her from behind. “Kidding,” I said softly.

She exhaled and seemed to calm visibly by that statement. “But seriously. I’d rather have more space than not enough. We can always turn any extra rooms into your sewing room or something.” I laughed at how ridiculous that sounded.

“Or your doghouse,” she retorted, and I stopped laughing. After another brief pause she added, “Slayde, seriously I don’t care what we do. We could stay here, and they could have bunk beds for all I care. I really don’t have time to worry about it.”

I kissed the top of her head, breathing in the smell of her shampoo. “Then don’t worry about it, baby. I got this.”

“How?” she asked. “You are gone a lot too.”

“I’m not building it myself, babe.”

“Well, thank goodness for that,” she said, pulling away and turning to look at me. “So, who are you going to get to build it then?”

“One of Dad’s friends owns a construction company. He will have one of his crews do it. They sub it all out, but it will be no stress for you, OK?”

She looked up at me. “OK. Have fun with that.”

That evening she and I sat down and gathered a list of what we wanted in the house, and I sent it to the contractor. He got back to me saying he wanted to sit down and look at a few house plans and see if we were on the same page.

I called Arden at work. “Will you be home this afternoon?” I asked. She said she should be home by four. “The contractor is bringing over several house plans for us to look over, based on what we told him we wanted.”

“OK, sounds good. Yeah, I will be there. What time?”

“Fiveish,” I said.

“OK, gotta go. Love you,” she managed to blurt out before hanging up.

I really wanted this house to be perfect. I wanted it to be where we raised our kids and lived forever, so it was very important to me that we chose exactly what we wanted and needed. Arden hadn’t been very picky about what she wanted other than to say that she wanted a big bathroom and a nice backyard. My list was much longer. Huge closets in all bedrooms as well as separate baths, a theater room, a gym, a small guesthouse, a pool, and at least a five-car garage.

I was meeting Dad at the lot that was just inside the gates of their property. He and one of his golf buddies had bought all of the land when the developer faced financial trouble, and they had gated off all of their property from the rest of the neighborhood. They had the whole back half of the development, but the only house that was ever built back there was Mom and Dad’s. A few years ago I bought the golf buddy’s half when Dad found out he was selling it.

One huge plus was that buying there put another gate between us and the public. The one that led into the neighborhood gave hundreds of people access, but no one other than our friends and family had access to Mom and Dad’s property, which was nice. We needed it now that people were insane. Our house now had its own fence around it, but people had actually gone through our trash, tried to scale the fence, and tried to sneak in when we opened it to get in ourselves. That wouldn’t happen at the new house.

“Where is Arden?” Dad asked as I got out of my vehicle. Even in his late forties, he looked like a kid, with his baseball cap on backward, leaning up against his car.

“Still at work. She will come a little later, but I don’t think she really cares one way or the other.”

“She doesn’t want to decorate her house?” he asked. He should have known the answer, but he probably couldn’t understand because my mother decorated and redecorated their house every time the season changed, and had all my life. It was just a hobby, but she was really good at it. Their house always looked better than anything you could see in some magazine.

“Dad, she didn’t really care that much about planning her wedding. Paint colors aren’t necessarily anything she cares about. Other than ‘nothing loud,’” I said, using air quotes. “That’s all she said.”

“Well, then, this should be easy. You make all the decisions and have no one to argue about what finish on the hardware or light fixtures, so this will take much less time and stress.”

I nodded. “I just hope I am timing this right. I’ve got a busy year coming up. If I’m not here, how are those decisions going to get made? Maybe we should just buy something and put this off until later.”

He shook his head. “It’s not like most of it can’t be done over the phone. I’ll be your eyes and ears on the home front. Just get it over with if this is what you really want.”

“But you’re not here half the time either.”

He looked out over my shoulder. “Yeah, I’ve been working from here more. I’m really only out of town maybe one night a week. So it’s really no big deal.”

This was news to me. “Since when?”

Making eye contact with me again, he said, shrugging it off, “Since Jeremy left the firm and started working with us. Dad doesn’t need us both all the time. It’s really working out for all of us this way. I’m home more, and so is Jeremy. So it’s fine. I can handle it for you.”

“You don’t mind?”

“I have to drive past it every day. Why the hell would I mind?”

“Extra stress.”

He grinned. “Perfect.” He stood up straight and patted my back.

“That sounds amazing, Dad. If you’re sure.” I looked at him, and he smiled and nodded.

“Why don’t we have Byron meet us at the house? That way we can just ride over here so he can see where you’re building.”

Byron Eubanks was a friend of Dad’s and owned a huge residential construction company. I knew he was a bit backlogged with business, but no doubt he was giving us preferential treatment since he was a friend of Dad’s.

I followed Dad back to the house and texted Arden the plan. Mom was in the kitchen flipping through baby catalogs. “Who are you getting to decorate the nursery?” she asked before I was even in the house all the way.

“We aren’t. We are just going to hang up some pictures of stuffed bears and airplanes for now. They’ll be too young to care,” I stated, knowing that was not what she wanted to hear.

She shook her head, disregarding what I had said. “Who?”

I started laughing. “Whoever you suggest. Unless you want to do it.”

“Will Arden care?”

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I didn’t think so.” She smiled. “Great. I have some ideas already that I want to show her.”

“I’m sure she will be happy to hear that. She’s already stressing about everything else.”

“What about names? Have y’all decided what you’re naming them?”

I shook my head.

“Slayde, you have to know this soon.”

“We have, like, three and a half months, Mom. We will figure it out.”

“Well, what are you leaning toward?” she asked.

Dad smiled at me and said, “Beer?”

I nodded, and he handed me one.

“I mean, you must have at least discussed it, right?”

I opened my beer and threw the cap in the trash. “Yes, Mother, we have discussed it a little, OK? But nothing has been decided. Please don’t ask her a million questions as soon as she gets here. We will name them. Don’t worry. It will be something awesome, like Blanket or Apple. You’ll be so happy.” I tried not to laugh at her expression.

She glared at me and pointed the catalog at me. “You better not.”

I smiled and shrugged my shoulders, not denying anything.

Of course, when Arden walked in, the first thing Mom said was “Arden, my son says y’all are naming these kids weirdo Hollywood names, but I will not call my grandchild something stupid and idiotic like North Price.”

Arden just smiled. “Well, crap. There go all the things I have already had monogrammed.”

Mom smiled and grabbed the catalogs when Byron buzzed at the gate. Dad went to let him in, and I gave A a hug. “Long day?” I asked.

“It wasn’t bad, actually. I just did rounds.”

“What? No cool surgeries today?” I asked.

She shook her head as she drank some water. “No, we had a different attending today, and she doesn’t allow interns in her OR.”

“Definitely not as cool as Dr. Greene?”

She looked at me strangely. “Uh, I guess not, but Dr. Greene isn’t really cool.”

I didn’t understand. I thought it was always him who let her do these surgeries, but before I could ask her anything else, Byron Eubanks had joined us in my parents’ kitchen.