Lainey’s List Chapter Forty-Five
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Lainey
“I’m Danielle Forman, but everyone calls me Dani!” The lithe beauty beams at me. “I’m here for the nanny position.” Her smile is so bright I have to blink a few times. I must’ve been blinded longer than is socially acceptable because the smile dims one tiny wattage point and she says, “This is the right place, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.” Reluctantly, I open the door wider. “I’m Elaina Valdez and this is—“
“Oh my God!” Danielle claps her hands in front of her mouth. “You’re Nick Jackson. The Nick Jackson. I’m such a huge fan!” She recovers from her initial surprise and skitters across the floor, scraping her high heels against my hardwood floors. “Huge fan,” she repeats, holding out her hand.
Nick rises from his chair, a huge grin plastered across his face—the one I wish wasn’t so damn handsome. “Thanks. We Mustangs need all the fans we can get.”
Danielle laughs and lightly taps Nick across the arm with her free hand because he’s still holding the other one. “I can’t imagine that you need any more fans. The entire city is in love with you.”
“I don’t know about the entire city,” Nick demurs.
How long will these two hold hands?
“I love you Uncle Nick!” Cassidy declares.
Danielle immediately drops down to Cassidy’s level. “Aren’t you a little doll. What’s your name?”
“I’m not a doll. I’m a person,” my daughter declares and then ducks behind Nick’s legs.
“Oh, gosh, what an adorable girl you have. Your brother’s little one?” Danielle asks, batting her eyelashes up at Nick who absently pats Cassidy on the head while he continues to stare at Danielle.
“No, she’s mine,” I interrupt.
My frosty tone doesn’t escape Nick who raises a slight eyebrow in my direction.
“Oh, um, okay,” Danielle says. Her eyes are full of questions but I don’t feel like answering them. Instead, I’d like to continue the charade that Nick and I are somehow connected in a more intimate way than friends who have shared the sheets. Although, why he’s here with me, I’m still not sure. The impulse to invite him was overwhelming, and until Danielle showed up, it felt right. Now I’m having second, third, and fourth thoughts.
“Have a seat,” I gesture toward the upholstered chair. “Would you like something to drink?”
“Water would be lovely.” She says, almost dismissively, as if I’m the help in my own home. She sits down, clasps her hands, and tucks her legs to the side. “So Nick, I can call you Nick, right?” Because I’m getting my potential nanny a glass of water, I can’t tell if he nods his head but he must because she asks yet another question. “What’re you doing with yourself this off-season?”
“Feeding the ducks with my girl. I think we’re having a tea party later, right Cassidy?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“That’s adorable,” Danielle simpers. Doesn’t she know any other adjective? How about hot as asphalt? Because I’m always my weakest around Nick when he’s playing daddy with Cassidy. His love for her is one of his sexiest traits and Danielle, call-me-Dani, is getting a full-on display.
It takes effort not to stomp around the kitchen and slam cupboard doors. It’s not Danielle’s fault she’s pretty or that Nick’s reacting in a predictable manner. Hell, if I swung in that direction, I’d be tongue-tied and flirty with Danielle myself. Advising myself to calm the hell down, I reappear in the living room with the glass of water. “Here you are.”
“Thanks.”
I take a seat on the other side of Nick. In his effort to get close to Dani, he’s left me only a sliver of space. I opt to sit on his other side.
“Cassidy, honey, we’re going to talk to this nice lady for a bit. Can you go finish your movie in Mommy’s bedroom?”
“Okay.” Cassidy gives me a sweet hug and wet kiss and then crawls over my lap to give Nick a kiss too.
“Bye, sweetheart,” Danielle chirps.
Cassidy gives the girl a little wave before running down the hall to watch Cars for the umpteenth bazillionth time.
Nick shoots me a questioning look. “Am I doing this interview?”
“Sure, why not?” I pick up Danielle’s resume and pretend to be engrossed in her early childhood experience, which is surprisingly not bad.
“Okay. So tell us about yourself?”
Danielle scoots her butt to the edge of the seat so her knees are nearly touching Nick’s. “I’m twenty-four and I’ve worked at Apple Tree Learning Center for the past four years but I’m looking for something more personal and,” she adds in a husky tone, “more intimate.”
“You have any kids of your own?”
“Not yet. I hope to some day.”
“I don’t doubt that you have a dozen guys lined up to put a ring on that finger,” Nick says.
She blushes and reaches out to bat the back of Nick’s hand. “Not that many.”
Kill me now, I write in the margin of the resume.
“But you go out, right? You’re not just focused on your work.” Nick presses.
No. I think I’ll kill Nick. I write that line on the other margin.
“Of course! I mean, I like to think of myself as well rounded. I love football and kids,” Danielle declares.
If she moves any further off the edge of her seat, her ass is going to be on the floor.
“What kinds of clubs do you like?” Nick asks.
“I love, love, love The Cave. Have you been? I’ve never seen you there.”
“Naah, I don’t think I have.” He turns to me. “You been to The Cave, Lainey?”
Oh, he remembers that I’m here. “Actually, yes, Charlie and I went there with Reese last year.”
“Huh. And you didn’t take me?”
“You were at an away game.”
“Next time, I want to go.”
“Noted. Can we get back to the interview?”
“Oh right. Actually, I think we know everything we need to know.” He gets to his feet and holds out his hand. Danielle places her elegant one in his and allows him to help her up. The action places them chest to breast, thigh to thigh. Their bodies are so close I swear her knit covered tits are going to brush against his pecs.
“Thanks for coming, Danielle,” he says, gracing her with a wide, panty-melting smile.
“Anytime,” she says dreamily. He maneuvers her star struck frame to the door and has her outside the apartment before either of us realize what he’s doing. “When will you be making a decision?” she asks, her voice a little uncertain as she registers where she is standing.
“I’ve got your number,” Nick says.
“Yes, you do,” Danielle simpers. They stare at each other for an uncomfortable moment before Danielle finally turns and walks away toward the elevator bank. But Nick watches her until the doors of the elevator car slide open and Danielle disappears inside. He waits for a second and then closes the door.
He leans against it. “I don’t think you should hire her.”
I do a double take. “What? Why? I thought you liked her.”
“All she wanted to do was get in my pants. What if she took Cassidy to the park? If she saw someone there she liked, her attention wouldn’t be on Cassidy at all.”
Surprised, I can only blink at him in silence. That’s exactly what I thought, but Nick had been flirting hard with her.
“Are you saying this just so you can date her?”
A line appears on his forehead. “No. Why would you say that?”
“Because you flirted with her the entire time she was here,” I exclaim.
“I was trying to figure her out,” he protests.
“By telling her there must be a million guys in this city who want to marry her? And that you have her number? You were giving off signals like crazy.” Then it hits me. He doesn’t want me to hire her because he doesn’t want to mix business with pleasure. He’s so going to ask her out.
Well, we’ll see about that. “Actually, I liked Dani a lot, and I think Cassidy did, too. Charlie wants to meet out tonight, and I think Dani’s the perfect person to babysit her. It’ll be a test run.”
“No way. You can’t do that!” he protests.
“Why?” I stick my chin forward. “What’s wrong with her staying in the condo tonight and watching Cassidy?”
“She’s not nanny material,” Nick insists but shakes his head at me when I don’t back down. “I’m telling you, she’s the wrong person for Cassidy. Mark my words.”
Ha! He just wants to get into Dani’s dress. And I’m not going to let that happen.
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