grade school the same as the struggle for a college admission. It seemed like a lot of unwarranted stress on everyone involved. When all was said and done with that one, I didn’t care for her on a personal level, but Alex and Karen were leaning heavily towards hiring her before we even met the last woman.
The last one’s name was Becky and she was a pretty, young twenty-something who came from one of the most influential families in Orange County, even I had heard of her family. Her father was a Bio-technical engineer as well and he had designed one of the L.A. areas most prestigious theme parks. When Alex saw her name he said that he knew her family. I was confused right off the bat.
“I’m sorry if this sounds like a rude question… I don’t mean for it to in anyway… I’m confused as to why you would want to be a nanny? It’s not something most girls of your… social standing would be interested in.”
She smiled and said, “That’s a perfectly legitimate question. I’m a trust fund baby, that’s for sure. But, my father was raised up to believe that the one person and the one thing we will always have to depend on in this life is ourselves and our own brains. My little brother works on a fishing boat in Alaska right now. My father is willing to pay our room and board, utilities and education, things like that until we’re thirty, but nothing else. So if we want a car or nice clothes, anything like that, we’re to get a job and pay for it ourselves.”
“So you don’t have any experience?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I have a degree in early childhood development.” She looked at Alex then and said, “I used to be a counselor at that summer camp every year, you remember that, right? You worked with me one year.”
He smiled and his eyes looked like he was remembering as he said, “That’s right, I remember! I was already nineteen my last year and you were just a kid still…”
“I was fifteen, and very insulted then that you thought of me as a kid,” she said, in a flirtatious way. Alex didn’t seem to be fazed by her flirting. Sometimes, I think he gets so used to being flirted with that sometimes he doesn’t even notice.
“Oh well, sorry about that,” he said, laughing. “It must have been the fact that I was such a worldly nineteen… everyone seemed young to me.”
“And everyone either wanted to be you, or with you,” she said, with another laugh. I looked her over as she flirted with my boyfriend and took in the Jimmy Choo shoes and the Prada pantsuit and the Michael Kors bag. I had to wonder if “Daddy” didn’t pay for those things and she’d been in school, how did she afford them? After she left, Alex again asked me what I thought.
“I don’t like her.”
He looked at me with a shocked expression. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you just flat out say you didn’t like someone.”
“You asked me what I thought.”
“True… but, I do like her and her family is above reproach. Karen, what did you think?”
“She seems like a nice, responsible young lady to me.”
“I don’t like her,” I said again. Alex laughed.
“Yes love, we’ve established that. What is it that you don’t like?”
“The way she blatantly flirts with you for one thing… right in front of me.”
He laughed again. “I don’t think she was flirting. I think it’s just the way she talks to people.”
“She didn’t bat her eyelashes once when she was talking to me,” I said.
Karen was trying not to smile as she said, “May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure,” Alex and I both said at the same time.
“I need to hire someone to help while Marco is out for his surgery. How about if we hire her temporarily for his position. That way, if the nanny we decide on doesn’t work out, we’ll have her as a back-up.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” Alex said. “What do you think, Vicki?”
I knew that I still didn’t like her. I didn’t want to be overly difficult though so I said, “Okay, but can we hire Mrs. Yost then?” Mrs. Yost was the forty-something woman I’d taken such a liking to.
Alex laughed again and said, “Okay, Mrs. Yost it is. Karen, go ahead and offer Tracy Marco’s position while he’s gone. Make sure she knows that it’s temporary, but let her know if she does well, we’ll keep her in mind for any other openings that might come up.”
I had a bad feeling about that girl even being in the house for some reason but I had nothing to back that up with other than petty jealousy, so I kept my mouth shut… for now.
CHAPTER FOUR
VICTORIA
I was excited about dinner out with Alex. It had been quite a while since I’d been out and an evening alone with Alex is always a bonus. I was a little worried about what I would wear since I hadn’t bought any new clothes since before I found out I was pregnant. None of the clothes I did have before the pregnancy were really appropriate for the kind of restaurant I assumed Alex would pick either. With a bit of my excitement ebbing, I went up to start getting ready while Alex was on a business call. When I got to the master suite I was shocked to see a gorgeous black and white Vera Wang dress laying out on the bed. Next to it was a beautiful pair of black Manola Blahnik pumps and next to that sat two dozen long stemmed roses in a box. There was a note.
I picked up the note and read it: “To the most beautiful woman in the world. I didn’t get you a gift for doing such an amazing job of giving me an heir… so please accept these. P.S. Your friend Liz helped me with the sizes so hopefully they’re right. Love, Alexander.”
I had tears in my eyes. I read the note again, this time pausing longer on the part that said, “Love.” Did he love me? He hadn’t said it yet… but then neither have I and I loved him with my heart and soul. I picked up the dress and held it up to me. I looked at it in the full-length mirror on the closet door. I was going to feel like a princess in it. I turned back around to put the dress back on the bed and that’s when I saw the white velvet box. It was a long, thin box. With trembling hands I reached down and picked it up. When I opened it, my breath caught in my throat.