The Billionaire's Nanny: A BWWM Romantic Comedy (16 page)

“Is that what you want?” I ask quietly, hoping I know the answer already.

He sighs and his voice is tight when he answers. “Of course not. I want to stay here and raise my daughter. I want to see her catch bugs in the kitchen garden. I want to get her a pony and go to her lacrosse games unless she hates lacrosse, too, and then I’ll just go to her plays or whatever. I want to see her grow up whole, not ruined by those horrible people. I don’t want her to grow up bitter and cruel like her mother.”

“Then you need to fight for her.”

“I know. I just don’t want it to drag on so that I’m always in court, always angry, always wondering if this is the last day I get to spend with her. You know that even if the judge forces them to allow me visitation, they’ll do everything they can to make me stop coming.”

“But you won’t. You won’t let them win.” It’s not a question. He shouldn’t doubt himself.

"No. I’ll take every moment I’m given. But I want them
all
." He sighs again and mutters, “Dammit.”

“What if we could get the Hamiltons to drop the suit?”

"That would be ideal, of course, but I’m not sure how we would do that. Jarvis has been snooping around to get some dirt, but so far they’re just your standard kind of evil billionaires. They’re not doing society any good, but there’s nothing that would embarrass them to have made public. I mean, people just assume we’re all up to no good, so it’s got to be
really
shocking."

“I’ve asked Asia to dig around. She used to be a journalist,” I leave out the part that it was for our college paper, “and she loves that kind of detective work. I mean, it’s unlikely she’ll find anything Jarvis can’t, but it’s worth a shot.”

Corbin kisses my forehead tenderly. “Thank you for helping. Even if it comes to nothing, it means a lot to me that you tried.”

I’m not sure how long it takes Corbin to fall asleep, but I’m awake for another hour at least, trying not to cry.
All this money, and it can’t get him the one thing he really wants.

For two days, I get periodic texts from Asia, things like
These people are good at staying hidden
and
I’m not as good at this as I thought
. The hope that had been welling up in my heart starts to leak away.

Then I get one that says
Is Enid’s maiden name Brooks?
and Corbin says it is.

After that, the tone of the texts changes to
Oh shit, I think this is big
and
You were right, she is evil
. Then she says,
I think we’d better have a meeting, with Corbin and the lawyer. This has gone beyond cub reporter stuff.

“What could she have found?” I ask Corbin when he finally collapses into bed that night.

“I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head against the pillow. "Jarvis hasn’t found anything that even
hints
at that level of activity."

“I wonder if it’s something Enid did, since she asked about her maiden name.”

“It’d have to be ancient history. They’ve been married since the very early 70s, I’m sure.”

"As long as either the statute of limitations isn’t up or it’s
super
embarrassing, maybe it won’t matter how long ago it was."

“Yeah. I wonder…”

“Maybe she used to be a man.”

“Nah, too trendy now, she’d be a hero instead of a monster.”

“Maybe she’s a Nazi war criminal in hiding.”

“That would explain a lot, but I think the timing is off.”

“Maybe she killed JFK.”

“I bet that’s it.” His voice is thick with the need to sleep, so I keep the rest of my theories to myself. But secretly? I think she’s a vampire.

We convene in Corbin’s office two days later. Asia’s about to pop wanting to spill the beans, but she won’t tell me anything ahead of time.

“So,” she begins, once Corbin, Wayne Jarvis, and I are settled in at the table, “Back in the mid-eighties, there was this huge money laundering scandal…”

“Oh, there were plenty,” Jarvis cuts in. “Heady times for a lawyer, a lot of us made our names then.”

“Well this one was mostly in the UK. This bank that had been around for hundreds of years was caught funneling money into the Middle East. They were funding Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi, among others. Like, they turned out to be the Supervillain Savings and Loan.”

“A Savings and Loan is actually a different thing,” says Jarvis. Corbin cuts him a look. "Well, it
is
. No need to be inaccurate just to serve a metaphor."

“Riiight,” says Asia, rolling her eyes. "
Any
way. So this
bank
ends up having to shut down after this, everyone pulls their money, they close in disgrace."

“Oh yes, the Wellington Trace bank,” begins Jarvis, then he clams up after another look from Corbin.

“That’s the one. It was big news, especially in Europe. Here, I imagine people in banking were all over it, but it didn’t hold the headlines for more than a couple of days. But I kept noticing that Charles Hamilton was often asked to comment. He’d be mentioned as ‘financier,’ rather that just saying he was head of Plymouth Rock Financial, which he was and is. That seemed weird.”

She shuffles the papers in her hand for a moment, then continues. "At about the same time, in the US, some of the money that had gone
into
Wellington Trace was found to have come out of Mexican drug cartels. So I was looking at some articles about that and found some statistics about spikes in drug traffic. When I started laying it out, I noticed that an Enid Brooks kept turning up, having gone on ‘philanthropic missions’ to ‘troubled border regions.’" Asia made air quotes as she talked. Those trips to help our troubled neighbors to the South always seemed to come right before those spikes in drug traffic."

Jarvis tries to cut her off but she holds up a hand and barrells on. “So. I decided to look into this group she claimed to be with, um,” she looks at the paper, ‘Sisters of Compassion.’ Sounds like nuns, right? But it’s not. It’s not affiliated with a church at all. In fact, it’s not real at all. It’s just a way for her to hand money over to these drug cartels."

“Can you prove this?” Jarvis manages to get in.

“Yeah,” adds Corbin, “that’s a pretty serious accusation.”

"I know. That’s why I’ve called you all together. So I see in the police reports in The Globe that there were police calls to the Hamilton’s address in Beacon Hill in this period. Three or four of them. But it doesn’t say why and there’s no follow up information. It’s just like they came by for a drink or something. But Miguel could get
more
."

“Miguel is her boyfriend,” I tell Corbin and Jarvis. “He’s a cop.”

Jarvis raises an eyebrow and nods at her to continue.

"So the police records were scrubbed mostly clean. You go back to those dates and it just says there was a call, no code, nothing. But Miguel knows a guy who knows a guy and
he
sends us the un-scrubbed record, dug out of the depths in Boston. Stuff that never got put into the digital system. Seems they were on to her and the state boys would show up at Casa Hamilton, threaten to contact the feds, and they’d leave again with a new weight room or a couple of new squad cars. This happened three times that we can find evidence for."

“It’s in writing? You can prove this?” Jarvis is on the edge of his seat.

Asia nods. “Yup.”

“Would this do the trick?” Corbin asks his lawyer.

“OH yes,” he says, the wheels turning, “if this checks out, losing a custody battle will be the least of their troubles.” Jarvis turns to Asia again. “Ms. Johnson, would you be free to come out to Boston for a couple of days?”

“I’m free as a bird,” she says, smiling.

I look at Corbin and he raises his eyebrows at me. His face is hopeful.

The mood at Domaine Chanterelle is decidedly lighter than it has been since we got back from New York. Corbin starts joining us in the pool again. We go to bed at the same time again, and do not go to sleep right away. The updates I get from Asia and Corbin gets from Jarvis continue to be positive. It looks like the Hamiltons will be lucky to escape jail time.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” says Corbin, stroking my arm as we lay in bed, exhausted and happy, “I’d rather use this information to keep them away from Maeve, but not push it any farther than that.”

“What do you mean?”

"I…I know they’ve done terrible things, but I can’t feel good about sending someone like that to jail. There’s no evidence that they’re still involved in drugs or Mexican politics or anything like that. They’re not
nice
, but I don’t think they’re doing anything that means they should go to prison, you know?"

“Mmm, I guess. Just being really awful shouldn’t be jailable, probably.”

“Besides, pursuing this whole thing would mean a really drawn out court battle. I’m going to talk to Jarvis tomorrow, see what we can do. For all the crap they’ve been involved with, now they’re just two mean old people. They don’t deserve my daughter, but they don’t deserve to die in prison, either.”

“I think you might be nicer than I am, but you’re probably right. I just want to be sure she never puts her bony claws on Maeve again.”

“We are on the same page there.”

I drift off to sleep, warm in the arms of a really nice guy.

Chapter Eleven

“They want me to come to Boston.” Corbin’s pacing the kitchen, looking at his phone.

“Okay, when?” I ask, handing Maeve another banana chunk.

“Soon, but I don’t want to be away from Maeve right now. I feel like we need to keep our case strong.”

“So we’ll come along.”

“She’s barely back on schedule from the trip to New York. If we drag her back to the East coast and then back again, she’ll be back to square one. It isn’t fair to her.” He’s still staring at his phone as he tap tap taps.

“We could just keep her on California time for those few days.”

“No, I’m going to tell them to come to us. We are in the power position here and I think we can show that by making them come here. I’m sending a message to Jarvis right now, find out when he can make it. He’ll likely want Asia here, too. So can you check with her?”

“Sure! Anything I can do to help.”

He stops looking at his phone and comes over to me. Maeve grabs his arm with her banana covered hand as he leans in to me, but he doesn’t flinch. He plants a kiss on my forehead and says, "You
have
helped. You saved us. You made the call to Asia and you saved us."

I mean, obviously
Asia
did most of the saving, along with Miguel, but hey, who am I to throw away gratitude?

We get it all set up for two days from now. It’s moving faster than I thought, but the sooner we can put this behind us, the better. I really need to start thinking about the coming school year, anyway, and it’s nearly impossible with this uncertainty hanging over us.

When Corbin collapses into bed beside me, he sighs.

“What’s up?”

“My parents want to come out. They want to be around when we’re meeting with the Hamiltons and their lawyer.”

“That’ll be nice, I liked them.”

“They liked you, too, but now we have the whole ‘parents will see how I live’ thing going on.”

I sit up on my elbow and look at him. “What on earth are you talking about? It’s not like you’re living in a one room apartment, sleeping on a mattress made of pizza boxes. You have staff. This place is spotless.”

He chuckles. "Yeah, but I see it through
their
eyes. They’re going to be looking for what I screwed up."

“Corbin, are we even talking about the same people? I met your parents. I spent most of a week with them. They are not peering at you, searching for weakness so they can strike. That’s the Hamiltons.”

He wipes his hand down his face and looks at me with a sad smile. “You’re right. I’m sure much of this ‘Corbin is the fuckup’ stuff is in my head. And I’m sure I’ve let the Hamiltons get in my head. Just kick me when I do it, okay? Feeling sorry for myself is not an attractive trait.”

"No, it is not. You need to rejoin the family you have instead of worrying about the one you
had
. Or thought you had."

He nods and pulls me to him. “What would have become of me, of Maeve, without you?”

“You probably wouldn’t have even gotten a BLT that day.”

“Why?”

“We didn’t serve them. I made the cook make one just for you. I felt like you couldn’t take any more stress. And picking a different sandwich seemed like it might be what pushed you over the edge.”

He laughs and kisses me. “It might have. Let me thank you for your consideration,” he says, kissing his way down my throat. He lifts up my Tshirt and kisses down my stomach. I kick off the covers to let him go all the way down.

He pulls off my panties and tosses them over his shoulder, giving me a crooked grin. I part my legs and he settles his head between my thighs. He teases me at first, the very tip of his tongue darting in and out of my folds. When he suddenly licks right up my center, I gasp and clutch the sheets.

His gentle tickles turn to searching probes, forceful laps, and I begin to thrash about on the bed. My oral sex experience is, I admit, not broad, but I’m certain Corbin is in a master class. He clearly enjoys it, teasing, looking up to watch my expression, going back to work with gusto. He lets me get so near a climax and then backs off, gentling his touch, letting the build-up subside. Then goes near again, backing off once more.

I’m wild with need, yet want this delicious yearning to go on forever. He slides a finger into me, then another, pressing down slightly as his tongue continues to lap firmly. He sucks my bud into his mouth and the suction pairs with the pressure of his tongue to push me right to the edge again. This time he pushes me over, working his fingers, his tongue, sending me into a rocking delight. I bite my lip to keep from crying out and waking Maeve. The feeling pulses through my body, making me spasm with pleasure. He keeps at it, more gently this time, letting me ride it completely to the end.