Page 10 of Daddy Billionaire

He grimaced and shook his head. “It’s okay. I just get a knee jerk reaction sometimes.”

I completely understood that, nearly freaking out when he touched me that afternoon. “That’s probably normal.”

“Even after two years?” he asked.

“Two years isn’t such a long time,” I told him. “Love lasts forever, after all.”

He gaped at me, and I wiped at my face, thinking I had chocolate on my chin or something. “Thank you,” he said. “Not many people get that.” I felt warm under his kind words, and glad I had helped him somehow. “Actually, Tallie hated the Moguls. She thought all reality television was dumb.”

“I guess it is,” I said.

“Of course it is,” he agreed. “One more episode?”

“Absolutely.”

He ended up falling asleep during the next episode and I muted the TV and watched him for a few minutes. It was hard to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that I believed there were good men in the world. Will was definitely one of the good ones. I wanted to know everything about him but knew I couldn’t keep asking prying questions. His hand twitched in his sleep and I pulled the throw off the back of the couch to cover him, studying his long lashes and the way his lips were gently parted. I started feeling a little too tenderly toward him and like a pervert to boot, staring at him while he slept.

Creeping back to my suite, I checked in on the kids. They were both snoozing as soundly as their dad and I saw that Freddy had snuck out of my room and was snuggled up at Ava’s feet. She really loved my dog, and I didn’t have the heart to call him away.

In my own bed, as tired as I was, it took a long time to fall asleep, thinking about Will and how sweet he was. I was in a luxury resort on a beach in Mexico, when only a week ago, I’d been staying at a domestic violence shelter. I couldn’t figure out how I got so lucky, but I was determined not to screw things up.

Chapter 7 - Will

All hell broke loose the next morning. I woke up without any sign of a hangover and thanked my lucky stars since I wasn’t much of a drinker those days, and I really thought the tequila tasting was going to do me in. Even though I was technically on vacation, I still woke up before dawn, and was pleasantly surprised to see the kids quietly watching television on the big couch, sharing a bowl of cereal between them.

“Where’d you get that?” I asked, ruffling their heads. Bailey wasn’t on the clock for another two hours and the kids weren’t normally early risers, but the new environment probably had their schedule messed up.

“Bailey ordered it for us,” Ava whispered, probably because it was still quite dark.

I snapped on the overhead light, making Harrison recoil like a creature of the night. He scowled and kept staring at the TV.

“Where is she now?” I asked.

The very first thing I was greeted with that morning was a heaping helping of guilt for enjoying hanging out with her the night before as much as I did. It was such a relaxing, fun time, blathering on about reality show characters’ lives. I couldn’t help sneaking glances at her, remembering the electricity that went through me when we touched at the pool. I also couldn’t deny I wanted more of that feeling, and hence, the guilt. I would have preferred a hangover.

“She went back to bed,” Harrison grumbled.

“Maybe you should too, grumpy,” I said. He made a face but still never looked away from the bright cartoon on the screen. “She’s not your twenty-four-hour servant. You should have woken me up if you wanted breakfast this early.”

“She said we could wake her up if we got scared in the night,” Ava said, sticking her hand in the bowl at the same time as Harrison and earning herself a light slap. I held my breath, but nothing came of it.

“She did?” That was awfully sweet of her. “Well, don’t take advantage of her.”

Ava shrugged. “She said we could. Scared, hungry, what’s the difference?”

Her face was turning as sour as Harrison’s and I knew I should send them back to bed but didn’t want to face the ultimate showdown. They’d feel better when they had a proper breakfast and we were on the boat trip later.

I managed to answer some emails and send some messages to my assistant Gerald, who was holding down the fort back in New York, and an hour went by without much but mild bickering from the couch. Ava even dozed off for a while.

Then the gates of hell broke open. I have no clue what started it but the next thing I knew, they were fighting like stray cats, yowling and clawing at each other so that they rolled off the couch. Ava hit her head on the coffee table which only enraged her more and she reverted back to her old favorite weapon, clamping down on Harrison’s arm with her teeth. She was way too old to be biting, and she hadn’t done it in several months. My heart sank, as I tried to separate them.

“Stop it,” I hissed, hoping they wouldn’t wake Bailey. “Calm down and tell me what happened.”

They didn’t calm down, but Harrison shouted that Ava spilled his cereal. She denied it, then said it was an accident, all while running from me and punching each other at the same time. They were really master fighters. For an insane second, I wondered if I should get them in boxing lessons.

Ava ducked behind her brother, dodging a blow and latching onto his back, with her arm tight around his neck. I panicked when I saw his face turning red, but he was still shouting so that must have meant he was getting oxygen. Ava pinched him hard with her free hand, and he flailed wildly, managing to get a handful of her hair. That didn’t even phase her, she was so determined to bring him down. I tried to pry her off, but she had rage strength, her little face burning with an almost otherworldly fury. It broke my heart every time I saw her like this. Both of them had anger issues and would go off at the least provocation, but Ava’s was next level. I knew the string of nannies didn’t help any, or my own grief that I probably didn’t conceal half as well as I thought. Only a few weeks ago, we’d been looking at a photo album and Ava pointed to a picture of Tallie from before she was born, then asked who that pretty lady was with Harrison. She didn’t even recognize her own mother anymore, except from the few pictures I had around the apartment. Maybe she didn’t have any memories of her anymore, either. It nearly made me sick.

Bailey came rushing out, her hair wet from a shower and a fluffy resort robe wrapped around her. Even through my anguish, she looked like a ray of sunshine. Then I felt inadequate for not being able to separate my howler monkey war children. I knew this display was the beginning of the end and started counting the days until I was nanny-less again.

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