The Au Pairs (The Au Pairs 1)

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the second-best thing anna ever said

Once again Anna was sitting at the head of the table when they trooped in for the weekly progress report. Did miracles never cease?

The three au pairs took their seats across the table.

"Where's Kevin?" Eliza whispered.

Jacqui shrugged.

Now that Jacqui had made it clear she wasn't going to tolerate his advances, Kevin had found better things to do with his time.

The girls were all a little tense. They were supposed to get their final payment at the meeting--that is, if they didn't get fired first. They still had no idea why the first batch of au pairs was let go--and Super Saturday was not their best moment.

But Anna was positively glowing at them.

"Well, I hope you had a wonderful summer," she said. "I certainly did." She had been asked to donate her tennis court for the annual Cartier tournament, putting her right up there with the

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Swids, Kravises, and Davises of the town. It sort of made up for the Super Saturday debacle. Sort of.

The girls nodded.

"I just can't be more pleased with your obvious devotion to the kids," Anna said. "In particular, Cody swimming this morning was amazing!" Anna held a hand to her chest. "To see him conquer his greatest fear--a mother couldn't be more proud!"

Mara and Eliza nodded, trying to figure how the hell Jacqui had done it.

"And that Portuguese book you're teaching Zoe, Jacqui! We were just hoping we could get her to read in English, but to have her bilingual to boot, it's spectacular. Her admissions counselor thinks this will put her over the hump for next year. She said Zoe is Dalton material for sure."

Again Eliza and Mara exchanged confused glances. When exactly did this happen?

"Better yet, Madison's lost ten pounds!" Anna cheered.

The kid had been eating them out of house and home all summer, and the weight loss was just from shedding baby fat, but none of the girls would tell Anna that.

"Of course, William's still a bit twitchy. But nothing's perfect. At least he's stopped biting people," Anna continued. "It's just so easy to get off track in the Hamptons. The social life here is just frenetic, what with the parties and nightclubs and all."

The girls looked a little guilty at that.

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"I never told you guys this, but we had to let our first au pairs go for that very reason! They were out every night!"

The girls all exchanged sidelong glances.

"So we just want to congratulate you on a job well done. Here's the last of your payment, with a little bonus inside." Anna winked.

Eliza sighed with relief. Those Visa bills had been piling up. She was going to make a dent on them this time instead of adding to the total. Seriously. As soon as she got her hands on the gorgeous tweed coat she saw at Scoop the other day. Hey, it was almost fall, and a girl needed back-to-school clothes.

Mara hugged herself. She had made more than ten thousand dollars this summer. Woo-hoo! College and a ten-year-old Camry. Life didn't get better than this! Sure, she'd gotten a bit more fabulous this summer, but underneath it all, she was the same small- town girl she'd always been.

Jacqui put her envelope away. When she got home, she was going to buy her grandmother the biggest statue of the Virgin Mary the old lady had ever seen--it was the one gift that would tell her how much Jacqui loved her, and that's exactly what she wanted to say.

But Anna wasn't done.

"By the way, we'd love to have you girls with us this Christmas. We always do two weeks in Palm Beach, and our regular nanny goes to England at that time, so we're strapped. Do you think you'd be interested? We'll pay five thousand dollars. We can all meet in New York and we'll go in our private jet."