Skinny Dipping (The Au Pairs 2)

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Jacqui squirmed in her chair beside him. She was certain they were going to be fired after being caught fooling around in the game room by Zoe. Since then, she had stayed as far away from him as possible, rebuffing all his attempts to pick up where they'd left off. Jacqui was certain Anna was just relishing the moment before swinging the ax.

Anna went through the progress reports, which were more tragic than usual, even for the Perry kids. Dr. Abraham had reported that William was now showing signs of bipolar disorder on top of ADHD and that he and Cody--who was possibly schizophrenic--would have to be constantly monitored. Zoe still couldn't recognize the Cyrillic alphabet (although she had memorized a Marie Claire article on how to find your G-spot--Zoe thought it was in her elbow), but Anna was strangely ebullient regardless.

"Rome wasn't built in a day, now was it?" she asked, winking at Philippe while dispensing three cash-filled envelopes. "Jacqui darling, can you stay a bit?" she asked, as they filed out of the room.

"Sure," Jacqui nodded, settling back into her seat apprehensively. Mara gave Jacqui a questioning look as she walked out, but Jacqui pretended not to see it. She hadn't told Mara about Philippe, since she was well aware she'd broken her rule and she didn't want to be lectured about it. She felt stupid enough already.

"First of all, Philippe has told me everything," Anna said, once everyone had left and the door was closed.

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This is it. I'm fired, Jacqui thought. Good-bye, East Hampton. Good-bye, New York. Hello, retail and sales, for the rest of my life.

"And I think it's an excellent idea." Anna nodded crisply, stuffing her papers into her handbag.

" Desculpe-me . . . er ... pardon?"

"You, staying with us in New York for the year." Anna smiled. "That is what you want, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"So you can finish your senior year in the city. That was the plan, wasn't it? To attend Stuyvesant so you can apply to NYU?"

Jacqui nodded, speechless. Philippe had told Anna about that? Why? And why was Anna looking so happy about it?

"I think that can definitely be arranged," Anna nodded thoughtfully. She blew her nose daintily on a pink tissue. "Nanny will be back, but she'll need an assistant. The kids are getting so out of hand lately. Of course, you'll have to work very hard."

"Of course," Jacqui said, chewing the inside of her cheek.

"And have absolutely no distractions," Anna said meaningfully. "I have to insist on that. If you're going to be working for us during the school year, I expect you to be above reproach this summer." Anna glanced toward the door. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"I see." It slowly dawned on Jacqui what Anna was expecting from her in exchange for the job next year: Philippe.

"One other thing. I've decided to move Philippe into the main house. Zoe mentioned something about a particularly

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interesting game of pool she walked in on, and I really don't think we can have that kind of behavior around the children. Understood?"

A heavy, tension-filled silence settled on the room. Anna's laptop computer was the only sound for several seconds. Jacqui's mind raced with the implications of Anna's offer. On the one hand, Anna was offering her everything she was working toward that summer: a job, a place to stay, an opportunity to better herself. Yet on the other hand . . . there was Philippe. Philippe, with his sardonic grin, his angelic face, his bronzed, diesel-cut body. Philippe, the only guy since Luca who had set her blood pounding.

"Do you think you'll be able to manage?"

It was a bribe. An out-and-out bribe. All right, Jacqui thought grimly. If that was what it took, that was what it took. She would stop seeing Philippe. Never kiss him again. Never run her fingers through his soft hair. But, hey, there were other guys, right? One hot French guy wasn't worth her dream of moving to New York and going to college. No guy was worth her future.

She nodded. "Of course."

Anna Perry smiled. "I knew I could trust you."

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the best things in life are free?

WORKING AT A NIGHTCLUB WAS NOWHERE NEAR AS

glamorous as Eliza had expected it to be. Somehow even the ego stroke of deciding who was going to get in and who was going to have to call it a night didn't make up for all the humiliations that catering to the celebrity and wannabe-celebrity clientele entailed. The other night she'd had to spritz a famous actress's face with Evian mist every fifteen minutes, since the actress didn't want her skin to dehydrate while she downed magnums of champagne.