“Shit. They’ve seen me,” I whispered. “It might divert the attention from you two, though.”
“I doubt that,” Karly mumbled into the phone.
“Why not? Where are you?” I asked.
“Turn around,” Karly replied. “We’re a couple hundred yards behind you.”
“Now that’s what I call bad timing.”
“Ya think?”
“Shit.”
Chapter 20
Karly
I’d felt distant from everything. It was as if my new great life had been illuminated as something it wasn’t. I didn’t understand how the media could take something so wonderful and make it into something so wrong, so taboo.
I mean, yes, I was the nanny, and if you said it like that, it did sound wrong. Mr. Big CEO Sleeping with the Nanny. But we’d been careful. We’d been respectful for Alexis’s sake. Neither of us had flaunted ourselves like players or prostitutes. It was a wholesome thing, even if it was lustful, and neither of us had expected it would happen. The whole report was just so damned dirty. It wasn’t the beautiful story that it should have been, and I felt like I’d been horribly duped by those assholes. How dare they fuck with nice people! I’d bet those journalist had a million shameful secrets no one knew about, but as long as they weren’t in the limelight, it was fine for them, I supposed.
God, I could only imagine what his staff and important clientele were saying. This could affect everything on a much larger scale. Even Alexis or Damon’s mother could be drawn into this ridiculous frivolity of the media’s printed BS.
I thought long and hard about whether I should continue as Alexis’s nanny. How long would these parasites want to feed on the story? I needed to talk to Sarah when I saw her at brunch. She’d give me some insight about what to do—hopefully.
I looked at the clock on the wall, and it was only ten. I had just under an hour before I needed to meet Sarah at the café, and I really couldn’t wait to see her. I finished folding the laundry and defrosted the meat I needed for dinner.
I left to meet her and kept my eyes on standby for jerk-off Keith just in case. That’d been the other thing on my mind. The unwanted stress was beginning to take its toll on me. Maybe I should’ve been a librarian.
Sarah sported her usual gorgeous smile as I approached her in the busy café. She looked beautiful in her beige pantsuit that hugged her slender figure. She always looked stunning no matter what she wore, as she looked after her body exceptionally well.
“Hey there, beautiful woman!” she said, making me feel better.
I tried to smile. “Hi. I’m so glad we could meet today. You look captivating.”
She gave me a wink and opened her magazine to show me the latest spread she was featured in. She was dressed in an array of clothing, including lingerie, casual, beachwear, evening, and a sophisticated office look. The shots looked wonderful and advertised a new line of clothing by a company called Tomiere.
“Wow. You look amazing,” I said truthfully. “It’s better than the spread I got.”
Sarah laughed at my words, but she never took anything seriously, especially not media or news. She believed all of it was bullshit.
“I think you could’ve gotten Damon to hold you close in some Tomiere lingerie. Then they could’ve really let their tongues get to wagging.”
I smooshed up my face, signifying her words were not funny and that she should act more maturely about the entire predicament I found myself in. I ordered a coffee and a large slice of blueberry pineapple cake, something I hadn’t allowed myself to enjoy for a while.
“The carbs and sugar will add ten pounds to your hips and your breasts, most probably. I wish I had D cups like yours.”
“Well, today I don’t give a flying—” I refrained from using the word in case other customers heard me. “I feel like absolute crap about this whole stupid scenario. I mean, it could affect Alexis, Damon’s tech company, and even other members of his family, including his mother. Those pricks don’t give a shit about people’s feelings or anything heart-centered at all. I’m beyond angry.”
The waitress set down my extravagant-looking piece of cake. I felt better knowing I was going to slide the whole damn lot of it into my mouth. I didn’t care about my hips or my breasts. I’d never been this angry in all my life. Those rogue reporters were sharks, assholes who fed off other people’s lives. They wouldn’t have cared about the situation if Damon had been a cab driver, but because he was linked to a billion-dollar company, they had to kick him in the gut because no one that rich was allowed to be truly happy in their eyes. It was that whole damn tall-poppy-syndrome thing gone absolutely mad.