Defending Her Dignity Read online

  Arriving at the door, I pull it open to find her on my step, still wearing the same clothes from earlier. Her long hair is now in a loose braid that rests on her shoulder. I force myself not to let my eyes wander too far down this time, and instead offer her a friendly smile, which she chooses not to reciprocate. A small black duffel bag lies at her feet.

  She doesn’t say anything and holds my gaze when I look down at her. Her plump lips are drawn in a tight line, and she wears an annoyed expression on her face that I’m quickly beginning to realize may be her default look. I gesture for her to enter, and without saying a single word, she picks up her bag and sweeps past me to step inside. I look back onto the stoop before turning back to look at her.

  “Did you bring another bag?”

  She gestures to the small bag hanging off her shoulder. “I have my bag.”

  “That’s it?”

  She knots her brow in confusion. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was I supposed to bring a ball gown with me?”

  I force my mouth closed, not entirely sure I want to engage in a verbal battle with this woman. I’m pretty sure I would lose anyway. Anyways, it’s obvious she has already written me off as the asshole I had been when we first met. And maybe it’s for the best. If she even hinted at the slightest bit of interest in continuing this verbal sparring in the bedroom, I’m not entirely sure I would be able to control myself.

  Choosing to ignore her barb, I reach for her bag and slide it over my shoulder. “Let me give you the grand tour.” But before we can get another two steps into the house, I hear my dog, Julep’s loud bark and the sound of her nails hitting the marble floor as she bounds toward us.

  “Julep, no!” I shout as she turns the corner, her long frame wiggling as she runs to discover the newest intruder. From afar, she looks adorable, even a little bit lovable. When you see her, however, in her full 170-pound glory, the half-Mastiff, half-Great Dane mix is slightly more intimidating. And because she never fully outgrew her puppy personality, she has a hard time accepting the fact that she outweighs most full-size adults, including Yael. I had adopted her after Isabel had spent months begging me for a dog. We had picked her out from a shelter, where we were assured that she would never grow to be larger than eighty pounds. She reached that weight a short month later, and I had continued to watch in horror as she kept growing and growing. She finally seemed to stop growing about a year ago. Thank God.

  As she barrels toward Yael, I cringe as I realize she’s going to pounce on her. Jumping in front of Yael, I manage to grab onto Julep’s bedazzled pink collar. “No!” I shout as I pull her away. She continues to pull, and it takes all my strength to restrain her.

  Yael glares over at me before settling her brown eyes on Julep. She narrows her eyes and props her hands on her hips. Julep whimpers under Yael’s intense assessment. From here, it looks like they’re engaging in a silent battle of wills. After a long moment, Yael nods and snaps her fingers, pointing toward the ground. “Sit,” she commands, her voice authoritative and calm.

  To my utter astonishment, Julep falls on her back legs into a seated position, her eyes never leaving Yael’s. Raising her palm, Yael places it in front of Julep’s face. “Stay,” she orders as she picks her bag up and walks away. Stunned, I follow Yael, shooting a quick look over my shoulder to find Julep still calmly sitting.

  “How did you do that?” I ask, unable to contain the awe in my voice.

  Yael shrugs. “I grew up with dogs. And dogs respond to a pack leader.” Dragging her eyes up and down me, she turns away dismissively, adding, “They respect strong leadership. Something I am assuming your poor Julep desperately needs.”

  Another insult in less than five minutes. Fantastic.

  “Right,” I respond, deciding to let her take this round. I lead Yael down the hall, toward the living room. “Well, here is where you’ll most likely find Isabel. She’s upstairs practicing her viola now, but any free second she has, she’s here on the Wii or in the library with a book. Remote for everything is here, on the iPad. This also controls all the lights, thermostats, locks—everything in the house.”

  Yael remains silent and unreadable as I force myself to continue on, stepping through the large doorframe into the kitchen, a cavernous room with two giant stovetops in the center of a dark-granite-covered island. I watch her hands skim along the counters as she follows me. Her beautiful almond eyes widen as she looks around the kitchen.

  “So, just your standard kitchen.” I point to the fridge and stove. “Fridge is there. Feel free to grab whatever you want. Pantry with more food is behind that door.”

  Yael lets out a chuckle. “Standard? This is not a standard kitchen.”

  I note the interest in her eyes when she looks around the kitchen. “Do you cook?”

  “Eh?” she asks, arching her brow as she turns back to face me.

  “Cook?” I repeat. “Do you like to cook?”

  “Why is that, Mr. Monroe?” she asks, propping her hands on her hips as her lips pull into a thin line. “Do you expect your nannies to cook for you, too?” She asks, holding her fingers up to make air quotes around the word “nannies”.

  I shoot her an annoyed look, which she promptly ignores as she turns away. “No, I don’t expect my nannies to cook for me. I’m just trying to be polite here, get to know you,” I respond, doing my best to not let my frustration seep into my tone.

  “You don’t need to be polite. I’ve already met you. I know what to expect from you.” She says it so nonchalantly, and it irritates me. She’s only been in my house for less than twenty minutes and I’m already beginning to second-guess my decision to bring her here. But I trust my gut. And when I saw her with Isabel, the two of them laughing and Isabel smiling, I knew I had to have her here. And that’s what I need to remind myself: she is here for Isabel.

  And it’s for that reason that I choose again to not respond and continue the remainder of the tour through the house, leading her quickly through the dining room, library, exercise room, game room, and indoor pool. We finish in the garage, where I keep a fleet of four cars. Admittedly a little excessive for a single dad. I let her know the Prius, Escalade, and Mercedes are free for her to use. The limited-edition Lamborghini she can look at but not touch, much to her obvious disappointment.

  We weave back to the living room and I grab her bag and lead her upstairs. The second floor opens to a large open area with a balcony overlooking the backyard. Down the hall are all the bedrooms in the house. I lead her to one of the guest bedrooms and open the door to reveal a large bedroom, featuring a massive four-poster bed in the center. The paneled walls are painted a dusty rose, and the furniture all is finished in a light linen. A large walk-in closet leads to an ensuite equipped with both a waterfall shower and a jet tub.

  Yael steps into the room and turns to face me, her brow knitted in confusion as she props her hand on her hip. “Is this your room?” she asks, her voice laced with suspicion.

  “No, this is your room. This is where you’ll be staying.”

  Her eyes dart around the room, and she wears a confused expression on her face. “This is not the nanny room.”

  “The nanny room?”

  She blushes, sending a rush of crimson to her cheeks. “I didn’t know how to be a nanny, so I watched all these movies before I came today. One of them was called The Nanny Diaries and in all the movies, they keep the nannies in these small, closet rooms. Like Harry Potter.”

  I chuckle and shake my head, though inside I feel a little bit embarrassed. While none of Isabel’s nannies had lived in a closet, they did live in less lavish accommodations on the first floor. Some stupid and impulsive caveman side of me had wanted to impress her, so I had brought her up here, to the largest and nicest guest suite in the house. For some reason, the thought of her sleeping downstairs just didn’t sit right with me. I tell myself it’s because I want her close to Isabel, in case anything should happen. But I also can’t deny the appeal of having her just down the hall from my
own bedroom in the extremely unlikely event she gets any urges at night for some company. Pathetically, my dick jumps at the mere thought. Shut it down, Lawrence.

  I do my best to shrug my shoulders nonchalantly. “Well, you are not just a nanny. You are the woman tasked with protecting the one thing in this world I love the most. So you get the best room in the house.”

  Yael nods, her suspicion dissipating. “Is there anything else you need to show me? Otherwise, I would like to unpack and get settled.”

  I look at her bag and arch my brow. Unpacking should take all of ten minutes, but it’s clear she wants me as far away as possible. And while admittedly, the thought is a bruise to my ego, I know it’s for the best. There’s no use in making this relationship anything more than it is.

  “Right, feel free to come down around seven thirty for dinner, and so you can spend some time with Isabel.”

  She salutes me, and when I turn my back to walk out the room, I’m pretty sure her two-finger salute turns into the one-finger kind. It seems like my mere breathing draws that woman’s ire. Not that I blame her. I was an ass when we first met, and something tells me she doesn’t award second chances very often.

  To my annoyance, I’m hard as a rock as I make my way back downstairs and into my office. It’s been so long since I’ve had a woman under the age of fifty in this house. I’ve never wanted to confuse Isabel, so if I did have the urge to take a woman to bed, it would always be in a hotel downtown—a quick release that would inevitably leave me more empty than satisfied. I hated spending nights away from Isabel, so I always made sure that women understood where I stood: a quick fuck, no cuddles or breakfast the next day, no expectations.

  And though I crave nothing more than a partner to spend my days with and to help me raise my daughter, I know that finding that kind of partnership is unrealistic. Women looked at me and saw a payout. I was a means to an end, and while that fact had left me bitter for a long time, it hardened me enough so that no woman would ever be able to do the kind of life-altering damage that had left me a single father at twenty-four. I had to learn my lesson young, but it also gave me the best gift of my life. How could I be angry at that?

  The thought of Isabel reminds me that even though Yael is tempting, she’s off limits. I can’t have Isabel growing attached. She’s a smart kid, and if she sees any kind of fondness or attraction between me and Yael, she’ll get her hopes up and just end up crushed. Her mother did enough damage to her, and I can’t bear the thought of having her go through anything like that again. So, if Yael wants to think of me as an asshole, then it’s probably for the best.

  I decide to force away any more thoughts of Yael and ignore the throbbing in my pants. I need to distract myself, and nothing can do that better than the inevitable onslaught of emails I have waiting for me. Once back downstairs in my office, I queue up my playlist and start to make my way through my inbox. Only when I sense a small shadow at my door do I look down at my watch. Six forty-five on the dot.

  “Did you order yet?” Isabel asks.

  I close my laptop and slip off my glasses. “Not yet, want to help me?”

  A large smile crosses her face and she nods. I jump up from my chair and rest my hands on her shoulders, leading her to the kitchen, where we pull out the take-out menu from the kitchen drawer. We don’t really need it: each week we order the same thing. Still, it’s our weekly ritual. After a few minutes of surveying the menu we’ve both probably memorized, we look at each other.

  “Pepperoni pizza with pineapple?” we both say at the same time, sending Isabel into a fit of giggles. I give her a kiss on her head and pick up the phone.

  “Oh, shoot. We need to order for Yael, too,” I remind Isabel.

  At the mention of her name, a large smile overtakes Isabel’s face and her blue eyes pop open. “Is she here?”

  I nod, and Isabel jumps up and down. “Where is she? Where is she?” She stops jumping, a thought popping into her head. “Dad, do you think she can teach me karate like Mr. Miyagi?”

  I force myself to avoid rolling my eyes. For the last few years, Isabel has become increasingly obsessed with karate, thanks to The Karate Kid franchise. She practically has all the films memorized, and spends hours pausing the movie to try and memorize the choreography. For the past few months, we’ve spent each Saturday movie night watching a different Karate Kid movie, and clearly having Yael here is going to refuel her obsession.

  “Baby, I’m sure she can teach you but maybe we should let Yael choose the movie tonight since she’s our guest.”

  Isabel nods in agreement. “I’m going to tell her to pick The Karate Kid!” she shouts, as she runs away before I can beg or bribe her to pick a different movie.

  Meanwhile, I pick up the phone and put in our regular order, and throw in an order of salad for Yael. It’s been awhile since I’ve been with a woman who wasn’t my sister, and judging by her job and her killer body, I can’t picture her as the type to eat pizza.

  As I finish the order, Isabel comes bouncing back into the kitchen. “Daddy, where is Yael? Her room is empty.”

  I look at her, momentarily confused until I remember that I didn’t offer her the usual room that the past nannies have occupied. “Oh, right. She’s staying in the guest suite upstairs.”

  “The fancy room?”

  Isabel has all the rooms in the house labeled under her own categorization. She picked “the fancy room” for the main guest suite because of the ornate furniture, and the fact that it is one of the few rooms in the house I have permanently barred her from entering, after it had cost me three thousand dollars to replace the carpet in our formal dining room following Isabel’s grape juice fiasco.

  “Uh, yeah. I wanted her to be close in case you needed her,” I tell her.

  She arches her blonde brow. “Yael’s not a real nanny, is she?”

  “What do you mean she’s not a real nanny?” I ask, doing my best to try and flesh out what she’s already figured out herself. I don’t want Isabel to be scared, but I also can’t deny she’s too smart for her own good and her intellect and quick deductive skills usually land me in hot water.

  “She doesn’t dress like a nanny. Or act like a nanny. And she’s too pretty to be a nanny.”

  “Well, she’s a special type of nanny. With a special kind of job,” I explain.

  “To protect me?”

  I let out a long sigh. I hate that we even have to deal with this, but there’s no use in lying to her. She’s too smart and she deserves to know. “Yes, she’s here just to make sure that you stay safe and get to keep enjoying being a kid.”

  Isabel smiles, satisfied with my explanation. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” she asks after a moment, her blue eyes twinkling with mischief.

  I shake my head and narrow my eyes down at her. “Isabel…”

  But it’s too late, and a wide smile stretches across her face as she hops away, her blonde curls bouncing with each step. “Yael and Daddy sitting in a tree! K-I-S-S—”

  The sound of her singing fades away as she runs up the stairs. As much as I want to toss her out the window, I can’t help but feel a weight lift off my shoulders at seeing her happy and laughing—even if it is at my own expense. Because as much as she drives me crazy, the best thing in the world is seeing a smile on my baby girl’s face.

  7

  Lawrence

  For the second time tonight, our doorbell rings. This time I know it’s Steve, our pizza delivery man, with our pepperoni and pineapple pizza. He comes like clockwork every Saturday night at seven thirty, ringing the doorbell three times in quick succession. I hear a loud thump as Isabel jumps off the couch, shouting “Pizza’s here!”

  I push up from my desk and close out the report I was reading through. It can wait till tomorrow: Saturday movie night is a sacred tradition at our house. Except for the odd obligatory event, each Saturday evening was spent at home with Isabel. It was our time to be together, and she was already growing up far too fast.
I was already dreading the day that a sleepover at a friend’s house—or God forbid, a date—would signal the end of our weekly ritual.

  Before I have a chance to make it to the door, I see Yael running down the stairs, her long, dark braid flying as she hurries down.

  “Who’s at the door?” she asks.

  “It’s the pizza. It’s just Steve.”

  In the five years we’ve been ordering pizza, Steve has only missed one Saturday, when he had been out with the flu. Sometimes it felt like taxes and Steve were the only things I could be sure to rely on in this world. It probably helps that I’m a chronic over-tipper.

  “Steve? Do you order from them every week?” she asks, arching her brow.

  “Yes, every Saturday.”

  She rolls her eyes and lets out a frustrated grunt as she pulls open the door. “Patterns are predictable. Being predictable makes you an easy target.”

  Yael stares down Steve, whose easy smile quickly fades under her bold assessment. He shrinks away, turning to look at me, his brows knitted in confusion. I offer him an apologetic shrug. Yael’s eyes analyze him from head to toe, and once she’s satisfied that the only threat he poses is clogged arteries from all the pizza grease, she steps aside and finally lets me pay the poor kid. He’s getting an extra tip tonight.

  “She’s uh…intense,” Steve remarks as he peers over my shoulder, ensuring that Yael has stepped away.

  “Tell me about it,” I mutter as I count out the change, throwing in an extra $50 for the tip.

  Steve shoves the money into his back pocket and takes the pizza out of the sleeve. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it. It’s nice to see you dating, though.”

  “What?”

  “Uh, dating. I’ve been delivering here for like five years and I’ve never seen a woman here.”

  “Oh, we’re not dating. Yael is Isabel’s new nanny.”

  Steve’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “Damn. That dime is a nanny? Will you consider adopting me?”