Chapter Twenty
***Autumn***
Theweekpassedwithout any big run-ins with the guys. They were busy with work, and I was busy bonding with the kids. The dogs made a world of difference in them. It made everything easier. Training the dogs took up so much of Jones’ energy that he didn’t have a ton left to hate me with.
Then the weekend arrived again, and the guys were all back home and nosing around, but it was time for the kids to visit Stacy, and Stacy had somehow managed to pull herself from the dungeon that was her bedroom in her penthouse apartment in the sky. She was meeting us at a park, something that felt bizarre to me. Stacy belonged in a park about as much as she belonged in space.
Yet, there I was, in the car again, being driven almost an hour away with the kids. Griff wasn’t able to come, but I took it as a compliment. He trusted that I wouldn’t let Stacy kidnap his children. Again. I thought of all the things I could’ve been doing instead of hanging around the park with Stacy while we drove. Then, we pulled up, and Dave was there, frowning at me and leading the kids to their mom.
Stacy was a vision in the world’s smallest fur bikini top and some sort of leather skirt. Her hair was in massive curls, a style I was actually jealous of, and she had stunning graphic blue eyeliner that made her eyes look a million miles wide. Somehow, she looked good. It shouldn’t have worked, but it did. Yet, she still managed to look absolutely miserable when she spotted me.
“Who invited the nanny?” Stacy pointed a long cigarette at Dave and scowled. “I thought I made it clear that the nanny stays the hell away from me.”
Dave shifted in his loafers. “Again, it’s within Mr. Phoenix’s rights to have her here with us.”
I pointed to the picnic table across the way from her. “I’m just going to sit over there and stay out of your way.”
Her expression changed, and she suddenly smiled. “No, stay. Sit here with me. You can tell me what the kids have been up to.”
Jones and Caroline sat on either side of their mother and watched her. If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve said they were almost nervous. They seemed to just exist around her, not actually with her.
“So, tell me, kids, what has the nanny been doing with you?”
Caroline wrung her fingers together. “Um, we got dogs. Two dogs.”
I smiled. “Sir Fluffy Butt and Wiggles.”
With an expression that said something smelled wholly unpleasant, Stacy turned to Jones. “And you like these…dogs?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I sat across from them at the table and did my best to look like I was relaxed when in reality, I felt like I had a live bomb strapped to my vagina and sitting too heavily would detonate it. “Both of the kids are great with the dogs. They’ve been taking turns walking them and doing everything else they need.”
“Wait. The kids have to take care of them? Isn’t that your job?”
I forced a smile. “Part of the deal with Griff was that they had to be part of taking care of them.”
Stacy leaned in, eyes narrowed into daggers. “Griff, huh?”
I silently cursed as I felt my cheeks burn. I looked like the idiot nanny who had a crush on her boss. Calling him Griff had shown too much of my hand. A woman like Stacy missed nothing.
“Mom, do you want to play on the swings?” Caroline loved to swing. She especially loved being pushed and pushed for hours if someone would comply.
Stacy frowned down at her daughter and dismissed her with a flick of her wrist and a scowl. “Take your brother and you both go play.”
“But, Mom…”
“Caroline, I don’t care.” Stacy tilted her chin even higher and looked away from her kids. “Mommy just got some terrible news about Daddy and she needs to be alone with your nanny to talk about it. Your nanny seems to know a lot about your daddy, right?”
Both kids seemed to sense her mood and walked away. Dave looked between the two of us women and backed away. Coward.
I braced myself for whatever Stacy was going to say, but she made me wait. She pulled out her purse and touched up her lipstick before looking me over and laughing.
“So, you’re fucking my ex-husband. That didn’t take long.” She shook her head. “What’d you do? The last nanny waited for him with her legs spread on our bed. The one before that met him in the laundry room, on her knees. You look like the type who’d offer her mouth first. The type who knows where her worth is. I can’t imagine there’s much left south of those lips.”
I hadn’t been ready. Nothing could prepare a woman for those kinds of cutting insults. God, Stacy was a monster, but she knew how to cut.
“You’re still blushing when you think of him. That’s cute. You’re probably having visions in your head of, like, becoming the kids’ new mommy and marrying Griffin. You’re probably thinking that since he fucked you, he must care about you. Newsflash, slut: you’re not the first nanny, and you won’t be the last. It’s cute, actually, that you’d think you’re special. With your big eyes and your perfect dick-sucking lips, you were probably the picture of innocence for Griff to pretend like you weren’t just like all the other whores who throw themselves at him.”
She leaned in. “It’ll hurt when he sees that you’re just the typical trash that washes up on the beach each summer. You, I mean. He won’t give a shit. He’ll come back to me and bury that thick cock in the only pussy that’s ever been able to keep his attention for more than a few months.”
I was reeling on the inside, but I knew better than to show Stacy any of it. I’d survived my first year of teaching by pretending like nothing hurt me. If I could survive five-year-olds asking why my butt was bigger than their mom’s all year long, I could survive Stacy Laray. Probably.
I smiled and pushed away from the table. “I’m going to go play with the kids. Unless you’d like to.”
She didn’t say anything, so I assumed she wouldn’t be joining Jones and Caroline on the slides. I walked over to them, feeling stiff and robotic. It wasn’t easy not to react to Stacy. I wanted to drag her across the table and pull her hair out of her head, one strand at a time. Instead, I kept it professional and went down the slide with Caroline like a good nanny.
I was plotting and planning in my head, though. My blood was boiling, and I was rigid with the tension of knowing I was going to go back to the beach house and wring the neck of Griff. Griffin. That motherfucker. Zeke and Con, too. They could all go take a long walk off a short plank, for all I cared. As long as I got my chance to rip them to pieces first.
They’d let me put myself in the position of slutty nanny, and I’d lived right up to all the standards, apparently. Or maybe I’d exceeded them. After all, I’d slept with all the brothers.
I knew I only had myself to blame, but it didn’t make me feel any better. Only annihilating the Phoenix men would help.