Page 7 of The Beach Trap

Scott Callahan looks at me, clearly waiting for an emotional response, possibly tears. But he won’t get any of that from me. I am my father’s daughter, after all.

Instead, I take a deep breath and smile, all while cursing the day Blake O’Neill was born.

CHAPTER TWO

BLAKE

“Blake!” a little voice calls. “I need you!”

I straighten up from where I’m zipping a suitcase. “Yes, Charlotte?”

“I... I need help with my button.” My four-year-old charge is in her bathroom, a gorgeous space with a soaking tub and a walk-in shower. Her “princess suite” is larger than the apartment my mom and I lived in when I was her age.

“I’ll be right there,” I say, smiling because I adore the little nugget, even though her parents represent everything that’s wrong in the world. “Make sure you flush the toilet, okay?”

“Blake!” another voice calls. This one’s older, more distinguished. Slightly impatient. Charlotte’s mother, my boss, will have to come first.

“Yes, Mrs.Vanderhaaven?” I poke my head out Charlotte’s bedroom door. She rushes past me and down the stairs, a blur of blond hair and expensive perfume.

“Do you know where the children’s passports are?” she says over her shoulder. “Iaskedyou to keep track of them for mebecause, as youknow, they’re incredibly important, Blake. Literally themostimportant thing when one is planning a trip to a differentcountry. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but we’re catching a flight to Paris in two hours.”

I take a cleansing breath. “The kids’ passports are in your handbag, by the front door,” I call down to her, then lower my voice to a whisper. “Just like I told you.”

My phone rings in the back pocket of my jeans, and I silence it. No time for that now—my mission is to help the family avoid aHome Alone–style dash through the airport, because while Mrs.Vanderhaaven wears overpriced athleisure ninety percent of the time, I’ve never actually seen her break a sweat.

“Blake! I can’t find my shoes!” Zachary hollers from his bedroom across the hall. He has one volume setting: eardrum bursting. “They’re nowhere! They disappeared into thin air!”

I stick my head in the doorway of his room, where he’s sitting in the middle of the floor with both hands fisting in his curly blond hair.

“Your red Jordans?” I say, pointing. “Buddy, they’re on the chair where I set your clothes out for today.”

“Fanks!” he shouts.

Just like I told you, I think to myself but do not say. He’s only six years old; he gets a pass.

“Blake!” That’s the fourth person calling my name in as many minutes. Mr.Vanderhaaven’s deep voice echoes from the master bedroom down the hall. “Did you pick up the dry cleaning? My pants—I was going to wear those pants, you know the ones with the little thing on the pocket...”

I step into the hallway. “They’re hanging in your closet, behind the door.”

“Ah yes. I could’ve sworn they weren’t here a moment ago.”

I stifle a laugh. The man would lose his nose if it wasn’t attached to his face, as my grandma used to say. My phone rings again, and again I silence it.

“I need help tying my shoes!” Zachary shouts from his room.

“I will never, ever be able to do my button!” Charlotte wails from her bathroom.

“Blake! Are the children ready?” Mrs.Vanderhaaven calls from downstairs. “The car service is here.”

“They’ll be right down,” I say.

Closing my eyes, I rub my temples to tame the building headache. If I can make it through the next fifteen minutes, I won’t have to see any of these people for the next three months. Though I will miss Charlotte and Zachary—they’ve become my buddies over the past two years—and I will definitely miss going to France. And I already miss the two hundred dollars I paid to get my first-ever passport.

I was supposed to be on their flight, nannying for the entire summer while they stay in a villa in the French countryside. But last week, justseven daysago, Mrs.Vanderhaaven informed me that they’d decided to hire a French nanny. I’d be staying home to watch the dog, she added, as if it wasn’t even a question.

I’d imagined spending my summer exploring the countryside with my two little charges, not hanging out with a hyperactive designer-breed dog. It was a massive disappointment. Not to mention a huge drop in pay. But being a dog nanny is better than being unemployed, and since I’m a live-in employee with no home of my own, I don’t have another option.

As if on cue, the dog bounds up the stairs, nearly knocking me over as he rushes into Zachary’s room. He’s a forty-pound ginger-colored labradoodle purchased from an elite breeder in New Zealand for the tidy sum of five thousand dollars, which is ridiculous for what is essentially an expensive mutt. You’d thinkhe drank straight espresso from his water bowl for all the energy he has. He drives me insane.

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