Page 73 of The Nanny and the Beefcake
The hickeys.
“Yes, right, it gets drafty in these large homes,” she stammered. She accepted the scarf and, with a quick flick of her wrist, hid the evidence of her night with Erasmus Cress.
“Listen to your nanny, Sebastian,” Finola said, her gaze softening as it fell on the boy.
“Goodbye, Sebastian, dear, I’ll see you soon,” Madelyn cooed, threading her arm with Finola’s, then leading the woman toward the back of the sprawling house. The tap of their footsteps grew faint, and then you could hear a pin drop.
“It’s just you and me, Sebastian. Are you ready to head out?”
“May I take my sketch pad?” he asked, gesturing to a backpack in the corner of the room.
“Sure, the park is a great place to draw.”
The child pulled a pencil and a thick pad from the bag, and the two headed out the front door where, lo and behold, a Lamborghini Urus was parked in the drive.
A Lamborghini Urus in the shade somewhere between blue and violet.
What an odd coincidence. That hue seemed to turn up everywhere.
“I like the color of your car,” Sebastian remarked, opening the back door and settling himself inside.
She situated herself in the front and checked the boy in the rearview mirror.
Sebastian sighed and sank into the seat with a far-off look in his eyes.
“Is something on your mind?” she asked. The twins always opened up when they got in the car. Perhaps it was the hum of the engine or existing in that in-between place—away from home but having not yet reached the intended destination.
He strummed his index finger along the wiry spiral holding the sketchpad together. “Does my dad want me here?”
Libby willed her heart not to break.
“Yes, absolutely, Sebastian, but he’s got a lot on his mind,” she answered, internally cursing the man as she started the car. “We’ll get to see more of him when we get to Rickety Rock,” she added, not quite sure why she’d made that prediction, but it lifted Sebastian’s spirit.
“Ms. Malone said we’re going to get a donkey when we get to the mountains, and then we’ll get to run around with it.”
“Pretty exciting, huh?”
“Do you think my dad will let me run with the donkey?” Sebastian asked, staring out the window as they headed down the private drive.
“I’m not sure how it works with children and donkeys, but I bet we can work something out.”
“I researched the donkeys on the car ride from the plane to the house,” he continued, perking up. “I downloaded a whole book on them.”
“Did you?” she queried as they exited Raz’s estate and headed down the treelined street toward the Crystal Acres playground.
“They don’t like rain.”
“I did not know that,” she replied, catching his eye in the rearview mirror.
“And they’re smart.” The boy leaned forward. “They have good memories. They don’t see colors, and they have brown eyes. But not like yours. Yours are yellowy golden brown. Donkey eyes are dark, dark brown.”
“You already know a heck of a lot more than I do. You can be the donkey expert.”
“Yeah, I can do that,” the boy said to himself, relaxing into the seat. “I like you, Libby.”
“I like you, too, Sebastian.”
“Want to know something else about donkey eyeballs?”
