The Nanny (The Fabulous Dalton Boys Book 1) (6 page)

Ashley shook her head.  "Well, I guess that explains why you wouldn't marry the baby's mother."

"If it doesn't, you don't know me well at all." 

She shrugged.  "That still doesn't mean that I should be the one to be his mother.  I mean, he's a sweet baby, but he's not mine.  If you wanted to give him to me to raise, I would take him in a heartbeat, but I don't know that I want to tie myself to a man who only wants me for sex to get him."

"You really think I only want you for sex?"  He looked at her with shock.  "If I only wanted sex, I could pick any number of women.  I want you.  I want the way you love my son.  I want the woman who makes me laugh, and makes me feel like the sexiest man alive."

"Sex on a stick," she mumbled.

"Sex on a sti—" He choked on the last word, unable to finish it as his laughter filled the car.  "See?  That's what I want.  I want you, Ashley.  No one else.  I promise, if it had been Brooklyn who'd come to me as a nanny, that proposal never would have happened."

"Proposal?" she asked, almost offended that he'd call it that.  "That wasn't a proposal.  That was a business proposition."

"So if I get down on one knee, with a ring in my hand," he slipped his hand into the pocket of his jacket and held it out to her. "This ring, maybe..."

Ashley stared down at the box he'd flicked open with his thumb, shaking her head.  There was a decent sized diamond with a ring of emeralds around it, and her heart leapt.  How had he known how much she loved emeralds? "The most important thing still isn't there, Barrett.  You don't love me."

He sighed.  "You yourself brought up the fact that I come from mail order brides.  There was no love between the couple when they married, but love grew.  Don't you think that could happen with us?  Let's face it, we've got the lust part down pat."

She blushed, not wanting to agree with him, but not willing to lie either.  "I'll think about it.  That's the best I can do for now."  She glanced out the window and saw they were at a small airstrip, a plane on the tarmac in front of them.  "Where
exactly
are we going for dinner?"

He shrugged.  "Vegas.  Good food.  Great hotels.  Quickie marriages."

"Barrett Dalton, if I was going to consider marrying you five minutes ago, I'm certainly not now!  What is
wrong
with you!  We cannot leave that baby with
Brooklyn
overnight!  Poor Baby Dalton will be wearing a backwards diaper and have chocolate stains all over his body where she used him as a table."

"He'll be fine.  Cage won't let anything happen to him."  He got out of the car, and when she crossed her arms refusing to budge, he grabbed her arm and pulled her out, putting his shoulder into her stomach and walking with her in a fireman's carry to the plane. 

She saw the driver running behind them with two suitcases, one of which she recognized as her own.  She beat at Barrett's back with her fists.  "This is kidnapping!"

He shrugged as he set her down in a seat, buckling her in himself.  "Close the door," he called over his shoulder.  "Ever heard the phrase the end justifies the means?"

"I cannot believe you're doing this to me!"

"I'm not going to force you to marry me, Ashley, but you have to finish hearing me out."  He knelt in front of her on the floor of the plane.  "All I can think about morning to night is you.  I wake up, tasting your lips against mine.  I get a goofy grin on my face halfway through the day, and my employees are starting to make fun of me.  And every night, when we're in our separate beds, I'm lying awake in mine, thinking about what it would be like if you were with me."

"So that gives you the right to kidnap me?"

Barrett shook his head.  "No, it doesn't.  But you promised me an evening, and I'm taking it.  I've booked us a wedding at the Elvis Chapel.  If you decide not to go through with it, that's fine.  I'm not forcing you.  If you decide you don't want our wedding night to be at a suite in the Venetian, that's all right too. I'll fly you home."  He sighed.  "Let me tell you about what I want tonight to be like.  May I?"

She nodded, still angry. 

"I want us to get off the plane in Vegas, and immediately go to the Elvis Chapel, where one of The King's minions will marry us himself.  Then I want to check into the Venetian and take you to that nice little Italian place I mentioned, which is right there in their mall.  Then I want to take a gondola ride with you, being serenaded in Italian."  He stroked her cheek.  "And at the end of all that, I want to go back to our room, and I want to make love to you.  I want to kiss every inch of your body, and make you feel like the most beautiful woman alive.  I want to hold you when we're done and sleep with you in my arms.  And I want to wake you up in the morning with a kiss, earlier than I would like so we can get back to my son, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.  Having more babies, because poor Dalton Dalton needs love and siblings."  When he finished he watched her expectantly, obviously waiting for her answer.  "Please, Ashley.  Marry me and make me the happiest man alive.  I promise you, if you do, you'll be the happiest woman alive."

She sighed, not able to resist his huge brown eyes.  Finally, she nodded.  "I guess we're getting married by Elvis tonight."

He pulled her head down, kissing her madly.  "Thank you.  I won't let you regret it."

Chapter Six

Barrett held Ashley's hand tightly as he led her from the private airstrip ten miles south of Vegas toward the waiting limo.  The Elvis chapel had kindly sent a car for them, and it would drop them off at the Venetian after the short ceremony.

Ashley had said very little since agreeing to marry him, and he worried that she was thinking about changing her mind, but if he hurried everything along, he was certain it would all be fine.  It was more than wanting a mother for Baby Dalton.  He wanted
her
as his wife.

Once they were settled in the back seat of the car, he turned to her, his arm curled around her shoulders.  "You're going to be the best mother a boy named Dalton Dalton could ever have."

Ashley frowned.  "No.  We're changing his name, and we're doing it legally.  I'm not going to be able to hold my head up in public otherwise."

Barrett shrugged.  He wished he'd thought of changing the baby's name, but he was so used to weird names in his family, it just hadn't seemed that important to him.  He hated it, but it
did
seem to be a family tradition.  "To what?"

"I don't know yet.  Most parents have eight months to figure it out, or even longer if they start thinking about it before they conceive.  We'll decide together."

"As long as it doesn't have to be tonight, because I've got better things to do than worry about what I'm going to name my child, who has a name already.  Yes, it's an unacceptable name, but it is a name."

"Promise me we'll change it?"

"As soon as we find a boy's name we agree on, we'll change it right away," he said, staring into her green eyes, his fingers stroking her cheek.  He lowered his mouth to hers, softly kissing her to seal his promise.

She sighed. 

"Thank you for agreeing to marry me," he said softly.  "I know you have reservations, but I'm going to make you happy.  I swear."

"You'd better..." She grinned as she made the threat.  She knew they were physically compatible, and she liked him a great deal.  He already owned a piece of her heart and hoped she could keep the rest from him, at least until she was more certain.  Regardless, she knew she loved the baby, and they'd make a good family.

He laughed, touching the tip of her nose with his index finger.  "You know, I don't even know what you did before you came here.  You were in New York with your aunt, but what did you do?  Were you working?  A professional wastrel?  A street performer, dancing while making balloon animals in Central Park?"

She chuckled.  "No, not a professional wastrel or a street performer.  I graduated from college a year ago.  I took my time, because I didn't always have enough money to take a full load, and I was working my way through—determined not to have any student loans.  Last fall I was a first grade teacher in Montana, which is where I grew up.  I lived at home with my father and step-mother.  I was just filling in for a teacher who was out on maternity leave, so when she went back to school, I found myself at loose ends."

"You didn't want to keep teaching?" he asked.  It seemed odd that someone who'd gone to college for that long to be a teacher would give up on the dream so easily.

She shrugged.  "I tried, but I felt like all I was doing was teaching them to take standardized tests.  That isn't really teaching!  I figured if I became a nanny, I could teach young children anyway.  Being a stay-at-home mom or a nanny is ninety percent teaching, in my opinion."

"So how'd you end up in New York?" 

"Well, after the other teacher returned to work after Christmas, I decided to move in with my aunt.  I'd never really spent any time in the city and I wanted to see what it was like.  I realized I couldn't just sit around there, so I decided to substitute teach while I was deciding what I was going to do."

"Did you enjoy it any more than you did teaching first grade for that semester?"

She shook her head.  "Not really.  I enjoyed the children, but I didn't feel like I was able to make any kind of difference.  I became a teacher to make a difference in kids' lives.  I don't see how it can happen the way things are set up now."

The limo stopped.  Ashley saw a sign that read "Elvis Chapel," and her heart started racing.  "What if I can't go through with it?" she asked, her eyes wide.

He laughed.  "If you can't go through with it, then I'll take you back home, and we'll go on as we have been.  And I'll fly you out here next week, and the week after, and the week after, until finally I wear you down!"

She smiled.  "Let's do it."

He got out of the car, holding his hand down to help her out.  She was a bit unsteady in her heels.  She hadn't worn heels much, being more of a slacks kind of girl when she needed to dress up. 

He slipped an arm around her waist, nodding at the driver who was holding the door of the chapel for them.  They went into the tiny reception area and signed the log, going into the chapel.  A couple of the chapels employees were on hand to serve as witnesses. 

The person who greeted them at the front explained that Elvis would perform the ceremony and do all the vows with them, but then that they would speak the vows again for the "real minister."  The man playing Elvis would just pretend to be a minister. 

Ashley shook her head, unsure why she was being married by Elvis anyway.  The wedding was incredibly cheesy, but fun.  Ashley laughed a lot.  After Elvis had done his final serenade, and Barrett kissed her, she looked down at the ring on her finger.  She'd done it.  Her aunt was going to kill her.  She'd married sex on a stick. She was thankful there was a real minister for the vows after the Elvis ceremony, because that part of the wedding felt real to her while the rest didn't.

The limo drove them to the Venetian, and Ashley couldn't take her eyes off the view of the strip.  She could just imagine how it would look after dark when it was all lit up.  She hoped their room had a good view, because she knew she was going to want to stand at the window and look out for a while.

They checked in, and a valet took them up to their room.  She was amazed at the beautiful room.  She'd never stayed anywhere like it.  There was a pretty little living area, a huge king-sized bed that she blushed just looking at, and a bathroom complete with the largest bathtub she'd ever seen and a television.  How odd.

She unpacked her suitcase into the top drawer blushing when she saw a piece of lingerie that she'd never seen before.  "Who packed for me?" she called over her shoulder as she folded the garment and put it into the drawer.

"Brook. Why?"

That explained it.  Brooklyn probably decided she needed something sexy so she made it happen.  Her heart softened toward the other girl.  Maybe she wasn't so bad after all.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur.  Later she wouldn't remember the dinner or the gondola ride.  She was too lost in her new husband's eyes.  There was just something about him that made it impossible for her to concentrate on anything but him.

  After the gondola ride, he slipped his arm around her waist, kissing the top of her head.  "Are you sleepy yet?"

She shook her head.  "No, but we can go back to the room if you want."  She was nervous, but waiting would just make it worse. 

The walk through the mall attached to the Venetian seemed to take forever, and then they had to walk through the casino on their way to the bank of elevators.  She stopped and looked at one of the slot machines that had one of her favorite old TV shows on it.  She'd never played a slot machine, or really even seen one close up before.  "I thought they would all have sevens and cherries on them."

He laughed.  "You've never played a slot machine?"  He didn't want to waste time in the casino when they could be making love, but he fished out his wallet, handing her a hundred dollar bill.   "Go for it."  He couldn't let her go to Vegas for the first time without at least playing one slot machine.

She blinked at the cash.  "No, I wasn't asking for money."  All at once it occurred to her that she was married to a billionaire.  How on earth had that happened?  She hoped he knew she had no desire for his money.

He saw the confusion on her face.  "I won't miss it.  Sit down and play."  He took another bill from his wallet and sat in an empty chair next to the machine she'd noticed.  "Just play 'til you're out of money.  No biggie."

She looked at the cash in her hand, arguing with herself for a moment, before she slid into the chair beside him.  She carefully fed the money into the machine, trying to figure out what buttons to push. There were so many options! "What do I do?"

He leaned over and pointed to 'max bet'.  "Just keep pushing that 'til you run out of money."

She pushed the button, and watched as the pictures flew across the screen.  There were five of them, and they all matched for her.  A loud siren sounded and there was a light atop her machine that started blinking.

He groaned.  "You would have to hit a jackpot the first time."  He was never going to get his wife into bed.  "How much did you win?"

"I don't know.  How can I tell?" she asked.  Her eyes were round with surprise and excitement. 

He leaned over and looked.  "Twenty-seven thousand.  We need to wait for an attendant."  Barrett hoped she wasn't going to hold him to his word.  He'd said she could play 'til she was out of money, but it would take a while to lose that much.

After she'd been paid, she stared at the check in disbelief.  "I've never had this much money all at once in my life."

He laughed.  "At least a third of that will be gone in taxes, so you're still not really holding that much."

She poked him in the side, surprised at how hard his stomach was.  "Don't spoil it!"

"Well, I told you that you could lose it all tonight.  Do you want to keep playing?"

Ashley looked at him like he'd lost his mind.  "No, I think I'm done.  I'm not stupid enough to think I'll keep winning.  This is enough for me.  I can buy a
car
with this!"  She tucked the check into her purse and gripped his hand.  "Besides, I don't think this is where you were planning on spending our wedding night."

Barrett breathed a sigh of relief, glad she understood what he was thinking.  "No, it's really not." He led her toward the elevators and pushed the button to go up.