Page 64 of A Nanny for the Reclusive Billionaire

Chapter Fifteen

Mallory had to hand it to her mother. She sure knew how to throw a party.

Fromher position behind a potted plant in the corner of the grand ballroom at the Worthington, Mallory sipped champagne as the cream of New York society ate, drank, and mingled. Waitstaff in crisp white shirts, black bow ties, and neatly pressed black pants circulated with trays of deviled quail eggs, bite-size bruschetta, and Veuve Clicquot.

At the center of it all stood Brooke and Eli, looking sleek and stylish in an off-white stretch jumpsuit and impeccably tailored charcoal-gray suit. Her sister shifted from one Louboutin-clad foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with either the spike heels or all the attention being showered on her as the fairer half of the main attraction. Or both.

Eli slipped an arm around Brooke’s waist and bent low to whisper something in her ear. Brooke threw her head back and laughed, then took her husband’s face in her hands and kissed him, long and deep, both of them oblivious to or uncaring of the stuffed shirts looking on with shock and disapproval.

Mallory sank into the nearest chair with a sigh and drained the rest of her champagne. Would she ever love and be loved like that, so thoroughly the outside world ceased to matter? Was that what she’d given up by leaving Flamingo Key?

“Hiding again?” Her mother’s censure was like a bucket of ice water splashed in her face.

“Not hiding, resting,” Mallory corrected, although there was a bit of truth to both. Yes, she was trying to keep a low profile. But she was also dead tired. The past few days had been a flurry of activity leading up to the reception. Fittings. Florists. Favors. No detail was too small to go unattended to by Pamela Worthington and her army of minions, including her youngest daughter. “Besides, it’s Brooke’s big day, not mine.”

“Well, I need you to come out of exile and come with me,” her mother snapped. One hand fluttered to her throat, fingering the strand of pearls nestled there. “The Livingstons are here, and they’ve brought their son, Bryce. He’s an attorney. Highly respected. Intellectual property, I think. I told him all about you, and he wants to meet you.”

Her mother was practically salivating at this last bit of news. With her eldest daughter successfully married off, she’d shifted all of the focus of her matchmaking efforts to the sole remaining target.

Mallory.

Mallory signaled a passing waiter and exchanged her empty glass for a full one. She took a generous sip of sparkling liquid before speaking.

“I’m not really in the market for a boyfriend right now.” Especially one handpicked by her mother. Been there, done that, not doing it again, whether or not Rhys was still in the picture. And given the radio silence she’d gotten from him since she left Flamingo Key, she was guessing the answer was not.

“But I promised his parents I’d introduce you two,” her mother fumed. Was it too much to ask her to be happy—or at least pleasant—for one day? “They want him to settle down with a nice girl. And that horrible Vivian Richmond is here. If we don’t move fast, she’ll get to him first.”

“Leave her alone, Pam.” Mallory’s father came up behind his wife, who bristled at the shortening of her name. “Can’t you see she’s not interested?”

“But…”

“The photographer is looking for you,” he cut in. “Something about not having the right lens.”

“Can’t anyone do their job without my help?” her mother huffed as she stormed away. “I’m surrounded by incompetents.”

Mallory stared after her. “I feel sorry for that photographer.”

“Don’t.” Her father pulled up a chair next to her and sat. “I made it up.”

“You what?”

“Made it up. He’s got all the equipment he needs, which your mother will find out in about thirty seconds.”

“Why lie?”

“To get your matchmaking mother off your back,” he answered with a conspiratorial wink, crossing an ankle over his knee.

“I don’t understand.” Mallory gulped her champagne. She definitely needed more alcohol in her system for this surreal conversation. On the plus side, at least her father was talking to her again, even if it seemed like aliens had taken over his brain. “Mom has this bright idea if I start dating someone in New York I won’t want to leave again. I thought you’d want that as much as she does.”

“I want you near, of course.” Her normally fastidious father loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first button of his dress shirt. The aliens at work again, she supposed. “But not if it means dating one of your mother’s hand-selected stooges.”

If she weren’t already sitting, she would have collapsed from shock. Her parents always presented a united front. Her father’s jumping ship was like a Blue Angel fighter pilot breaking formation. Unheard of. “Are you sure you’re my father and not his doppelgänger?”

“Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age,” he joked.

Her father. Joking. She looked around for the cameras, certain she was being punked. “The hard-ass of the hospitality industry? Soft isn’t in your vocabulary.”

His eyes shifted, and she followed his gaze to the dance floor, where Brooke and Eli swayed together as one, lost in each other. “Or maybe watching one daughter fall in love has made me want the same for the other.”