Page 27 of Sleeper: The Palisades Edition

When we both finally look away from the view and at each other, I see a flash in his eyes of something just as primal as what I was feeling. Or maybe he’s horrified by what my pores look like in this bright natural light. Whatever he was feeling, he blinks and looks away, and any sign of it is gone. He goes over to the island and picks up two printouts from the counter, along with a pen. “I feel weird about doing this, but this is a standard NDA and the employment contract that Margo’s lawyer has all of our domestic employees sign. Sorry—I hate calling you that.”

“It’s fine. That’s totally what I am to you now.”

He clears his throat. “Right. You don’t have to sign it now. You can look it over or have your attorney look at it…”

I scoff at that. “Sure. I’ll have my legal team go over it first.” I pick up the pen and sign both pages without reading them.

“And my business manager is supposed to e-mail you about setting up payments.”

“Yes, his office has reached out to me, thank you.”

“Cool. Also, he said it would be better to buy a carand then sell it, rather than rent one for three months, so someone’s going to deliver a Volvo with car seats tomorrow morning. Hope that’s okay.”

“Are you kidding? I love Volvos.”

He manages to laugh at that.

“No, really.”

“Well, just don’t go on any joyrides and crash it.”

“I mean. I’ll try not to.”

“I’ll give your e-mail address to the kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Babcock, so you’ll get cc’d on their class updates and schedules. Get ready for a stuffed inbox.” He winces and then shakes his head as soon as he says that, probably wishing he could erase that phrase from my memory as I simultaneously try to stop picturing this man stuffing my inbox.

“Great. And I’ve got Margo’s e-mail address now, so I’ll be sending her pictures of the kids and keeping her in the loop.”

“Oh good. She’ll like that.”

“Yup. All good. If you want to take a shower, don’t let me keep you.”

“I’ll help you bring your stuff in, get you settled first. Unless my workout stank is offensive to your highly trained nose, then I can shower first.”

“Nope. I am definitely dealing with it. Let’s get me settled.”

Shane carriesmy enormous duffel bag full of clothes and pulls my even more enormous hardside suitcase that contains carefully bubble-wrapped perfume supplies, while I carry my portable perfumer’s organ into the nanny room. This room is just down the hallfrom the kitchen, with an adjoining bathroom. I place the perfume organ on the floor by the desk that’s under the window.

“It’s called an organ?” he says, wrinkling his untrained nose.

“That’s what a perfumer’s workbench is traditionally called, yes. This one’s basically a fancy folding spice rack for containers of materials that I use for creating scents. My little fragrance lab.” I carefully open it up on the floor so he can see all of the little amber, blue, and clear bottles on the shelves.

“Cool. You’re going to set that up in here?”

“Yeah, on this desk, but I’ll have to move the desk away from the window so the sunlight doesn’t degrade the contents.”

“I don’t think this room gets a lot of direct sunlight, but I’ll help you with that.” He comes over to lift up one side of the desk.

“Oh, now? Okay.” I take hold of the edge of the other side of the desk, and we carry it to the nearby wall.

“We should tell the kids not to come in here. You want me to put a lock on the door? Or can you keep the bottles locked up in this thing when you aren’t using them? I don’t want the twins to break anything.”

“I’ve found that it’s better to just show kids exactly what’s in the bottles and let them handle them. It’s curiosity and the lure of the forbidden that tends to lead to broken things and messes.”For kids and grown-ups.

He nods, as if he’s agreeing with me, but says, “Maybe with French kids, but literally everything leads to broken things and messes around here.”

“Yeah. Your house is a disaster.”

“The housekeeper came yesterday. There should be plenty of towels in your bathroom. Consuelo made the bed. There are extra sheets in the closet and tons of hangers, I think. The laundry room is downstairs. I’ll show you later.”