Page 12 of The Billionaire's Virgin

Chapter Four

Taylor

I had moved the coffee table so that Jenna and I had a nice big space to build blocks. While Jenna worked on making her monster truck, I admired the living room. The fireplace was closed off with an ornate looking grill, and the mantel was lined with a bunch of books, whose titles I recognized from the bestseller lists.

“Those are all Daddy’s books,” Jenna told me, noticing my preoccupation.

“Are they?” I asked. “Meaning he wrote them?”

Jenna laughed. “No, he makes other people read them.”

I stood up and looked through all the books on the mantel. Free Bird Publishers had published them all. I didn’t recognize the name, but I put two and two together.

“Your dad is a publisher?”

“Yeah.” Jenna nodded distractedly.

After getting the job yesterday, I had gone straight home and celebrated with Megan by going out to dance. I had meant to get home and look up the man I was going to be working for, but by the time we made it back home, I was tired and sleepy and conscious of the fact that I needed to be up early the next day. I looked through the books and realized that I’d read two of the dozen or so that were on display.

“Taylor?”

I turned to Jenna and joined her once more on the carpet. “What is it?”

“Can you help me with the truck?”

“Of course.” I nodded.

We spent a happy hour playing with the building blocks, and by the time we were done it was almost six o’clock, and I knew I needed to get dinner started.

“Why don’t you play with your soft toys while I get dinner ready?” I suggested to Jenna, as I got to my feet.

She looked at me curiously and then stood up. “Can I help?”

I smiled. “Sure.” I nodded. “But first we need to put away all the toys and clean up a little. Deal?”

Jenna nodded, and we cleared away all her toys, and I pushed the coffee table back to its usual spot. Satisfied that everything was in order, Jenna and I headed to the kitchen. The plan had been for me to show up a little earlier than usual this morning so that Reed could take me through a few things, like what Jenna usually ate, her nap times, and so on, but when I had shown up, Reed had been in a hurry to get to work.

“We’ll talk when I get back this evening, okay?” he had said as he rushed out of the house after giving me a spare set of keys so that I could get into the apartment on my own.

So basically, I had gone through the day on the fly. I had gotten Jenna ready for school, given her eggs and toast for breakfast, and then dropped her off at school. When I got back to the apartment, I had done a load of laundry, but it had taken me almost an hour to figure out how to use the huge, complicated machine.

After that, I had just tidied up the living room and Jenna’s room. I had stayed out of Reed’s room completely. In any case, I was pretty sure it was locked. I prepared a light lunch for Jenna and then because I’d had time to kill I spent a few hours walking around the city, taking the time to really appreciate New York before picking up Jenna from school.

I had been a little nervous. After all, children were unpredictable and just because Jenna had seemed to like me yesterday didn’t necessarily mean the same would be true today. But things had gone smoothly. Jenna had seemed happy to see me when I picked her up from school, and she was talkative and animated throughout the day.

“How about we make some pasta for dinner?” I suggested.

“Okay,” Jenna seemed eager.

I pulled a chair up to the level of the counter and told Jenna to hop on so that she could work side by side with me. She looked a little hesitant at first, but then she hopped up on the chair and was thrilled to be able to cook with me.

I explained everything I was doing as I was doing it, making sure to point out what Jenna was allowed to touch and what she was not. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Jenna was not at all the bratty rich kid that Ashley and Megan had led me to expect. She followed my instructions, and she always listened when I told her not to do something or when I asked her to wait for me.

Once the pasta had been drained, I set about making the sauce to go with it. I let Jenna add fresh cream, cheese, salt, and some chopped tomatoes to a pan. Once it was stirred well, I tipped in the pasta and Jenna mixed it all together with both hands on the stirring ladle.

“Well done,” I complimented her. “You did well.”

“I like cooking,” Jenna declared.