Secrets: A Novel

"Cassie! Cassie!"
She opened her eyes to see her boss, Jefferson Ames, standing over her. He was wearing a pair of loose swim trunks and had a towel over his shoulders. Behind him was the ever-present Skylar. As always, she was smiling in that cold, I'm-gonna-get-you way that Cassie was too familiar with. And Skylar was letting Cassie know that when she and Jeff were married, Cassie would be fired. "Like I'd stay," she'd muttered to herself many times.
"Sorry," Cassie said, putting her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. "I was lost in thought."
He looked down at her with amusement. Everyone else beside the pool was in swim attire, but Cassie had on big, army green shorts, an oversize T-shirt, and sandals. She was lying on a chaise, every inch of her body covered with beach towels. It was as though she'd die if a drop of sunlight touched her skin. "You are a dermatologist's dream," he said. Secrets Jude Deveraux-PTR 2/8/08 9:24 AM Page 9
"I aim to please," she answered, looking past him and smiling at Skylar, who was narrowing her eyes at Cassie. Skylar had on a tiny bikini and her skin had been tanned to the color of walnuts.
Skylar stepped forward, all starved and honed five feet ten of her, her skin glistening with expensive oil. "I think Elsbeth has had enough sun for the day so I want you to take her home."
Cassie didn't lose her smile as she looked at Jeff for confirmation. They weren't married yet, so she refused to take orders from anyone but him.
Jeff 's face didn't change. If he was aware of the war between his daughter's nanny and his girlfriend, he didn't give it away. But when he turned to look at his daughter, his face nearly melted with love. Whatever other problems he had, Jeff 's love for his daughter was obvious to all. "She looks sleepy, and she's probably hungry. You know how she is. She'd stay in the water all day if she weren't dragged out."
Cassie looked out at Elsbeth in the kiddie pool. In her opinion, the five-year-old girl was the most beautiful child on the planet. She was sitting in the water wearing a suit of white eyelet, a matching hat, and most of a bottle of sunscreen. "Sure," Cassie said, throwing back one of the three towels covering her. "Will you be home for dinner tonight?"
She stood up and stretched. Cassie was several inches shorter than Skylar, but there was nothing on Cassie that wasn't real. Her mother spent many hours in a gym fighting against her natural curves, but Cassie loved hers. She'd once heard Jeff 's father call her "a 1950s blonde bombshell with dark hair." It was all Cassie could do not to giggle and let them know she'd heard.
Skylar clutched Jeff 's arm to her artificially enhanced breasts. "No, we're going out tonight. Just the two of us." She paused. "He'll have some real food for a change."
"Ah, right," Cassie said. "Home cooking isn't real food. I'll have to tell that to Thomas."
Jeff coughed to cover his laugh. Jeff 's father, Thomas, lived with him, and just weeks after Cassie took the job of being Elsbeth's nanny, he'd asked to have some of what Cassie was cooking for herself and the child. From there it had gone to Cassie preparing dinner for the three of them. At first she'd left Thomas a plate in the warming oven while she and Elsbeth went upstairs to the playroom to eat, but he'd asked them to eat with him in the breakfast nook. From there it had gone to Thomas moving them into the dining room and setting the big mahogany table with candles and silver. "No use letting these dishes sit in the cabinet," he'd said as he put out the best china for them to use. If Cassie could use any term to describe Thomas, it would be "Old World gentleman."
Jeff spent the weekends with his daughter. Even if he had to work, he took her with him. Elsbeth was a quiet child who had no interest in rowdy group activities. Cassie would fill a backpack full of art supplies and Elsbeth would hold her father's hand and go with him