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“Please, call me Spencer,” I said with a smile. “And I'll be in touch with the travel arrangements shortly. We look forward to having you join our little family.”
CHAPTER TWO
AVERY
All my life, I'd dreamt of traveling abroad. I wanted especially wanted to see Paris. As the oldest of five children, living with a single father who could hardly support all of us after my mother died, it seemed like a dream I might never achieve. Yet, there I was, preparing to board a private jet to Paris, and not just to visit – but to live. Better yet, I'd be getting paid for it as well.
I had to resist the urge to pinch myself for the thousandth time. No, I was not dreaming. This was really happening.
Spencer and the girls were waiting for me at the terminal. Maisie ran up to me the moment she saw me emerge from the crush of people, wrapping her arms around my waist. We'd spent a little more time together after I'd officially been hired, and already, the most social of the Sullivan girls was attached to me. Lola smiled, which was genuine, and I thought, a good sign from the shy, reserved girl. She stayed by her father's side, however, holding his hand. Her pink suitcase sat at her feet. Maisie's was purple and sat beside her father as the two of us walked over to them together, hand in hand.
Spencer Sullivan smiled at me, and my insides tied themselves in knots. I'd heard about his chiseled jaw and sculpted abs in the tabloids – you really couldn't pick up a magazine or turn on the news without seeing Spencer Sullivan somewhere. But, until I'd seen him in real life, with my own two eyes, I'd had no real idea he was as gorgeous as he was.
He was the cliché tall, dark and handsome man, with hair that was nearly black, and light gray eyes. He was one of the tallest men I'd ever met, and easily one of the most handsome too. His strong, well-defined jawline that was almost all angles, almost seemed contradictory to his downright kissably soft lips – and yet, he made it work. He made it work very well, in fact.
Spencer was very nice on the eyes, and after seeing how good he was with his daughters, how much he doted on them – I felt like I could fall in love with him, even if he was about ten years older than I was. I always did have a thing for older, more established men though.
My best friend, Veronica, often teased me about having a daddy complex because my own father had hardly been around when I was growing up. He worked too much, trying to support us, which left a lot of the child care to me. Roni said my fascination with older men was because I desired someone to take care of me for once, since I'd spent most of my life taking care of others.
Maybe she was right. Or, maybe she was full of crap. I really didn't know.
Roni would have given me the hell if she'd seen the way I looked at Spencer, though. That much I knew for sure. To be fair, I felt like a little girl in puppy love. I knew it was wrong, knew there was no way we could ever be together, but I still couldn't help the warmth – or the wetness – that grew inside of me every time I looked at him.
“Good morning, Avery,” Spencer said, his lips pulling back to showcase a made-for-TV, perfectly white smile. “I hope you're ready for the big move?”
“I am,” I said, my cheeks burning. “I've been ready ever since I was a little girl, to be honest. This is a dream come true for me.”
His smile reached his eyes, and they sparkled for a fragment of a second. “I think you're real
ly going to enjoy it,” he said. “Paris is one of my favorite cities. It's absolutely stunning.”
“I have no doubt I'm going to enjoy it,” I said.
I've always found everything about France to be beautiful; the history, the language, the architecture – everything. It was why I'd studied French in college and made it my minor to my Education degree. I knew that it was the only way I’d be able to make a living with it. Now this opportunity had been thrust upon me, and I was truly going to live out my wildest dream. I could hardly quell the butterflies at play in my stomach. I followed Spencer and the girls out to the tarmac where the jet was waiting for us. Although they walked with the confidence of people who'd done it a thousand times, I felt a little awkward bypassing the terminal and heading straight out to where the planes were. It felt so exclusive, so fancy – and so not me.
Spencer had stepped aside, letting me go first, and as I climbed up the steps to the plane, that's when it hit me. That was the moment when I realized that was going to be the last time I'd have my feet on United States soil for a while A wave of the surreal washed over me as it dawned on me, a strange feeling making my stomach churn. If all went well, I might not be back for a good, long while. As much as I would miss my family, my siblings were all grown and were enjoying their own lives now. It was time for me to finally live mine too.
I was the first one to step foot on the plane, and I gasped. I'd only flown a couple of times, all domestic flights, and I remember being crammed in like a bunch of sardines. However, this was traveling in true luxury. With spacious leather seats that had enough room to lie completely flat, you had room to spread out – and you didn't have to fight over the armrest with anyone either. Each person had plenty of space to spread out and be comfortable. There was a total of eight seats, as far as I could tell, plus a mini bar set up on one side of the jet made of a dark, cherry wood finish.
A petite blonde woman smiled as we boarded. She handed me a glass of champagne and a cloth napkin.
“If you need anything, please let us know, Ms. Porter,” she said, her tone professionally pleasant.
Ms. Porter. Champagne. A fancy private jet. A girl could get used to traveling like that.
“Thank you,” I said. I tried to look for a name tag, but there wasn't one.
“Mindy,” she said. “My name is Mindy and I'll be your stewardess for this flight. If you need extra pillows, blankets, or anything at all, please don't hesitate to buzz me.”
I thanked her and walked on by, letting Maisie and Lola push past me and claim two window seats across from each other. The girls looked excited to fly, or at least Maisie did. It was hard to tell with Lola sometimes. She stared out the window, no smile or any sense of emotion on her face. Maisie was kicking her feet and singing a made-up song that only she knew the words for, obviously eager to get started on our adventure.
Spencer was now behind me, his own glass of champagne in hand.
“Take a seat, any seat you like,” he said. “You don't have to sit with us, if you'd prefer a window seat or some privacy.
“No, that's fine, actually. I want to be here for the girls,” I said. “I intend to sleep a bit though, if you don't mind? To try and get ahead of the jet lag as much as possible so I can hit the ground running when we land.”
“Wise choice,” he said.
