Secret Nanny Club (32 page)

“I’m having a pretty stressful day so far,” I admitted.

“Baby John’s father has just sent a second solicitor’s letter about access to him, I’m supposed to be going to Cyprus in a few days’ time to do a shoot, and now I’ve just found out that Tanya isn’t what she pretends to be . . .”

“Tanya?” Joanne looked astonished.

I felt dreadful. “Yes, Tanya came to work for me after she left you. I’m sorry. I wish I had told you.”

Joanne’s hand was covering her mouth. Her eyes were
wide open. “Oh, my God!” she finally gasped.

“She’s an escort, isn’t she?”

“Yes, she is.” Joanne exhaled loudly. “And a highly paid one by all accounts.”

“Oh Lord, this is so hard to come to terms with. How
did you find out? I mean, how did you know that she was . .
.
i
s
. . .”

“My husband found her photo on a website called
Secretnanny.ie after a tip-off from somebody. It has since been taken down. When he confronted her about it she said

that
a friend of hers had put it up as a practical joke, but we had been suspicious anyway . . . all the late nights . . .”

“The clothes, the shoes, the jewellery . . .”

“Yes, and the boots. I once saw her wearing a brand-new pair of this season’s Fendi boots and asked her where she’d got them. She told me she’d got them from a friend. Well, as both you and I know, friends aren’t usually that generous. I’m so sorry. If I’d known that she was working for you I would have warned you. I had absolutely no idea.”

“It’s my fault for not letting you know,” I said
awkwardly. “But . . . why didn’t you fire her?”

“We didn’t want a big scene at the time in case the
kids got upset, and anyway we didn’t have any concrete proof that sh
e
wa
s
a working girl. We were just hoping she’d leave of her own accord.”

“And she did.” I gave a hollow laugh. “She came to
live with me.” I felt like an absolute fool.

“I wish that you had said something that time we met
outside the shop . . . you never said a word.”

I was looking at the ground now, mortified.

“She’s very clever, you know,” Joanne said. “I’m sure she said lots of untrue things to you about myself and my husband. ‘Always be careful of people who gossip to you,’ my mother once told me, ‘because soon they’ll be gossiping about you to somebody else.’”

I tried to speak but couldn’t. I had been a gullible twit
as far as Tanya had been concerned. And now I was deeply ashamed of myself.

She continued. “Before us she had worked for
another family called the McKays. She had led us to believe that Mr McKay was making moves on her and that was why she’d had to leave. I met his wife out at a function one night and she assured me it wasn’t true. It was actually she who tipped us off about the escort agency and then my husband looked it up online.”

“Oh God,” I said, wringing my hands in frustration,
“what am I going to do? I won’t be able to go to Greece now. My son is the most important person in the world and I don’t trust Tanya.”

“You need to be careful what you say to her. She’s
very convincing. She’ll swear blind that it’s nonsense.”

“I know that now,” I said with resignation. “When
something seems too good to be true it usually is.”

Back at the apartment Tanya was watching TV. The
place was gleaming as usual and she gave me a pleasant smile. “Hello.”

“Oh
hiya, Tanya,” I said. “How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you.”

I put John down on his play mat. “Did you have a good night last night?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “No, actually,
I didn’t. My date didn’t turn up. I was stood up.”

I looked away. I didn’t want her to be able to read me.

“That must have been annoying.”

“Yes, it’s annoying when somebody deliberately wastes
your time. Oh well, you can’t win them all.”

She spoke so casually, as though she were talking about
a bingo game or something. I remained calm too but inside I was panicking. I had a real-life hooker under my roof, albeit a very friendly, charming, kind and tidy one. I was very fond of Tanya but I could no longer have her living under my roof and in charge of my precious son. I knew I would have to confront her and not pussyfoot around anymore.

So I took a deep breath. It was now or never.
“Tanya, tell me more about this Secret Nanny Club,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “What exactly is it all about?”

“It’s just a group of girls, mostly foreign,” Tanya
shrugged.

“And do men pay to take the girls from the Secret
Nanny Club out on dates?”

I don’t know
what kind of reaction I had been expecting, but Tanya’s eyes never even flickered. “Yes, sometimes they do,” she admitted in an indifferent tone of voice.

“Times are tough at the moment as you know, and
child minding doesn’t pay well.”

“Do your dates pay for more than just your company?”

I was practically shaking inside. I could hardly believe I was even having this conversation.

She didn’t flinch.
“Sometimes.”

“I see.”

I couldn’t get an ounce of emotion out of her. I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry or get mad at her. My brain was turning on its axis.

“I think I’ll go and give John a bath,” I said in the
end.

“Do you want me to do it?” She jumped up.

“No, it’s okay. I’ll do it. Actually, I think I might stay with my mum tonight. I’ll take John with me.”

“Right.”

“I’m a bit stressed.”

“You
look
stressed,” she said.

John was innocently playing with his bunnies and
teddies, oblivious to the bizarre conversation going on around him. I picked him up and quietly took him out of

the
room. It was the last time we would ever see Tanya.

CHAPTER TWENTY-T
WO

I hadn’t met Sally properly for ages. She was always in a
hurry these days, rushing in and out of the office. She was working on the Christmas gifts spread at the moment. It was no less than twelve pages long, almost taking up half the magazine. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when I told her I was going to Cyprus.

“Dave set it all up,” I told her. “I didn’t even have to
do a thing.”

“You jammy bitch,” said Sally. “And Dave is quite a
hottie too so expect temperatures to soar in Paphos! God, I’m so jealous.”

“Well, I’m so glad I’m going away,” I admitted. “I’ve
been under enormous stress. Clive keeps sending me solicitor’s letters about John, the nanny disappeared leaving just a note and –”

“Tanya’s gone?” Sally sounded amazed. “Where did
she go to?”

“I don’t know. We had,
er, words. I took John away to stay the night with my mum and when we came back the next morning she and all her belongings were gone. There was no argument or falling out or anything like that. She left the place spick and span and she even left me a card and a bouquet of fresh flowers to thank me for being so kind to her. She said she would miss myself and John. That’s the really sad part because I knew she was telling the truth. And do you know what’s even weirder? I really miss her too.”

I picked up my coffee and to my horror a tear
splashed down into the cup. Once I had started crying I just couldn’t stop.

Sally was alarmed. “It’s okay,” she said, patting the
back of my hand gently. “I’m sure Tanya had personal reasons for leaving.”

I nodded. “Yes. She did have reasons. I just can’t say
what they are. I’d feel bad talking about her behind her back. She wasn’t the worst of people, you know.”

Sally was very sympathetic, if a bit puzzled, and
handed me a tissue. “Shush now, dry your eyes. Think of Cyprus and all the fun you’ll have. Is your mum going to mind John?”

I nodded. “She is, thank God. I wouldn’t be able to
go otherwise.”

“Well then, at least you know he’s in safe hands so
you don’t have to worry about him.”

“It’s my first time going abroad since he was born
though. I might miss him.”

“I’m sure you will miss him. That would be normal.
But you’ll be very busy too. And you’ll be with hunky Dave which will be a welcome distraction.”

“True,” I admitted, blushing slightly.

“Anyway, just think of poor old me back in the office when you’re away.”

I laughed in spite of myself. “I will. You must look
after Louise for me when I’m gone – that’s a joke by the way.”

“Louise?” Sally tilted her head. “Oh, where have you been, Missus? I can’t believe you haven’t heard the news?”

I sat upright in the chair and then leaned forward.
“What news?”

“Louise has gone. She has been shown the door.
Goodbye and good riddance!”

I could hardly believe it! At last some good news!

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I was really looking forward to getting on that plane as
I sat on the Aircoach on the way out to Dublin airport. I really hoped that I would get a seat next to Dave on the afternoon flight to Paphos. It really had been a crazy few days. The model that I had booked to come out had developed some kind of face rash and had to cancel. This had meant me calling a last-minute casting in Dave’s city-centre studio. Thank God I had found a suitable girl for the shoot. Clara was tall and willowy with sallow skin and dark blonde hair. She was also curvy in all the right places which was of the utmost importance for a bikini shoot. You couldn’t

have
a stick with the swimsuit falling off her!

Jenny, Diana’s assistant from Galway, who was also
coming with us, would be a joy to work with, and this time we would hire a make-up artist in Cyprus for the shoot so as not to go over budget.

I arrived at the airport in plenty of time and decided
to go into the Spar shop in the car park for a bottle of water and some crisps to keep me going while I was waiting. Dave had texted me a few minutes earlier to say he was nearly at the airport so I kept an eye out for him.

As I came out of the car park I actually saw him getting
out of a silver BMW. He was so tall I immediately spotted him. I was about to call out to him when something happened. A blonde girl got out of the driver seat and ran around the other side of the car to hug him. She was slim, blonde and very attractive and as he leaned forward to kiss her I found myself shrinking away. I definitely didn’t want him to see me.

I turned back into the car park, and took the
escalator up to the Ladies’ room. I breathed in and out very slowly. It took me a few minutes to compose myself, I was shaking so much. Then my phone beeped.

“Hey, it’s
Dave.Wher u? At cust serv desk.”

I smartened myself up and made my way back into
the terminal. I had to remain professional at all times. Dave had never told me he hadn’t got a girlfriend. He had never lied to me or led me down the garden path. I, as usual, had just happened to get the wrong end of the stick.

I made my way to the airline customer-service desk.
Jenny and Clara were already there, chatting to Dave. The girl at the ticket desk said she couldn’t put the four of us together so we’d have to sit in pairs. I offered to sit beside Jenny, so Dave and Clara ended up with seats together in another part of the plane.

Jenny was all excited about the trip and talked incessantly about it throughout the flight. I had hoped
her enthusiasm would rub off on me but it didn’t really. Suddenly I felt exhausted. So much had happened recently and it hadn’t even really sunk in yet.

On the plane, I had a couple of glasses of wine to relax.
They say drink goes to your head much faster when you’re flying and, you know, they’re probably right. I found myself