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"I have to go check on the kitchen staff right now," I tell Robyn, eager to get away from the kids, and to ensure Marcel, the head chef, knows to prepare a special dinner because Peter is returning home from a two-month escape act overseas. She nods, smiling at me, then takes eases herself comfortably into one of the movie theater seats with the kids, who don't say anything. I wonder how Robyn is going to work out.
Peter's return is much celebrated by his adulterous, overly bubbly wife, from the moment I open the door. His children greet him with terse hugs and disinterested distance, before running back to the rec room. I watch Peter give Charlene a cold peck on her white powdered cheek. They look at each other, no doubt wondering whether the other philandered behind the other's back in the two month span they were apart. It doesn't really matter; appearances are much more vital to the sustenance of the company and to their public image. I doubt there is any real love between them, beyond the necessity of business, although jealousy is another matter altogether.
Dinner is fresh Chilean sea bass with wild mushrooms and rice for the adults, and pasta for the kids (that is all they are eating these days). Robyn digs in and sighs at Marcel's latest creation. Everyone is relatively silent, with Charlene's interspersed stories, targeted at Peter, about one or all of the charity organizations she runs and finances, but no one is really listening to her. As much as I hate her pomposity, I do have to credit the woman for actually chairing and donating to these causes. Peter looks bored, and turns the conversation to Robyn. What does she do? Is she a student? Will she be staying with the Scotts for the long haul?
"I want to attend art school overseas," she explains. Peter and Charlene both perk up. Peter seems to have just realized he has a beautiful, young and talented woman living in his house, and Charlene tells her she's a collector. Robyn explains she's interested in impressionistic art for twenty-six years, and that's all she wants to do in the future. The money she'll be earning from her nanny duties will all contribute to her higher education. I hide a smirk. A few months with the Scotts, and she'll make all the contacts she needs.
"Could we can get you to do a family portrait of us?" Charlene asks when dessert is being served. "Of course, you'll be paid for your work." Robyn looks up, realizing her job as a nanny may be more fruitful than she anticipated, her grin widening even more when Charlene offers to pay for all her new supplies.
Peter is now looking at Robyn in an overtly lascivious way that makes my stomach turn; though his wife seems oblivious to his wandering eyes, Robyn shifts uncomfortably in her seat letting a long curtain of her straight brown hair fall into her eyes on the side where Peter is seated, helping her ignore him. The rest of dinner passes much more pleasantly than usual. I wonder how Robyn's afternoon went, and what happened, because I have never seen the kids so quiet, and by the shocked way Charlene is eyeing her typically obnoxious children, I garner that she hasn't, either. Already, I can tell that Robyn is going to positively alter the dynamics of the Scott residence.
It's close to midnight and the house is asleep except for me. I've spent the last two hours lying in bed, reading the same paragraph in my book over a dozen times whilst trying to ignore the fact that Robyn is lying in her bed on the other side of this wall. I can't help but wonder what she's wearing between the sheets. Is she naked? Maybe in a tiny nightgown? An old boyfriend's t-shirt and undies?
As an insomniac, I know it's going to be nearly impossible to fall asleep, especially without getting rid of this raging erection first. I slip on my long robe and head towards the bathroom to immerse myself in a long bath.
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