An Agency Story: Double Trouble by Emme Salt

Chapter One
    The Agency offer was incredibly generous. All expenses
paid, and a stipend to cover a semester’s worth of tuition. It was, of course,
not the first time that I worked for the Agency—last winter, I spent
three weeks with the Stewarts in their Aspen cabin.
    It had been rewarding, to say the least.
    My résumé said that I had worked as their nanny. And of
course I had taken care of the Stewarts’ three children: waking them up,
feeding them, keeping the little rugrats out of trouble. But to tell the truth,
I spent even more time entertaining their parents. Most nights. The occasional
morning. Once in awhile, an afternoon, if the kids were napping.
    To me, they were strictly Mr. and Mrs. Stewart—I had
been specifically warned by the Agency to keep it professional. I could never refer
to them by their first names. They called me Ashlyn, Ash, whatever they wanted.
They were my employers, and they deserved my respect—my utmost respect.
Obedience, even.
    And to be honest, I fell in love with them a little bit
when I watched them flirt with each other, crack jokes, argue and make up. Mrs.
Stewart was a slim yet deliciously curvy woman with beautiful lips and a warm
smile. Mr. Stewart may as well have been a dead ringer for Brad Pitt, as far as
I was concerned—he was a tall, athletic man with deep set eyes and broad
shoulders.
    I got used to their quirks: Mrs. Stewart’s love of oatmeal
raisin cookies at breakfast, Mr. Stewart’s habit of winding down with a
newspaper at dinnertime. And the way that they looked at each other, as if
they’d never fallen out of that crazy first stage of love: well, I felt lucky
to be with them, if only for a little while.
    In fact, it was a playful snowball fight between them that
had started everything. Mr. Stewart had been aiming at his wife but had hit me
instead; I fell over onto the soft snow, laughing, as they scrambled to make
sure I was okay. Mr. Stewart tripped as he was getting to me, landing next to
me in the snow, and he had impulsively kissed me. To my surprise, Mrs. Stewart
merely kissed the tiny bruise that was forming on my forehead, and then lowered
her lips to kiss me herself.
    It was magical. The snow falling down around them, their
breath misting in the frosty air: I let myself be kissed, and kissed them both
back. They went back to the cabin, and I let Mr. Stewart take off my jacket
while Mrs. Stewart undid my belt, and lifted my sweater over my head, and the
night got hotter and sweatier than I ever could have imagined for December.
    The Agency had been pleased with me, obviously. I received
the message two days after I returned home that the Stewarts wanted me back for
another vacation. They even let me keep the keys! So here I was, back in their
sprawling Aspen cabin, waiting for them, feeling butterflies flutter in my
stomach.
     
    * * * *
    It was late, maybe eight o’clock, when the doorbell
finally rang.
    I had been waiting in the cabin since the afternoon…I’d
long since unpacked and made myself comfortable in my old bedroom. Sitting in
an overstuffed armchair, I was doing my best to read a book to pass the time,
twirling my loose chestnut curls around my finger.
    To tell the truth, I had no idea what was happening in that
book. I must have read the same page fifty times. Instead, I ended up staring
at the peaceful, endless falling of snowflakes outside the window. At the sound
of the doorbell, my heart began to hammer in my chest, and I jumped out of the
chair and raced down the hallway towards the stairs.
    I was halfway down the stairs when I stopped dead in my
tracks, my hand frozen on the bannister. Wait. The Stewarts have the keys.
Why the hell would they ring the doorbell?
    It had to be someone else.
    I walked down slowly now, one step at a time. I’m
wearing a tank top and pajama shorts, I realized. My hair is a mess.
Where are my shoes? It was t otally ridiculous to answer the
door like this. Too late now.
    I looked through the peephole