Читать книгу Prince Daddy & the Nanny - Brenda Harlen - Страница 9

Hannah went through her closet, tossing items into one of two separate piles on her bed. The first was for anything she might need at Cielo del Norte, and the other was for everything else, which would go into storage. Thankfully, she didn’t have a lot of stuff, but she still had to sort and pack everything before she handed over her keys, and the task was much more time-consuming than she would have imagined.

Subletting her apartment had seemed like a good idea when she’d planned to spend the summer in China as an ESL teacher. Unfortunately the job offer had fallen through when she’d declined to share a tiny one-bedroom apartment with the coworker who’d made it clear that he wanted her in his bed. She felt like such a fool. She should have realized that Ian had ulterior motives when he first offered to take her to China, but she honestly hadn’t had a clue.

Yes, they’d been dating for a few months, but only casually and certainly not exclusively. When she’d sidestepped his advances, he’d seemed to accept that she didn’t want to take their relationship to the next level. So when he’d presented her with the opportunity to teach in China during the summer break, she’d trusted that he was making the offer as a colleague and a professional. Finding out that he expected them to share an apartment put a different spin on things.

Ian’s ultimatum was further evidence that she had poor judgment with respect to romantic entanglements, a truth first revealed by her broken engagement three years earlier. Now she had additionial confirmation in the fact that she was fighting an attraction to a man who wasn’t just a prince but grieving the death of his wife. With a sigh, Hannah taped up yet another box and pushed it aside.

When she finished in the bedroom, she packed up the contents of the bathroom. By the time she got to the kitchen, her legs were protesting all the bending and her shoulders were aching from all the lifting. But she still had to empty the pantry of boxed food and canned goods, which she was in the process of doing when the downstairs buzzer sounded.

She stopped packing only long enough to press the button that released the exterior door locks. It was six o’clock on a Friday night, so she knew it was her uncle Phillip at the door. Weekly dinners had become their way of keeping in touch when Hannah moved out of his house, and she sincerely regretted that she would have to skip the ritual for the next couple of months.

“It’s unlocked,” she said in response to his knock.

“A woman living alone in the city should lock her doors,” her uncle chided, passing through the portal with a large flat box in his hand and the sweet and spicy aroma of sausage pizza enveloping him. “Didn’t I ever teach you that?”

“You tried to teach me so many things,” she teased, standing up and wiping her hands on her jeans. “I thought I’d seen more than enough boxes today, but that one just changed my mind.”

“Packing is hard work.” He set the pizza on the counter and gave her a quick hug. He smelled of clean soap with subtle hints of sandalwood—a scent that was as warm and dependable as everything else about him.

“I’m almost done.” She moved out of his embrace to retrieve plates from the cupboard. “Finally.”

“How long have you been at it?” He opened the refrigerator, pulled a couple of cans of soda from the nearly empty shelves.

“It seems like forever. Probably about seven hours. But I’ve already moved a lot of stuff into a storage locker downstairs, so it shouldn’t take me too much longer.”

Hannah took a seat on the opposite side of the table from him and helped herself to a slice of pizza. She hadn’t realized how hungry she was until she took the first bite. Of course, she’d been too nervous about her interview with Prince Michael to eat lunch earlier, which reminded her that she hadn’t yet told her uncle about the new job.

But he spoke before she could, saying, “I heard you’re heading up to Cielo del Norte on Monday.”

Phillip was a highly regarded doctor in the community and his network of contacts was legendary, but she still didn’t see how he could have learned the outcome of her interview with the prince already. “How did you hear that?”

He smiled, recognizing the pique in her tone. “The prince called to thank me for the recommendation.”

“Oh.” She should have considered that possibility. “Well, his appreciation might be a little premature.”

“I have every confidence that you’re just what his daughter needs,” Phillip said.

She wasn’t so sure. She was a teacher, and she loved being a teacher, but that didn’t mean she was qualified to work as a nanny.

And yet that wasn’t her greatest worry. A far bigger concern, and one she was reluctant to admit even to herself, was that she now knew she’d never completely let go of her childhood infatuation with Prince Michael Leandres.

She should have outgrown that silly crush years ago. And she’d thought she had—until she stood in front of him with her heart beating so loudly inside of her chest she was amazed that he couldn’t hear it.

So now she was trying not to think about the fact that she would be spending the next two months at Cielo del Norte with the sexy prince who was still grieving the loss of his wife, and attempting to focus instead on the challenges of spending her days with an almost-four-year-old princess.

“I wish I shared your faith,” Hannah said to her uncle now.

“Why would you have doubts?”

“I’m just not sure that hiring a temporary replacement is the best thing for a young child who has just lost her primary caregiver.” It was the only concern she felt comfortable offering her uncle, because she knew that confiding in him about her childhood crush would only worry him.

“Your compassion is only one of the reasons I know you’ll be perfect for the job,” Phillip said. “As for Riley, I think she’ll surprise you. She is remarkably mature for her age and very well-adjusted.”

“Then why does the prince even need a nanny? Why can’t he just enjoy a summer at the beach with his daughter without pawning off the responsibility of her care on someone else?”

“Prince Michael is doing the best that he can,” her uncle said. “He’s had to make a lot of adjustments in his life, too, since losing his wife.”

Hannah used to wonder why people referred to a death as a loss—as if the person was only missing. She’d been there when her mother died, so she knew that she wasn’t “lost” but gone. Forever.

And after her death her husband had handed their daughter over to his brother-in-law, happy to relinquish to someone else the responsibility of raising his only child. Just as the prince was doing.

Was she judging him too harshly? Possibly. Certainly she was judging him prematurely. There were a lot of professionals who hired caregivers for their children, and although Prince Michael kept a fairly low profile in comparison to other members of his family, she knew that he had occasional royal duties to perform in addition to being president and CEO of his own company. And he was a widower trying to raise a young daughter on his own after the unexpected death of his wife from severe hypoglycemia only hours after childbirth.

Maybe her uncle was right and he was doing the best that he could. In any event, she would be at Cielo del Norte in a few days with the prince and his daughter. No doubt her questions would be answered then.

“So what are you going to do with your Friday nights while I’m gone this summer?” she asked her uncle, hoping a change in the topic of conversation would also succeed in changing the direction of her thoughts.

“I’m sure there will be occasional medical emergencies to keep me occupied,” Phillip told her.

She smiled, because she knew it was true. “Will you come to visit me?”

“If I can get away. But you really shouldn’t worry about me—there’s enough going on with the Juno project at the hospital to keep me busy over the next several months.”

“Okay, I won’t worry,” she promised. “But I will miss

you.”

“You’ll be too busy rubbing elbows with royalty to think about anyone else,” he teased.

She got up to clear their empty plates away, not wanting him to see the flush in her cheeks. Because the idea of rubbing anything of hers against anything of Prince Michael’s—even something as innocuous as elbows—made her feel hot and tingly inside.

Heading up to Cielo del Norte on Saturday afternoon had seemed like a good idea to Michael while he was packing up the car. And Riley had been excited to start their summer vacation. Certainly she’d given him no reason to anticipate any problems, but if there was one thing he should have learned by now about parenting, it was to always expect the unexpected.

The trip itself had been uneventful enough. Estavan Fuentes, the groundskeeper and general maintenance man, had been waiting when they arrived to unload the vehicle; and Caridad, Estavan’s wife and the longtime housekeeper of the estate, had the beds all made up and dinner ready in the oven.

As Michael had enjoyed a glass of his favorite cabernet along with the hot meal, he’d felt the tensions of the city melt away. It was several hours later before he recognized that peaceful interlude as the calm before the storm.

Now it was after midnight, and as he slipped out onto the back terrace and into the blissful quiet of the night, he exhaled a long, weary sigh. It was the only sound aside from the rhythmic lap of the waves against the shore in the distance, and he took a moment to absorb—and appreciate—the silence.

With another sigh, he sank onto the end of a lounge chair and let the peacefulness of the night settle like a blanket across his shoulders. Tipping his head back, he marveled at the array of stars that sparkled like an exquisite selection of diamonds spread out on a black jeweler’s cloth.

He jolted when he heard the French door slide open again.

“Relax—she’s sleeping like a baby.” His sister’s voice was little more than a whisper, as if she was also reluctant to disturb the quiet.

He settled into his chair again. “I thought you’d be asleep, too. You said you wanted to get an early start back in the morning.”

“I do,” Marissa agreed. “But the stars were calling to me.”

He smiled, remembering that those were the same words their father used to say whenever they found him out on this same terrace late at night. They’d spent a lot of time at Cielo del Norte when they were kids, and Michael had a lot of fond memories of their family vacations, particularly in the earlier years, before their father passed away. Their mother had continued the tradition for a while, but it was never the same afterward and they all knew it.

Gaetan Leandres had been raised with a deep appreciation for not just the earth but the seas and the skies, too. He’d been a farmer by trade and a stargazer by choice. He’d spent hours sitting out here, searching for various constellations and pointing them out to his children. He’d once told Michael that whenever he felt overwhelmed by earthly burdens, he just had to look up at the sky and remember how much bigger the world was in comparison to his problems.

Marissa sat down on the end of a lounger, her gaze on something far off in the distance. “I know they’re the same stars I can see from my windows in the city, but they look so different out here. So much brighter.”

“Why don’t you stay for a few days?” he offered, feeling more than a little guilty that she’d driven all the way from Port Augustine in response to his distress call.

“I wish I could, but I’ve got three full days of meetings scheduled this week.”

“Which you should have told me when I got you on the phone.”

She lifted a shoulder. “I couldn’t not come, not when I heard Riley sobbing in the background.”

And that was why he’d called. His daughter, tired from the journey, had fallen asleep earlier than usual. A few hours later, she’d awakened screaming like a banshee and nothing he said or did seemed to console her. She’d been in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room and Brigitte—her primary caregiver—was on a plane halfway to Iceland. Michael had tried to console Riley, he’d cuddled her, rocked her, put on music for her to listen to, tried to read stories to her, but nothing had worked.

It hadn’t occurred to him to call his mother—the princess royal wouldn’t know what to do any more than he did. It wasn’t in her nature to offer comfort or support. In fact, the only things he’d ever been able to count on his mother to do were interfere and manipulate. So he’d picked up the phone and dialed his sister’s number. During the first year and a half after Sam’s death, before he’d hired Brigitte full-time, Marissa had been there, taking care of both him and his daughter. And, once again, she’d come through when he needed her.

“Do you think I should have stayed in Port Augustine with her?” he asked his sister now.

“That would have meant a much shorter trip for me,” she teased, “but no. I’m glad you’re maintaining the family tradition.”

Except that he didn’t have a family anymore—for the past four summers, it had been just him and Riley. And Brigitte, of course.

“When does the new nanny arrive?”

Marissa’s question drew him back to the present—and to more immediate concerns.

“Tomorrow.”

She tilted her head. “Why do you sound wary?”

“Do I?” he countered.

“Are you having second thoughts about her qualifications?”

“No,” he said, then reconsidered his response. “Yes.”

Her brows rose.

No, because it wasn’t anything on Hannah’s résumé that gave him cause for concern. Yes, because he wasn’t completely convinced that a teacher would be a suitable caregiver for his daughter—even on a temporary basis.

“No,” he decided. “Dr. Marotta would never have recommended her if he didn’t believe she was capable of caring for Riley.”

“Of course not,” his sister agreed. “So what are you worried about?”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t even deny that he was worried, because his sister knew him too well to believe it. Worse, she would probably see right through the lie to the true origin of his concern. And he was concerned, mostly about the fact that he’d been thinking of Hannah Castillo far too frequently since their first meeting.

He’d had no preconceptions when he’d agreed to interview her. His only concern had been to find someone suitable to oversee the care of his daughter during the summer—because after conducting more than a dozen interviews, he’d been shocked to realize how unsuitable so many of the applicants had been.

Almost half of them he’d automatically rejected because of their advanced age. Logically, he knew that was unfair, but he had too many unhappy memories of strict, gray-haired disciplinarians from his own childhood. Another few he’d disregarded when it became apparent that they were more interested in flirting with him than caring for his daughter. Two more had been shown the door when they’d been caught snapping photos of his home with the cameras on their cell phones.

At the conclusion of those interviews, he’d almost given up hope of finding a replacement for Brigitte. Then, during a casual conversation with Riley’s doctor, he’d mentioned his dilemma and Phillip had suggested that his niece might be interested in the job—but only for the summer.

So Michael had agreed to interview her and crossed his fingers that she would be suitable. Then Hannah had walked into his office, and suitable was the last thought on his mind.

“Oh,” Marissa said, and sat back, a smile playing at the corners of her lips.

He scowled. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“She’s very attractive, isn’t she?”

His scowl deepened.

“I should have guessed. Nothing ever flusters you—okay, nothing except anything to do with Riley,” she clarified. “But this woman has you completely flustered.”

“I am not flustered,” he denied.

“This is good,” Marissa continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “And it’s time.”

“Mar—”

She put her hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Okay, okay. I won’t push for any details.”

“There are no details,” he insisted.

“Not yet,” she said, and smiled.

His sister always liked to get in the last word, and this time he let her. It would serve no purpose to tell her that he wasn’t interested in any kind of relationship with Riley’s temporary nanny—it only mattered that it was true.

And he would repeat it to himself as many times as necessary until he actually believed it.

With every mile that Hannah got closer to Cielo del Norte, her excitement and apprehension increased. If she’d been nervous before her previous meeting with the prince—simply at the thought of meeting him—that was nothing compared to the tension that filled her now. Because now she was actually going to live with him—and his daughter, of course.

She could tell herself that it was a temporary position, that she was only committing two months of her time. But two months was a heck of a long time to maintain her objectivity with respect to a man she’d fallen head over heels for when she was only twelve years old, and a little girl who had taken hold of her heart the very first time she’d met her.

Hannah cranked up the radio in the hope that the pulsing music would push the thoughts out of her head. It didn’t.

She wrapped her fingers around the steering wheel, her palms sliding over the smooth leather, and was reminded of the feel of his hand against hers. Warm. Strong. Solid.

She really was pathetic.

She really should have said no when her uncle first suggested that she could be anyone’s nanny. But as she drove through the gates toward the prince’s summer home, after showing her identification to the guard on duty, she knew that she’d passed the point of no return.

Cielo del Norte was even more impressive than the prince’s home in Verde Colinas. Of course, it had once been the royal family’s official summer residence, bequeathed to the princess royal by her father upon the occasion of her marriage to Gaetan Leandres.

Hannah had been advised that there were two full-time employees who lived in a guest cottage on the property, the groundskeeper and his wife. Hannah had been thrilled to hear that Caridad, the housekeeper, also cooked and served the meals, because she knew that if she’d been put in charge of food preparation as well as child care, they might all starve before the end of the summer.

She parked her aging little car beside a gleaming black Mercedes SUV and made her way to the door. An older woman in a neatly pressed uniform responded to the bell.

“Mrs. Fuentes?”

“Sí. Caridad Fuentes.” She bowed formally. “You are Miss Castillo?”

“Hannah,” she said, stepping into the foyer.

“The prince has been expecting you.” There was the slightest hint of disapproval beneath the words.

“I was a little late getting away this morning,” she explained. “And then traffic was heavier than I expected. Of course, taking a wrong turn at Highway Six didn’t help, either, but at least I didn’t travel too far out of my way.”

The housekeeper didn’t comment in any way except to ask, “Are your bags in the car?”

“Yes, I’ll get them later.”

“Estavan—my husband—will bring them in for you,” Mrs. Fuentes told her.

“Okay. That would be great. Thanks.” She paused, just taking a minute to absorb the scene.

She’d thought passing through the gates at Verde Colinas had been a culture shock, but now she felt even more like a country mouse set loose in the big city. The house, probably three times the size of the prince’s primary residence in Port Augustine, almost seemed as big as a city—a very prosperous and exquisite one.

“There’s a powder room down the hall, if you would like to freshen up before meeting with Prince Michael,” the housekeeper told her.

Hannah nodded. “I would.”

“First door on the right.”

“And the prince’s office?”

“The third door on the left down the west corridor.”

Michael sensed her presence even before he saw her standing in the open doorway. When he looked up, he noticed that she’d dressed less formally today than at their first meeting, and that the jeans and T-shirt she wore made her look even younger than he’d originally guessed. He’d told her that casual attire was acceptable, and there was nothing inappropriate about what she was wearing. But he couldn’t help noticing how the denim hugged her thighs and molded to her slim hips. The V-neck of her T-shirt wasn’t low enough to give even a glimpse of cleavage, but the soft cotton clung to undeniably feminine curves. She wore silver hoops in her ears, and her hair was in a loose ponytail rather than a tight knot, making her look more approachable and even more beautiful, and he felt the distinct hum of sexual attraction through his veins.

Uncomfortable with the stirring of feelings so long dormant, his voice was a little harsher than he’d intended when he said, “You’re late.”

Still, his tone didn’t seem to faze her. “I told you that I would come as soon as possible, and I did.”

“I had a conference call at 8:00 a.m. this morning that I had to reschedule because you weren’t here.”

He expected that she would apologize or show some sign of remorse. Instead she surprised him by asking, “Why on earth would you schedule a conference call so early on the first morning of your vacation?”

“I told you that I would be conducting business from here,” he reminded her. “And your job is to take care of my daughter so that I can focus on doing so.”

“A job I’m looking forward to,” she assured him.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he said. “I would expect that someone who spends ten months out of the year with kids would want a break.”

“Spending the summer with a four-year-old is a welcome break from senior advanced English and history,” she told him.

Senior English and history? The implications of her statement left him momentarily speechless. “You’re a high school teacher?” he finally said.

Now it was her turn to frown. “I thought you knew that.”

He shook his head. “Phillip said you would be perfect for the job because you were a teacher—I assumed he meant elementary school.”

“Well, you assumed wrong.” She shrugged, the casual gesture drawing his attention to the rise and fall of her breasts beneath her T-shirt and very nearly making him forget the reason for his concern.

“So what kind of experience do you have with preschool children, Miss Castillo?” he asked, forcing his gaze back to her face.

“Other than the fact that I was one?” she asked lightly.

“Other than that,” he agreed.

“None,” she admitted.

“None?” Dios! How could this have happened? He was the consummate planner. He scheduled appointment reminders in his BlackBerry; he took detailed notes at every meeting; he checked and double-checked all correspondence before he signed anything. And yet he’d somehow managed to hire a nanny who knew absolutely nothing about being a nanny.

“Well, my friend Karen has a couple of kids, and I’ve spent a lot of time with them,” Hannah continued.

He shook his head, trying to find solace in the fact that their agreement was for only two months, but he was beginning to question why he’d been in such a hurry to replace Brigitte. Had he been thinking of Riley—or had he been more concerned about maintaining the status quo in his own life? Or maybe he’d been spellbound by Miss Castillo’s sparkling eyes and warm smile. Regardless of his reasons, he knew it wasn’t her fault that he’d hired her on the basis of some mistaken assumptions. But if she was going to spend the summer with Riley, she had a lot to learn—and fast.

“You’ll need this,” he said, passing a sheaf of papers across the desk.

In the transfer of the pages, her fingers brushed against his. It was a brief and incidental contact, but he felt the jolt sizzle in his veins. Her gaze shot to meet his, and the widening of her eyes confirmed that she’d felt it, too. That undeniable tug of a distinctly sexual attraction.

As he looked into her eyes, he realized he’d made another mistake in thinking that they were blue—they were actually more gray than blue, the color of the sky before a storm, and just as mesmerizing.

Then she glanced away, down at the papers he’d given to her, and he wondered if maybe he’d imagined both her reaction and his own.

“What is this?” she asked him.

“It’s Riley’s schedule.”

She looked back at him, then at the papers again. “You’re kidding.”

“A child needs consistency,” he said firmly, because it was something Brigitte had always insisted upon, and he usually deferred to the nanny with respect to decisions about his daughter’s care.

“If you’re referring to a prescribed bedtime, I would absolutely agree,” Hannah said. “But a child also needs a chance to be spontaneous and creative, and this—” she glanced at the chart again, obviously appalled “—this even schedules her bathroom breaks.”

Maybe the charts Brigitte had prepared for the new nanny did provide a little too much detail, but he understood that she’d only wanted to ease the transition for both Riley and her temporary caregiver. “Brigitte found that taking Riley to the bathroom at prescribed times greatly simplified the toilet-training process.”

“But she’s almost four years old now,” Hannah noted. “I’m sure …” Her words trailed off, her cheeks flushed. “I’m sorry—I just didn’t expect that there would be so much to occupy her time.”

He’d had some concerns initially, too, but Brigitte had made him see the benefits for Riley. Maybe she was young, but she was so mature for her age, so focused, and she was learning so much. She had a natural musical talent, an artistic touch and a gift for languages, and there was no way he was going to let this temporary nanny upset the status quo with questions and criticisms on her first day on the job. Even if her doubts echoed his own.

“It is now almost eleven o’clock, Miss Castillo,” he pointed out to her.

She glanced at the page in her hand. “I guess that means it’s almost time for the princess’s piano lesson.”

“The music room is at the end of the hall.”

She folded the schedule and dropped a curtsy.

He deliberately refocused his attention back on the papers on his desk so that he wouldn’t watch her walk away.

But he couldn’t deny that she tempted him in more ways than he was ready to acknowledge.