The Prince and the Nanny
Cara Colter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

COMING NEXT MONTH

PROLOGUE

“OH, DEAR,” Mrs. Abigail Smith stammered, “Oh dear, indeed.”

Mrs. Abigail Smith was not a woman easily ruffled. For forty-three years the graduates of Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies had been eagerly sought by business moguls, financial wizards, movie stars, the old money and the nouveau riche.

Famous people did not fluster her. Au contraire! She specialized in dealing with the sometimes difficult and eccentric people of substance, and she considered it her special gift to cater to the needs of their children.

Still, for all that, Mrs. Smith had never been in the same room as a real live prince.

Prince Ryan Kaelan, House of Kaelan, Isle of Momhilegra, more commonly known as the Isle of Music, sat before her radiating presence.

Though she had sat across this very desk from many of the world’s most powerful people, or at least their representatives, she had never quite felt this before.

Awe.

She was awed by him. He was an intimidatingly handsome man, dressed in a long, black cashmere coat, the pristine white of a silk shirt collar showing beneath. But even without the obvious expense of those tailored clothes showing off the broadness of his shoulder, his amazing height, he would have been arresting. His physical appeal cast what Mrs. Smith’s generation would have called the spell of the black Irish. He had hair the color of night, thick and manicured. The prince also possessed amazing skin, faintly copper-toned, golden, and his features, from high cheekbones to straight nose, to clefted chin, were unreasonably attractive.

But it was his eyes that were arresting. Midnight-blue mingled with the color of sapphires, they were ridged by sinfully sooty lashes, and they were the deep, dark eyes of a man much older than the twenty-eight years the prince had walked the earth. The prince’s eyes held command, charisma…and sorrow.

“Oh dear,” Mrs. Smith said again, of his request.

“Is there a problem?” His voice was the voice one would expect from a man of such stature: educated, composed, full of certainty, and yet mysterious and elusive music, the Gaelic accents of his homeland, were threaded through it. The result was, well, sensual.

Sensual? She was going to be seventy-three on her next birthday, but she felt herself blushing like a schoolgirl.

“Yes!” she said, grabbing a trifle desperately onto his own turn of phrase. “A problem! Miss Winslow is, er, otherwise engaged.”

He nodded, a slight incline of his head, but his gaze locked on hers, and he tapped his leather gloves lightly against his coat sleeve, ever so faintly impatient. She felt her state of fluster grow. He was a man who expected the world to bend to his will, who was used to his every request being granted.

But Prudence Winslow for his nanny? As the royal nanny to his two motherless children, a five-year-old boy, and a baby girl, just over a year? Impossible!

“We have many nannies who are imminently suitable for this position,” Mrs. Smith rushed to assure him. “In fact—” she began to go through the papers on her desk, aware that she was pawing in her haste to please him “—I have—”

His hand came to rest on top of hers, to stop her, and she nearly fainted at the intensity of that single, brief touch.

“I want her,” he said.

Mrs. Smith felt like a fish, beached, her mouth moving, but not a sound coming out. A statement like that could be left open to wild misinterpretation!

“Her,” he repeated, almost gently, gesturing to the picture in front of him, but there was no mistaking he intended to get what he wanted.

The picture he was pointing to was part of a newspaper article, the story that had put Miss P. Winslow—not to mention Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies—on the map.

The photo looked like a heap of dark clothing collapsed in front of a car. In fact, it was Prudence Winslow, moments after she had shoved the stroller she was pushing to safety after some maniac in a stolen car had run the red light where she was crossing the street.

It had, of course, been an act of singular bravery, so far above and beyond the call of duty that the whole of New York City was proclaiming Prudence a hero. It seemed everyone now wanted nannies who were willing to place their lives on the line for their young charges.

Prudence herself, to her great credit, was annoyed by the fuss, and eager to leave the incident behind her.

And sadly, save for that one incident, Prudence was not exactly the poster child Mrs. Smith would have selected for her academy.

Prudence was simply a little too everything: too tall, too flamboyant and too rebellious. Too redheaded, Mrs. Smith thought though she knew to judge temperament by hair color was hopelessly old-fashioned. Still, that hair said it all: wild, cascading curls of pure copper, that refused to be tamed into a proper bun. And the girl’s eyes: green, snapping with spunk, with spirit, with that certain mischief that made her a huge hit with children. The eyes, the hair, the height and the mischief added up to an unfortunate distraction to any male member of the household over the age of puberty.

Prudence’s first two postings had not been great successes. Will not wear a uniform, the first had said as a reason for dismissal. Reading between the lines, Mrs. Smith suspected the man of the house had probably noticed Prue just a little too much. In a stroke of genius, when Prue’s second posting had ended as badly as her first, Mrs. Smith had placed Prue in a single-mother home.

Still, Mrs. Smith knew she was uncharacteristically indulgent of the girl’s defects, possibly because Prudence had been raised by one of her very own nannies.

When Marcus Winslow had died unexpectedly last year, it had quickly become apparent he had been holding together a house of cards. Not a penny left. And that house of cards had toppled right on top of his unsuspecting—and totally spoiled—only daughter.

Really, after the unhappy endings of those first two placements, Mrs. Smith shouldn’t have given her any more chances, but she admired how Prudence had risen to the challenges tossed at her. It was very hard not to admire a person who, when handed lemons, made lemonade.

And Prudence did love children! One day, Mrs. Smith was determined, that with patience and practice, Prudence Winslow would make a fine nanny.

But to test her optimism on a prince? One that the whole world watched incessantly? Whose every tragedy, triumph—whose every breath—was so documented?

“Dear—” She blushed, realizing dear was not the proper form of address for a prince. “I just don’t think Prudence would be a good match for your household.”

“Prudence?” he said, and then smiled as if everything he had thought had been confirmed. “So, that’s what the P stands for. A virtuous, old-fashioned name,” he said, pleased, ignoring the fact completely that she had just told him Prudence would not do for his household.

Mrs. Smith was not sure she had ever met anyone as dramatically mismatched to her name as Prudence was! The girl had once told her she had been named after a maiden aunt in hopes of gaining her favor and fortune!

“Your Royal Highness,” she said delicately, “Do you recall a movie called The Sound of Music?” He looked baffled, and she realized the movie was not of his generation, nor were Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes the kind of music that his kingdom, a tiny island in the southern most portion of the Irish Sea, was famous for.

The Isle of Momhilegra was known for music: classical schools, retreats for passionate music buffs, the trees that produced the most astoundingly beautiful musical instruments. At odds with its cultured reputation was its notoriety for hosting a world famous Soap Box Derby every year.

“Maria,” she said helpfully, just in case, sometime, somewhere he had caught a snippet of that lovely movie. “She’s more like a Maria than a Prudence.”

The prince looked puzzled.

“Maria times ten,” she said, a little desperately. She wanted to add, but didn’t, Maria with pizzaz. Jazz. Sex appeal.

He’d had enough and it showed in a subtle change of his posture, the faintest hardening around the line of his mouth. He leaned forward, and pinned her with those amazing eyes.

“I would like to meet her.”

The politeness of his tone did not mask the fact he had just issued poor Mrs. Smith with a royal dictate.

She told herself he had absolutely no authority anywhere in the world but his own small island nation. She told herself that, and did not for one second believe it. He was a man who carried his authority deep within him, separate from the title he enjoyed. She lowered her eyes from the devastating command of his.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Mrs. Smith said.

CHAPTER ONE

PRUDENCE WINSLOW was late. And for once it wasn’t her fault. Well, maybe a little her fault, but not entirely her fault.

She cast a quick look at her reflection in the doors that led her into the exquisite lobby of the Waldorf Towers, one of the grandest of the Manhattan hotels, though her father had always preferred to put up business guests in the St. Regis Club in Essex House right on the park.

She sighed at her own reflection. Disheveled. It was raining slightly, and humidity had a tendency to play havoc with hair that didn’t like taming at the best of times. Coils of copper had sprung free from the bun Mrs. Smith insisted on. Mrs. Smith had also insisted on a skirt, hem below the knee dear, and the skirt had not stood up well to her travels, apparently disliking humidity as much as her hair.

Young Brian, clingy since the accident, and unhappy with the replacement nanny—without giving her a chance, naturally—had managed to spill butterscotch pudding on Prue’s navy trench coat just as she was getting away. Despite her best—and time consuming—effort the smear had refused to be totally eradicated.

Still, she crossed the lobby with the haughtiness of a queen, and eyed the desk clerk.

Cute, she thought. Blonde. A poor girl’s Brad Pitt. Then she reminded herself she was a reformed woman. Still, she had to fight the smallest urge to smile at him. Six months without so much as a date!

And six months to go, she warned herself sternly. Being as businesslike as one could be with a smear of butterscotch pudding on her lapel, and while fighting the temptation to just offer one little smile and see what happened, she announced, “I’m here to see, um, Kaelan Prince.”

On the phone earlier, Mrs. Smith had been uncharacteristically chatty, and evasive at the same time. Prudence had gotten that a man wanted to meet her. Because of the newspaper story. Be on time, be presentable.

“A skirt,” Mrs. Smith had specified sternly. “And, dear, do something with your hair!”

Well, she was in a skirt, not anything like the flirty little numbers she once would have worn. Mary Poppins approved. But she was not on time and not particularly presentable, either. Prue didn’t want to meet a man because of all the silly attention of that newspaper story. So far, after the financial scandals surrounding her father’s death, Prudence had managed to stay out of the relentless radar of the press. No connection had been made between Winslow, the-heroic-nanny, and Winslow-the-crumbled-empire.

She wanted it to stay that way, so she had tried to refuse this meeting, but Mrs. Smith had been adamant.

“For the good of the Academy, dear,” she’d said.

Prue had not needed to be reminded how much she owed Mrs. Smith, who had been there for her when so few others had been.

“Kaelan Prince,” she repeated to the clerk, who was looking baffled.

Suddenly a light came on for him. “Kaelan Prince? I think you must mean Prince Ryan Kaelan.”

“Whatever,” she said, thinking right, everyone’s a rock star, and glancing at her watch. Ten minutes late. Shoot.

“Ah,” he said, a trifle uncomfortably, “the young women over there are trying to catch a glimpse of him, as well.”

Prue followed his gaze and frowned. A gaggle of young girls and women were clustered together by the elevators, giggling.

“I’m expected,” she said, and saw that her change of tone affected him as much as the words. Oh, she could still be her father’s daughter when she wanted to be.

“Your name, madam?” he said, picking up the phone.

She gave it to him, and he made a call. He looked at her with an entirely different kind of interest when he set down the phone. “Someone will be down to escort you immediately, Miss Winslow.”

“Thank you.”

Down to escort her? What was going on? Was the man really a rock star? It would be totally unlike Mrs. Smith to be influenced by celebrity.

The doors to the elevator slid open, and the small crowd by it pushed forward hopefully, and then started calling out questions. “Will he be down today? How is Gavin?” One girl, lovely, stood out from the rest. She looked all of twelve, and was wildly waving a sign that said Someday My Prince Will Come.

The child reminded Prudence of herself at twelve, hoping, craving, living in a fantasy because real life was too lonely.

Girl, she thought, we need to talk.

But her focus changed to an older, very dignified looking man in a dark green uniform with gold epithets on the shoulders coming toward her. There was some sort of crest on his breast: it looked like a dragon coiled around an instrument she thought might have been a lute.

He ignored the gathering, came to her and inclined his head ever so slightly. “Miss Winslow? If you’ll come with me. Ignore them,” he suggested out of the side of his mouth as they passed through the throng.

“Ronald,” he introduced himself as the elevator doors whispered closed, and she found herself alone with him in the elevator. She regarded him thoughtfully.

Older, but very handsome. One little smile. She sighed at how very hard it was to become a new person.

“Have you been briefed in protocol?”

“Excuse me?”

“Aside from punctuality, certain forms are expected of visitors.”

He managed to say that in a way that took the sting out of the fact that he was mildly reprimanding her for being late.

“A curtsy is no longer necessary, though of course, if you desire—”

“You’re kidding me, right? A curtsy?” She laughed, and then registered the faintly offended dignity on Ronald’s face. She recalled, the desk clerk correcting her on the name. Not a rock star after all!

“Are you telling me,” she said slowly and softly, “I’m going to meet a prince? A real prince?”

“Yes, miss. I’m sorry. I thought you knew.”

Why hadn’t Mrs. Smith told her this? Or had that snippet of information been buried somewhere in that muddled phone call?

No, no, NO! Life was too unfair. Coincidence was too cruel. Just like that girl at the elevator, Prudence had believed in princes. Oh, had she ever! She was the love junkie! She had collected books and movies, she had craved the things they promised. Since she was fourteen years old, and had discovered how much men liked her, she had been searching, she had known deep in her heart that when she kissed the right one her fairy tale would begin.

But so far she had kissed a thousand toads, and not one of them had turned into a prince.

And then, last year, after the death of her father, she had realized, ever so painfully it was the love of that remote and disconnected man that she had craved, and that now she would never receive it. Never.

She had turned over a new leaf. No romance for a year. Not a single date, not a kiss, nothing. Somewhere, she knew, in that desperate search for a prince, she had lost herself.

And lately, she’d begun to have a sense of finding what had been lost.

The universe was testing her resolve! That’s what was happening. Prudence became very aware that she did not want to meet a prince, she was not ready to have her resolve tested! She eyed the emergency stop button on the elevator.

A hand touched her sleeve, and she looked into her escort’s eyes. They were kind and good-humored. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” he said quietly.

“Afraid?” she said defensively. She, Prudence Winslow had never been afraid of anything! Unless winding up alone counted!

And lately even thought didn’t fill her with panic the way it once had. She thought, resolutely, of her volunteer work. Before finding Mrs. Smith’s academy, shortly after her father’s death, she had found herself at a food bank, humiliated and hungry. Now, every spare moment and cent she had were spent paying back to that wonderful organization that not only fed the hungry, but allowed them to keep their dignity.

Her life was on track! She wasn’t ready for this challenge. She just wasn’t.

“Dammit,” she said, and tried to capture some of those loose curls and force them back into place.

Her escort eyed her with a trace of uneasiness. “Naturally we don’t curse in the presence of His Royal Highness,” he said, tactfully.

“Naturally,” she repeated, gave up on her hair and folded her restless hands primly in front of her.

“The correct form of address, when you are presented to him, is Your Royal Highness, not Prince Ryan. After the initial meeting, you may call him ‘sir.’”

“Ah,” she said. “But no curtsy.”

If he detected even a hint of sarcasm, he pretended not to. “Unless you want to,” he assured her.

“Believe me, I don’t.” An attempt at a curtsy would probably land her right on her nose not, thank heaven, that she was the curtsying type. Even in her fantasies!

Ronald’s sigh was barely audible. “I believe you.” The elevator doors slid open and she was led across a thickly carpeted hallway to double doors that opened to sheer opulence.

The hotel suite was resplendent with vases of fresh, sweetscented lilies. There was a grand piano in the main room, silkcovered sofas, rich carpeting. An elegant chandelier dripped raindrops of light, the fireplace was lit against the dampness of the day.

“May I take your coat?”

She didn’t want to surrender her coat, even with its stain! It felt like some form of protection!

Against what? she asked herself annoyed. She shrugged off the stained jacket. Underneath she had on a plain white blouse that had been pressed, but was intent on reacting to the humidity in the same way as the skirt and her hair.

“Please, have a seat,” Ronald said. “I will announce you.”

But she couldn’t sit. She studied the tasteful paintings, the view out the window, glanced in at the dining room that was through adjoining double doors. A maid, in a crisp uniform, was setting the Queen Anne table for eight.

The time ticked by. Why was she here? Why had Mrs. Smith sent her here? Prudence hated this! She did not like mysteries. Since her father’s death she was absolutely allergic to surprises. She liked control, the neat and tidy little world that she was building for herself, the amount of money she was managing to raise for Loaves and Fishes.

Once upon a time, that amount of money would have seemed laughable to her.

It occurred to her, she did not want to be using the phrase once upon a time when she was about to meet a prince. She was the girl who had sworn off fairy tales! Suddenly she relaxed. She got it! The prince was going to be ugly. Old. Fat. Balding. She was here to learn how ridiculous her fantasies had always been!

The universe wasn’t testing her. It was rewarding her, saying, girl, you are on the right track.

Just in case she was wrong, she eyed the door wistfully, but knew she could not let Mrs. Smith down. If Mrs. Smith wanted her to meet a prince, and thought it might be in some way good for Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Fine Nannies, Prudence would do her best.

Did Mrs. Smith know, that if you said it really fast, three times in a row, the last time it came out Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies? What if Prue accidentally said that to the prince? What if she thought about it when she was with him? At her father’s funeral, she had suddenly thought of the time she had wrapped his favorite dog, Kelpie, in toilet paper, and then she’d had to fight the absurd desire to giggle for the rest of the service.

This was going to be the same. She just knew it. She might as well leave now, before she brought eternal shame down on the Academy of Nine Fannies.

But before she could act, the double doors opened on the other side of the suite, and Ronald came through first, holding the door.

Prue felt her mouth fall open at the man who swept through those open doors, and she snapped it shut.

He was not ugly. Old. Fat. Balding. He was every girl’s fantasy of what a prince should be. If ever a story started once upon a time, it would be the story that began with him sweeping into the room.

Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies was wiped from her mind as she watched the man cross the room toward her.

He was tall enough to make her feel small, and at five feet eleven inches Prue had not enjoyed that sensation since she was about eight years old. He was dressed in an ivory sweater, dark shirt and dark slacks, but even if he had been dressed in dungarees there would have been no mistaking his station in life. He carried himself with a kind of pure confidence, the inborn grace of a man who knew exactly who he was. He carried himself as a man born to inherit the very earth, and he knew it.

Though each of his features was chiseled masculine perfection, it was his eyes that caught and held her. They were an astounding shade of blue, reminding her of the waters off the Hawaiian coast of Kona, where her father had kept a winter house.

Still, she told herself desperately, he was not at all her type. She had decided long ago that a man with dark coloring wouldn’t do. If she married someone fair, her children might be strawberry-blondes, instead of flaming redheads!

Plus, something about his confidence set her teeth on edge, because it looked like it bordered on arrogance, and arrogance headed her list of fatal flaws that barred a man from ever being her Mr. Right. Of course, the list contained many other items, terribly superficial, but important to her nonetheless, from hairy nostrils to bad toenails!

The prince was the one who closed the space between them, since she found she could not move. He extended his hand, which she had not expected. She shot a look at Ronald, and caught his slight nod. She took the hand offered her.

And felt enormous strength…and something else, a sizzle of pure awareness, despite his dark coloring and the fact she had not inspected his toenails, though his nostrils were a definite pass. Still, the feeling was not appropriate—not nanny and prince, but man and woman.

The universe was being exceedingly cruel! She jerked her hand out of his. There was no feeling in the world she had to fight more than that one! Oh, how that feeling could make a woman weak, and cloud her judgment.

She should know.

No, there was no trusting yourself once that zing, was in the air, once that hope blossomed to life. In no time at all, she would be wasting hours of her life mooning, shopping for the perfect little thinking-of-you card, waiting for the phone to ring, trying on dresses with a view to what he might like.

She was having this reaction without his passing the toenail test!

It felt as if every bit of progress she had made in the last six months was suddenly threatened by a single touch from this stranger. It was as if the bottom was falling out of her world, as if she was tumbling crazily down with it.

“Miss Winslow,” he said, and his voice was an enchantment—deep, masculine, faintly musical. “What a pleasure.”

She loved his accent. She tried to bite out Your Royal Highness, but somehow she could not. If she knew how to curtsy, she suspected she would!

She tried to tuck a wayward curl behind her ear, failed, and then shoved her hands behind her back.

Say something, she ordered herself. “Hi.”

She felt the man in the green uniform’s tiny flinch, but if the prince was in any way offended it did not show.

He regarded her with those clear, astonishing eyes, and then smiled faintly.

The smile was devastating, despite the fact his two front teeth were faintly crooked and over lapped each other. Crooked teeth was on her list!

Still, that smile took the faint sternness on a face too young to hold sternness and washed it away. The faint imperfection of his teeth was oddly appealing.

So, despite the teeth his mouth was entirely kissable. One kiss and she would know. Prince, or toad?

Stop it, she ordered herself.

“Please,” he said, “have a seat.” He gestured to a chair, and then took a seat on the sofa at right angles to it. “Would you care for a refreshment?”

Whiskey on the rocks. Make it a double. “No, thank you.” She knew she should add Your Royal Highness or at least sir, but she was unable to do so, barely able to squeak out her refusal.

“Tell me a little about yourself,” he invited.

She stared at him, and then asked, flabbergasted, “Why?”

He frowned slightly. She suspected he was not accustomed to any request being questioned. Arrogant, she reminded herself. Still, he regarded her so thoughtfully she had to fight to keep from squirming.

Finally he said, “I read about your act of heroism in the newspaper. I’m here in New York on business. It made me curious about you.”

“Oh.” There was a terrible desire to spill it all—about the fear and loneliness and crippling self-doubt and self-evaluation and humiliation since her father’s death. There was a terrible desire to dismiss the arrogance, and trust whatever it was she saw in those eyes.

Depth?

Those eyes, she reminded herself, that had complete strangers in the lobby making fools of themselves, waving signs that said Someday My Prince Will Come.

“There’s nothing to know,” she said, hastily, her voice cool in defense of that familiar craving that she felt.

His silence was as commanding as his question had been, so she added, “Really.”

He still said nothing, and so she felt compelled to fill the silence between them.

“It wasn’t an act of heroism,” she said hurriedly, though she realized probably one did not correct the prince. “It wasn’t anything of the sort. It happened very quickly, and I never once made a conscious decision. I was crossing the street with the light, I realized a car was coming much too quickly, and that it wasn’t going to stop. I managed to shove the stroller out of the way, the car hit me. Not even very hard, really.”

She had a bruise on her hip the size of a pineapple, but even thinking about her naked hip in the presence of the prince seemed wildly off color, like thinking of nine fannies, which of course now she was!

“But isn’t that the nature of true courage?” he asked softly, “That it comes naturally, without a conscious thought?”

“No,” she said, “it’s not. True courage is to feel fear, and then to act in an honorable way, despite that.”

“Is it possible both forms are equally relevant?”

She had a feeling of being in a dream. She, who was only an hour removed from having butterscotch pudding spilled down her front, she who had irreverent and uncontrollable thoughts about the name of her employer’s most dignified business, she who thought about toilet paper wrapped dogs at funerals, was now sitting in a suite having a philosophical conversation with a prince. She was trying desperately to see him through the filter of her Fatal Flaws List, and just as desperately trying to conduct herself with some semblance of grace.

Prudence might have laughed at the absurdity of life, if she didn’t make the mistake of meeting his eyes.

She saw it again. Depth. Something absurdly compelling. Eyes like that could make a woman do or say something really stupid.

Mrs. Smith’s Academy of Nine Fannies.

“It wasn’t courage,” she insisted. “Instinct.”

“A mother having that kind of instinct I could understand. But to put yourself in such peril for a child that was not your own, that is something else.”

“I’m trying to tell you it was nothing,” she said.

“And I’m trying to tell you,” he said, his voice soft with command, “that it was something.”

“Oh.” Nearly as bad as hi but the man was stealing her breath and her wits at the same time as he was being arrogant! He hadn’t even been there. Who was he to decide what it had or hadn’t been?

“I am considering offering you a position in my household.”

She stared at him, aghast. She was barely going to be able to survive this interview with her vow intact. No men. No kisses. No attractions. No dates. No. No. No. She had six months to go! He was flawed, obviously, but to test herself by working in his household? Never!

“Your Royal Prince,” she said, “I don’t want to work for you. I mean in your household. I mean I am very happy where I’m at.”

Your Royal Prince! Mrs. Smith should have never trusted her with this kind of delicate assignment!

She didn’t like that smile one little bit, now. It said clearly that what she wanted was of little or no significance to him.

His life was about getting what he wanted. She suspected always. She hated that. Men who always get what they want was moving to number one on her list.

“I look after children,” she stated uneasily. “What would I do in your household?”

“I have two children,” he answered.

For some reason that left her flummoxed. She hadn’t thought he was married. Why not? How couldn’t he be? When he looked like that, and obviously the female population was intent on throwing themselves at him, how could he be unattached?

Oh, so this was what the universe was showing her. The prince was not ugly, fat, old or bald, though he did have some flaws. The biggest one: yippee, he was unavailable. She should be dancing for joy! Instead she felt strangely bereft, already giving in to her former self!

“I’m a widower,” he said softly.

She did not like the stab of sympathy that flashed through her. Or the strange sensation of relief. So, he was available. He was definitely not available to the likes of her.

Not that she was in the market for a prince. Not now.

“I don’t want to change jobs,” she said, a little more desperately. What she meant was she did not want to work for him. She did not want to indulge that small, weak part of her that wanted to believe in fairy tales!

And she truly did not want to change jobs. She loved little Brian. In that very instant she forgave him the butterscotch stain on her best coat. Besides, Loaves and Fishes needed her! She was proving an inspired fund-raiser.

A door opened behind them, and her green clad escort came in. And through the open door with him, unnoticed save by her, slipped a child.

He was a devilish looking little imp, perhaps five. He tucked himself behind the back of the sofa the prince was seated on. Ronald bent and said something to the prince in an undertone, the prince turned his attention over his shoulder to him.

Prue watched the place where the small boy was. Sure enough, in a moment, the unruly black hair appeared over the sofa, and then eyes bright and blue and full of dark mischief. The child’s eyebrows beetled down as he regarded her with pint-size disapproval. There was no doubting he was his father’s son!

She beetled hers back at him.

He shifted upward, so that his face was revealed. He was an exceptionally handsome little boy. He regarded her with what she could only conclude was patent dislike—much like Brian had shown the temporary nanny this morning. Then he crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue, not in play.

She shot a look at the prince, who was still otherwise engaged, and then looked back at the child.

She did something that probably would have given Mrs. Smith a heart attack. Prudence crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue back.

Ryan chose that moment to look back at her.

He had to bite the side of his cheek to keep from reacting to her crossed eyes and her tongue stuck out. He felt as if he had been biting the side of his cheek since the moment he had first seen her.

The truth was nothing—not his meeting with Mrs. Smith, and not the photo in the paper—had prepared him for Miss Prudence Winslow in the flesh.

She was tall and slender, and had one of the most magnificent heads of hair he had ever seen. Those red curls crackled and curled around her head as if they were filled with electricity. She was intensely beautiful—a perfect nose, wide mouth, milky skin—not at all the demure nanny Mrs. Smith’s rather plain office and the heap of clothes in the newspaper picture had led him to believe he would be meeting.

Her eyes were as green as the pool beneath Myria Falls, on his island home, and they flashed with spirit, a subtle defiance, again on a collision course with his expectations.

Though her clothes were rumpled and dowdy, she carried herself with such cache that it looked as if the clothes were meant to be that way!

She was really the kind of woman a man should be prepared to meet, and he was not.

The defiance showed itself again when she did not use his title, and when she did, she used it incorrectly. Deliberately?

She had been tardy and rude, and though he suspected neither was intentional, he was aware within moments of meeting her that she would not be a good fit in his smoothly run household, just as Mrs. Smith had tried to warn him.

The people retained by his family had worked those positions through generations, father teaching son, mother teaching daughter. They were proud to be of service to the House of Kaelan. A woman like this one would be a terrible disruption to the routine of the castle, which had probably not changed in three hundred years.

The thought made him feel oddly restless, rather than contented.

Besides, the royal nannies were proving problematic. It was a different age than the one he had been raised in, and the prince was aware of wanting something—no, aching for something—different for his children. His son in particular was having such problems since the death of his mother. The child who had always been like the sun was querulous now, and angry. His mischief ran to meanness.

His son, Gavin, needed someone not quite so rigid as the nanny Ryan had just dismissed a week ago. He needed something. He was not sure what, but when he saw Prudence Winslow he was certain she was it.

And when he turned back from his conversation with Ronald, to see her green eyes crossed and her tongue out, he thought for the first time, I’ve made a mistake. My instincts were wrong. Let her go back to her life.

But then, surprised, he became aware his son had arrived in the room and tucked himself behind the sofa. He turned and gave Gavin a look he intended to be stern, but the look melted.

Gavin was smiling.

And not that wicked black smile that Ryan had come to dread, that meant his son had been up to no good, had been tormenting the staff, or the baby, or his nanny, or one of the queen’s dogs. Six nannies in six months because of one small, hurting child.

No, on Gavin’s face was a true smile, tentative, but true. When he saw his father watching him, the smile disappeared, he glared and marched from the room.

“That was my son, Gavin,” Ryan said, watching her face. “He lost his mother thirteen months ago. He’s having a hard time of it.”

He saw, finally, what he needed to see in her eyes. Not pride and not belligerence, a terrible softness, so soft he could feel a longing in himself.

He killed it quickly. His entire marriage he had longed. He had been young and hoped for happiness, despite the fact the marriage had been arranged. Raina had hoped, too. She had hoped by marrying so well, by marrying a prince, by becoming a princess, she could forget that she had loved another….

Sternly he turned his thoughts from those painful memories. He had two beautiful children.

“There’s a baby as well,” he said, watching her even more closely. For some reason, he found himself fishing in the pocket underneath his sweater, passing her the photo of his little Sara. “She’s still a little too young to travel with me.”

Prudence hesitated, then leaned forward and took the photo.

The tiniest of smiles tickled her lips.

Sara had that effect on people: with her sparse hair always standing straight up, black dandelion fluff, and her huge eyes, blue, intense, curious.

“She’s thirteen months old. My wife died while giving birth to her.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and she meant it. Her eyes drifted from the picture, followed where Gavin had gone.

Ryan felt something in him sigh with relief. She would love his children. That was the ingredient that made you guard someone else’s child with your own life.

Love.

The missing ingredient in his life. The thought was renegade and he amended it quickly, the missing ingredient in all the other nannies, including the ones he had grown up with.

Caring, of course. Dedicated, yes. Respectful, naturally.

But always falling just a hair short of what he saw, unguarded, for just a moment in the green of Prudence Winslow’s eyes as she looked at the place where his son had stood only moments ago.

He had managed to get some skimpy paperwork on the nanny from Mrs. Smith. He knew Prudence Winslow was qualified for this job.

But where he really knew it, that place he had learned to count on more than any other, his instinct. Instinct had told him not to marry Raina. But he’d been twenty-two, under pressure, not really given a choice…

Since then, aware of the cataclysmic consequences of ignoring his instincts, Ryan tried to pay more attention to that voice. It had been nagging him since he had first seen the picture, and now it whispered, firmly, yes.

Even though she would probably never call him Your Royal Highness without nearly choking, even though his household was probably not ready for her, and neither was he, he knew his children needed her. He had known that from the moment he had seen that newspaper and read about a young nanny who had put the life of her young charge ahead of her own.

“I want you to think about returning to the Isle of Momhilegra with me,” he said. “As the head—” Suddenly he was no more able to call her a nanny, than she was able to call him Your Royal Highness. “To look after my children,” he amended.

She stared at him, looked away, leaped suddenly to her feet.

“May I have my coat?” Her cheeks were staining a beautiful, angry shade of red. “Thank you, but I said no. I’m very happy with the position I have now.”

For a moment her eyes trailed to his lips, the look in them so intense he felt scorched. But then her coat was brought and she left in a flurry of activity.

He smiled slightly as the door slammed behind her. “Ronald?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to watch a movie this afternoon. The Sound of Music. Could you find it for me?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“And there’s something else I need done.”

Ronald listened to his request, nodded his head. By later today, if things were as he hoped, Miss Winslow was going to find herself dismissed from her current position.

Other men might have worried about such a high-handed approach to another’s life, but Ryan was a man of complete discipline, who had known only one reality his entire life, and that reality was that duty came before personal dreams, personal desires.

Of course, in terms of his marriage that had been disastrous, but he wasn’t, after all, marrying Miss Winslow. He was employing her. It did not really occur to him that Miss Winslow might resent his decision-making on her behalf. People liked working for him. They were compensated beyond their wildest dreams. Her initial reluctance to accept his offer would most certainly turn to gratitude, if she was a reasonable woman.

So, with that taken care of Ryan, settled in to watch the movie. He invited Gavin to watch it with him, but his son wanted to play a video game on the television in his bedroom. And not be in the same room as his father.

The movie was entertaining, a good diversion from his frustration over yet another rejection by Gavin. Still, when he turned the movie off, Ryan felt pensive despite the “feel good” theme of the show.

Maria times ten? That did not add up to a reasonable woman. Plus, Maria would have never looked at a man’s lips in a way that would leave him feeling scorched!

“Oh, dear,” he said borrowing a phrase from Mrs. Smith. “Oh dear, indeed.”

CHAPTER TWO

“YOU’RE firing me?” Prudence asked, stunned.

Mrs. Hilroy knitted her hands together, and looked around Prue’s humble basement quarters with discomfort.

“Of course I’m not firing you,” she stammered uneasily. “There must be a way to say this that is gentle and expresses what you mean to me. And Brian. Terminated. No, no, that’s much too harsh. I’m letting you go. Yes! Letting you go. To brighter things. And bigger things.”

Prudence knew, hollowly, that no matter how frantically Mrs. Hilroy tried to sugarcoat her announcement, it was all semantics. She was being dismissed. This morning she had a job. Now she did not. How could she not have seen this coming?

“You saved Brian’s life,” Mrs. Hilroy gushed.

How good of you to remember that, Prue thought sadly. “I think this is the worst day of my life.”

“Surely you exaggerate,” Mrs. Hilroy said with dismay.

“Probably,” Prudence agreed dryly. Worst day was possibly too dramatic. The day her father had died had been worse. The weeks following had been one terrible day after another. Not just because of his staggering financial disasters, but because she’d had to realize the love a small, lost, lonely child had craved from him was never going to happen. She’d had to grow up.

But today had been a horrendous day, even if it did not rate as highly on the horrible scale as did others. She was losing her position with the Hilroys!

Ever since her interview with the prince, Prue had a sense, not exactly of foreboding, but of her world being shaken, tested. Her sense of herself had felt wobbly and strained ever since she had first looked into the amazing blue of his eyes, listened to the masculine melody of his speech. In some language, unspoken, he had asked her to look at herself differently.

When she damn well didn’t want to! She didn’t want to ask herself questions like, was she truly happy or did loneliness yap at her heels like a small dog protecting its yard? She didn’t want to ask herself what did her future hold? Where was her life going?

She especially did not want to ask herself if her Fatal Flaws List was, well, flawed. It was retired anyway!

She was glad she had told him no. It probably rated as one of the better decisions of her life! She felt as if the devil had met her and held out what she most wanted. Despite the fact Prince Kaelan had some flaws that didn’t fit the picture, it was still the fairy-tale fantasy and she’d developed the strength of character in the last few months to recognize it for exactly what it was!

A lie. An illusion.

No prince was coming to rescue her. She was on her own!

And now, after hearing Mrs. Hilroy’s announcement, she was really on her own. Out-on-her-ear on her own!

She felt the smallest tinge of regret about her interview with the prince. If she’d heard him out, she might have found out if he was paying more than the pittance she made here!

Used to make here.

Certainly whatever accommodations he was offering had to be better than this cold, barely finished room, tucked in between the noisy furnace and the laundry room in the Hilroys’s basement.

The thought of going back to him now, hat in hand, saying she was suddenly available was just too humiliating. Besides, she could not work for a man with eyes like that!

But on the other hand she was certain if she lost another position, Miss Smith was going to wash her hands of her, heroics not withstanding. This was her third chance, her “bus ride” as she told Brian when they were playing Go Fish and he had run out of toothpicks to bet! Mrs. Smith had been tolerant, and remarkably supportive, but Prudence had always been aware that this posting with the Hilroys had been her last chance with the Academy of Fine Nannies.

“It’s just that since the accident,” Mrs. Hilroy said, “I’m so aware of wanting to be with my son. Of needing to be with him. What if you hadn’t thrown him clear that day? What if I would have missed the last day of his life? Traded moments with him for money?”

Prue gathered her wits and looked at Mrs. Hilroy’s distraught face. Her self-pity was replaced with reluctant compassion. If Brian was her son, she wouldn’t want to leave him to go to work every day. Mrs. Hilroy was making the right decision, the noble decision, a decision that put Brian’s needs first.

My work here is done, Prudence thought, but could not completely bite back a sigh. “So, it has nothing to do with me, then? It’s not because of my performance?”

“Prudence, you have been a breath of fresh air in this house. My child adores you. But, selfishly, I want him to cry and fuss when I leave to go out, not when you do.”

A perfectly reasonable way for a mother to feel.

“When do you need me to vacate my room?” Prue asked, dully. “I don’t suppose you’ll be needing a cleaning lady, will you?”

It hurt to say that. It was humbling to say that. And completely unnecessary. There had to be thousands of jobs she was well qualified to do. But it gave her a headache to think about it. And she needed to be employed again fast. She had no savings, and no health care, and despite her love of Loaves and Fishes, she had rather hoped never to need their services again!

She felt like a disgrace and a loser, and it was humbling how fast she could feel that way when she had been working so hard to make her self-esteem become about her, become so much more than the man on her arm.

“B-b-but, I understood you had been offered another job,” Mrs. Hilroy wailed.

The budding compassion Prue had been feeling for her employer left her with a plop that was almost audible in the tight confines of her small room. Understanding curled in her like sour milk hitting hot coffee.

Even as she warned herself to keep her legendary temper, Prudence stalked over to Mrs. Hilroy who took a step back from her.

“Excuse me?” Prue said dangerously.

“I understood you had been offered a job. Prudence, by a prince! Are you mad? How could you refuse an opportunity like that?”

“How do you know about that?” Prue asked softly.

Mrs. Hilroy went very quiet. Her eyes slid away from Prue’s.

“Who told you I’d been offered another job? Mrs. Smith?”

“Actually I talked to Abigail first, but I was very upset. I didn’t want to let you go! And then he called himself.”

Himself. In an outrageous tone of voice that should be reserved for the pope or the president. Okay, or maybe a prince. “You spoke to him?”

“Just on the phone,” Mrs. Hilroy said. “I’ve never spoken to a prince before. It was lovely.”

Prudence stared hard at her employer. Ex-employer. Mrs. Hilroy had the same expression on her face as those ridiculous females that had waited outside the elevator at the Waldorf.

“He seemed like a very nice man,” Mrs. Hilroy said, just a hint of defiance in her soft, wavering voice.

Oh! Never mind that Prue had questioned the wisdom of dismissing his offer without further investigation, had been raking herself over the coals for the way she had handled her interview with the prince, and her exit from it!

Never mind that! This was her life, and she was not having it wrested from her control by some high and mighty mucky-muck who was accustomed to buying whatever and whomever he wanted.

She decided, that very second, that arrogance topped the Fatal Flaws List for future employers as well as future husbands!

Prue studied Mrs. Hilroy, who was steadily crumpling under the sternness of her gaze. She knew the truth. “He paid you! To get rid of me!”

Mrs. Hilroy’s eyes were doing the evasive slide, again. “He offered me, er, compensation. So I could afford to stay home with Brian.”

“That’s evil! He played to your weakest point, your love of your child!”

“It wasn’t like that! He was nice.”

“He’s the devil,” Prudence decided. “Do you think the devil looks like a monster, and comes hurtling frightening curses? Oh, no, he comes in a guise, a prince no less, and holds out what tempts you most. Of course he’s nice.”

Mrs. Hilroy looked baffled. She said firmly, “Prudence, you are no kind of expert on demons.”

Ah, perhaps not, though she felt as if she had been wrestling her own for so long it was exhausting.

“You sold me to him for silver,” she accused Mrs. Hilroy.

“People can’t sell other people,” Mrs. Hilroy said, but there was a measure of doubt in her voice.

“Well, he’s about to find that out!”

“Prudence, don’t be rash! Please. This is an opportunity. You need to think about it carefully.”

A part of her knew that was true. A part of her knew she was being given a rare second chance to handle things differently than she had the first time. A part of her knew that Prince Ryan Kaelan was not the devil, that the devils she fought were within herself.

But he was a man who could hurt her like no other ever had if she let down the guard she had built up around herself, the fortress around her heart.

Besides there was a part of her—a handicap since birth—that was not the least bit interested in being rational and calm, that insisted on acting on the glory of impulse, even if there was a price to be paid for that later.

“I already have thought about it,” she snapped.

In the far reaches of the house, they heard a doorbell ring.

Mrs. Hilroy blushed. “That might be him. He said he would come to call at nine. Imagine that. Do you think cookies will be all right?”

“Cookies? Mrs. Hilroy, you do not sit the devil down in your front parlor and feed him cookies! I can’t believe he would come here. The audacity of the man! What am I supposed to do? Meekly pack my bag and allow myself to be carried away to some kingdom on the other end of the earth?”

“It’s not really. Momhilegra is between England and Ireland, in the Irish Sea.”

“You discussed it with him?” Prue asked, incensed. How long had Mrs. Hilroy and the prince had their cozy little chat? What secrets did he know about her that she would much rather he didn’t know? Secrets people learned when they lived together. Secrets that should be sacred, like that sometimes when Brian wrapped chubby arms around her neck and kissed her cheek, she cried.

Mrs. Hilroy’s blush deepened. “No, of course not. I discussed nothing with him. Our conversation was extremely brief.”

Prue’s relief that he knew none of her secrets was out of proportion to the fact she was about to dismiss Prince Ryan Kaelan from her life, permanently.

And it was going to feel good! Dismissing the prince, high-handed, arrogant ass that he was. Really, what she would be doing was dismissing her own temptations!

“I just had a little peek at the atlas. After I’d hung up.”

The doorbell chimed again.

“I don’t think it’s good manners to keep a prince waiting,” Mrs. Hilroy said.

“Good manners! What has he done to deserve good manners? He’s had me dismissed from my job! Do you think what he’s doing is a show of decorum? Or respect for other people?”

“I think you are taking this entirely the wrong way,” Mrs. Hilroy said, with surprising firmness, straightening her spine, and meeting Prue’s eyes dead-on for the first time since she had come into the basement. “He wants you to be a nanny to his motherless children. It’s not as if he’s spiriting you off to join his harem.”

Mrs. Hilroy blushed. So did Prudence. That rather erotic thought hung in the air for a moment, and before Prudence melted under the heat of it, she shook herself free, gave Mrs. Hilroy one last look and bounded up the stairs.

She marched through the house and had built up a good head of steam by the time she flung open the front door.

Poor Ronald stood there looking like a drowned rat, the rain pouring down around him, his gold epithets withered like wet paper on his shoulders.

“Good to see you again, miss,” he said, and smiled with charming sincerity.

Darn, she liked Ronald. He was just doing his job. But now was no time for weakness. “Tell His Royal High-handedness no!” she said and slammed the door.

A moment passed. The doorbell rang again.

She opened it, and Ronald stood there doing his best to look dignified. She folded her arms over her chest, and tapped her foot. “No,” she said. “As in I am not coming to work for him, not now, not next week, not ever, not if it was the last position on the face of the earth, not if I was starving in a hovel, not if—”

“That’s rather a lot for me to remember, miss. Perhaps you could tell him yourself. He’s in the car.”

She looked over Ronald’s shoulder to the long, black limo that was parked, purring, across the street. The windows were darkly tinted.

“He’s destroyed my life, and I’m supposed to go stand in the rain, tap humbly on the window of his car, wait until he opens it and then offer a suitable explanation as to why I do not want my life arranged by him? Perhaps it would be a nice touch if I were to beg his forgiveness for inconveniencing him by wanting to run my own life?”

Ronald looked hopeful, as if she might be getting the idea.

“Tell him to—to go to the blazes!” She wished she could have thought of something much stronger, but it was spur of the moment. She made up for her lack of imagination by slamming the door extra hard, but it didn’t close before she saw the look of trepidation on Ronald’s face.

Apparently no one had ever told good Prince Ryan to go to the blazes before.

Well, in that case it would do him nothing but good. Prudence could not help but feel it was about time someone did!

She peeked out the curtain and watched Ronald make his lonely way across the street. His shoulders were hunched against the rain.

She felt a little sorry for him. She hoped the prince would not shoot the messenger. She let the curtain drop and savored the pride she felt in herself.

Temptation had not just knocked. Oh, no. It had tried to grab her by the throat! And she had still managed to send it packing.

“You are a different girl than you were six months ago,” she told herself proudly.

Ryan watched Ronald cross the street, alone. Ronald slid into the driver’s seat, brushed rain from his shoulders and after a very long moment met Ryan’s eye in the mirror.

“Is she just getting her suitcase then?” Ryan asked.

“Ah, no sir. I don’t believe she’s coming.”

Ryan contemplated that. He had made all the arrangements with Mrs. Smith this afternoon, he had looked after Prudence Winslow’s current position. Not coming?

“Did she say why?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“What exactly did she say?”

Ronald hesitated long enough that Ryan knew this wasn’t unfolding smoothly in accordance with his plan, or the way he always ran his life, personal and business.

He felt a tinge of impatience, and resentment. He’d come out personally, on such a dismal night, to welcome her to his employ!

“She said to tell you to go to the blazes.”

“Excuse me?”

Even though they both knew he had heard it perfectly the first time, Ronald helpfully repeated it. And added, “And she said she couldn’t be bothered getting herself wet to come and tell you personally.”

Ryan contemplated what he was feeling.

Never, in his entire life, had anyone ever said anything even remotely like that to him. His relationship with his wife had not been good, but she had never spoken a harsh word to him. No, she had killed him slowly, with politeness, by looking straight at him, and never seeing him.

He tried to feel indignant about this introduction to this world of—would squabbling be the right word—but found he did not.

What he felt was strangely curious, dangerously intrigued.

He opened the car door. “I guess we should give the lady a chance to say what she needs to say to me, personally.”

“A terrible idea, if I’ve ever heard one, sir,” Ronald offered, with a slow shake of his head. But he was smiling slightly, and with strange indulgence.

Ryan crossed the street in long strides. He saw the front window curtain flick back, and was unsurprised that the little minx was watching him with pleasure. It was absolutely pouring, and he was soaked by the time he got to the door. He had to ring the bell three times before it was answered, even though he knew damn well she was standing right behind it.

And then it squeaked open, and she was standing there, bristling with angry energy, not the least contrite that she had kept him waiting in the downpour.

And he still didn’t feel indignant. In fact, he hoped he wasn’t gawking.

Prudence Winslow looked absolutely magnificent. Gone was the bun and the dowdy nanny outfit he had been treated to this afternoon.

Her hair was down, falling in a wave of crackling, wildfire past the curve of her slender shoulders.

She was wearing a shimmering camisole, the thin straps not looking like they were up to the job of containing the delicate swell of her heaving bosom. The daintiness of the camisole was coupled with denims that rode low on the curve of her hips and made her look leggy and slender as a young filly. Her feet were bare.

The Mrs. Smith-approved outfit she had worn earlier today had given no indication that something so wildly sensual—Bohemian even—hid in her. But her hair had hinted.

And her eyes had more than hinted, especially in that flash fire moment when they had touched on his lips. Now, her eyes were spitting sparks, like the sun striking emeralds.

Prudence Winslow was gorgeous. A complication in a nanny, of course.

“Good evening,” he finally said, as if he was greeting her for the ball, as if the rain was not flowing off him in rivulets, and as if she was not standing there in a top that looked suspiciously like lingerie, in bare feet and worn jeans with her hair cascading around her as if she had just been up to something wild…and wonderful.

“Good evening?” she said, her voice snapping with the same electrical and passionate energy as her eyes. “Good evening? How dare you? How dare you act as though you haven’t just wrecked my whole life?”

“Wrecked your life? That’s ridiculous. I’m offering you a position better than the one you had here. How can that be wrecking your life?”

“You can’t just do that!”

She had actually stamped her foot, to emphasize her statement, and he found himself trying very hard not to smile. Smiling right now would be a huge mistake. Huge.

“I can’t?” he asked, mildly. “Why ever not?”

“Because I have to agree to it! This is America. This is not a feudal system where your lordship’s eye catches on some peasant girl walking down the cobbled street with her goat on a leash and her chickens in a basket and decides he must have her.”

She had branded his homeland a backward and primitive place, and he was aware he should have felt scorned, but instead the words had the effect on him of a touch—hot, teasing, sensual—and he felt his blood turn to fire.

He felt as if, in a flash, the blood of his ancestors, warrior chieftains one and all, stirred to life within him.

The family name, Kaelan, was Gaelic for powerful in battle, and he sensed the battle this woman would give him.

A wise man would walk away, walk back to his car, shake off the rain and the memory of her with it. A wise man would return to Mrs. Smith and ask her humbly about those other nannies that she had proclaimed imminently suitable for his household.

Ryan Kaelan had been a wise man his entire life, controlled, dispassionate. He was a man who knew how to make decisions for the greater good, measured decisions, all factors weighed and balanced until one answer became crystal clear.

But now, all he could think was how he would like to wrap his hands in the red fury of her hair and pull her to him, and tame her lips with his own.

The thought shocked him so thoroughly that he took a step back from her. The slight protection of the overhang was gone, and the water sluiced over him.

He made the fatal mistake. He smiled.

“You may think this is amusing, but you can’t buy me,” she shouted over the rain. “I am not for sale. I told you no. And I meant it!”

“If you’d just be reasonable for a minute—”

“Reasonable?” she hissed. “Reasonable? I’ve just been dismissed from a job I loved because of you and you want reason?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes, I do.”

“I’ll give you reason!” She looked around, reached behind the door and came out with a crystal vase full of flowers.

Somehow he knew it was not going to be a peace offering.

She hurtled the container at his head.

He ducked easily enough, and the container shattered on the walk behind him. He turned and gazed at the wrecked flowers and broken glass, and then turned and looked back at her.

She had gone very still. “Oh,” she said softly. “Look what you’ve made me do!” And then she slammed the door again.

He stood outside, being soaked through to the skin, and not the least perturbed by it.

Obviously he had learned things he needed to learn. She would be a terrible nanny. She would be a terrible disruption to his life and his island. She was opinionated, and had a fiery temper. Passion crackled in her eyes and in the air around her.

Still, he was aware of what he should be feeling.

Prince Ryan Kaelan, House of Kaelan, Isle of Momhilegra, had just been shouted at in a public street. Had a vase hurtled at his head!

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