“If I ever had a honeymoon, that’s where—”

Dannie broke off, blushing wildly.

If there was one thing a guy as devoted to being single as Joshua did not ever discuss it was weddings. Or honeymoons. But his love of seeing her blush got the better of him.

“What do you mean, if?” he teased her. “If ever toes were made to fit a glass slipper, it’s those ones. Some guy is going to fall at your feet and marry you. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.”

“Oh,” she said, her voice strangled, even as she tried to act casual. “I’ve given up Cinderella dreams. Men are mostly cads in sheeps’ clothing.”

“How right you are…”

Cara Colter lives on an acreage in British Columbia, with her partner, Rob, and eleven horses. She has three grown children and a grandson. She is a recent recipient of the Romantic Times BOOKreviews Career Achievement Award in the ‘Love and Laughter’ category. Cara loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her, or learn more about her, through her website: www.cara-colter.com

Don’t miss Cara Colter’s next Mills & Boon Romance Miss Maple and the Playboy August 2009

Dear Reader

By the time you read this, I will have experienced my first trip to Europe. I have never pictured myself as any kind of world traveller. I like to escape Canadian winters by going somewhere warm for a week or two every year, and that has been the extent of my travel ambition. So what convinced a non-adventuring homebody to move outside the comfort zone? Love, of course!

Rob and I have been invited to Denmark for the wedding of two of the people we care most about in the world. Mike is the son of wonderful friends, but he has become so much more to us: comedian, comrade, carpenter, co-worker. And Mike brought us Aline, a Danish girl he met while travelling. She has become a treasure in my life, bringing me the gifts of her spunk and her depth, her incredible youthful energy, and her creative abilities. In my line of work, Mike and Aline’s love for one another, and the obstacles they’ve been prepared to overcome to have their happily-ever-after, have been a true inspiration.

This one is for you, Mike and Aline, and for everyone who believes in the power, hope and happiness love can bring to life.

With best wishes

Cara

HIRED: NANNY BRIDE

BY

CARA COLTER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Mike Kepke and Aline Pihl

“Love fills a lifetime”

August 9,2008

CHAPTER ONE

JOSHUA COLE heard the unfamiliar sound and felt a quiver of pure feeling snake up and down his spine. So rare was that particular sensation that it took him a split second to identify it.

Fear.

He was a man who prided himself on moving forward, rather than back, in any kind of stressful situation. It had turned out to be a strategy for success in the high-powered world he moved in.

Joshua hit the intercom that connected his office to his secretary’s desk in the outer lair. His office underscored who he had become with its floor-to-ceiling glass windows that overlooked the spectacular view of Vancouver, downtown skyscrapers in the foreground, majestic white-capped mountains as the backdrop.

But if his surroundings reflected his confidence, at this moment his voice did not. “Tell me that wasn’t what I thought it was.”

But the sound came again, through his closed, carved, solid walnut door. Now it was amplified by the intercom.

There was absolutely no mistaking it for anything but what it was: a baby crying, the initial hesitant sobs building quickly to strident shrieking.

“They say you are expecting them,” said his receptionist, Amber, her own tone rising, in panic or in an effort to be heard above the baby, he couldn’t quite be sure.

Of course he was expecting them. Just not today. Not here. Children, and particularly squalling babies, would be as out of place in the corporate offices of the company he had founded as a hippo at Victoria’s Empress Hotel’s high tea.

Joshua Cole had built his fortune and his company, Sun, around the precise lack of that sound in each of his exclusive adult-only resorts.

His office replicated the atmosphere that made the resorts so successful: tasteful, expensive, luxurious, no detail overlooked. The art was original, the antiques were authentic, the rugs came from the best bazaars in Turkey.

The skillful use of rich colors and subtle, exotic textures made Joshua Cole’s office mirror the man, masculine, confident, charismatic. His desk faced a wall that showcased his career rise with beautifully framed magazine covers, Forbes, Business, Business Weekly.

But this morning, as always, his surroundings had faded as he intently studied what he hoped would become his next project. The surface of his desk was littered with photos of a rundown resort in the wilderness of the British Columbia interior.

He’d had that feeling as soon as he’d seen the photos. Moose Lake Lodge could be turned into an adventure destination for the busy young professionals who trusted his company to give them exactly what they wanted in a vacation experience. His clients demanded grown-up adventure plus five-star meals, spalike luxuries and all against the backdrop of a boutique hotel atmosphere.

The initial overture to Moose Lake Lodge had not gone particularly well. The owners were reluctant to talk to him, let alone sell to him. He had sensed they were wary of his reputation as a playboy, concerned about the effect of a Sun resort in the middle of cottage country. The Moose Lake Lodge had run as a family-oriented lakeside retreat since the 1930s, and the owners had sentimental attachments to it.

But sentiment did not pay the bills, and Joshua Cole did his homework. He knew buyers were not lining up for the place, and he was already strategizing his next move. He would up his offer tantalizingly. He’d convince the Baker family he could turn Moose Lake Lodge into a place they would always feel proud of. He’d visit them personally, win them over. Joshua Cole was very good at winning people over.

And he was passionate about this game, in all its stages: acquiring, renovating, opening, operating.

To that end Joshua had a resort in the Amazon jungle that offered rainforest canopy excursions, and one on the African savannah featuring photo safaris. And, of course, he still had his original small hotel in Italy, in the heart of Tuscany, where it had all started, offering a very grown-up winery and tasting tours.

Most recently Sun had opened a floating five-star destination for water lovers off the Kona Coast, on the Big Island of Hawaii.

Water lovers and kid haters.

Well, not all kid haters. Some of his best clients were just busy parents who desperately needed a break from the demands of children.

“WAHHHHH.”

As if that sound didn’t explain it all. Even his own sister, Melanie, domestic diva that she had become, had accepted his offer to give her and her hubbie a much-needed break at the newly opened Sun in Kona.

No wonder, with a kid whose howls could register off the decibel chart.

How could his niece and nephew be here? His crammed calendar clearly said tomorrow. The plane was arriving at ten in the morning. Joshua planned, out of respect to his sister, to meet the plane, pat his niece on the head and make appropriate noises over the relatively new baby nephew, hopefully without actually touching him. Then he was planning on putting them, and the nanny they were traveling with, in a limo and waving goodbye as they were whisked off to a kid-friendly holiday experience at Whistler.

Holiday for Mom and Dad at the exclusive Kona Sun; holiday for the kids; Uncle Josh, hero-of-the-hour.

The baby screamed nonstop in the outer office, and Joshua’s head began to throb. He’d given his sister and brother-in-law, Ryan, the adult-getaway package after the birth of the baby, stunned that his sister, via their Web cam conversations, always so vital in the past, could suddenly look so worn-out. Somehow, he hadn’t exactly foreseen this moment, though he probably should have when Melanie had started worrying about her kids within seconds of agreeing to go to the Kona Sun for a week. Naturally, her brother, the hero, had volunteered to look after that, too.

He should have remembered that things never went quite as he planned them when his sister was involved.

“What is going on?” Joshua asked in a low voice into his intercom. His legendary confidence abandoned him around children, even ones he was related to.

“There’s a, um, woman here. With a baby and another, er, small thing.”

“I know who they are,” Joshua said. “Why is the baby making that noise?”

“You know who they are?” Amber asked, clearly feeling betrayed that they hadn’t wandered in off the street, thereby making disposing of them so much easier!

“They aren’t supposed to be here. They’re supposed to be—

“Miss! Excuse me! You can’t just go in there!”

But before Amber could protect him, his office door opened.

For all the noise that baby was making, Joshua was struck by a sudden sensation of quiet as he pressed the off button on the intercom and studied the woman who stood at the doorway to his enclave.

Despite the screaming red-faced baby at her bosom, and his four-year-old niece attached to the hem of her coat, the woman carried herself with a calm dignity, a sturdy sea vessel, innately sure of her abilities in a storm, which, Joshua felt, the screaming baby qualified as.

His niece was looking at him with dark dislike, which took him aback. Like cats, children were adept at attaching themselves to those with an aversion, and he had spent his last visit to his sister’s home in Toronto trying to escape his niece’s frightening affection. At that time the baby had been an enormous lump under his sister’s sweater, and there had been no nanny in residence.

The distraction of the baby and his niece’s withering look aside, he was aware of feeling he had not seen a woman like the one who accompanied his niece and nephew for a very long time.

No, Joshua Cole had become blissfully accustomed to perfection in the opposite sex. His world had become populated with women with thin, gym-sculpted bodies, dentist-whitened teeth, unfurrowed brows, perfect makeup, stunning hair, clothing that breathed wealth and assurance.

The woman before him was, in some ways, the epitome of what he expected a nanny to be: fresh-scrubbed; no makeup; sensible shoes; a plain black skirt showing from underneath a hideously rumpled coat. One black stocking had a run in it from knee to ankle. All that was missing was the umbrella.

She was exactly the type of woman he might dismiss without a second look: frumpalumpa, a woman who had given up on herself in favor of her tedious child-watching duties. She was younger than he would have imagined, though, and carried herself with a careful dignity that the clothes did not hide, and that did not allow for easy dismissal.

A locket, gold and fragile, entirely out of keeping with the rest of her outfit, winked at her neck, making him aware of the pure creaminess of her skin.

Then Joshua noticed her hair. Wavy and jet black, it was refreshingly uncolored, caught back with a clip it was slipping free from. The escaped tendrils of hair should have added to her generally unruly appearance, but they didn’t. Instead they hinted at something he wasn’t seeing. Something wilder, maybe even exotic.

Her eyes, when he met them, underscored that feeling. They were a stunning shade of turquoise, fringed with lashes that didn’t need one smidgen of mascara to add to their lushness. Unfortunately, he detected his niece’s disapproval mirrored in her nanny’s expression.

Her face might, at first glance, be mistaken for plain. And yet there was something in it—freshness, perhaps—that intrigued.

It was as if, somehow, she was real in the world of fantasy that he had so carefully crafted, a world that had rewarded him with riches beyond his wildest dreams, and which suddenly seemed lacking in something, and that something just as suddenly seemed essential.

He shrugged off the uncharacteristic thoughts, put their intrusion in his perfect world down to the yelps of the baby. He had only to look around himself to know he was the man who already had everything, including the admiration and attention of women a thousand times more polished than the one in front of him.

“My uncle hates us,” his niece, Susie, announced just as Joshua was contemplating trying out his most charming smile on the nanny. He was pretty confident he was up to the challenge of melting the faintly contemptuous look from her eyes. Pitting his charm against someone so wholesome would be good practice for when he met with the Bakers about acquiring their beloved Moose Lake Lodge.

“Susie, that was extremely rude,” the nanny said. Her voice was husky, low, as real as she was. And it hinted at something tantalizingly sensual below the frumpalumpa exterior.

“Of course I don’t hate you,” Joshua said, annoyed at being put on the defensive by a child who had plagued him with xoxo notes less than a year ago, explaining to him carefully each x stood for a kiss and each o stood for a hug. “I’m terrified of you. There’s a difference.”

He tried his smile.

The nanny’s lips twitched, her free hand reached up and touched the locket. If a smile had been developing, it never materialized. In fact, Joshua wasn’t quite sure if he’d amused her or annoyed her. If he’d amused her, her amusement was reluctant! He was not accustomed to ambiguous reactions when he dealt with the fairer sex.

“You hate us,” Susie said firmly. “Why would Mommy and Daddy need a holiday from us?”

Then her nose crunched up, her eyes closed tight, she sniffled and buried her face in the folds of the nanny’s voluminous jacket and howled. The baby seemed to regard that as a challenge to make himself heard above his sister.

“Why, indeed?” he asked dryly. The children had been in his office approximately thirty seconds, and he already needed a holiday from them.

“She’s just tired,” the nanny said. “Susie, shush.”

He was unwillingly captivated by the hand that she rested lightly on Susie’s head, by the exquisite tenderness in that faint touch, by the way her voice calmed the child, who quit howling but hiccupped sadly.

“I think there’s a tiny abandonment issue,” the nanny said, “that was not in the least helped by your leaving us stranded at the airport.”

He found himself hoping that, when he explained there had been a misunderstanding, he would see her without the disapproving furrow in her forehead.

“There seems to have been a mix-up about the dates. If you had called, I would have had someone pick you up.”

“I did call.” The frown line deepened. “Apparently only very important people are pre-approved to speak to you.”

He could see how all those security measures intended to protect his time and his privacy were just evidence to her of an overly inflated ego. He was probably going to have to accept that the furrowed brow line would be permanent.

“I’m terribly sorry,” he said, which did not soften the look on her face at all.

“Are those women naked?” Susie asked, mid-hiccup, having removed her head from the folds of her nanny’s coat. Unfortunately.

He followed her gaze and sighed inwardly. She was staring at the Lalique bowl that adorned his coffee table. Exquisitely crafted in blue glass, and worth about forty thousand dollars, it was one of several items in the room that he didn’t even want his niece to breathe on, though to say so might confirm for the nanny, who already had a low opinion of him, that he really did hate children.

He realized that the bowl, shimmering in the light from the window, was nearly the same shades of blue as the nanny’s eyes.

“Susie, that’s enough,” the nanny said firmly.

“Well, they are naked, Miss Pringy,” Susie muttered, unrepentant.

Miss Pringy. A stodgy, solid, librarian spinster kind of name that should have suited her to a T, but didn’t.

“In your uncle’s circles, I’m sure that bowl would be considered appropriate decor.”

“And what circles are those?” Joshua asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I had the pleasure of reading all about you on the plane, Mr. Cole. People to Watch. You are quite the celebrity it would seem.”

Her tone said it all: superficial, playboy, hedonist. Even before he’d missed her at the airport, he’d been tried and found guilty.

Joshua Cole had, unfortunately, been discovered by a world hungry for celebrity, and the fascination with his lifestyle was escalating alarmingly. It meant he was often prejudged, but so far he’d remained confident of his ability to overcome misperceptions.

Though he could already tell that Miss Pringy, of all people, looked as if she was going to be immune to his considerable charisma. He found himself feeling defensive again.

“I’m a businessman,” he said shortly, “not a celebrity.”

In fact, Joshua Cole disliked almost everything about his newly arising status, but the more he rejected media attention, the more the media hounded him. That article in People to Watch had been unauthorized and totally embarrassing.

World’s Sexiest Bachelor was a ridiculous title. It perturbed him that the magazine had gotten so many pictures of him, when he felt he’d become quite deft at protecting his privacy.

Where had all those pictures of him with his shirt off come from? Or relaxing, for that matter? Both were rare events.

To look at those pictures, anyone would think he was younger than his thirty years, and also that he spent his days half naked in sand and sunshine, the wind, waves and sun streaking his dark hair to golden brown. The article had waxed poetic about his “buff” build and sea-green eyes. It was enough to make a grown man sick.

Joshua was learning being in the spotlight had a good side: free publicity for Sun for one. For another, the label playboy that was frequently attached to him meant he was rarely bothered by women who had apple-pie, picket-fence kind of dreams. No, his constantly shifting lineup of companions were happy with lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous outings and expensive trinkets; in other words, no real investment on his part.

The downside was that people like the mom-and-pop owners of Moose Lake Lodge weren’t comfortable with his notoriety coming to their neck of the woods.

And sometimes, usually when he least expected it, he would be struck with a sensation of loneliness, as if no one truly knew him, though usually a phone call to his sister fixed that pretty quickly!

Maybe it was because the nanny represented his sister’s household that he disliked being prejudged by her, that he felt strangely driven to try to make a good impression.

Just underneath that odd desire was an even odder one to know if she was evaluating him as the World’s Sexiest Bachelor. If she was, she approved of the title even less than he did. In fact, she looked as if she might want to see the criteria that had won him the title!

Was it possible she didn’t find him attractive? That she didn’t agree with the magazine’s assessment of his status? For a crazy moment he actually cared! He found himself feeling defensive again, saying in his head, Miss Pringy wouldn’t know sexy if it stepped on her.

Or walked up to her and kissed her.

Which, unfortunately, made him look at her lips. They were pursed in a stern line, which he should have found off-putting. Not challenging! But the tightness around her lips only accentuated how full they were, puffy, kissable.

She reached up and touched the locket again, as if it was an amulet and he was a werewolf, as if she was totally aware of his inappropriate assessment of the kissability of her lips and needed to protect herself.

“I’m Danielle Springer, Dannie,” the woman announced formally, the woman least likely to have her lips evaluated as kissable. She was still unfazed by the shrill cries of the baby. Again, he couldn’t help but notice her voice was husky, as sensuous as a touch. Under different circumstances—very different circumstances—he was pretty sure he would have found it sexy.

At least as sexy as her damned disapproving lips.

“I was told you’d meet us at the plane.”

“There seems to have been a mix-up,” he said for the second time. “Not uncommon when my sister is involved.”

“It’s not easy to get children ready for a trip!” She was instantly defensive of her employer, which, under different circumstances, he would have found more admirable.

“That’s why you’re there to help, isn’t it?” he asked mildly.

Her chin lifted and her eyes snapped. “Somehow I am unsurprised that you would think it was just about packing a bag and catching a flight.”

She was obviously a woman of spirit, which he found intriguing, so he goaded her a bit. “Isn’t it?”

“There’s more to raising a child than attending to their physical needs,” she said sharply. “And your sister knows that.”

“Saint Melanie,” he said dryly.

“Meaning?” she asked regally.

“I am constantly on the receiving end of lectures from my dear sister about the state of my emotional bankruptcy,” he said pleasantly. “But despite my notoriously cavalier attitudes, I really did think you were arriving tomorrow. I’m sorry. I especially wouldn’t want to hurt Susie.”

Susie shot him a suspicious look, popped her thumb in her mouth and sucked. Hard.

Dannie juggled the baby from one arm to the other and gently removed Susie’s thumb. He could suddenly see that despite the nanny’s outward composure, the baby was heavy and Dannie was tired.

Was there slight forgiveness in her eyes, did the stern line around her mouth relax ever so slightly? He studied her and decided he was being optimistic.

He could read what was going to happen before it did, and he shot up from behind his desk, hoping Dannie would get the message and change course. Instead she moved behind the desk with easy confidence, right into his space, and held out the baby.

“Could you? Just for a moment? I think he’s in need of a change. I’ll just see if I can find his things in my bag.”

For a moment, Joshua Cole, self-made billionaire, was completely frozen. He was stunned by the predicament he was in. Before he could brace himself or prepare himself properly in any way, he was holding a squirming, puttylike chunk of humanity.

Joshua shut his eyes against the warmth that crept through him as his eight-month-old nephew, Jake, settled into his arms.

A memory he thought he’d divorced himself from a long, long time ago returned with such force his throat closed.

Bereft.

“Don’t worry. It’s not what you think,” Dannie said. Joshua opened his eyes and saw her looking at him quizzically. “He’s just wet. Not, um, you know.”

Joshua became aware of a large warm spot soaking through his silk tie and onto his pristine designer shirt. He was happy to let her think his reaction to holding the baby was caused by an incorrect assumption about what Jake was depositing on his shirt.

The baby, as stunned by finding himself in his uncle’s arms as his uncle himself, was shocked into sudden blessed silence and regarded him with huge sapphire eyes.

The Buddha-like expression of contentment lasted for a blink. And then the baby frowned. Turned red. Strained. Made a terrifying grunting sound.

“What’s wrong with him?” Joshua asked, appalled.

“I’m afraid now it is, um, you know.”

If he didn’t know, the sudden explosion of odor let the secret out.

“Amber,” he called. The man who reacted to stress with aplomb, at least until this moment, said, “Amber, call 911.”

Dannie Springer’s delectable lips twitched. A twinkle lit the depths of those astonishing eyes. She struggled, lost, started to laugh. And if he hadn’t needed 911 before, he did now.

For a time-suspended moment, looking into those amazing blue depths, listening to the brook-clear sound of her laughter, it was as if disaster was not unfolding around him. It was as if his office, last sanctuary of the single male, had not been invaded by the enemy that represented domestic bliss. He might have laughed himself, if he wasn’t so close to gagging.

“Amber,” he said, trying to regain his legendary control in this situation that seemed to be unraveling dismally, “forget 911.”

Amber hovered in the doorway. “What would you like me to do?”

“The children haven’t eaten,” Miss Pringy said, as if she was in charge. “Do you think you could find us some lunch?”

How could anyone think of lunch at a time like this?

Or put Amber in charge of it? Even though Amber disappeared, Josh was fairly certain food was a question lost on her. As far as Joshua could see, his secretary survived on celery sticks.

Did babies eat celery sticks?

For a moment he felt amazed at how a few seconds could change a man’s whole world. If somebody had told him when he walked into his office, he would be asking himself questions about babies and celery sticks before the morning was out, he would not have believed it.

He would particularly not have believed he would be contemplating celery sticks with that odor now permeating every luxurious corner of his office.

But he, of all people, should know. A few seconds could change everything, forever. A baby, wrapped in a blue hospital blanket, his face tiny and wrinkled, his brow furrowed, his tiny, perfect hand—

Stop! Joshua ordered himself.

And yet even as he resented memories of a long-ago hurt being triggered so easily by the babe nestled in his arms now, he was also aware of something else.

He felt surprised by life, for the first time in a very, very long time. He slid his visitor a glance and was painfully aware of how lushly she was curved, as if she ate more than celery sticks. In fact, he could picture her digging into spaghetti, eating with robust and unapologetic appetite. The picture was startlingly sensual.

“I’ll just change the baby while we wait for lunch.”

“In here?” he sputtered.

“Unless you have a designated area in the building?” she said, raising an eyebrow at him.

Joshua could clearly see she was the kind of woman you did not want to surrender control to. In no time flat, she would have the Lalique bowl moved and the change station set up where the bowl had been.

It was time to take control, not to be weakened by his memories but strengthened by them. It was time to put things back on track. The nanny and the children had arrived early. The thought of how his sister would have delighted in his current predicament firmed his resolve to get things to exactly where he had planned them, quickly.

“The washroom is down the hall,” Joshua said, collecting himself as best he could with the putty baby trying to insert its pudgy fingers in his nose. “If you’d care to take the baby there, Miss Pringy—”

“Springer—” she reminded him. “Perhaps while I take care of this, you could do something about, er, that?”

A hand fluttered toward the Lalique. He knew it! She was eyeing the table for its diaper changing potential!

“It’s art,” he said stubbornly.

“Well, it’s art the children aren’t old enough for.”

Precisely one of his many reservations about children. Everything had to be rearranged around them. Naturally, he needed to set her straight. It was his office, his business, his life. No one, but no one, told him how to run it. She and the children were departing as soon as he could arrange the limo and reschedule their reservations by a day.

But when she took the evilly aromatic baby back, after having fished a diaper out of a huge carpetbag she was traveling with, he was so grateful he decided not to set her straight about who the boss was. After she looked after the baby change, there would be plenty of time for that.

Dannie left the room, Susie on her heels. In a gesture he was not going to consider surrender, Joshua went and retrieved his suit jacket from where it hung on the back of his chair, and gently and protectively draped it over the bowl.

“Thank you,” the nanny said primly, noticing as soon as she came back in the room. A cloud of baby-fresh scent entered with her, and Jake was now gurgling joyously.

“Naked is not nice,” Susie informed him.

“Well, that depends on—” A look from the nanny made him take a deep breath and change tack. “As soon as we’ve had some lunch, I’ll see to changing the arrangements I’ve made for you. You’ll love Whistler.”

“Whistler?” Miss Pringy said. “Melanie never said anything about Whistler. She said we were staying with you.”

“I’m not staying with him,” Susie huffed. “He hates us. I can tell.”

He wondered if he should show her all those little x and o notes, placed carefully in the top drawer of his desk. No, the nanny might see it as a vulnerability. And somehow, as intriguing—and exasperating—as he found her, he had no intention of appearing vulnerable in front of her.

“Don’t worry,” Joshua told Susie, firmly, “No one is staying with me, because I don’t want—”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Miss Springer told him in a tight undertone. “Don’t you dare.”

Well, as if his life was not surprising enough today! He regarded her thoughtfully, tried to remember when the last time anyone had told him what to do was, and came up blank.

And that tone. No one ever dared use that tone on him. Probably not since grade school, anyway.

“Amber,” he called.

She appeared at the doorway, looking mutinous, as if one more demand would finish her. “Lunch is on the way up.”

“Take the children for a moment. Miss Pringy and I have a few things to say privately.”

Amber stared at him astounded. “Take them where?”

“Just your office will do.”

Her lips moved soundlessly, like a fish floundering, but then wordlessly she came in and took the baby, holding him out carefully at arm’s length.

“You go, too,” Miss Pringy said gently to Susie.

It was a mark of her influence on those children, that with one warning look shot at him, Susie traipsed out of the room behind Amber, shutting the door with unnecessary noisiness behind her.

“You weren’t going to say you didn’t want them in front of them, were you?” Miss Pringy asked, before the door was barely shut.

It bothered him that she knew precisely how he had planned to finish that sentence. It bothered him the way she was looking at him, her gaze solemn and stripping and seemingly becoming less awed by him by the second.

Much as he disliked his fledgling celebrity status, Joshua had to admit he was growing rather accustomed to awe. And admiration. Women liked him, and they had thousands of delightful ways of letting him know that.

But no, Miss Pringy looked, well, disapproving, again, but then she shook her hair. It was not the flirtatious flick of locks that he was used to, and yet he found himself captivated. He found himself thinking she was really a wild-spirited gypsy dancer disguised, and unpleasantly so, as a straitlaced nanny.

“Look,” he said doggedly, “I’ve made arrangements for you to stay at a lovely resort in Whistler. They organize child activities all day long! Play-Doh sculpture. Movies. Nature walks. I just have to change everything upa day. You should be out of here and on your way in less than an hour.”

“No,” she said, and shook her hair again. Definitely not flirtatious. She was aggravated.

“No?” he repeated, stunned.

“That’s not what Melanie told me, and she is, after all, my employer, not you.”

Until the moment his sense of betrayal in his sister increased, Joshua had been pleasantly unaware he still harbored it.

His older sister had been with him in those exhilarating early days of the business, but then she’d broken the cardinal rule. It was okay to date the clients; it was not okay to fall head over heels in love with them!

Then she’d decided, after all these years of wholeheartedly endorsing the principles and mission of Sun, that she wanted kids.

That was okay. He felt as if he’d forgiven her even though over the past few years it felt as if he had been under siege by her, trying to make him see things her way. His sister had made it her mission to get him to see how great a relationship would be, how miraculous children were, how empty a life without commitment and a relationship and a family was.

She sent him e-mails and cell phone videos of Susie, singing a song, cuddling with her kitty, pirouetting at her ballet classes. Lately, Jake starred in the impromptu productions. The last one had shown him being particularly disgusting in his desperate attempts to hit his own mouth with a steadily deteriorating piece of chocolate cake gripped in his pudgy hands.

Mel’s husband, Ryan, a busy and successful building contractor, a man among men, fearless and macho, was often in the back ground looking practically teary-eyed with pride over the giftedness of his progeny.

For the most part, Joshua had managed to resist his sister’s efforts to involve him in her idea of a perfect life. Was the arrival of her children some new twist in her never-ending plot to convince him the life he’d chosen for himself was a sad and lonely place compared to the life she had chosen for herself?

“Why did you invite the children here just to send them away?” Dannie demanded.

“Play-Doh sculpture is nothing to be scoffed at,” he insisted.

“We could have done that at home.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Melanie had this idea that you were going to spend some time with them.”

Joshua snorted.

“She was so delighted that they were going to get to know you better.”

“I don’t see why,” he said.

“Frankly, neither do I!” She sank down on the couch, and he suddenly could see how tired she was. “What a mess. Melanie said I could trust you with the lives of her children. But you couldn’t even make it to the airport!”

“She gave me the wrong day!”

“Nothing is more important to your sister than the well-being of Susie and Jake. Surely she couldn’t have made a mistake?” This last was said quietly, as if she was thinking out loud.

Joshua Cole heard the doubt in her voice, and he really didn’t know whether to be delighted by it or insulted.

“A mistake?” he said smoothly. “Of course not. I said I’d make arrangements for you and the children’s accommodations immediately.”

Rather than looking properly appreciative, Miss Pringy was getting that formidable look on her face again.

“Mr. Cole,” she said sternly, “I’m afraid that won’t do.”

Joshua Cole lived in a world where he called the shots. “Won’t do?” he repeated, incredulous.

“No,” she said firmly. “Packing the children off to a hotel in Whistler will not do. That’s no kind of a vacation for a child or a baby.”

“Well, what is a vacation for them?” he asked. Inwardly he thought, anything. If she wanted tickets to Disneyworld, he’d get them. If they wanted to meet a pop star, he’d arrange it. If they wanted to swim with dolphins, he’d find out how to make that happen. No cost was too high, no effort too great.

“They just want to be around people who love them,” she said softly. “In a place where they feel safe and cared about. That is what Melanie thought they were coming to or she would never have sent them.”

Or gone herself, he thought, and suddenly, unwillingly, he remembered his sister’s tired face. No cost was too high? How about the cost of putting himself out?

Had he led Melanie to believe he was finally going to spend some quality time with her kids? He didn’t think so. She hadn’t really asked for details, and he hadn’t provided any. He wasn’t responsible for her assumptions.

But Joshua was suddenly very aware that a man could be one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, moving in a world of power and wealth, controlling an empire, but still feel like a kid around his older sister, still want her approval in some secret part of himself.

Or maybe what he wanted was to be worthy of her trust. Something in him whispered, Be the better man.

Out loud he heard himself saying, without one ounce of enthusiasm, “I guess they could come stay with me.”

Danielle Springer looked, understandably, skeptical of his commitment.

Too late he realized the full ramifications of his invitation.

Miss Pringy, the formidable nanny with the sensual lips and mysterious eyes would be coming to stay with him, too.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, he was opening himself up to a world that might have been his, had he hung on instead of letting go of a different baby boy in a lifetime he had left behind himself.

His son.

He wanted to be a better man, worthy of his sister’s trust, but who was he kidding? He’d lost faith in himself, in his ability to do the right thing, a long time ago. His sister didn’t even know about the college pregnancy of his girlfriend.

He found himself holding his breath, hoping Dannie Springer would not be foolish enough to say yes to his impulsive invitation, wishing he could take it back, before it drew him into places he did not want to go.

“Obviously, we have to stay somewhere for now,” she said, her enthusiasm, or lack thereof, matching his exactly. “I’m not subjecting the children to any more travel or uncertainty today.”

But his whole world suddenly had a quality of the uncertain about it. And Joshua Cole did not like it when things in his well-ordered world shifted out of his control. He didn’t like it one little bit.

CHAPTER TWO

DANNIE sat in the back seat of the cab, fuming. The next time I see Melanie, I’m going to kill her, she decided.

Thinking such a thought felt like a terrible defeat for a woman who prided herself on her steady nature and unflappable calm, at least professionally. To think it toward Melanie showed how truly rattled Dannie was. Melanie, in just a few short months, had become so much more than an employer.

But the truth was that a steady nature was not any kind of defense against a man like Joshua Cole. He was a complete masculine, sexy package, with that brilliant smile, the jade of those eyes, the perfect masculine cut of his facial features, the way he carried himself, the exquisitely expensive clothing over the sleek muscle of a toned body. All of it put together would have been enough to rattle Mother Theresa!

Dannie had known Melanie’s brother was attractive. She had seen two pictures of him in the Maynards’ home. Not that those pictures could have prepared her for Joshua Cole in the flesh.

Melanie’s two framed photos showed her brother through the lens of an ordinary family. Nothing extraordinary about Joshua at twelve, on the beach, scrawny, white, not even a hint of the man he would become. In fact, whatever had been behind that impish grin seemed to be gone from him entirely.

The other picture showed Joshua in a college football uniform, posed, looking annoyingly cocky and confident, again some mischief in him that now seemed to be gone. Though he was undeniably good-looking, that photo showed only a glimmer of the self-possessed man he now was.

“He never finished college,” Melanie had said, with a hint of sadness, when she had seen Dannie looking at that picture. For some reason Dannie had assumed that sadness was for her brother’s lost potential.

Melanie had seemed to see Joshua as the exasperating kid brother who was an expert at thwarting her every effort to interfere in his life with her wise and well-meaning sisterly guidance. From Melanie’s infrequent mentions of her brother, Dannie had thought he managed a hotel or a travel agency, not that he was the president and CEO of one of the world’s most up-and-coming companies!

So, the article in People to Watch had been a shocker. First, the photos had come a little closer to capturing the pure animal magnetism of the man. The little-boy mischief captured in his sister’s snapshots was gone from those amazing smoky-jade eyes, replaced with an intensity that was decidedly sensual.

That sensuality was underscored in the revealing photos of him: muscled, masculine, at ease with his body, oozing a self-certainty that few men would ever master.

Melanie had certainly never indicated her brother was a candidate for the World’s Sexiest Bachelor, though his unmarried status seemed to grate on her continually.

Again, the magazine portrayal seemed to be more accurate than the casual remarks Melanie had tossed out about him. The magazine described him as powerful, engaging and lethally charming. And that was just personally. Professionally he was described as driven. The timing of the openings of his adventure-based adult-only resorts was seen as brilliant.

In the article, his name had also been paired with some of the world’s wealthiest and most beautiful women, including actress Monique Belliveau, singer Carla Kensington and heiress Stephanie Winger-Stone.

By the time he’d stood them up at the airport, Danielle Springer, the steady one, had already been feeling nervous about meeting Joshua Cole, World’s Sexiest Bachelor, and had developed a feeling of dislike for him, just knowing he would exude all the superficial charm and arrogance of a man who had the world at his feet. He would move through life effortlessly, piling up successes, traveling the globe, causing heartbreaks but never suffering them.

She had already known, before the plane landed, that Melanie had made a terrible mistake in judgment sending them all here. That knowledge had only been underscored by the fact the Great One had not put in an appearance at the airport, and she had not been able to penetrate the golden walls that protected him from the annoyances of real life.

Which begged the question: Why hadn’t she jumped at the opportunity to go to Whistler when he had offered it? It was more than the fact small children and hotels rarely made a good combination, no matter how “child-friendly” they claimed to be.

It was more than the fact that the children were exhausted and so was she, not a good time to be making decisions!

It was that something about him had been unexpected.

He had not been all arrogance and charm. Something ran deeper in him. She had seen it in that unguarded moment when she had thrust Jake upon him, something in his face that said his life had not been without heartbreak, after all.

Stop it, she told herself sternly. They would spend the evening with him. Tomorrow, rested, she would regroup and decide what to do next. The original plan no longer seemed feasible. Spend a week with him? Good grief!

What she was not going to do was call Melanie and Ryan, who needed this time together desperately. At a whisper of trouble, Melanie would come home.

Still, could it really be in the best interests of the children to spend time with their uncle? He’d made it clear he was uncomfortable with children. In fact, his success was based on the creation of a child-free world! There was no sense seeing anything noble in his sudden whim to play the hero and spend time with the niece and nephew he’d invited here in the first place.

And how about herself? How much time could any woman with blood flowing through her veins spend with a man like that without succumbing?

Not, she reminded herself sourly, that there would be anything to succumb to. He was rich and powerful and definitely lethally charming. There had been no pictures in the article of him accompanied by women like her.

Women like her: unprocessed, unsophisticated, slightly plump.

She touched the locket on her neck and felt the ache. Only a few weeks ago, the locket would have protected her. Taken.

Brent had given it to her before leaving for Europe. “A promise,” he’d said, “I will return to you.”

Perhaps it would be better to take the locket off, now that it represented a promise broken. On the other hand perhaps it protected her still, reminding her of the fickleness of the human heart, and especially of the fickleness of the male human heart.

And besides, she wasn’t ready to take it off. She still looked at the photo inside it each night and felt the ache of loss and the stirring of hope that he would realize he had made a mistake….

Though all along maybe the worst mistake had been hers. Believing in what she felt for Brent, even after what she had grown up with. Her own parents’ split up had been venomous, their passion had metamorphosed into full-blown hatred that was destructive to all it had touched, including their children. Maybe especially their children.

Thank God, Dannie thought, for the Maynards, for Melanie and Ryan, for Susie and Jake. Thank God she had already been welcomed into the fold of their household when this hurricane of heartbreak had hit her. She would survive because they gave her a sense of family and of belonging, a safe place to fall when her world had fallen apart.

Bonus: loving them didn’t involve one little bit of risk!

Though since Brent’s call from London, “I’m so sorry, there’s someone else,” now when Dannie saw the way that Melanie and Ryan looked at each other, she felt a startling stab of envy.

“Hey, lady, are we going somewhere, or are we just sitting here?” the cabbie asked her, waiting for her instructions, impatient.

“When you see the horrible yellow car, follow it,” Dannie said. Delivering the variation on the line “Follow that car” gave her absolutely no pleasure.

“A yellow car?” he said, bemused. “Do you think you could be a little more specific?”

Dannie looked over her shoulder. “It’s coming now.”

The cabbie whistled. “Okay, lady, though in what world a Lamborghini is horrible, I’m not sure.”

“Totally unsuited for children’s car seats,” she informed him. The horrible yellow car, with its horrible gorgeous driver passed them slowly.

A man like that could make a woman rip a locket right off her neck!

She snorted to herself. A man like that could cause a heart to break just by being in the same room, a single glance, green eyes lingering a touch too long on her lips… Joshua’s eyes were probably always making promises he had no intention of keeping.

Unattainable to mere mortals, she reminded herself with a sniff. Not that she was a mortal in the market! Done. Brent had finished her. She had given love a chance, nurtured her hopes and dreams over the year he’d been away, lived for his cards and notes and e-mails and been betrayed for all her trouble.

Terrible how that vow of being done could be rattled so easily by one lingering look from Joshua Cole! How could his gaze have made her wish, after her terrible Brent breakup, that she had not made herself over quite so completely? Gone was the makeup, the fussing over the hair, the colorful wardrobe. On was about fifteen pounds, the result of intensive chocolate therapy!

She was done, intent on making herself invisible and therefore safe. How could she possibly feel as if Joshua Cole had seen her in a way Brent, whom she had pulled out all the makeover tricks for, never had?

The sports car was so low, she could look in the window and see Jake, his brand-new car seat strapped in securely, facing backward, his black hair standing straight up like dark dandelion fluff.

She refused to soften her view of Joshua Cole because he had insisted on the car seat to get the baby home. Once you softened your view of a man who was lethally charming, you were finished. That’s what lethally meant.

Besides, there hadn’t been enough room in that ridiculous car to put her and Susie to ride with him.

A car like that said a lot about a man. Fast and flashy. Self-centered. Single and planning to stay that way.

Since she was also single and very much planning to stay that way for the rest of her life, a poor spinster nanny in the basement room, it was probably unfair to see that as a flaw in him.

Except the car meant he was a hunter, on the prowl. Didn’t it?

“What does a car like that mean to you?” she asked the cab driver, just in case she had it wrong.

“That you can have any girl you want,” he muttered.

Bingo.

“If he opens her up, I’m not going to be able to keep up with him,” the cabbie warned.

“If he opens her up, I’m going to kill him,” she said. “He has a baby in there.” My baby. Of course, Jake was not officially her baby. Unofficially he had won her heart and soul from the first gurgle. Now, post-Brent, she had decided Jake might be the only baby she ever had.

Emotion could capsize her unexpectedly since Brent had hit her with his announcement, and she felt it claw at her throat now, defended against it by telling herself that sweet little baby boy was probably going to be lethally charming someday, just like his uncle.

Twice, in the space of five minutes, steady, dependable Dannie had thought of killing people.

That’s what heartbreak did: turned normal, reliable people into bitter survivors, turned them into what they least wanted to be. In fact, it seemed to her, her recent tragedy had the potential to turn her into her parents, who had spent their entire married lives trying to kill each other.

Figuratively. Mostly.

“You shouldn’t say you’re going to kill people,” Susie told her, a confirmation of what Dannie already knew. Susie was hugging the new teddy bear that had arrived in her uncle’s office along with the car seat. The teddy bear did not seem to have softened the child’s view of her uncle at all.

In Susie’s view, Uncle Josh was the villain who had torn her mother away from her. A teddy bear was not going to fix that.

A lesson Uncle Josh no doubt needed to learn! You could not buy back affection.

The car seat and the teddy bear had arrived within minutes of a quiet phone call. Dannie had heard him giving instructions to have a baby crib set up at his apartment. In the guest room with the Jacuzzi. Which begged the question not only how many guest rooms were there, but why did you need a guest room with a Jacuzzi?

Obviously, for the same reason you needed a car like that. Entertaining.

Still, she had gotten the message. He spoke; people jumped.

And he’d better not even think of trying that with her! She might have been the kind of person who jumped before Brent’s betrayal. She was no longer!

They arrived at a condominium complex not far from his office building, and Dannie tried very hard not to be awed, even though a guest room with a Jacuzzi should have given her ample time to prepare herself for something spectacular.

She was awed, anyway. Even though Melanie and Ryan certainly had no financial difficulties, she knew she was now moving in an entirely different league.

The high-rise building appeared to be constructed of white marble, glass and water. The landscaping in front of the main door was exquisite: lush grass, exotic flowers, a black onyx fountain shooting up pillars of gurgling foam.

She was fumbling with her wallet when Joshua appeared at the driver’s window, baby already on his hip, and paid the driver. He juggled the baby so he could open the door for her. There was no sense noticing his growing comfort with the baby!

Instead, she focused on the fact that if the great Joshua Cole was aware he had parked the horrible yellow thing in a clearly marked no-parking zone, it didn’t concern him.

But she’d do well to remember that: rules were for others.

A doorman came out of the building to move the car almost instantly. Another unloaded her luggage from the trunk of the cab.

Joshua greeted both men by name, with a sincere warmth that surprised her. And then he was leading her through a lobby that reminded her of the one and only five-star hotel she had ever stayed at. The lobby had soaring ceilings, deep carpets over marble tile, distressed leather furniture.

For all that, why did it feel as if the most beautiful thing in the room was that self-assured man carrying a baby, his strength easy, his manner unforced?

Few men, in Dannie’s experience, were really comfortable with children. Brent had claimed to like them, but she had noticed he had that condescending, overly enthusiastic way of being around them that children hated.

She hoped it was a sign of healing that she had remembered this flaw in her perfect man!

It was a strange irony that, while Joshua Cole had not made any claims about liking children and in fact radiated unapologetic discomfort around them, he was carrying that baby on his hip as if it was the most natural thing in the world to be doing.

Joshua chose that moment to glance down at the bundle in his arms. She caught his look of unguarded tenderness and felt her throat close. Had she just caught a glimpse of something so real about him that it made her question every other judgment she had made?

What if the World’s Sexiest Bachelor was a lie? What if the sports car and clothes and office were just a role he’d assumed? What if he was really a man who had been born to be a daddy?

Danger zone, she told herself. What was wrong with her? She had just been terribly disappointed by one man! Why would she be reading such qualities into another that she barely knew?

Besides, there was no doubt exactly why men like Joshua Cole were so successful with women. They had charm down to a science.

It made it so easy to place them in the center of a fantasy, it was so easy to give them a starring role in a dream that she had to convince herself she did not believe in anymore.

Enough of fantasies, she told herself. She had spent the entire year Brent was away building a fantasy around his stupid cards and e-mails, reading into them growing love, when in fact his love had been diminishing. She was a woman pathetic enough to have spent her entire meager savings on a wedding dress on the basis of a vague promise.

Joshua went to a door off the bank of elevators and inserted a key.

The door glided open, and Dannie tried not to gawk at the unbelievable decadence of a private glass elevator. How was a girl supposed to give up on fantasy in a world where fantasy became reality?

The glass-encased elevator eased silently upward, and even Susie forgot to be mad at her uncle and squealed with delight as they glided smoothly higher and higher, the view becoming more panoramic by the second.

The problem with elevators, especially for a woman trying desperately to regain control of suddenly undisciplined thoughts, of her fantasies, was that everything was too close in them. She could smell the tantalizing aroma of Joshua, expensive cologne, mixed with soap. His shoulder, enormously broad under the exquisite tailoring of his suit jacket, brushed hers as he turned to let the baby see the view, and she felt a shiver of animal awareness so strong that it shook her to the core.

The reality of being in this elevator with a real man made her aware that for a year Brent had not been real at all, but a faraway dream that she could make into anything she wanted him to be.

Had she ever been this aware of Brent? So aware that his scent, the merest brush of his shoulder, could make her dizzy?

She forced her attention to the view, all too aware it had nothing to do with the rapid beating of her heart. She could see the deep navy blue of an ocean bay. It was dotted with sailboats. Wet-suited sailboarders danced with the white capped waves. Outside of the bay a cruise ship slid by.

All she could think was that she had made a terrible mistake insisting on coming here with him. She touched her locket. Its powers to protect seemed measly and inadequate.

To be so aware of another human being, even in light of her recent romantic catastrophe, was terrible. To add to how terrible it was, she knew he would not be that aware of her. Since the breakup call, she had stripped herself of makeup, put away her wardrobe of decent clothes, determined to be invisible, to find the comfort of anonymity in her role as the nanny.

The elevator stopped, the doors slid open, and Dannie turned away from the view to enter directly into an apartment. To her left, floor-to-ceiling glass doors that spanned the entire length of the apartment were open to a terraced deck. Exotic flowering plants surrounded dark rattan furniture, the deep cushions upholstered in shades of lime and white. White curtains, so transparent they could only be silk, waved gracefully in the slightly salt-scented breeze.

Inside were long, sleek ultramodern white leather sofas, casually draped with sheepskins. They formed a conversation area around a fireplace framed in stainless steel, the hearth beaded in copper-colored glass tile. The themes of leather, glass and steel repeated themselves, the eye moving naturally from the conversation area to a bar that separated the living area from a kitchen.

The kitchen was magazine-layout perfect, black cabinets and granite countertops, more stainless steel, more copper-colored glass tiles. A wine cooler, state-of-the-art appliances, everything subtle and sexy.

“Don’t tell me you cook,” she said, the statement coming out more pleading than she wanted.

He laughed. “Does opening wine count?”

Oh, it counted, right up there with the car and the Jacuzzi, as a big strike against him.

Thankfully, it really confirmed what she already knew. She was way out of her league, but vulnerable, too. And the apartment gave her the perfect excuse.

Was he watching her to see her reaction?

“Obviously,” she said tightly, “we can’t stay here. I’m sorry. I should never have insisted. If you can book us a flight, I need to take the children home.”

But the very thought made her want to cry. She told herself it wasn’t because his apartment was like something out of a dream, that it called to the part of her that wanted, dearly, to be pampered, that wanted, despite her every effort, to embrace fantasy instead of reject it.

No. She was tired. The children were tired. She couldn’t put them all back on a plane today. Maybe tomorrow.

“A motel for tonight,” she said wearily. “Tomorrow we can go home.”

“What’s wrong?”

Everything suddenly seemed wrong. Her whole damned life. She had never wanted anything like the elegance of this apartment, but only because it was beyond the humble dreams she had nurtured for Brent’s and her future.

So why did it feel so terrible, a yawning emptiness that could never be filled, that she realized she could never have this? Or a man like him? She hadn’t even been able to hold the interest of Brent, pudgy, owlish, safe.

Joshua Cole had the baby stuffed under his arm like a football, and was looking at her with what could very easily be mistaken for genuine concern by the hopelessly naive. At least she could thank Brent for that. She wasn’t. Hopelessly naive. Anymore.

“Obviously, I can’t stay here with the children. They could wreck a place like this in about twenty minutes.” The fantasy was about being pampered, enjoying these lush surroundings; the reality was the children wrecking the place and her being frazzled, trying to keep everything in order.

Reality. Fantasy. As long as she could keep the two straight, she should be able to survive this awkward situation.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, but uncertainly.

“Dic-u-lous,” Susie agreed, her eyes lighting on a pure crystal sculpture of a dolphin in the center of the coffee table.

Dannie took a tighter hold on Susie’s hand as the child tried to squirm free. She could already imagine little jam-covered fingerprints on the drapes, crayon marks on the sofas, wine being pulled out of the cooler.

“No,” she said. “It’s obvious you aren’t set up for children. I’d have a nervous breakdown trying to guard all your possessions.”

“They’re just possessions,” he said softly.

Of course he didn’t mean that. She’d already seen what he drove. She’d seen him eyeing that bowl in his office with grave concern every time Susie had even glanced in its direction. It was time to call him on it.

“You’re less attached to all this than the bowl in your office?” She congratulated herself on just the right tone of disbelief.

“I can move anything that is that breakable.”

“Start with the wine,” she said, just to give him an idea how big a job it was.

“The cooler locks. I’ll do it now.” As he moved across the room, he said over his shoulder, “I’ll send for some toys as a distraction.”

She had to pull herself together. She had to make the best decision for the children. The thought of moving them again, of cooping them up in a hotel room for the night suddenly seemed nearly unbearable.

They would stay here the night. One night. Rested, she would make good decisions tomorrow. Rested, she would be less susceptible to the temptations of his beautiful world. And his drop-dead-gorgeous eyes. And the brilliant wattage of his smile.

Which was directed at her right now. “What kind of toys should I get?” he asked her. He came over and gave her the key to the wine cooler, folded her hand around it.

She desperately wished he had not done that. His touch, warm and strong, filled with confidence, made her more confused about reality and fantasy. How could a simple touch make her feel as if she’d received an electric jolt from fingertip to elbow?

She’d given him an out, but he wasn’t taking it. She could see he was the kind of man who made up his mind and then was not swayed.

There was no point in seeing that as admirable. It was mule-stubbornness, nothing more.

“What toys?” he asked her again. He was smiling wickedly, as if he knew the touch of his hand had affected her.

Of course he knew! He radiated the conceited confidence of a man who had played this game with many women. Played. That’s why they called them playboys. It was all just a game to him.

“Princess Tasonja!” Susie crowed her toy suggestion. “And the camping play set. I have to have the tent and the backpack. And the dog, Royal Robert.” Seeing her uncle look amenable, she added a piece she coveted from a totally different play set. “And the royal wedding carriage. Don’t get Jake anything. He’s a baby.”

He took his cell phone out of his pocket and tried to dial with his thumb while still holding the baby. Apparently, he was going to have someone round up all the toys his niece had demanded.

“I wouldn’t bother with Princess Tasonja, if I were you,” Dannie managed, in a clipped undertone as Susie slipped free of her hand and skipped over to the sofa where she buried her face in a copper-colored silk pillow. Dannie was pretty sure the remnants of lunch were on that face.

“Why not?”

Why bother telling him that Susie’s attention would be held by the Princess Tasonja doll and her entire entourage for about thirty seconds? Why not let him find out on his own that attempts to buy children’s affection usually ended miserably? Susie would become a monster of demands once the first one was met.

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