“In one breath, you assert that you’re not propositioning me, and in the next, you say that you find me attractive.”

“Actually, my comment was more objective than subjective,” Michael told her. “But while I do think you’re a very attractive woman, I didn’t hire you in order to pursue a personal relationship with you.”

“Okay,” Hannah said, still sounding wary.

Not that he could blame her. Because even as he was saying one thing, he was thinking something else entirely.

“In fact, I wouldn’t have invited you to spend the summer here if I thought there was any danger of an attraction leading to anything else.”

“Okay,” she said again.

“I just want you to understand that I didn’t intend for this to happen at all,” he said.

And then he kissed her.

Dear Reader,

It has been a sincere pleasure to return to the island paradise of Tesoro del Mar, to revisit some familiar characters and introduce some new ones. Hannah Castillo is one of the new characters you’ll meet in Prince Daddy & the Nanny.

After the death of her mother when Hannah was only eight years old, her father sent her to Tesoro del Mar to live with her uncle Phillip, the royal physician. Eighteen years later, when Hannah takes a summer job looking after widowed Prince Michael’s four-year-old daughter, she can’t help but see parallels between the princess’s lonely childhood and her own. As she works to help bridge the gap between father and daughter, Hannah finds herself falling for both of them and wishing that the summer would never end.

But of course, Hannah knows that the idea of a prince loving a commoner is nothing more than a fairy tale, and fairy tales don’t come true. Except, maybe, in Tesoro del Mar …

I hope you enjoy Hannah’s story.

Best,

Brenda Harlen

About the Author

BRENDA HARLEN grew up in a small town, surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as an attorney (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner—to Mills & Boon.

Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (too many books, according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with real people. Readers can contact Brenda by e-mail at brendaharlen@yahoo.com.

Prince Daddy
& The Nanny

Brenda Harlen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Kate Weichelt—

who has helped brainstorm solutions to many story

problems over the years, including a few in this one.

Thanks for being a friend, an inspiration,

and especially for being you!

Chapter One

So this is how the other half lives.

Hannah Castillo’s eyes widened as she drove through the gates into the upscale neighborhood of Verde Colinas.

Actually, she knew it was more likely how half of one percent of the population lived, and she couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to grow up in a place like this. Having spent the first eight years of her life moving from village to village with her missionary parents, she hadn’t realized there was anything different until her uncle Phillip had brought her to his home in Tesoro del Mar.

And even then, she wouldn’t have imagined that there was anything like this. She hadn’t known that real people lived in such luxury. Not regular people, of course, but billionaires and business tycoons, musicians and movie stars, philanthropists and princes. Well, at least one prince.

Prince Michael Leandres was the thirty-eight-year-old president of a multimedia advertising company, cousin of the prince regent, widowed father of Tesoro del Mar’s youngest princess, and the first man who had ever made her heart go pitter-patter.

As she slowed to wait for another set of gates to open so that she could enter the drive that led to the prince’s home, she couldn’t help but smile at the memory. She’d been twelve at the time, and as flustered as she was flattered when Uncle Phillip asked her to accompany him to the by-invitation-only Gala Opening of the Port Augustine Art Gallery.

She’d been so preoccupied thinking about what she would wear (she would have to get a new dress, because a gala event surely required a gown) and whether she might be allowed to wear makeup (at least a little bit of eyeliner and a touch of lip gloss) that she hadn’t given a thought to the other guests who might be in attendance at the event. And then she’d walked through the doors on her uncle’s arm and spotted Prince Michael.

To a preteen girl who was just starting to take note of the male species, he was a full six feet of masculine perfection. He was also a dozen years older than she, and already there were rumors swirling about his plans to marry his longtime sweetheart, Samantha Chandelle. But Hannah’s enamored heart hadn’t cared. She’d been content to admire him from afar, her blood racing through her veins just because he was in the same room with her.

Since then, she’d met a lot of other men, dated some of them and even had intimate relationships with a few. But not one of them had ever made her feel the same kind of pulse-pounding, spine-tingling excitement that she’d felt simply by being in the presence of Prince Michael—not even Harrison Parker, the earl who had been her fiancé for a short time.

Now, fourteen years after her first meeting with the prince, she was going to come face-to-face with him again. She might even have a conversation with him—if she could manage to untie her tongue long enough to form any coherent words—and hopefully persuade him that she was the perfect woman to take care of his adorable daughter. Of course, it might be easier to convince him if she believed it herself, but truthfully, she wasn’t sure how she’d let Uncle Phillip convince her that the idea of working as a nanny for the summer wasn’t a completely ridiculous one.

Or maybe she did know. Maybe it was as simple as the fact that she was in desperate need of an income and a place to stay for the summer, and working as a nanny at Cielo del Norte—a royal estate on the northern coast—would provide her with both. But on top of that, her uncle claimed that he “would be most grateful” if she would at least meet with the prince—as if it would be doing him some kind of favor, which made the request impossible for Hannah to deny. That the salary the prince was offering was more than enough to finally pay off the last of her student loans was a bonus.

As for responsibilities, she would be providing primary care for the widowed prince’s almost-four-year-old daughter. She didn’t figure that should be too difficult for someone with a master’s degree, but still her stomach was twisted in knots of both excitement and apprehension as she turned her ancient secondhand compact into the winding drive that led toward the prince’s home.

Having grown up in tents and mud huts and, on very rare occasions, bedding down on an actual mattress in a cheap hotel room, she was unprepared for life in Tesoro del Mar. When she moved into her uncle’s home, she had not just a bed but a whole room to herself. She had clothes in an actual closet, books on a shelf and a hot meal on the table every night. It took her a long time to get used to living in such luxurious surroundings, but pulling up in front of the prince’s home now, she knew she was about to discover the real definition of luxury.

The hand-carved double front doors were opened by a uniformed butler who welcomed her into a spacious marble-tiled foyer above which an enormous crystal chandelier was suspended. As she followed him down a long hallway, their footsteps muted by the antique Aubusson carpet, she noted the paintings on the walls. She had enough knowledge of and appreciation for art to recognize that the works that hung in gilded frames were not reproductions but original pieces by various European masters.

The butler led her through an open doorway and into what was apparently the prince’s office. Prince Michael himself was seated behind a wide desk. Bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes lined the wall behind him. The adjoining wall boasted floor-to-ceiling windows set off by textured velvet curtains. It even smelled rich, she thought, noting the scents of lemon polish, aged leather and fresh flowers.

“Miss Castillo, Your Highness.” The butler announced her presence in a formal tone, then bowed as he retreated from the room.

The nerves continued to twist and knot in her stomach. Was she supposed to bow? Curtsy? She should have asked her uncle about the appropriate etiquette, but she’d had so many other questions and concerns about his proposition that the intricacies of royal protocol had never crossed her mind.

She debated for about ten seconds, then realized the prince hadn’t looked away from his computer screen long enough to even glance in her direction. She could have bowed and curtsied and done a tap dance and he wouldn’t even have noticed. Instead, she focused on her breathing and tried to relax, reminding herself that Michael Leandres might be a prince, but he was still just a man.

Then he pushed away from his desk and rose to his feet, and she realized that she was wrong.

This man wasn’t “just” anything. He was taller than she’d remembered, broader across the shoulders and so much more handsome in person than he appeared in newspaper photos and on magazine covers. And her heart, already racing, leaped again.

He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. “Please, have a seat.”

His voice was deep and cultured, and with each word, little tingles danced over her skin. She couldn’t be sure if her reaction to him was that of a girl so long enamored of a prince or of a woman instinctively responding to an undeniably attractive man, but she did know that it was wholly inappropriate under the circumstances. She was here to interview for a job, not ogle the man, she sternly reminded herself as she lowered herself into the Queen Anne—style chair and murmured, “Thank you.”

“I understand that you’re interested in working as my daughter’s nanny for the summer,” the prince said without further preamble.

“I am,” she agreed, then felt compelled to add, “although I have to confess that I’ve never actually worked as a nanny before.”

He nodded, seemingly unconcerned by this fact. “Your uncle told me that you’re a teacher.”

“That’s correct.”

“How long have you been teaching?”

“Six years,” she told him.

“Do you enjoy it?”

“Of course,” she agreed.

He frowned, and she wondered if her response was somehow the wrong one. But then she realized that his gaze had dropped to the BlackBerry on his desk. He punched a few buttons before he looked up at her again.

“And I understand that you’ve met Riley,” he prompted.

“Only once, a few months ago. I was with a friend at the art gallery—” coincidentally, the same art gallery where she’d first seen him so many years earlier, though it was unlikely that he had any recollection of that earlier meeting “—and Princess Riley was there with her nanny.”

Phillip had explained to her that the nanny—Brigitte Francoeur—had been caring for the princess since she was a baby, and that Prince Michael had been having more difficulty than he’d anticipated in his efforts to find a replacement for the woman who was leaving his employ to get married.

“The way Brigitte told it to me was that my daughter ran away from her, out of the café—and straight into you, dumping her ice cream cone into your lap.”

Hannah waited, wondering about the relevance of his recounting of the event.

“I kept expecting to read about it in the paper,” he explained. “Princess Riley Accosts Museum Guest with Scoop of Strawberry.”

She couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sure, even if there had been reporters in the vicinity, they would not have found the moment newsworthy, Your Highness.”

“I’ve learned, over the years, that a public figure doesn’t only need to worry about the legitimate media but anyone who feels they have a story to tell. A lot of ordinary citizens would have happily sold that little tale to El Informador for a tidy sum. Not only did you not run to the press to sell the story of the out-of-control princess, but you bought her a new ice cream cone to replace the one she’d lost.”

“It wasn’t her fault that the strawberry went splat,” she said lightly.

“A gracious interpretation of the event,” he noted. “And one that gives me hope you might finally be someone who could fill the hole that Brigitte’s absence will leave in Riley’s life.”

“For the summer, you mean,” Hannah sought to clarify.

“For the summer,” he agreed. “Although I was originally hoping to find a permanent replacement, the situation has changed. The current nanny is leaving at the end of this week to finalize preparations for her wedding, and my daughter and I are scheduled to be at Cielo del Norte by the beginning of next. None of the applicants I’ve interviewed have been suitable, and your uncle has managed to convince me to settle for an interim solution to the problem.”

She wasn’t sure if she should be amused or insulted. “Is that why I’m here? Am I—”

“Excuse me,” he interrupted, picking up the BlackBerry again. He frowned as he read the message, then typed a quick response. “You were saying?” he prompted when he was done.

“I was wondering if I’m supposed to be your ‘interim solution.’“

His lips curved, just a little, in response to her dry tone. “I hope so. Although my royal duties are minimal, my responsibilities to my business are not,” he explained. “I spend the summers at Cielo del Norte because it is a tradition that began when Samantha—”

His hesitation was brief, but the shadows that momentarily clouded his dark eyes confirmed her uncle’s suspicion that the prince was still grieving for the wife he’d lost only hours after the birth of their daughter, and Hannah’s heart couldn’t help but ache for a man who would have faced such an indescribable loss so quickly on the heels of intense joy.

“—when Samantha and I first got married. A tradition that she wanted to carry on with our children.” He cleared his throat, dropping his gaze to reshuffle some papers on his desk. “But the truth is that I still have a company to run. Thankfully I can do that from the beach almost as easily as I can do it from my office downtown. I just need to know that Riley is in good hands so that I can focus on what I need to do.”

Be a good girl and stay out of the way so that Daddy can do his work.

The words, long forgotten, echoed in the back of Hannah’s mind and sliced through her heart.

Maybe they had been born into completely different worlds, but Hannah suddenly wondered if she and Princess Riley might have a lot more in common than she ever would have suspected.

Her own father had rarely had any time for her, and then, when she was eight years old, her mother had died. She still felt the void in her heart. She still missed her. And she wanted to believe that in some small way, she might be able to fill that void for the prince’s daughter. If he would give her the chance.

“Are you offering me the job, Your Highness?” she asked him now.

“Yes, I am,” he affirmed with a nod.

“Then I accept.”

Michael knew he should be relieved. He’d needed to hire a nanny for the summer, and now he’d done so. But there was something about Hannah Castillo that made him uneasy. Or maybe he was simply regretting the fact that his daughter would have to say goodbye to her long-term caregiver. Brigitte had been a constant in Riley’s life almost from the very beginning, and he knew it would take his daughter some time to adjust to her absence.

He wished he could believe that being at Cielo del Norte with him would give Riley comfort, but the truth was, his daughter was much closer to her nanny than she was to her father. It was a truth that filled him with grief and regret, but a truth nonetheless.

He and Sam had long ago agreed that they would both play an active role in raising their child. Of course, that agreement had been made before Sam died, so soon after giving birth to their baby girl. How was one man supposed to care for an infant daughter, grieve for the wife he’d lost and continue to run the company they’d built together?

It hadn’t taken him long to realize that there was no way that he could do it on his own, so he’d hired Brigitte. She’d been a child studies student at the local university who Sam had interviewed as a potential mother’s helper when the expectation was that his wife would be around to raise their daughter.

For the first couple years, Brigitte had tended to Riley during the day and continued her studies at night, with Michael’s sister, Marissa, taking over the baby’s care after-hours. Then when Brigitte finished university and Michael’s sister took on additional responsibilities elsewhere, the young woman had become Riley’s full-time nanny.

I don’t want our child raised by a series of nannies.

Sam’s voice echoed in the back of his mind, so clearly that he almost expected to turn around and see her standing there.

He understood why she’d felt that way and he’d shared her concerns, but he convinced himself that a wonderful and

energetic caregiver like Brigitte was the exception to the

rule. She certainly wasn’t like any of the harsh disciplinarians who had been hired to ensure that he and his siblings grew up to become proper royals.

Still, he knew his failure wasn’t in hiring Brigitte—or even in hiring Hannah Castillo. His failure was in abdicating his own responsibilities as a father.

He’d wanted to do more, to be more involved in Riley’s life. But the first few months after Sam’s death had been a blur. He’d barely been able to focus on getting up every morning, never mind putting a diaper on a baby, so those tasks had fallen to Brigitte or Marissa.

At six months of age, Riley had broken through the veil of grief that had surrounded him. He’d been drinking his morning coffee and scanning the headlines of the newspaper when Marissa had carried her into the kitchen. He’d glanced up, and when he did, the little girl’s big brown eyes widened. “Da!” she said, and clapped her hands.

He didn’t know enough about a baby’s developmental milestones to know that she was speaking her first word several months ahead of schedule. All he knew was that the single word and the smile on her face completely melted his heart.

Sam had given him the precious gift of this baby girl, and somehow he had missed most of the first six months of her life. He vowed then and there to make more of an effort, to spend more time with her, to make sure she knew how much she was loved. But he was still awkward with her—she was so tiny and delicate, and he felt so big and clumsy whenever he held her. Thankfully, she was tolerant of his ineptitude, and her smiles and giggles gave him confidence and comfort.

And then, shortly after Riley’s second birthday, Brigitte made a discovery. Riley had been an early talker—not just speaking a few words or occasional phrases but in complete sentences—and she often repeated the words when the nanny read her a story. But on this particular day, Brigitte opened a book that they’d never read before, and Riley began to read the words without any help or prompting.

A few months after that, Brigitte had been playing in the music room with the little girl, showing her how she could make sounds by pressing down on the piano’s ivory keys, and Riley had quickly started to put the sounds together to make music.

Before she turned three, Riley had been examined by more doctors and teachers than Michael could count, and the results had been unequivocal—his daughter was intellectually gifted.

He was proud, of course, and more than a little baffled. As if he hadn’t struggled enough trying to relate to the tiny little person when he’d believed that she was a normal child, learning that she was of superior intelligence made him worry all the more. Thankfully, Brigitte had known what to do. She’d met with specialists and interviewed teachers and made all of the arrangements to ensure that Riley’s talents were being nurtured. And when the advertising company he and Sam had established ran into difficulties because an associate stole several key clients, Michael refocused his attention on the business, confident his daughter was in much more capable hands than his own.

It had taken a while, but the business was finally back on solid ground, Riley was happy and healthy, Brigitte was getting married and moving to Iceland, and he had a new nanny for the summer.

So why was he suddenly worried that hiring Hannah Castillo had set him upon a path that would change his life?

He didn’t want anything to change. He was content with the status quo. Maybe it wasn’t what he’d envisioned for his life half a dozen years earlier, and maybe there was an empty place in his heart since Samantha had died, but he knew that he could never fill that void. Because there would never be anyone he would love as he’d loved Sam. There was no way anyone else could ever take her place.

Each day that had passed in the years since Sam’s death had cemented that conviction. He had no difficulty turning away from the flirtatious glances that were sent in his direction, and even the more blatant invitations did nothing to stir his interest.

Then Hannah Castillo had walked into his office and he’d felt a definite stir of … something.

The morning weather reports had warned of a storm on the horizon, and he’d tried to convince himself that the change in the weather was responsible for the crackle in the air. But he knew that there was no meteorological explanation for the jolt that went through his system when he’d taken the hand she offered, no logical reason for the rush of blood through his veins when she smiled at him.

And he’d felt an uneasiness in the pit of his belly, a tiny suspicion that maybe hiring a young, attractive woman as his daughter’s temporary nanny wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had.

Because as much as he’d kept the tone of the interview strictly professional, he hadn’t failed to notice that the doctor’s niece was quite beautiful. She wasn’t very tall—probably not more than five feet four inches without the two-inch heels on her feet. And while the tailored pants and matching jacket she wore weren’t provocative by any stretch of the imagination, they failed to disguise her distinctly feminine curves. Her honey-blond hair had been scraped away from her face and secured in a tight knot at the back of her head in a way that might have made her look prim, but the effect was softened by warm blue eyes and sweetly shaped lips that were quick to smile.

Even as he’d offered her the job, he’d wondered if he was making a mistake. But he’d reassured himself that it was only for two months.

Now that she was gone and he was thinking a little more clearly, he suspected that it was going to be a very long summer.

Chapter Two

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why would you have doubts?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“When does the new nanny arrive?”

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

“Tomorrow.”

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

“Do I?” he countered.

“Are you having second thoughts about her qualifications?”

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

Her brows rose.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“She’s very attractive, isn’t she?”

His scowl deepened.

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

“I am not flustered,” he denied.

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

“Mar—”

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

“There are no details,” he insisted.

“Not yet,” she said, and smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

She really was pathetic.

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

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

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

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

“Mrs. Fuentes?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yes, I’ll get them later.”

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

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

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

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

Hannah nodded. “I would.”

“First door on the right.”

“And the prince’s office?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Other than that,” he agreed.

“None,” she admitted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What is this?” she asked him.

“It’s Riley’s schedule.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She folded the schedule and dropped a curtsy.

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

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

Chapter Three

Well, that hadn’t gone quite as she’d expected, Hannah thought as she exited Prince Michael’s office. And she couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, not just with their meeting but in the man himself. She’d thought he might want to talk to her about Riley’s favorite activities at the beach, give her some suggestions on how to keep the little girl busy and happy, but she’d gotten the impression he only wanted her to keep the child occupied and out of his way.

As she made her way down the hall in search of the princess, she realized that she’d never actually seen him with his daughter. The first time she’d met Riley—the day of the ice cream mishap at the art gallery—the little girl had been in the care of her nanny. When Hannah had arrived at the prince’s house to interview for the position, Riley had been out with Brigitte. She’d gone back for a second visit, to spend some time with the child so that she wouldn’t be a complete stranger to her when she showed up at Cielo del Norte, but she hadn’t seen the prince at all on that occasion.

Now he was in his office, and the princess was apparently somewhere else in this labyrinth of rooms preparing for a piano lesson. Did they always lead such separate lives? Did the prince really intend to spend most of his supposed holiday at his desk?

Once she’d gotten over her wariness about taking a job for which she had no experience, she’d actually found herself looking forward to spending the summer with the young princess. She’d imagined that they would play in the water and have picnics on the beach. She hadn’t anticipated that the little girl wouldn’t have time for fun and frivolity. Yes, she’d been born royal and would someday have duties and obligations as a result, but she wasn’t even four years old yet.

Brigitte had made a point of telling Hannah—several times—that Riley was an exceptionally bright and gifted child who was already reading at a second-grade level—in French. She’d encouraged the young princess to demonstrate her talents at the piano, and Riley had done so willingly enough. Hannah couldn’t help but be impressed, but in the back of her mind, she wondered why the child didn’t seem happy.

Somehow that question had Hannah thinking about what she’d been doing as a four-year-old. Her own childhood had hardly been traditional, but it had been fun. In whatever village had been their current home, she’d always had lots of local children to play with. She’d raced over the hills and played hide-and-seek in the trees. She’d gone swimming in watering holes and rivers and streams. She’d created rudimentary sculptures out of riverbank clay and built houses and castles from mud and grass.

Her parents had never worried about the lack of formal education, insisting that the life skills she was learning were far more important than reading and writing. While the teacher in her cringed at that philosophy now, she did understand the importance of balance between life and learning.

At the princess’s age, she’d picked up some words and phrases in Swahili and Hausa and Manyika, enough to communicate with the other kids on a basic level; Riley was studying French, Italian and German out of textbooks. And whereas Hannah had learned music by banging on tribal drums or shaking and rattling dried seed pods, Riley had lessons from professional instructors.

She could hear the piano now, and followed the sound of the sharp, crisp notes to the music room to find the prince’s daughter practicing scales on a glossy white Steinway.

She was sitting in the middle of the piano bench, her feet—clad in ruffled ankle socks and white patent Mary Janes—dangling several inches above the polished marble floor. Her long, dark hair was neatly plaited and tied with a pink bow. Her dress was the same shade of cotton candy, with ruffles at the bottoms of the sleeves and skirt. The housekeeper was in the corner, dusting some knickknacks on a shelf and surreptitiously keeping an eye on the princess.

The soaring ceiling was set off with an enormous chandelier dripping with crystals, but the light was unnecessary as the late-morning sun spilled through the tall, arched windows that faced the ocean. The other walls were hung with gorgeous woven tapestries, and while Hannah guessed that their placement was more likely for acoustics than aesthetics, the effect was no less breathtaking.

Suddenly, the fingers moving so smoothly over the ivory keys stopped abruptly. Riley swiveled on the bench, a dark scowl on her pretty face. “What are you doing in here?”

“Hello, Riley,” Hannah said pleasantly.

“What are you doing in here?” the princess asked again.

“I wanted to hear you practice.”

“I like to be alone when I practice,” she said, demonstrating that she’d inherited her father’s mood as well as his dark eyes.

Hannah just shrugged, refusing to let the little girl’s attitude affect her own. “I can wait in the hall until you’re finished.”

“I have my French lesson after piano.”

Hannah referred to the schedule she’d been given, which confirmed Riley’s statement. “I’ll see you at lunch, then.”

The princess’s nod dismissed her as definitively as the prince had done only a few minutes earlier.

On her way out, Hannah passed the piano teacher coming in.

The older woman had a leather bag over her shoulder and determination in her step. Clearly she had a purpose for being here. Hannah had yet to figure out her own.

The conference call that Michael had rescheduled came through at precisely eleven o’clock and concluded twenty minutes later. A long time after that, he was still struggling to accept what he’d learned about Miss Castillo—high school teacher turned temporary nanny.

Phillip Marotta had said only that she was a teacher; Michael had assumed that meant she had experience with children. Because he trusted the royal physician implicitly, he had taken the doctor’s recommendation without question. Apparently he should have asked some questions, but he acknowledged that the mistake had been his own.

Still, despite the new nanny’s apparent lack of experience, he knew that the doctor had stronger reasons than nepotism for suggesting his niece for the job. And from what Brigitte had told him, Riley seemed to accept her easily enough. Of course, his daughter had had so many doctors and teachers and instructors in and out of her life that she accepted most newcomers without any difficulty.

So why was he uneasy about Miss Castillo’s presence at Cielo del Norte? Was he really concerned about Riley—or himself?

When Sam died, he’d thought he would never stop grieving the loss. He was certain he would never stop missing her. But over the years, the pain had gradually started to fade, and Riley’s easy affection had begun to fill the emptiness in his heart. He’d been grateful for that, and confident that the love of his little girl was enough.

He didn’t need romance or companionship—or so he’d believed until Hannah walked into his life. But he couldn’t deny that the new nanny affected him in a way that no woman had done in a very long time.

A brisk knock at the door gave him a reprieve from these melancholy thoughts.

“Lunch will be served on the terrace as soon as you’re ready,” Caridad told him.

He nodded his thanks as he checked his watch, surprised that so much time had passed. Twenty minutes on the phone followed by an hour and a half of futile introspection. Maybe he did need a vacation.

The housekeeper dropped a quick curtsy before she turned back toward the door.

“Caridad—”

“Yes, Your Highness?”

“What is your impression of Miss Castillo?”

Her eyes widened. “I’m not sure I understand why you’d be asking that, sir.”

“Because I value your opinion,” he told her honestly. “During the summers that I spent here as a kid, you were always a lot more of a mother to me than my own mother was—which makes you Riley’s honorary grandmother and, as such, I’d expect you to have an opinion of her new nanny.”

“We’ve only spoken briefly, sir, I’m certainly not in any position—”

“Quick first impressions,” he suggested.

“Well, she’s not quite what I expected,” Caridad finally admitted.

“In what way?”

“She’s very young and … quite attractive.”

He didn’t think Hannah was as young as Brigitte’s twenty-four years, though he could see why the housekeeper might have thought so. Brigitte had dressed more conservatively and she hadn’t been nearly as outspoken as the doctor’s niece.

“Not that Brigitte wasn’t attractive,” she clarified. “But she was more … subtle.”

She was right. There was absolutely nothing subtle about Hannah Castillo. While she certainly didn’t play up her natural attributes, there was something about her—an energy or an aura—that made it impossible for her to fade into the background.

“But I’m sure that neither her age nor her appearance has any relevance to her ability to do her job,” she hastened to add.

No—the most relevant factor was her employment history, which he decided not to mention to the housekeeper. No doubt Caridad would wonder how he’d ended up hiring someone with a complete lack of experience, and he was still trying to figure that one out himself.

“If I may speak freely …” Caridad ventured.

“Of course,” he assured her.

“You should spend more time around young and beautiful women and less behind your desk.”

“Like the young and beautiful woman you ‘hired’ to help in the kitchen when you sprained your wrist last summer?” he guessed.

“I wasn’t sure you’d even noticed,” she admitted.

“How could I not when every time I turned around she was in my way?” he grumbled good-naturedly.

“Maybe she was a little obvious, but I thought if I had to hire someone, it wouldn’t hurt to hire someone who might catch your eye.”

“Caridad,” he said warningly.

“Your daughter needs more than a nanny—she needs a mother.”

The quick stab that went through his heart whenever anyone made reference to Samantha’s passing—even a reference as veiled as Caridad’s—was no longer a surprise, and no longer quite so painful.

“And in a perfect world, she would still have her mother and I would still have my wife,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Unfortunately, this is not a perfect world.”

“Four years is a long time to grieve,” she said in a gentler tone.

“When Sam and I got married, I promised to love her forever. Is that time frame supposed to change just because she’s gone?”

“Unless your vows were different than mine, they didn’t require you to remain faithful forever but only ‘till death do us part.’“

“Could you ever imagine loving anyone other than Estavan?” he countered.

“No,” she admitted softly. “But we have been together forty-one years and I am an old woman now. You are still young—you have many years to live and much love to give.”

He glanced at the calendar on his desk. “I also have another quick call to make before lunch.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” She curtsied again, but paused at the door. “I just have one more thing to say.”

He knew it was his own fault. Once he’d opened the door, he had no right to stop her from walking through. “What is it?”

“No one questions how much you loved your wife,” she told him. “Just as no one would raise an eyebrow now if you decided it was time to stop grieving and start living again.”

He hadn’t been with anyone since Sam had died, almost four years ago. And he hadn’t been with anyone but Sam for the fourteen years before that. He’d loved his wife for most of his life. After meeting her, he’d never wanted anyone else—he’d never even looked twice at any other woman.

But Caridad was right—Hannah Castillo was beautiful, and he’d found himself looking at her and seeing not just his daughter’s new nanny but a desirable woman.

Thankfully the buzz of his BlackBerry prevented him from having to respond to the housekeeper. Acknowledging the signal with a nod, she slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Michael picked up the phone, forcing all thoughts of Hannah from his mind.

Lunch for the adults was pan-seared red snapper served with couscous and steamed vegetables. For Riley, it was chicken nuggets and fries with a few vegetables on the side. She eagerly ate the nuggets, alternately played with or nibbled on the fries and carefully rearranged the vegetables on her plate.

Throughout the meal, Hannah was conscious—almost painfully so—of the prince seated across the table. She’d pretty much decided that she didn’t really like him, at least not what she’d seen of him so far, but for some inexplicable reason, that didn’t stop her pulse from racing whenever he was near. Remnants of her childhood crush? Or the shallow desires of a long-celibate woman? Whatever the explanation, the man sure did interfere with her equilibrium.

Thankfully, he paid little attention to her, seeming content to make conversation with his daughter. Hannah found it interesting to observe their interaction, noting how alive and animated the princess was with her father. Certainly there was no evidence of the moody child who had banished her from the music room earlier.

“Is there something wrong with your fish?”

Hannah was so caught up in her introspection that it took her a moment to realize that the prince had actually deigned to speak to her. She looked down at her plate now, startled to notice that her meal had barely been touched.

“Oh. No.” She picked up her fork, speared a chunk of red snapper. “It’s wonderful.”

“Are you not hungry?”

She was hungry. The muffin and coffee that had been her breakfast en route were little more than a distant memory, and the meal the housekeeper had prepared was scrumptious. But not nearly as scrumptious as the man seated across from her—

She felt her cheeks flush in response to the errant thought. “I’m a little nervous,” she finally admitted.

“About seafood?”

The teasing note in his voice surprised her, and the corners of her mouth automatically tilted in response to his question. “No. About being here … with you.”

“With me,” he echoed, his brows drawing together. “Why?”

“Because you’re a prince,” she admitted. “And I’m not accustomed to dining with royalty.”

“I’m a princess,” Riley interjected, lest anyone forget her presence at the table.

“It’s only a title,” her father told both of them.

“That’s easy to say when you’re the one with the title,” Hannah noted.

“Maybe,” he agreed. “But the matter of anyone’s birthright seems a strange reason to miss out on a delicious meal.”

She scooped up a forkful of vegetables, dutifully slid it between her lips. “You’re right—and it is delicious.”

She managed to eat a few more bites before she noticed the princess was yawning. “Someone looks like she’s ready for a nap,” she noted.

“I don’t nap,” Riley informed her primly. “I have quiet time.”

“Right, I saw that on the schedule,” Hannah recalled, noting that Brigitte had indicated “nap” in parentheses.

And then, as if on schedule, the little girl yawned again.

“I think you’re ready for that quiet time,” the prince said, glancing at his watch.

His daughter shook her head. “I want ice cream.”

He hesitated.

“Please, Daddy.” She looked up at him with her big brown eyes.

“Actually, Caridad said something about crème caramel for dessert tonight,” he said, attempting to put off her request.

“I want ice cream now,” Riley insisted.

“One scoop or two?” Caridad asked, clearing the luncheon plates from the table.

“Two,” the princess said enthusiastically. “With chocolate sauce and cherries.”

The housekeeper brought out the little girl’s dessert, but as eagerly as the child dug in to her sundae, Hannah didn’t believe she would finish it. Sure enough, Riley’s enthusiasm began to wane about halfway through, but she surprised Hannah by continuing to move her spoon from the bowl to her mouth until it was all gone.

“Could I please have some more?” Riley asked when Caridad came back out to the terrace, looking up at the housekeeper with the same big eyes and sweet smile that she’d used so effectively on her father.

“You can have more after dinner,” the housekeeper promised.

The upward curve of Riley’s lips immediately turned down. “But I’m still hungry.”

“If you were really still hungry, you should have asked for some more chicken, not more ice cream,” the prince told his daughter.

“I didn’t want more chicken,” she said with infallible logic.

Hannah pushed away from the table. “Come on, Riley. Let’s go get you washed up.”

“I’m not a baby—I don’t need help washing up.”

It seemed to Hannah that the young princess didn’t need help with much of anything—certainly not with manipulating the adults in her life, a talent which she had definitely mastered.

But she kept that thought to herself, at least for now.

She didn’t want to lose her job on the first day.

“Riley,” Michael chastised, embarrassed by his daughter’s belligerent response. “Hannah is only trying to help.”

“Actually,” Hannah interjected, speaking to Riley, “maybe you could help me.”

The little girl’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “With what?”

“Finding my way around this place,” the new nanny said. “I’ve only been here a few hours and I’ve gotten lost three times already. Maybe you could show me where you spend your quiet time.”

Riley pushed away from the table, dramatically rolling her eyes as she did so. If Hannah noticed his daughter’s theatrics, she chose to ignore them.

“If you’ll excuse us, Your Highness,” she said.

“Of course.” He rose with her, and watched as she followed Riley into the house.

He wasn’t pleased by his daughter’s behavior, but he didn’t know what to do about it. As much as he loved Riley, he wasn’t blind to her faults. But the adolescent attitude in the preschooler’s body was just one more of the challenges of parenting a gifted child, or so he’d been told. Was Riley’s behavior atypical—or did he just not know what was typical for a child of her age?

Surely any four-year-old going through a period of adjustment would need some time, and losing her longtime nanny was definitely an adjustment. He hoped that within a few days, after Riley had a chance to get to know Hannah and settle into new routines with her, her usual sunny disposition would return.

After all, it was a new situation for all of them, and it was only day one.

But as he made his way back to his office, he found himself thinking that he probably missed Brigitte even more than his daughter did. Everything had run smoothly when Brigitte was around.

More importantly, he’d never felt any tugs of attraction for the former nanny like the ones he was feeling now for Hannah.

Chapter Four

According to Brigitte’s schedule, Riley’s quiet time was from two o’clock until three-thirty. When that time came and went, Hannah didn’t worry. She figured the little girl wouldn’t still be sleeping if she wasn’t tired, and since there wasn’t anything else on her schedule until an art class at four-thirty, she opted not to disturb her before then.

Hannah was staring at her laptop screen when she heard, through the open door across the hallway, what sounded like drawers being pulled open and shut. She immediately closed the lid on her computer, wishing she could as easily shut down the shock and betrayal evoked by her father’s email announcement.

He’d gotten married, without ever telling her of his plans, without even letting her meet the woman who was now his wife. But she forced herself to push those emotions aside and crossed the hall to the princess’s room, a ready smile on her lips, determined to start the afternoon with Riley on a better foot.

Riley didn’t smile back. Instead, she scowled again and her lower lip trembled.

“I want Brigitte,” she demanded.

“You know Brigitte isn’t here,” Hannah said, attempting to keep her tone gentle and soothing.

“I want Brigitte,” Riley said again.

“Maybe I can help with whatever you need,” she suggested.

The young princess shook her head mutinously, big tears welling in her eyes. “It’s your fault.”

“What’s my fault?”

“You made me wet the bed.”

Only then did Hannah notice that the little girl wasn’t wearing the same dress she’d had on when she’d settled on her bed for quiet time. She was wearing a short-sleeved white blouse with a blue chiffon skirt now, and the lovely pink dress was in a heap on the floor beside her dresser. A quick glance at the unmade bed revealed a damp circle.

“Accidents happen,” Hannah said lightly, pulling back the covers to strip away the wet sheet. “It will only—”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Riley insisted. “It was your fault.”

Hannah knew the child was probably upset and embarrassed and looking to blame anyone else, but she couldn’t help asking, “How, exactly, is it my fault?”

“You’re supposed to get me up at three-thirty—when the big hand is on the six and the little hand is halfway between the three and the four,” Riley explained. “But now it’s after four o’clock.”

She probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the child knew how to tell time—that basic skill was hardly on par with speaking foreign languages—and she began to suspect that the next two months with Riley would be more of a challenge than she’d imagined.

“Brigitte would have woke me up,” Riley said, swiping at the tears that spilled onto her cheeks.

“Woken,” Hannah corrected automatically as she dropped the sheet into the hamper beside Riley’s closet. “And I know you miss Brigitte a lot, but hopefully we can be friends while I’m here.”

“You’re not my friend, you’re the new nanny, and I hate

you.”

“I promise that you and I will have lots of fun together this summer. We can go—”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you. I just want you to go away!” Riley demanded with such fierce insistence that Hannah felt her own eyes fill with tears.

She knew that she shouldn’t take the little girl’s rejection personally. Despite her extensive vocabulary and adolescent attitude, Riley was only a child, reacting to her feelings of loss and abandonment. But Hannah understood those feelings well—maybe too well, with the news of her father’s recent marriage still fresh in her mind—and she hated that she couldn’t take away her pain.

“What’s going on in here?” a familiar, masculine voice asked from the doorway.

Riley flew across the room and into her father’s arms, sobbing as if the whole world had fallen down around her.

The prince lifted her easily. “What’s with the tears?”

“I want Brigitte to come back.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat, crying softly.

He frowned at Hannah over her daughter’s head, as if the new nanny was somehow responsible for the child’s tears.

“She’s feeling abandoned,” she told him.

His brows lifted. “Is she?”

She couldn’t help but bristle at the obvious amusement in his tone. Maybe she didn’t know his daughter very well yet, but she understood at least some of what the little girl was feeling, and she wasn’t going to let him disregard the depth of those feelings.

“Yes, she is,” she insisted. “She was upset when she woke up and the only person who was anywhere around was me—a virtual stranger.”

The prince rubbed his daughter’s back in an easy way that suggested he’d done so countless times before. “She’ll get used to being here and to being with you,” he insisted.

Hannah wished she could believe it was true, but she sensed that the princess would resist at every turn. “Maybe, eventually,” she allowed. “But in the meantime, you’re the only constant in her life and you weren’t around.”

“I was only downstairs,” he pointed out.

“Behind closed doors.”

“If I didn’t have other things to deal with, Miss Castillo, I wouldn’t have hired you to help take care of Riley for the summer.” Now that the little girl had quieted, he set her back on her feet.

Hannah wanted to ask if his business was more important than his daughter, but she knew that it wasn’t a fair question. She had to remember that the prince wasn’t her own father, and she couldn’t assume that his preoccupation with other matters meant he didn’t care about the princess.

“You’re right,” she agreed, watching as Riley went over to her desk to retrieve a portfolio case. “I’m sorry. I just wish this wasn’t so difficult for her.”

“I get the impression she’s making it difficult for you, too.”

She hadn’t expected he would see that, much less acknowledge it, and she conceded that she may have been a little too quick to judgment.

“I teach Beowulf to football players—I don’t mind a challenge,” she said lightly. “Although right now, the challenge seems to be finding a spare set of sheets for Riley’s bed.”

“I’ll send Caridad up to take care of it,” he told her.

“I don’t mind,” she said, thinking that it would at least be something useful for her to do. “I just need you to point me in the direction of the linen closet.”

Before he could respond, Riley interjected, “I need flowers for my art project.”

“Why don’t you go outside with Hannah to get some from the gardens?” the prince suggested. “I’m sure she would love to see the flowers.”

“Can’t you come with me, Daddy?” she asked imploringly.

“I’m sorry, honey, but I have a big project to finish up before dinner.”

With a sigh, Riley finally glanced over at Hannah, acknowledging her for the first time since the prince had come into the room.

“I need freesias,” she said. “Do you know what they are?”

Hannah smiled. “As a matter of fact, freesias happen to be some of my favorite flowers.”

Michael was going to his office to pick up a file when the phone on the desk rang. He’d just tucked Riley into bed and didn’t want her to wake up, so he answered quickly, without first bothering to check the display. The moment he heard his mother’s voice, he realized his mistake.

“I have wonderful news for you, Michael.”

“What news is that?” he asked warily, having learned long ago that her idea of wonderful didn’t always jibe with his own.

“Your daughter has been accepted for admission at Charlemagne Académie.”

“I didn’t even know she’d applied,” he said dryly.

Elena huffed out an impatient breath. “I pulled a lot of strings to make this happen, Michael. A little appreciation would not be unwarranted.”

“I didn’t ask you to pull any strings,” he pointed out. “In fact, I’m certain I never mentioned Charlemagne at all.”

“Your sister went there—it’s a wonderful educational institution.”

“Even so, I’m not sending Riley to boarding school.”

“Of course you are,” Elena insisted. “And while they don’t usually accept children as young as five—”

“Riley’s not yet four,” he interrupted.

His mother paused, as if taken aback by this revelation, but she recovered quickly. “Well, if they could take a five-year-old, they can take a four-year-old.”

“They’re not taking her at all,” he said firmly.

“Be reasonable, Michael. This is the perfect solution to your child-care dilemma.”

“There’s no dilemma, no reason for you to worry.”

“I thought your nanny was leaving.”

“Brigitte did leave, and I hired someone new for the summer.”

“And what will you do at the end of the summer?” she challenged.

“I’m not worrying about that right now.”

“The fall term starts in September.”

“I’m not sending my four-year-old daughter away to boarding school in Switzerland.”

“The child will benefit from the structure and discipline.”

“The child has a name,” he pointed out.

“A wholly inappropriate one for a princess,” his mother sniffed.

“You’ve made your opinion on that perfectly clear,” he assured her. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Riley is her name.”

“Getting back to my point—Riley will benefit from the structure and discipline at Charlemagne, and you will no longer be burdened—”

“Don’t.” Though softly spoken, the single word silenced her as effectively as a shout. “Don’t you dare even suggest that my daughter is a burden.”

“I didn’t mean that the chi—that Riley was a burden,” she hastened to explain. “But that the responsibilities of caring for a young daughter must seem overwhelming at times.”

He couldn’t deny that was true any more than he could expect his mother to understand that Riley was also the greatest joy in his life, so he only said, “I’ll let you know if I change my mind about Charlemagne.”

“I really do believe it would be best for Riley and for you,” she said.

“I appreciate your concern,” he lied.

Elena sighed. “I’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

Michael began to respond, but she’d already disconnected the call.

He dropped the receiver back in the cradle and went around his desk. Only then did he notice the figure curled up in the oversized wing chair facing the fireplace.

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness.” Hannah immediately rose to her feet. “I should have made my presence known, but I didn’t have a chance to say anything before the phone rang. Then I wanted to leave and to give you some privacy for your call, but you were blocking the door.”

He waved off her apology. “It’s okay.”

“I really didn’t intend to eavesdrop,” she assured him. “But for what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re not planning to send Riley to boarding school.”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe she would expect me to even consider such a thing.”

“She?” Hannah prompted curiously.

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