The Playboy And The Nanny

A lesser woman—many lesser women, she was sure—would have fallen panting at his feet,

Mari Lewis was made of sterner stuff.

She had a job to fulfill, a reputation to uphold, a magazine ad and article to live up to, and a pair of lovable, impractical, dangerously gullible aunts to support.

And despite the fact that her heart was still hammering and her head was still spinning and her lips were still tingling, she needed to find Stavros Costanides. And she needed to do it fast.

But how? When Mr. Whoever-he-was was sitting next to the door, looking as if he would pounce on her if she made a move in that direction.

“Look, Mr....” She paused.

“Costanides,” he said helpfully. He smiled again. The same humorless smile he’d smiled before. However heart-stopping it was, his smile wasn’t meant to be friendly. It wasn’t even, she was fairly sure, meant to be attractive. Unfortunately it was. The dimple deepened again.

She wanted to touch it, To touch him. Again. Help! Determinedly Mari looked away and forced herself to say in a level tone, “Mr. Costanides, then. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but—”

“You’d do better wondering why my father is doing this.”

“Your father?”

“The well-known despot, Stavros Costanides. You know? Older than me. Mustache.” He parroted back her description. “The man who hired you.”

“To take care of his little boy.”

“To take care of Nikos,” her fully-grown, very masculine nemesis agreed. He poked his chest. “Me.”

“But that’s ridiculous!”

“You’re telling me,” he muttered. His smile faded and suddenly he rubbed fiercely at his forehead. “Damn.”

Mari frowned. Maybe he wasn’t totally mad, after all, she thought. Maybe he was suffering from concussion—a head injury that made him think he was someone else. He certainly looked as if he’d recently done battle with something formidable—and lost.

His left leg was in a cast; he held one arm close to his body, as if he was protecting his ribs; he had a fresh scar on his jaw, and his very handsome face still showed the lingering signs of bruising beneath the left eye and temple.

“Are you all right?” she asked quickly.

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Would you be?”

The very bleakness of his tone startled her. It also stopped her cold, having the effect that his words hadn’t had. It made her think that he wasn’t talking only about his physical condition at all.

It made her worry that he might be telling her the truth. Mari swallowed. Pushed the notion away. Tried not to think about it.

Stavros Costanides had hired her to be a nanny to his son. His little boy! She knew he had a little boy. She’d glimpsed a picture of him on the credenza in Stavros’s office.

“Is that Nikos?” she’d asked him.

He’d smiled a proud papa smile and had picked up the picture, saying proudly, “That’s my son.”

Nikos, she’d thought

But he hadn’t actually said, “That’s my son, Nikos,” she realized now. He’d just agreed, “That’s my son.”

And the devilishly handsome man sitting across from her now was...?

“You’re Nikos?” she asked faintly. “You’re not... kidding?”

Deep brown eyes met hers. Slowly he shook his head. “I’m not kidding.”

Outside in the distance Mari could hear the gabble of cheerful women. Overhead a jet engine droned. A bird twittered.

“But...but it doesn’t make sense. I mean, why would he—?” she faltered. “You’re not—” She broke off. “I understood he had a four-year-old. He showed me a picture of a four-year-old!” She gave him an accusing look.

“He does have a four-year-old. My half-brother. Alexander.”

“Then it’s obviously a mistake.”

“It’s not a mistake.”

“But—”

“It’s his way of making a point. He thinks I’m wasting my life. He thinks I don’t take things seriously enough, that I haven’t accepted my responsibilities as heir to his damned empire, that I’m shirking my duty to follow in his footsteps as the eldest son.” His tone became more and more bitter as he spoke. His dark eyes flashed, and it was all Mari could do not to flinch under his gaze.

She didn’t, because as a nanny she knew that the slightest crack in her armor could do her in. Don’t let them intimidate you, was the cardinal rule of dealing with one’s charges.

One of her charges?

She wasn’t seriously thinking she was this man’s nanny, was she?

It was a joke. Any minute now Stavros Costanides would come along to say he’d made his point and they would all laugh about it—though this particular son might laugh a little harshly—and then she would get her real job as nanny to Alexander.

Wouldn’t she?

Oh, heavens, she’d better! She had to have a job. She couldn’t not have a job!

Aunt Emmaline and Aunt Bett would be out on the street if she didn’t keep this job. It had been a godsend when Stavros Costanides had called her two days ago and wanted to hire her.

“I read about you in a magazine my wife gets,” he told her. “You’re the woman who could make Little Lord Fauntleroy out of a Katzenjammer Kid?”

Mari remembered laughing a little self-consciously. “The writer might have been exaggerating a little,” she allowed, recalling the article that had appeared in last month’s issue of an upscale magazine for parents. The article had been subtitled “Mari’s not Mary, But This Nanny Could Make That Poppins Woman Take a Back Seat” and it raved about Mari’s ability to deal with problem kids. “I was nanny to her nephew for two years.”

“He was a handful?”

“Oh, yes.”

“My son is, too.”

His four-year-old, she’d thought.

The more fool she.