Prince Daddy & the Nanny

“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.