The Prince And The Nanny

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Did she say why?”

“Not exactly, sir.”

“What exactly did she say?”

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

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

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

“Excuse me?”

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

Ryan contemplated what he was feeling.

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

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

What he felt was strangely curious, dangerously intrigued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You can’t just do that!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He made the fatal mistake. He smiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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