The Texas Billionaire's Bride / The Texas Bodyguard's Proposal: The Texas Billionaire's Bride

But he’d barred himself from doing any of it, mostly because of what he’d stowed in the chest just before he’d heard her moving around while going to the kitchen.

Danielle’s ashes in an urn.

He supposed that the approaching anniversary of his first wife’s suicide had urged him to take out her remains. But then again, he often contemplated her—the memories of what he could’ve done. The penance for not being able to stop her…

In any case, he’d been in a brooding mood, and the nanny had broken it open for a short time before he’d told himself to get out of the room, to resist a situation he just couldn’t handle.

Now he looked at the box she had sent for him to open, and like that chest, he wished he could just keep it closed.

But since he had a feeling about what was inside, he took off the lid.

The R2-D2 tie.

He tossed the box lid to the seat. Damn that woman. She’d probably found it where he’d placed it on the kitchen counter last night.

Legs or not, she was making his life hell.

Zane caught Monty’s gaze in the rearview mirror just before the driver looked away.

The rest of the ride was like a session in a torture chamber, with the world’s most invisible, cutting, self-inflicted weapons. Zane went back and forth between cursing himself for blowing it with Livie today and thinking that he should just send her back home, until Monty pulled up to his townhouse, with its luxurious, sleek façade that didn’t offer even a hint of the darkness inside.

They would be waiting in there for him: Livie, with those eyes that slayed Zane every time he saw them. And Melanie Grandy—who had quite a way of killing him softly, too.

Dammit.

He took off his Armani tie and put on the R2-D2 one, feeling like an ass, but not just because he was wearing a cartoon character on his chest.

Then Zane got out of the car, held up a hand to thank Monty and watched his driver pull away in a stream of red taillights.

He ran a hand through his hair, took a deep breath and entered his home, thinking that he’d never been so cautious about coming into his own doggone place before the nanny had arrived.

Standing in the foyer, he set down his briefcase, listening for any signs of life. No TV. No clanging around in the kitchen.

He went back outside to check the stand-alone garage, to see if Melanie’s designated Tall Oaks Volvo was still there where he’d parked it for her, last night before retiring.

Present and accounted for.

When he wandered back inside, ready to capitulate and call her cell phone, he heard something floating down from the stairway.

Laughter.

The roof terrace, he thought, his veins going taut as he took in the sound. It rang through him, and for a forbidden moment, he allowed it to settle.

What would it be like to have a house that sounded like this all the time?

Then reality returned. He had to go up to the roof, and the minute they saw him the laughter would stop.

Okay, you’re a man, he told himself. Face the consequences.

He straightened the R2-D2 tie and climbed the stairs, following the laughter—actually drawn to it, as he’d been last night, when it had filled this house.

When it had even filled something else that he wasn’t sure he could define.

Arriving at the roof, he found them sitting in lounge chairs that faced the Dallas skyline. The river sparkled in the late afternoon sunshine. They’d turned on the small rock waterfall near the hot tub, and the splash of it mingled with Melanie’s voice as she told Livie some story about a time she’d gone waterskiing.

“I never drank so much water as I did that day on the lake,” she said at the end of her tale. “I had a stomachache for hours afterward.”

Livie was giggling and sipping from a straw in a glass that looked to be full of milk. Her gaze was fixed on her nanny, as if she were the most incredible thing to drop from the sky since stardust.

As Zane watched them, his stomach ached with something sharp and empty stabbing it.

When was the last time Livie had looked at him that way?

Last night, he thought. And he hadn’t returned the affection.

Worst father ever, he thought again, taking no pride in this accomplishment.

He felt like such a nothing, all he wanted to do was change the perception—even if it were just for the final hours of Father’s Day.

He cleared his throat and both females looked back, Livie watching him, her gaze wounded.

And Melanie?

She was watching him, too, but she looked about ready to throttle him. Yet, how could he be offended when she was angry for the sake of his daughter?

“I apologize,” he said, “for missing our date. I lost track of time.”

The excuse didn’t hold any water at all. In fact, with the way the nanny was visually shooting bullets at him, his words seemed punctured.

He continued. “Livie, I know how much you wanted me there.”

Her gaze had come to rest on his tie. That darn R2-D2-riddled tie.

And lo and behold, she smiled. An injured smile, to be sure, but at least he’d done something right today.

Thanks to Melanie, he reluctantly admitted to himself.

The nanny saw the tie, too, but that didn’t change her expression. “We understand. Work’s important.”

Yes, it is, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. It didn’t seem so true right now.

They were both still sitting in their lounge chairs, their bodies slanted toward the skyline, as if they knew better than to commit to turning all the way toward him.

“We had fun, Daddy,” Livie said. “Ms. Grandy made peanut butter and jelly starfish sandwiches. And we shared oranges with Sheree and Tammy.”

Zane almost flinched. Even after what he’d done, his daughter was still talking to him as if he hadn’t screwed up?

“Sheree and Tammy are neighbor girls,” the nanny said, grinning at Livie. “Their mom told me that they’re six and seven years old, almost twins with Livie.”