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

Crystal Green

CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, Nevada, where she writes for Mills & Boon® Special Edition and Blaze®. She loves to read, overanalyse movies, do yoga and write about her travels and obsessions on her website, www.crystal-green.com. There you can read about her trips on Route 66, as well as visits to Japan and Italy. She loves to hear from her readers by e-mail through the “Contact Crystal” feature.

To Gail Chasan, who reigns over these stories that have provided all of us with so much life, love and happiness.

Thank you, Gail!

Chapter One

The toughest tycoon in Texas.

That’s how Melanie Grandy’s prospective employer had been described, to one extent or another, in nearly every article she’d read on the Internet before her quick trip down here.

Thing was, those articles had also painted Zane Foley as a slightly mysterious man who didn’t talk about his personal life to the press, even if he led such a public existence otherwise.

But if anyone understood secrets, it was Melanie.

Sitting at one end of a long mahogany table, she watched the head of Foley Industries saunter over the hardwood living room floor of his luxurious Dallas townhouse while he flipped through her personal portfolio, which showed her creative side.

Lordy, it was hard to keep her eyes off of him, although she knew she should.

Yet…

Well, she couldn’t help but notice the details. His dark hair was obviously cut at a pricey salon, but in spite of its neatness, some of the ends flipped up ever so slightly near his nape. It made her suspect that he hadn’t caught the deviation, and as soon as he did, those ends would be right back in place.

He was also very tall, with broad shoulders stretching a fine white shirt he probably had made to order. His chest was wide, his torso tapering down to a honed waist, his legs long. She didn’t know much about his hobbies, but she could imagine him getting fit while horseback riding, could see him sitting tall in a saddle, just as easily as he no doubt commanded a boardroom.

During his scan of her portfolio—he’d seen it during their initial interview two days ago, so was he only perusing it to make her squirm?—Melanie took the opportunity to read between the lines of his silence.

And, boy, did he ever enjoy his silence.

He’d stopped at the other end of the room in front of a stained-glass window, the subdued early May colors bathing him as he glanced over at her. Dark leather furniture surrounded him with a Gothic stillness, each piece angled just so.

Caught checking him out, Melanie’s stomach flip-flopped, but she nonetheless sat straight in her chair, under the intense scan of his hazel eyes.

Probably, it was a bad idea to let her could-be boss know that she’d been assessing him, yet she didn’t want him to think she was the type to look away or back down. She was here to get this job, taking care of his six-year-old daughter, Olivia, whom she’d met briefly during the previous interview.

And Melanie was going to win him over, just as his daughter had thoroughly won her at first sight.

Calming her fluttering nerves, she watched as he coolly refocused on her file, as if he’d only glanced her way to take her measure when she’d least expected it.

But was there some satisfaction in his expression?

Had she passed the pop quiz?

“Oklahoma,” he said, apropos of nothing. But he’d done it in a low, rich voice that smoothed over her skin just as if he’d bent real close and whispered in her ear.

Melanie made sure her own tone didn’t betray that she’d been affected. “I was born and raised just on the outskirts of Tulsa.”

They’d covered these basics during their first meeting, and she knew he’d combed through the dossier she’d presented to him, as well. Over these past couple of days, he’d no doubt checked her references, which she knew would speak for themselves. After all, she’d been recommended to him by a business associate he trusted, and that was most likely the only reason she’d gotten her discount-rack shoes in the front door.

Why did she have the feeling that he was going over her information again, just to see if she’d trip up?

Or maybe she was being paranoid. That tended to happen to folks who might have something to hide…

He wasn’t saying anything, so she continued talking, supplying more personal details than she had the other day. “It was just me and my mom at first. She put me through day care by keeping the books at a small business, and the minute I was old enough, I dealt with the household after school hours.”

Melanie didn’t add that those books her mom had kept were located in the back room of the greasy spoon where Leigh Grandy primarily waited on tables between double shifts and numerous dates with the “nice men” she brought home for “sleepovers.” In fact, Melanie wasn’t even sure which date was her father in the first place; she just knew that he hadn’t stuck around.

Now Zane Foley moved toward the long table where Melanie sat, nearing the other end, which seemed a mile away. It lent enough distance for her to risk another lingering glance at him while he closed her portfolio, placed it on the table, then picked up her dossier.

Darn, he’s handsome, she thought before forcing herself to get back into interview mode. But the notion wouldn’t go away, brushing through her belly and warming her in areas that should have come with “off-limits” signs.

She would be the nanny, he would be the boss. End of story, if she should be so lucky as to be hired.

“Your information,” he said, his gaze still on the papers, “indicates that you started a child-care career early. I’d like to know a little more about your brothers and sisters and how they led to your choice of profession.”

“Actually, they were my stepbrothers and stepsisters.”

“I stand corrected.”

She smiled, avoiding any hardball, but still not standing down.

He didn’t smile at all, yet she was getting used to that.

“My mom married the man she called her ‘true love’ when I was fifteen.” It was wonder enough that her mother had finally settled down, but it was even more amazing that her marriage was still intact today. “He had four children. Two of them were much younger than I was—little girls—so I watched over them, in addition to other work. The older two were twin boys, but they weren’t around much, because they liked their sports.”

Zane Foley cocked a dark eyebrow as he leveled a look at her. “‘Were’ younger? ‘Were’ twin boys?”

Melanie tightened her fingers where they were clasped on the table.

He sat in the leather armchair at the other end, perfectly comfortable with being the inquisitor.

Please let me get through this, she thought. She’d spent nearly every last penny in her bank account to get here, traveling to Dallas for these interviews, in the hope that her lucky stars would shine and she’d secure this new job, this new direction.

“You keep using the past tense when you talk about your stepsiblings, Ms. Grandy,” Zane Foley said.

“My mistake.” She was determined to keep smiling. “We all still keep tabs on each other, even though we’re adults.” If you counted the odd e-mail as healthy familial relations.

But since she’d left her brood back in Oklahoma, they were the past to Melanie. She was the same to them, too, except for her mom, who called quite often for loans.

When her mother remarried, Melanie had ended up in the valley of a no-man’s land. Her stepfather had preferred his own kids to her, making no secret about his feelings, either. To him, she was his wife’s “bastard issue,” and instead of taking out his frustrations about that on Leigh, he’d put it all on Melanie.

Of course, Melanie had approached her mom about this, actually thinking that it would help if Leigh were to address it. Silly her. Her mother had only accused Melanie of trying to sabotage the happiness she’d finally found.

It’d been a stunning moment of betrayal—an instant in which Melanie had realized that her mother would always prefer her guys to her daughter, who’d worked so, so hard to matter more than any of those “nice men.”

“When I was a teen,” she added, directing the interview back to the more positive aspects of her life, “I took courses at the YMCA for babysitting, and you could say I managed a cottage industry early on. I was booked every weekend, and even during the week, if I could handle it with my studies.”