Undercover Princess

“It’s all right,” Katherine said. “We both got a chance to look each other over. He looks all right to me, and as long as I look all right to him, and to Stacy, as well—” she turned to the girl “—I think we’ll get along all right. What do you think?”

Stacy shrugged. “I guess.” She looked at her father. “Can I, like, go now?”

Trey glanced at Katherine, and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “Sure.” He let Doug slide down to the floor as well, and the two children were gone from the room in a flash.

Katherine would have risen to her feet, but Trey sat down on the other end of the sofa as if he were exhausted, as if every bone in his body had turned to liquid. He stretched his long legs out in front of him, his head against the back cushions, as he stared up at the slightly vaulted ceiling.

“So,” he said with a laugh that didn’t have much to do with humor. “There we are. In all our dysfunctional glory.”

He turned his head to look at her, and was unable to hide a glint of despair in his eyes. “I’m not very good at this parenting thing,” he admitted. His smile was self-deprecating. “I guess that was pretty obvious.”

Katherine chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. “What was obvious was that you love them. They certainly are—” she couldn’t keep from smiling “—unique.”

His smile became much more genuine. “Understatement.” He stood up and she, too, rose to her feet. “I appreciate your spending all this time here this afternoon, Kathy. I won’t keep you any longer.”

Kathy. Her sisters had sometimes called her Kathy, but no one else ever had. She’d always, always been Princess Katherine. It was funny, actually, hearing her childhood nickname on a man’s lips.

On this man’s very attractive lips.

His very maleness seemed to linger about him, never far from the surface. Even now, as he gazed at her, there was something in his eyes that wouldn’t let her forget that he was a man, and she was a woman.

Katherine wanted him to hire her as a temporary nanny because she wanted to locate one Mr. William Lewis. She also wanted to help Trey Sutherland out of this bind he was in. And, yes, she had to be completely honest here. She liked being looked at and spoken to as if she were a normal woman. Not a princess to bow and scrape and be obsequiously polite to at all times.

“I’ll get those references to you as quickly as I can,” she told him. “By tonight, if possible.”

“Tomorrow will be fine.” He started toward the door. “If and when you decide that—”

“Oh, I’ve decided.”

“I meant what I said about you taking the time to think it over.”

“I don’t need time,” she told him. “I’ll fax them to you tonight. I want this job, and if, as you’ve led me to believe, you’re desperate, well, then…If my references meet your approval—and I believe they will—I see no reason why I shouldn’t start tomorrow.”

“It’s perfect, Laura,” Katherine said into her cellular phone as she drove back into Albuquerque. “If William Lewis shows up, I’ll be there. Already inside the gates of the Sutherland estate.”

“As the nanny.” Laura Bishop was both Royal Social Secretary and friend. Currently she was an extremely skeptical friend.

“I’d really just be a glorified baby-sitter,” Katherine explained. “And that’s perfect, too. After I drive the children to school in the morning, I’ll have nearly the entire day to try to find out where Bill Lewis has gone. Someone in Albuquerque knows where he is, I know it.”

“And you want me to, what? Make some fake references for you?”

“Not fake references.” Katherine pulled into the parking lot of a shopping mall to consult her street map. She had the most dreadful sense of direction of anyone in the world. She searched for the avenue she had just been on, craning her neck to check the name of the cross street. “Real references. Let Alexandra be one. A princess of Wynborough as a reference—that ought to make something of an impact. And I know you could talk Dr. McMahon into vouching for Kathy Wind’s character, too.”

Laura sighed. “Katherine, this could be a complete wild-goose chase. We don’t even know if Bill Lewis is our man.”

“We don’t know that he’s not.” Katherine found the avenue, found the cross street and…yes, she’d been heading away from the hotel. Drat.

“You know, this place has been in something of an uproar since you left this morning,” Laura told her, referring to the royal vacation home back in Aspen. “Gabriel Morgan’s been positively grim about the fact that you just flew off to New Mexico without arranging any kind of a game plan with him.”

“Oh, shoot.” Katherine cringed. Gabe Morgan was in charge of the royal bodyguards. “It’s just…I called Trey Sutherland’s office this morning and was told I could see him at three. I just grabbed the first plane reservation I could get. I didn’t have time to do more than leave a note on your desk.”

“Which I found only about an hour ago.”

“Oh dear, I’m so sorry!”

“I was just glad it was you. If it were Serena who’d gone missing that way, I think Gabe might’ve had an aneurism on the spot.”

“Laura, it’s going to look extremely peculiar if the new nanny shows up with a bodyguard, so—”

Laura sighed again. “I’ll take care of that, too. Just…promise me you’ll be careful.”

“Of course, I’ll be careful. And, oh, as far as the references go, I’ve been completely honest with Trey—except about my name. I’ve simply neglected to tell him I’m a princess,” Katherine said. “He knows I’ve had no previous experience as a nanny. But the children aren’t infants, so…”

“Trey, huh? This is getting more and more interesting. Maybe I should reconsider the bodyguard thing.”

Katherine felt herself blush. “No,” she said. “It’s not…I don’t…he doesn’t…he thinks I’m a nanny, and, I mean…” She took a deep breath. “Don’t go there, Laura. He’s simply very informal. Casual. He told me he expects me to wear blue jeans to work.”

Trey had told her to dress casually, adding that he thought she looked to be a blue jeans and T-shirt type. Katherine had been thrilled he would think that, thrilled to be thought of as someone who didn’t necessarily have to wear a tiara to tea. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d worn something as casual as blue jeans. She didn’t even have a pair in her wardrobe. That was going to change this afternoon.

“Let me have Sutherland’s fax number again,” Laura said. “And, Katherine? I know I don’t really have to tell you this again, but…please be careful.”

“Thursday night,” Trey’s mother said. “At the country club. Have you written it into your calendar? I’ll hold on while you check.”

Trey closed his eyes. “Mom. I’ll be there.” Damn Bill, anyway. This was all his fault. Whenever Sutherland-Lewis needed to be represented at a high society function here in town—or in Los Angeles or New York, for that matter—Bill Lewis did the honors. Leaving Trey with his computers and his deadlines, blessedly far from the limelight and the curious stares that always followed him around.

Did he or did he not kill his wife? Even after three very long years, the rumors persisted.

And the irony of those rumors would have been hysterically funny, except that Helena’s death still hurt far too much for him to even think about laughing.

And as far as the rumors went, Trey hadn’t done completely all that he could to squash them once and for all. No, after that woman’s magazine had chosen him as “eligible bachelor of the month,” he’d actually been grateful when the dark rumors had resurfaced, and the flock of gold diggers pursuing him had vanished.

Vanished as surely as Kathy Wind had when she’d left the estate late this afternoon.

Trey stared at his fax machine, willing it to click on. But it was silent. It was nearly eight-thirty in the evening, and he still hadn’t received Kathy Wind’s references.

“I’ll have my driver pick up Diana,” Penelope Sutherland decided. “We’ll stop at your place at seven for a small glass of wine before heading over to the club. Tell your housekeeper to dress for the occasion, please.”

Trey sighed. “Anita will already have gone home for the night.”

“What kind of housekeeper leaves when you need her most?”

“The kind with a family of her own. And I don’t think answering the door and pouring wine qualifies for ‘needing her most.’”

“I don’t know why you put up with her—”

“Mother, don’t.” Trey cut her off before she started in on lecture number 612 on “Reasons to Hire a New Housekeeper.” Penelope didn’t like Anita, couldn’t understand that Trey liked the fact that the friendly, vivacious Mexican-American woman dressed and acted so casually. Trey’s mother didn’t get it. She didn’t understand that he didn’t want to live in a mausoleum filled with silently grim servants who bowed and scraped and kowtowed. He’d had enough of that when he was growing up, thanks.

It was dark outside, and the window reflected his blurred image. Poor little rich boy. He turned back to his desk, to stare at his fax machine, which was still silent, damn it.