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“Well, look at that. He lives,” she said into his ear. “Look, I have three contracts for you to go over, five new sets of plans to review and—”
“Hold on.” Ignoring her exasperated sigh, he clicked to the second ringing line, which was his latest client, Sam Snider.
As he did this, the fax came alive. Nikki, ever so creative, was faxing the first page of one of the contracts that needed his attention. Sean greeted Sam, skimmed the contract and cocked his free ear for any sign of Melissa, of which there was none.
He’d become the master of multitasking.
“Your design?” he said to Sam. “I should have it ready by—”
“Uncle Sean!” This from the bathroom. Melissa had surfaced.
Hastily covering the phone with his palm, he called, “I’ll be right there!”
“Come now, Uncle Sean!”
“I’ll be right there,” he repeated and uncovered the receiver to continue talking to his client. “As I was saying—”
“But Uncle Sean! I’m done!”
Great. She was done. He tried to put Sam on hold, but the man was long-winded, so he ended up with the man talking in one year and Melissa shouting in the other.
The fax machine continued to spout his contract.
“Uncle Sean!”
Because apparently he wasn’t overwhelmed enough, the doorbell rang.
He needed a clone.
Or a wife.
Just two years ago, he’d come close to that with Tina. He’d never regretted not walking down the aisle, not once.
Until now.
Sam kept talking.
“Wipe me!” yelled Melissa, loud enough for the entire county to hear.
“I’ll wipe you in a sec!”
Sam sputtered, then said, “Excuse me?”
Sean dropped his head and thunked it on the counter, but even a near concussion didn’t change facts. He was failing, pathetically. And failing was the one thing he couldn’t handle. Slowly, he counted to ten, but yep, his life was still in the throes of hell.
He politely hung up on his very wealthy client. Then, mourning the loss of that income, he headed into the bathroom and handled Melissa’s paperwork.
Together they headed toward the front door. “I hope it’s my mommy,” Melissa said, bounding in front of him like an eager puppy, her blond curls wild and neglected. She hadn’t let Sean near her with a brush since she’d arrived.
He had, however, made her brush her teeth. That must count for something.
“I really want my mommy.”
“I know.” Sean missed her mommy too. Big time. “But she’s not coming home for two weeks. The person at the door wants to be your nanny during the day.” Please, God.
Melissa stopped short. “How long is two weeks?”
“Fourteen days.”
She tilted her head at him, piercing him with huge, baleful eyes. “That’s too long.”
No kidding. “It’ll be over before you know it, kiddo. Do you want to open the door?”
She brightened at that. “I hope it’s Mary Poppins. She sings pretty.”
Sean didn’t care about singing, pretty or otherwise. He needed help on this daddy gig, and he needed it now.
He hoped for an older nanny, a grandmotherly type who had lots of hugs and kisses and stories, all the stuff he didn’t have time for. Then he could get back to work without guilt.
Together they opened the door.
“Hello,” said the woman who stood there, who was neither old nor Mary Poppins-like.
Sean’s first thought was she had the most unusually bright blue eyes he’d ever seen, magnified as they were behind glasses as thick as the bottom of a soda bottle. They sparkled when she smiled, which she was doing right now. And it wasn’t a forced, I-need-a-job smile, either, it was the sweetest, most open smile he’d ever seen. Helplessly, he responded to it with one of his own, though his was definitely more from profound relief than anything else.
“I’m Carly Fortune, prospective nanny,” she said, tossing her long dark hair over her shoulder as she held out her hand.
“I’m Sean O’Mara, nanny seeker.” She wasn’t what he’d imagined, not at all, he thought, shaking her warm, soft hand. For one thing, she was young. Her dark hair had fallen in her face again, but mid-twenties was his guess. She wore a long sweater over a wide skirt that fell to her ankles, exposing a pair of chunky boots.
Not an inch of her below her neck showed, so he couldn’t tell if she was small, large or somewhere in between. And because he was a man, and mostly a very weak man, at that, he usually noticed a woman for her appearance. Not that he felt particularly proud of that fact, but it was the truth. A beautiful woman turned his head.
Not that this woman wasn’t beautiful. More like Sandra Bullock in Miss Congeniality before the makeover.
But compassion and joy shimmered from her every pore, and he figured both those personality traits were important when it came to taking care of a child, which was the point to her standing there smiling at him.
And yet the feeling that she was hiding behind her slightly oversize clothing made him uncomfortable. Tina, he thought with a flash of bitterness. Two years since the woman who couldn’t tell the truth to save her life, and he was still second-guessing every woman he came into contact with.
Even so, when she continued to look at him, smiling that infectious, open smile, something very odd happened. From the region of his deadened heart came a pitter-patter, one he nearly failed to recognize.
Then she bent for a large canvas bag at her side, pushing at her glasses when they nearly slipped off her nose, and through the slit in her too full skirt he saw a flash of long, toned, smooth pale thigh.
Beneath that awful bulk of clothing, one would expect to find more clothing, not…bare lovely skin.
And without warning, the pitter-patter in his heart moved southward.
“But…you’re not Mary Poppins.” Melissa’s lower lip came out, trembled. Her eyes filled, and she ducked behind Sean, clutching the backs of his legs. “I really wanted Mary Poppins.” Her voice was muffled as she pressed her face against him, her fingers biting into his skin.
Sean reached back and tried to pry her off, but her fingers only dug in deeper. He wrapped an arm around her small shoulders, thinking that for such a tyrant, she seemed so tiny, so defenseless. No matter. This had to be done. He needed help.
He needed escape.
“Oh, sweetie.” Carly glanced at Sean, then kneeled to Melissa’s level. “I’m so sorry. You’re right, I’m not Mary Poppins. But I do have a really cool carryall like she did, with fun stuff in it, see?” She lifted the canvas bag and shook it enticingly. Something tinkled, something rattled.
Melissa sniffed, then peered around Sean’s legs. “Is my mommy in there?”
“Well…no.” Her voice was low and husky. Another contradiction. A voice dripping with sensuality in a body dressed for nunhood. “But I’ve got some dress-up clothes. What do you think?”
Melissa blinked slowly, then nodded. “Okay.”
Okay. She’d said okay. Sean found himself grinning stupidly at the woman who was going to save his life.
Or at least the next two weeks of it.
2
FOR THE FIRST TIME in her twenty-six years, she hesitated. But this had been what she wanted, a break from her crazy, whirlwind life. A chance to see how the other half lived.
An opportunity to go slumming.
So Princess Carlyne Fortier stepped into Sean O’Mara’s house. Only she didn’t do it as an elegant, sophisticated, classy princess. No, she entered as…Carly Fortune.
Her own doing. She regularly scanned newspapers from the United States. It was a habit, much like the way she secretly hoarded and watched old American television shows. Long unsatisfied with her life, she’d been reading the want ads, fantasizing about settling down in relative obscurity, about finding Mr. Right.
It couldn’t happen in her world. There were no Mr. Rights in her world, at least none in her immediate future. But she wondered…how was she ever going to get the chance to see if she’d make a good mother?
In light of that, holding a small paper from Santa Barbara, California, an ad had leaped out at her. Dared her. Sean O’Mara’s nanny ad.
“Do you know how to make play dough?” Melissa asked her.
Oh, boy. Not only was she currently dressed far worse than any example from the don’t do this list, she was impersonating an American, an everyday American nanny of a four-year-old girl!
A four-year-old girl who was blinking at her very solemnly.
Carlyne knew nothing about children and even less about making play dough, but that was going to change. “I’m afraid not, but I know where to buy it.” And only because she’d happened to see it at K mart while choosing her new unflashy, unsophisticated, un-princess-like attire. She’d fallen in love with the store, where one could buy panty hose and patio furniture from the same place. “It comes in all sorts of colors,” she said, proud to be in the know. “And I bet it’s better than the homemade stuff, anyway.”
“But my mommy makes it,” Melissa said, her lower lip sticking out a mile.
No problem. Carlyne would just call Francesca, her assistant, and have her hunt up a recipe ASAP. She could do this!
“Melissa, play dough isn’t required,” Sean told her, bending his tall form down to her eye level.
“I want play dough!”
“We’ve discussed this, remember?” Sean asked. “Yelling at me is not acceptable.”
“What’s sepable?”
Sean closed his eyes and plowed his fingers through his dark hair. “This is our nanny needer, Melissa,” he said to Carlyne, reminding her that this was a job interview.
Not that she needed the money or a place to stay. She had homes in St. Petersburg, Paris and on the coast of Spain. No, what she needed was a chance to live without the silver spoon in her mouth. No doubt, this job would thrust her right into what she imagined normal, middle-American women did every day, and that was what she wanted more than anything. A chance to go to the grocery store, to run her own errands. A chance to go somewhere, anywhere, without light bulbs going off in her face. A chance to see if motherhood agreed with her. She figured America was her best shot, since it was a place known for independence and freedom, two things she wanted with all her heart.
Sean was looking at her with eyes the color of a clear mountain sky, eyes that seemed to see right through her disguise, though she knew that was impossible.
She was no less than the granddaughter, daughter, sister and niece of one of the few royal families left in existence, from a long line of first Russian then French aristocrats. Not many could imagine a more fairytale-like beginning, her family being Russian royalty, then fleeing their country when the empire collapsed. They escaped with their wealth and titles intact and had lived in prosperity in France ever since. She was a princess without a kingdom, a citizen of the world, but because of the fame, never a normal one. People were fascinated by her and her family, and yet not a soul had recognized her on the trek over here. Thanks to her impeccable education and late-night television habit, she spoke flawless English.
She’d donned a long dark wig and had used a heavy hand applying makeup, all to hide her perfect blond bob and flawless, porcelain skin. The sky-blue contacts helped, too, as her mossy-green eyes were distinctive, recognizable. Adding the thick-rimmed glasses had been pure inspiration on her part, except they kept slipping off her nose, which was annoying.
The blue-light-specials outfit had completed the disguise, since Carlyne had never been caught in public in anything less than designer duds.
Well, she was in the public eye now, wasn’t she? And on her own without the bodyguards, the buzz of the paparazzi. Grinning with the freedom of it all, she stepped into Sean’s mirrored foyer and…stopped short. The sight of her reflection beaming from the wood-framed mirrors left her frozen in shock.
It was one thing to carefully, secretly plan the badly needed “get away to prove herself” escapade.
It was another entirely to look it in the face.
But for too long she’d been feeling disturbingly disconnected. Lonely. Not that anyone in their right mind would feel sorry for her. After all, Princess Carlyne Fortier had everything. Decent looks. A good brain. Wealth. But her looks and wealth were inherited, and come to think of it, so were all her friends—as they were family friends. Her brain was courtesy of the best education money could buy. Every single waking moment, she was surrounded by people who needed one thing or another from her, yet no one in her family took her seriously enough to let her do so much as have her own job. She was a lovely ornament. No more, no less.
If things had been different, she wondered, if she’d been born poor or merely an average citizen, who would she be? A regular woman with a regular family—a child?
So was it any wonder she’d packed a bag, dumped all her credit cards—okay, all but one—given herself a hideous makeover and had answered Sean O’Mara’s ad?
But Lord, she really had done it…she looked very normal.
“Is everything okay?” Sean O’Mara asked her.
His reflection appeared at her side. His nearly black hair fell to his collar and looked as if maybe he’d forgotten to brush it that morning. His polo shirt was untucked, and he had what looked like a fresh stain across his chest. A chest that was very well defined and broad, she couldn’t help but notice. His khaki pants were clean, but wrinkled where the wide-eyed little Melissa gripped his long, long legs for all she was worth. His feet were bare, which would normally be a huge turn-off for her, because Carlyne liked and appreciated men who were well dressed from head to toe.
But Sean’s feet were tanned and…somehow…sexy.
So were his deep blue eyes, which were fixed on her. He looked curious, probably wondering why she’d been staring in the mirror for the past five minutes.
“Uncle Sean!”
But Uncle Sean was still looking at Carlyne. “I have to be honest,” he said quietly. “I’m not sure how to conduct this interview.”
“That makes two of us.” She didn’t know how to get a job. She’d never had to prove herself before.
A day for firsts, she decided.
“Uncle Sean!”
“We could start by sitting down.” He awkwardly patted the little girl on her back in a way that conveyed his bafflement. Obviously, he was not a natural with children. “Did you bring a résumé or references?”
Thank God for her assistant’s special talents. Francesca had not only gotten her a used clunker of a car to drive while here, she’d manufactured Carly a résumé and references that would hold up against the tightest scrutiny. “I did,” she said with a smile meant to charm and disarm. “But you should know, I’ve never been a live-in nanny before.” She’d never been a live-in anything before. Not because she was only twenty-six, but because no man had ever been able to stir her heart enough to encourage her to try.
She’d found it impossible to find a date, much less her soul mate, while constantly surrounded by people, all of whom wanted to be with her simply because of who she was.
“This must be a live-in position,” Sean told her. “Melissa belongs to my sister, who’s out of town for now. And—” He lowered his voice, and she found the growl that came out very sexy. “I’m really losing it here. I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. I need help, fast.”
