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“You’re not married?” she asked without thinking, then wondered what he would make of that question.
She didn’t know what to make of that question.
“No,” he said very firmly, as if the thought were abhorrent. “Not married. Which is why I might need help at night if I have a meeting.” He glanced at Melissa as if she were a puzzle missing some pieces.
Carlyne knew the song and dance. She remembered her own nanny well. And the cook. And the maid. During her childhood she’d seen only servants, rarely her own parents, and certainly not during the evening hours when they’d been busy with one social function or another.
She didn’t know anything else, but couldn’t contain her strange sense of disappointment that this man seemed to be no different.
“You have plenty of experience,” Sean said, skimming the list of her supposed previous jobs. “And you have a teaching credential, too.”
She had quite a few credentials, and no less than three accredited degrees. She collected them like others collected shoes, mostly because she had yet to figure out what she wanted to do with her life.
“Impressive references,” he murmured, and Carlyne sent a silent message of thanks to her assistant for providing the names. “Can you tell me about yourself?” He lifted his head, piercing her with those mesmerizing eyes.
There was a lock of hair over his forehead. He had a five o’clock shadow. By looks, he could have been a rebel, but the careful way he was reading her résumé seemed at odds with that. “What would you like to know?”
“Well…” He looked confused, as if he wasn’t sure exactly. “How about your family? Or how you grew up?”
“Oh, same old thing,” she said lightly. Poor little princess. Absent parents. No siblings. No close friends. Nothing she could tell him, of course.
“Really?” Lord, his eyes were deep. “What’s the same old thing?”
Since she couldn’t explain, she reverted to her lifelong fantasy. “A house with a white picket fence, two parents, various kids and a dog.”
“That sounds nice.” She could tell he really meant it. “So what makes you want to do this?” He was still looking at her, full of genuine interest and curiosity, as if he really cared.
Carlyne had to swallow hard because a wave of guilt nearly drowned her. She’d been describing her imagined ideals, but that didn’t make her lies right.
Another first, for Carlyne never felt guilty about anything.
“Uncle Sean!” The impatient little girl tugged hard on Sean’s shirt, letting it go so that it bounced up, exposing a good portion of lean, flat, tanned belly.
And just like that, Carlyne forgot what she’d been about to say.
“Just a minute, Mel,” Sean said distractedly, pushing down his shirt and waiting for Carlyne—Carly—to answer.
But she couldn’t, because she just realized what she was doing. She wanted a job working for this man, this gorgeous man, whom she would have to live with for the next two weeks.
Live with, as in play house.
“Carly?”
It took her another minute to remember he was talking to her, because never in her life had she allowed her name to be shortened. She’d never had a nickname. “I want to do this because…” She looked him in the eyes and gave up pretense, telling him the complete, utter truth. “Because I really need to.”
“You need to,” he repeated.
His gaze filled with compassion, and she winced inwardly, knowing he pictured her destitute and homeless or something equally horrible, which couldn’t be further from the truth. “I want this job with all my heart and soul,” she said, hoping her earnestness would be enough, that someday if he learned the truth, he’d forgive her. “I’ll take good care of Melissa and see that she gets everything she needs.”
“You might want to think about this,” he said. “Because believe me…” He pulled his stained shirt away from his chest. The material stuck to his skin until the last possible second, letting go with a suctioning sound that for some reason tugged at a place low in Carlyne’s belly.
“Grape juice,” he muttered. “It’s not an easy thing, caring for a four-year-old, so please, be sure. I need total concentration for my work, and she’s—” A little guiltily, he looked into Melissa’s eyes.
“A nightmare,” Melissa said proudly, nodding. “That’s what my mommy says.”
Sean laughed, the sound rich and genuine, and again, something pulled within Carlyne.
What was the matter with her? She’d heard a man laugh before, for crying out loud. Men far more sophisticated than Sean O’Mara. Smoother, richer, even more good-looking.
But there was something about this man who was obviously unconcerned about opening the door with bare feet and disheveled hair. Something unpolished and edgy. He didn’t care what others thought.
Another first for her. All the men in her life cared a great deal for what others thought.
“I’m not sure that’s something to be proud of, you know,” Sean told Melissa. “Being a nightmare.”
“Yes, but Uncle Sean—”
“Hold on, I’m still talking to Carly.” He looked at her. “Do you really want the job?”
For some reason, one Carly didn’t want to examine too closely, she wanted to stay more than ever. “Yes.”
Sean let out a ragged, relieved breath. The weight of the world seemed to lift off his shoulders. “Good.”
Awkwardly, they stared at each other.
“Uncle Sean!” Melissa tugged at him again. “I really have to go potty!”
“Again?” Sean turned that steady, heart-skipping gaze on his little niece, who’d let go of his legs to do what was apparently the got-to-go dance, which consisted of holding herself between the legs and skipping around in a little circle.
“Quick!” she demanded.
“You know how to do it.”
Still gripping herself, she shifted from foot to foot. “I want you to come with me.”
“Melissa—”
“I’m going to have an accident!” she cried, bouncing. “You’d better hurry!”
Groaning, Sean scooped her up. “Be right back,” he said to Carlyne, striding away. “Make yourself comfortable.”
They headed down the hall, Melissa in her uncle’s arms, her beaming face close to his. “I drank too much juice,” she confided.
“How could that be? I’m wearing more than half of it.”
“I didn’t mean to spill.”
“Yes, you did.” Their voices faded. “You were mad because I wouldn’t give you salami for breakfast, remember?”
Carlyne couldn’t help herself, she laughed, which was odd as she wasn’t one for spontaneous laughter.
Sean stopped, turning to look at her.
He had the longest eyelashes. That was her inane thought. Long and thick and black. Totally wasted on a man. Except that they emphasized the leanness of his cheekbones, the straight line of his nose, his generous mouth, and when he smiled, when those eyes of his closed slightly, his long lashes gave him a sleepy and undeniably sexy look.
She wondered if women fell all over themselves when he smiled like that. If he even knew it.
Of course he knew it. In her experience, men were very aware of themselves. Too aware.
Carlyne didn’t plan on falling at his feet, no matter how her heart fluttered. She wasn’t here to make friends—or lovers for that matter. She was here to prove something to herself.
But Sean wasn’t what she planned on, and he sure wasn’t going to be easy to ignore. Unaccustomed nerves leaped at her. “Is the job really mine?”
Melissa bounced in Sean’s arms, and with an ease that assured her of his strength, he shifted her to his other side so he could look directly into Carlyne’s eyes. “It’s yours,” he said. “For better or worse.”
“Hurry, Uncle Sean, hurry!”
Carlyne had to smile at the pure terror that crossed Sean’s face—her father had never, ever given a thought to helping his children in the bathroom—before Sean whirled and rushed down the hall.
No, Sean may not like this responsibility he’d taken on, but he appeared to be a man who wouldn’t shirk his duties. Carlyne watched him with new eyes and an awareness she hadn’t expected to feel.
When they were out of sight, her be-mused smile slowly faded. She blinked at her reflection, wondering about what she’d done.
Urgent potty calls?
Salami for breakfast?
She shivered at the thought, but then she pictured Sean, all that disturbing dark sensuality, his intensity, and shivered all over again.
AT HIS FIRST opportunity to work without the interruption of a high-strung four-year-old, Sean sat at his desk. He meant to dig in but found himself staring out the window instead.
Melissa was running as fast as her short, chunky legs would take her. Hair flying out behind her, wide, mischievous grin on her face.
Sean rose, swearing, thinking she was on the run from whatever terrible thing she’d done to the new nanny, when said new nanny appeared in the window, as well.
Hair flying behind her, running, and though he doubted her legs were short and chunky like Melissa’s, he couldn’t say for certain as they were hidden beneath her skirt. Just like his niece, she wore a wide and mischievous grin, and there was something in her infectious laughter that made him smile, too. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was incredibly…real. He liked real.
He liked her.
“Can’t catch me, can’t catch me,” squealed Melissa, slowing with a hopeful, expectant glance over her shoulder.
She wanted to be chased.
She wanted to be caught.
And Sean stood there with a sudden pit in his stomach, because he couldn’t remember a single time over the past days that he’d spared the time to play with the little girl like that. Couldn’t remember not being annoyed or tired or frustrated.
Couldn’t remember laughing, or just…being.
“Can’t catch me,” Melissa sang.
Catch her, Sean willed Carly, leaning close as if he could do it from the other side of the glass. Do for her what I never did.
At the same moment he wished it, Carly surged forward and scooped the little girl up in her arms, swinging her around and around, looking young and happy and free.
Their joined laughter rang out, and finally, they both collapsed in a fit of giggles to the grass. Melissa crawled into Carly’s lap.
Carly’s arms lifted, and for a second hovered in the air as if she wasn’t used to such easy affection, but then she wrapped them around the child, her face filled with such contentment it almost hurt to look at her.
Sean sat down, still watching. Still…yearning?
No, that made no sense. No sense whatsoever.
“SO WHO’S IN CHARGE of dinner?”
Sean lifted his gaze off the plans he’d been studying, the plans he’d been trying to finish since Melissa had stepped into his life, turning it upside down. Slowly he blinked Carly into focus.
She was standing in the doorway of his office, looking quite a bit more rumpled then when she’d arrived for her interview that morning. He knew without asking that the dirty smudges on her wide skirt were from grubby four-year-old hands, that the wrinkles in her shirt came from lifting that same four-year-old, and likely her hair was rioting around her face because of something Melissa had done.
But somehow, she looked…cute. He knew from having a sister, and also a fair amount of relationships, that the word cute wasn’t exactly considered flattering, but he thought it should be.
What made her so attractive that he couldn’t tear his eyes off her? He hadn’t a clue.
“Dinner?” she repeated, pushing those huge glasses closer to her eyes. “Melissa’s hungry.”
“Sure. What are you making?”
She gave him a long, baleful look. “I wasn’t offering to make it.”
“Oh.” The radio at his elbow switched from good old-fashioned rock music to the news.
“And on the celebrity front,” the announcer said. “It’s rumored that Princess Carlyne Fortier has gone AWOL. Her grandfather denies this, claiming his granddaughter has merely left for a private vacation, but for the first time in ten years the princess didn’t attend the International Muscular Dystrophy fund-raiser, held last night in D.C.”
Carlyne let out a sound of annoyance, so Sean turned the volume down. “Is it dinnertime already?” he asked.
“Yes.” She glared at the radio, which continued to spit out the top-breaking story, very softly now.
“Rumor has it she is close to a nervous breakdown from her heavy social schedule,” claimed the announcer, sarcasm in his voice. “Must be a tough life, folks, huh?”
“He hasn’t a clue,” Carly muttered.
Because she was obviously agitated, Sean flicked the radio off. “Uh, where were we?”
She sighed. “Dinner.”
“Yeah. To tell you the truth, I was kinda hoping you could cook.” Sean tried his most charming smile.
She merely arched an eyebrow, looking suddenly very aristocratic. “Was cooking in my job description?”
