Jill Shalvis - A Prince Of A Guy

“I’m sorry,” she whispered and, grabbing her boots, turned and ran.

Unlike Cinderella, she didn’t leave anything behind.

SEAN WOKE AT DAWN to find Melissa sprawled across his feet like an orphaned puppy, fast asleep.

So were his legs.

It was like a bad nightmare. He couldn’t escape her. For a moment he lay there and debated with his conscience. Now that he’d checked out Carly’s references and she’d been approved by both himself and Melissa, he wanted to get to his office. But he could only imagine the fit Melissa would pitch when she woke up and found him gone, even with Carly just down the hall.

He showered and dressed, making as much noise as possible, but when he was ready for work, Melissa was still asleep, totally at home, smack in the center of his bed with his pillow and all the blankets.

A bed hog in the making.

With a sigh, he scooped her up and headed down the hall. In front of Carly’s door, he shifted the dead weight in his arms and knocked.

Melissa stirred and snaked her arms around his neck. “Back to bed,” she commanded gruffly.

“I’m going to work,” he said, awkwardly patting her back. “I’m bringing you to Carly. Carly?” he called through the door.

“Uh… Just a second.” Her voice was oddly frantic. There was lots of rustling, and then a…thud? “Coming!”

Finally, she opened the door. She had her thick makeup on. Her glasses were askew on her nose, and her hair looked as if it had exploded around her head during the night.

She looked rushed, unnerved and…oddly adorable.

But definitely not thrilled to see him.

“I’ve got to get to my office,” he said. “And Melissa here just woke up, so-”

Without a word, she took Melissa.

“I’ll be back tonight-”

The bedroom door shut in his face.

“Okay then,” he said to no one. “Bye.” Feeling more relieved than he should, he made his escape and headed to his car. Driving to his office for the first time since his sister had dumped Melissa on him.

He felt a twinge of guilt thinking of Melissa that way, as if she was an unwanted piece of luggage, but work was…well, his life. And it felt good to get back to it.

The first person he saw was Nikki, his secretary. “Hi, honey, I’m home,” he said, skipping into his office. Feeling great. Feeling alone and loving it.

Nikki glared at him, which assured him that everything was, indeed, back to normal.

By noon, he’d dug himself out of the piles of work on his desk. He made a note to raise Carly’s salary for saving his life. He met with clients without having to excuse himself to help one little four-year-old in the bathroom, and he vowed to also give Carly a big, fat hug to go along with her big, fat raise.

And when he clinched the deal with Sam, finally, after working on the plans forever, he decided Carly should have a kiss to go with that hug.

A friendly kiss, of course. Just a little thank-you-for-saving-my-life kiss.

And it had nothing to do with the fact she’d given him a peek at her panties. Much.

It had been an inadvertent peek, sure, but he’d enjoyed it all the same. From his vantage point in the pool, he’d gotten a front-and-center view of her plain white bikini panties, cut high on the thigh, with enough material to cover her mound, but that material had been rather sheer. It had been dark, too dark to tell, but he’d imagined them wet.

It had made him hard then.

Hell, he was hard now. All those layers of clothes, hiding the best set of legs on this side of the Rockies. Not to mention what lay above those legs.

Why did she hide herself behind thick makeup and horrible glasses? And all those clothes? He wished he knew.

No. No, he didn’t. That would mean he was thinking of getting involved, and he wasn’t. What his nanny thought or did was none of his business, as long as she took good care of Melissa and left him out of it.

Way out of it.

Invigorated by this reinforced decision, he engrossed himself in work and was deeply involved with a new design when there came a light rap at his door.

And then another.

And another.

A continuing series of knocks, never letting up.

Nikki wouldn’t dare do that, nor would anyone in the building, which made Sean groan, because he only knew one person, one little person, one little nightmare person, who’d start knocking like that and not stop.

Melissa.

From the other side of the door came Carly’s voice. “Stop. I’m sure he heard you.”

“I heard you, all right,” he said after he’d opened the door, torn between irritation at the interruption and a surge of pleasure he didn’t want to analyze.

Carly stood there, huge glasses covering most of her face, her clothes baggy and shapeless as usual. “Hi.”

White panties, came the unbidden thought. Wet white panties. He wished like hell he could get them out of his head.

She held Melissa, who wriggled and wriggled until she was set free.

“Uncle Sean!” Beaming from ear to ear, Melissa threw herself at him, flung herself in the air, leaving him no choice but to catch her before she hurt herself. “I missed you!”

Suffering her exuberant and very wet kiss, he glanced at Carly. He had a million things to do, but his nanny had a look he distinctly recognized.

High-level stress.

“Come home with us now,” Melissa demanded, cupping his face in her little hands, forcing him to stop looking at Carly and to look directly at her. “I want you to be with us.”

“I can’t. I have work.” Work was good. Work was great. Work was what he wanted.

Carly smiled apologetically. The neat woman from her interview yesterday was gone. Her hair looked ravaged. Her clothes were wrinkled. And she seemed to be wearing a good part of Melissa’s lunch. But most curious, was her barely subdued sense of…panic?

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“Yes. I’m sorry.” Carly looked embarrassed. “We had a long day and-”

“We burned the toast,” Melissa announced, helping herself to the jar of chocolate kisses on his desk.

“Breakfast,” Carly murmured. “Didn’t come out too good.”

“Neither did lunch,” Melissa added.

“We didn’t burn it, at least.” Carly gave a tight smile. “The cake collapsed, that’s all.”

“Yep. Calaps,” Melissa told him, pleased to be in the know. “But don’t worry, we had clean-up time. And then we made play dough from itch.”

“Scratch,” Carly corrected.

“Scratch. It stuck to the pot. Set off the fire alarm.” Melissa sent Sean a chocolately smile. “Mrs. T called the fire department, and two big trucks came! So then we drove here.” She grinned and spread chocolate on some of his papers. “Carly said we could.”

“Quite the day,” Sean murmured to Carly, who bit her lower lip and pressed her thick-rimmed glasses to her face.

“Yes,” she agreed. “It’s been a long one.”

He might have commented further but caught sight of Melissa climbing on his desk. “Try to keep those chocolate fingers off the plans, okay?”

“Okay!” But she had to lean over them to grab more of the kisses, which meant at least two more handprints.

Sean gritted his teeth and rolled the plans up.

“I hope you don’t mind us showing up,” Carly said as Nikki came into the room to offer drinks. “But…”

But she was exhausted, that was clear. Sean took pity, because he knew better than anyone the kind of exhaustion Melissa could provoke. He’d been living it for days before Carly had showed up to save his life.

But he did have to wonder at his supposedly experienced nanny. She had a résumé and references he had checked out, yet she wasn’t acting so experienced.