Cara Colter - The Prince And The Nanny

She stared at him, looked away, leaped suddenly to her feet.

“May I have my coat?” Her cheeks were staining a beautiful, angry shade of red. “Thank you, but I said no. I’m very happy with the position I have now.”

For a moment her eyes trailed to his lips, the look in them so intense he felt scorched. But then her coat was brought and she left in a flurry of activity.

He smiled slightly as the door slammed behind her. “Ronald?”

“Yes, sir?”

“I’d like to watch a movie this afternoon. The Sound of Music. Could you find it for me?”

“Certainly, sir.”

“And there’s something else I need done.”

Ronald listened to his request, nodded his head. By later today, if things were as he hoped, Miss Winslow was going to find herself dismissed from her current position.

Other men might have worried about such a high-handed approach to another’s life, but Ryan was a man of complete discipline, who had known only one reality his entire life, and that reality was that duty came before personal dreams, personal desires.

Of course, in terms of his marriage that had been disastrous, but he wasn’t, after all, marrying Miss Winslow. He was employing her. It did not really occur to him that Miss Winslow might resent his decision-making on her behalf. People liked working for him. They were compensated beyond their wildest dreams. Her initial reluctance to accept his offer would most certainly turn to gratitude, if she was a reasonable woman.

So, with that taken care of Ryan, settled in to watch the movie. He invited Gavin to watch it with him, but his son wanted to play a video game on the television in his bedroom. And not be in the same room as his father.

The movie was entertaining, a good diversion from his frustration over yet another rejection by Gavin. Still, when he turned the movie off, Ryan felt pensive despite the “feel good” theme of the show.

Maria times ten? That did not add up to a reasonable woman. Plus, Maria would have never looked at a man’s lips in a way that would leave him feeling scorched!

“Oh, dear,” he said borrowing a phrase from Mrs. Smith. “Oh dear, indeed.”

“YOU’RE firing me?” Prudence asked, stunned.

Mrs. Hilroy knitted her hands together, and looked around Prue’s humble basement quarters with discomfort.

“Of course I’m not firing you,” she stammered uneasily. “There must be a way to say this that is gentle and expresses what you mean to me. And Brian. Terminated. No, no, that’s much too harsh. I’m letting you go. Yes! Letting you go. To brighter things. And bigger things.”

Prudence knew, hollowly, that no matter how frantically Mrs. Hilroy tried to sugarcoat her announcement, it was all semantics. She was being dismissed. This morning she had a job. Now she did not. How could she not have seen this coming?

“You saved Brian’s life,” Mrs. Hilroy gushed.

How good of you to remember that, Prue thought sadly. “I think this is the worst day of my life.”

“Surely you exaggerate,” Mrs. Hilroy said with dismay.

“Probably,” Prudence agreed dryly. Worst day was possibly too dramatic. The day her father had died had been worse. The weeks following had been one terrible day after another. Not just because of his staggering financial disasters, but because she’d had to realize the love a small, lost, lonely child had craved from him was never going to happen. She’d had to grow up.

But today had been a horrendous day, even if it did not rate as highly on the horrible scale as did others. She was losing her position with the Hilroys!

Ever since her interview with the prince, Prue had a sense, not exactly of foreboding, but of her world being shaken, tested. Her sense of herself had felt wobbly and strained ever since she had first looked into the amazing blue of his eyes, listened to the masculine melody of his speech. In some language, unspoken, he had asked her to look at herself differently.

When she damn well didn’t want to! She didn’t want to ask herself questions like, was she truly happy or did loneliness yap at her heels like a small dog protecting its yard? She didn’t want to ask herself what did her future hold? Where was her life going?

She especially did not want to ask herself if her Fatal Flaws List was, well, flawed. It was retired anyway!

She was glad she had told him no. It probably rated as one of the better decisions of her life! She felt as if the devil had met her and held out what she most wanted. Despite the fact Prince Kaelan had some flaws that didn’t fit the picture, it was still the fairy-tale fantasy and she’d developed the strength of character in the last few months to recognize it for exactly what it was!

A lie. An illusion.

No prince was coming to rescue her. She was on her own!

And now, after hearing Mrs. Hilroy’s announcement, she was really on her own. Out-on-her-ear on her own!

She felt the smallest tinge of regret about her interview with the prince. If she’d heard him out, she might have found out if he was paying more than the pittance she made here!

Used to make here.

Certainly whatever accommodations he was offering had to be better than this cold, barely finished room, tucked in between the noisy furnace and the laundry room in the Hilroys’s basement.

The thought of going back to him now, hat in hand, saying she was suddenly available was just too humiliating. Besides, she could not work for a man with eyes like that!

But on the other hand she was certain if she lost another position, Miss Smith was going to wash her hands of her, heroics not withstanding. This was her third chance, her “bus ride” as she told Brian when they were playing Go Fish and he had run out of toothpicks to bet! Mrs. Smith had been tolerant, and remarkably supportive, but Prudence had always been aware that this posting with the Hilroys had been her last chance with the Academy of Fine Nannies.

“It’s just that since the accident,” Mrs. Hilroy said, “I’m so aware of wanting to be with my son. Of needing to be with him. What if you hadn’t thrown him clear that day? What if I would have missed the last day of his life? Traded moments with him for money?”

Prue gathered her wits and looked at Mrs. Hilroy’s distraught face. Her self-pity was replaced with reluctant compassion. If Brian was her son, she wouldn’t want to leave him to go to work every day. Mrs. Hilroy was making the right decision, the noble decision, a decision that put Brian’s needs first.

My work here is done, Prudence thought, but could not completely bite back a sigh. “So, it has nothing to do with me, then? It’s not because of my performance?”

“Prudence, you have been a breath of fresh air in this house. My child adores you. But, selfishly, I want him to cry and fuss when I leave to go out, not when you do.”

A perfectly reasonable way for a mother to feel.

“When do you need me to vacate my room?” Prue asked, dully. “I don’t suppose you’ll be needing a cleaning lady, will you?”

It hurt to say that. It was humbling to say that. And completely unnecessary. There had to be thousands of jobs she was well qualified to do. But it gave her a headache to think about it. And she needed to be employed again fast. She had no savings, and no health care, and despite her love of Loaves and Fishes, she had rather hoped never to need their services again!

She felt like a disgrace and a loser, and it was humbling how fast she could feel that way when she had been working so hard to make her self-esteem become about her, become so much more than the man on her arm.

“B-b-but, I understood you had been offered another job,” Mrs. Hilroy wailed.