SUSAN MEIER - The Nanny Solution

“I do not like him,” Hannah said, if only to save herself from the embarrassment of the matchmaking and years of potential teasing that would follow if she so much as admitted she thought Jake was cute.

“I think you do,” Maria singsonged. She leaned closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “And why wouldn’t you? The man is gorgeous. All that wonderful black hair and those piercing brown eyes. Yum,” Maria said, leaning even closer to Hannah. “In that tuxedo of his, he’s absolutely perfect.”

Yeah, that’s exactly what the women at the bar were saying and exactly why Hannah should have been suspicious of him asking her to dance. Never in a million years would someone as sophisticated as Jake be interested in her.

But, again, there was no reason for Hannah’s sisters to know that she agreed he was gorgeous and, just like every other woman on the face of the earth, found him attractive.

“He’s isn’t perfect. He’s old.”

Maria gasped as if Hannah had struck her. “He’s thirty-three. A year younger than I am!”

“And I’m twenty-four,” Hannah said, pleased with the airtight excuse that would keep anyone from realizing she found Jake Malloy attractive and might even stop her sisters’s matchmaking. “He’s in another generation. He probably still listens to Hootie and the Blowfish.”

This time Sadie gasped. “I listen to Hootie and the Blowfish!”

Hannah smiled smugly. “I rest my case,” she began, but she didn’t finish her thought because she noticed her third sister, Caro, and Caro’s fiancé, Max Riley, taking two of the four remaining seats at Troy and Jake’s table. Dark-haired Max wore a black tux and Caro a strapless blue gown. Caro was so lovely and had such perfect carriage and comportment, she could have posed on the cover of Vogue. Though she wasn’t marrying a billionaire, she was marrying a former FBI agent, who was about to start his new job as Assistant D.A. and who had aspirations of becoming Pennsylvania’s attorney general. In the not too distant future, Caro would be a political wife, dining in the governor’s mansion.

How, in one short year, had all of her sisters changed so drastically?

Sadie’s sandy-haired husband Troy restlessly rose from his seat. His black tux seemed to bring out the best of his blue eyes. To Hannah he looked the part of the successful, savvy businessman that he was.

“Are you guys going to stand there and whisper all night or are you going to sit down?”

“We’re on our way to sit down,” Hannah said to get everybody moving without informing Troy that she had no intention of sitting at his table. Especially now that she realized how far out of step she was with everybody else in her family. Sophisticated Sadie had billionaire Troy. Next month clever Caro would marry worldly Max. Even Maria, who had married young, had managed to become savvy and chic. They were perfect, beautiful, sophisticated women.

And somehow Hannah had missed the boat.

Jake began to chuckle over Troy’s misery at being forced to endure two minutes away from his glowing bride until he noticed a whisper pass between Sadie and Maria. Suddenly he had the feeling Hannah’s sisters didn’t agree with his—and what he was sure would be vacationing Luke’s—opinion of Jake steering clear of Hannah. From the continuing whispers, he was just about certain that Sadie and Maria were trying to match him off with their little sister!

“We’re coming, darling.” Sadie said to Troy with a sweet smile. Jake glanced at Hannah and their gazes met. Her big green eyes held his captive and he felt the same zap of electricity he had the first time she’d looked into his eyes tonight. All his man-attracted-to-a-woman instincts flared. He couldn’t help it. There was something very sexy and very sensual about her tonight. Her eyes seemed to darken when she looked at him and he definitely knew she was attracted to him. Yet, she wasn’t chasing him—wouldn’t chase him. Actually, she kept running away from him.

Which was good because they were absolutely wrong for each other. Even if her sisters and his traitorous body would take issue with that right now.

“Is there room for Hannah to join us?” Sadie asked as she approached the table.

Troy pulled out the chair for his wife, and Jake rose, too. Just to keep things pleasant and to not arouse suspicion, he said, “Of course there is room for Hannah to join us.”

“My parents are right over there,” Hannah said. She met Jake’s gaze again and enough sexual electricity to power New York City passed between them. “Thank you for the offer. But I would rather sit with them.”

Jake almost breathed a sigh of relief because this situation was bad. Being attracted to somebody almost ten years younger was awkward enough, but knowing she was the baby sister of a guy who usually got details of his sexual…escapades…that was bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. She needed to sit at another table.

“Don’t be silly,” Sadie insisted, pulling out a chair for Hannah. Then she all but blocked her younger sister’s path, preventing her from leaving.

“Just sit,” Troy told Hannah, indicating the open seat with a nod of his head. “Sadie’s not going to let you get away, anyway. No sense fighting about this.”

“Right,” Hannah said. Her gaze flitted to Jake’s again and the electricity sizzled between them. He tried to blink away the connection, but it was useless. He was suffused with heat. He didn’t have a clue why, but the way this woman looked at him seemed to turn him inside out.

“Excuse me, Mr. Malloy?”

Grateful for the interruption, Jake turned when the butler he had hired to supervise his party beckoned. From the corner of his eye, he watched Hannah succumb to the pressure of her sister and brother-in-law and take the seat across from his.

“Yes, Roger?”

“You have a guest.”

Jake laughed. “It is a party.”

Roger’s eyebrows rose. “Well, that’s true. But this one has a…package for you.”

“Everybody here brought a package for me. We call them birthday gifts.”

“Yes, sir. Very funny, sir. But if you would come out to the foyer, this could be explained much, much better.”

Jake decided that was a great idea. He was sure that these few minutes away from Hannah would get rid of whatever kept causing him to feel all the wrong reactions to a woman he wasn’t allowed to want. If that didn’t work, he could simply stay away, pretend to be busy, until his head cleared and he could behave normally around her again.

“All right.”

Jake turned to walk to the French doors but before he stepped away from the table, Felicity Lockhart, his red-haired, sex-goddess ex-girlfriend, flew onto the patio. Her eyes blazed and she carried a tightly wrapped bundle—his six-month-old son.

“Jake Malloy, we had a deal!”

Just like in the movies, the entire patio became quiet. Though Jake’s first instinct was stunned surprise, he knew he could handle her. He always did.

“Felicity, it’s very nice to see you.”

She stomped her foot. “Don’t you say it’s nice to see me! You made a promise. Now you have to keep it.”

“Okay,” Jake said soothingly. “Honey,” he added, slathering more balm on her bad mood. “Why don’t you let poor Dixon out of the blanket so he can breathe? Better yet, give Dixon to me.”

Felicity shoved Jake’s son at him. Jake sighed with relief when he realized the baby was in a deep sleep. He cuddled Dixon against his chest before he faced his former girlfriend. “Where’s Amanda?” he asked, referring to the nanny for which he paid through the nose.

“She’s in L.A.,” Felicity said quietly, as if she were calming down.

“And why would she be in L.A. when Dixon is in P.A.?”