Panicked, she pressed her skirt closer to her body. He slid his hands over her feet, pulling off first her boots, then her socks.
And then her feet were in the deliciously heated water, brushing against Sean’s even warmer body, and she could hardly breathe.
He hadn’t seen anything, she told herself. His head was bent, concentrating on her feet, but then he looked at her.
She’d never seen a look of such pure…heat, certainly not directed at her, and it was titillating, to say the least. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t blink, couldn’t move, but finally she managed a weak smile. “This is nice.”
He didn’t respond. Around them, the air sizzled with tension,
“Tomorrow night wear your bathing suit,” he said. “You can get all the way in. I’ll show you how easy it is to swim.”
Of course, she couldn’t. But the sheer honesty in his gaze brought a twinge of guilt she was beginning to hate.
This, while exciting, thrilling, even arousing, was wrong. Very wrong. Knowing that, she got to her feet as gracefully as she could, which wasn’t very, and backed away. “I have to go.”
His arms and chest and belly flexed as he pulled himself out of the pool. He wore dark blue swim trunks that fit him like a second skin, molding his contours, his…shape in a way that made cohesive thought a distant memory. “It didn’t chime midnight,” he said, teasing in the face of the panic he couldn’t possibly understand. “And anyway, running will do you little good. I know where you live.”
But he didn’t, really. He couldn’t. She needed to be in her room with the door locked. She needed to pull off the itchy wig, needed to dump the glasses and contact lenses, needed to haul off the too many layers of clothes and give herself a good hard look in the mirror to remind herself who she really was.
Princess Carlyne Fortier. On vacation from her life. On a mission to find herself.
“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
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.”
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.
