Prince Daddy & the Nanny (15 page)

Or maybe he was annoyed to realize that he'd never really made an effort where Hannah was concerned. He'd never even taken her out to dinner, and they only went as far as the media room to watch a movie. They came together after dark like clandestine lovers, without ever having had anything that resembled a traditional date.

He knew that was his fault. He wasn't ready to subject Hannah to the media scrutiny of being seen in public together. Going shopping with Riley didn't really count, because the press accepted that the prince would require the assistance of a nanny when he was out with his daughter.
But he knew it would be very different if he and Hannah ventured out together without Riley as a buffer between them.

It was difficult to date when you were a member of the royal family, even one not in direct line to the throne. There was no such thing as privacy, and rarely even the pretense of it. Every appearance, every touch and kiss, became a matter of public speculation.

Not that Michael thought she couldn't handle it. He had yet to see Hannah balk at any kind of challenge. No, it was simply that he wasn't ready to go public with a relationship that felt too new, or maybe it was his feelings that were too uncertain. And that he was unwilling to look too deep inside himself to figure them out.

“I don't know if I like the idea of a much younger man bringing you flowers,” he said, only half joking.

“He didn't just bring flowers,” she teased. “He kissed me, too.”

His brows drew together; Hannah laughed.

“It was a perfectly chaste peck on the cheek,” she assured him.

“Lucky for him, or I might have to call him out for making a move on my woman.”

Her brows rose. “
Your
woman?”

The words had probably surprised Michael even more than they'd surprised Hannah, and were followed by a quick spurt of panic. He immediately backtracked. “Well, you're mine until the end of summer, anyway.”

Hannah turned away on the pretext of rearranging the colored bottles on her dresser, but not before he saw the light in her eyes fade. When she faced him again, her smile was overly bright.

“And that's less than three weeks away, so why are we wasting time talking?” She reached for the buttons on his shirt.

“Hannah—” He caught her hands, not sure what to say, or even if there were any words to explain how he felt about her.

He cared about her—he couldn't be with her if he didn't. And he didn't want her to think it was just sex, but he didn't want to give her false hope, either. He didn't want her to think that he could ever fall in love with her. Because he couldn't—he loved Sam.

“I never asked you for any promises,” she told him.

And he couldn't have given them to her if she had. But he could give her pleasure, and he knew that doing so would give him pleasure, too.

He stripped her clothes away and lowered her onto the mattress. Then he knelt between her legs, stroking his fingertips slowly over the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. He brushed the soft curls at the apex of her thighs, and she gasped. He repeated the motion, parting the curls so that his thumb stroked over the nub at her center, and she bit down on her lip to keep from crying out.

“It's okay,” he told her. “I want to hear you. I want to know how it feels when I touch you.”

“It feels good. So good.”

As his thumb circled her nub, he teased her slick, wet opening with the tip of a finger. She whimpered.

“Michael, please.”

“Tell me what you want, Hannah.”

“I want you.”

He wanted her, too. He wanted to spread her legs wide and bury himself in her. To thrust into the hot wetness between her thighs, again and again, harder and faster, until he felt her convulse around him, dragging him into blissful oblivion.

But first, he wanted to taste her.

He slid his hands beneath her, lifting her hips off of the mattress so that he could take her with his mouth.

She gasped again, the sound reflecting both shock and pleasure. His tongue slid deep inside, reaching for the core of her feminine essence. Her breath was coming in quick, shallow pants, and he knew that she was getting close to her edge. It wouldn't have taken much to push her over the edge, but he wanted to draw out the pleasure for her—and for himself.

With his lips and his tongue, he probed and suckled and licked. He heard her breath quicken, then catch, and finally…release.

He stroked and kissed his way up her body until she was trembling again. Her belly, her breasts, her throat. She reached for him then, her fingers wrapping around and then sliding up the hard, throbbing length of him. He sucked in a breath. She stroked downward again, slowly, teasingly, until his eyes nearly crossed.

She arched her hips as she guided him to her center, welcoming him into her slick, wet heat. The last threads of his self-control slipped out of his grasp. He yanked her hips up and buried himself deep inside her.

She gasped and arched, pulling him even deeper, her muscles clamping around him as she climaxed again. The pulsing waves threatened to drag him under their wake. He reached for her hands, linking their fingers together over her head, making her his anchor as he rode out the tide of her release.

He waited until the pulses started to slow, then he began to move. She met him, stroke for stroke. Slow and deep. Then fast and hard. Faster. Harder. This time, when her release came, he let go and went with her.

O
nce the prince had given his nod of approval to the birthday party, Hannah was anxious to get started on the planning, so she turned to her best friend for advice. Karen outlined the five essential ingredients of a successful children's party: decorations, such as colorful streamers and balloons; games or crafts to keep the kids busy; cake to give the kids an unnecessary sugar high; presents for the guest of honor and loot bags for all of her friends—all of which should somehow coordinate with the party theme. And preferably, she added as an afterthought, outdoors so that the sugar-high kids weren't tearing through the house and destroying everything.

For Riley's first-ever birthday party, Hannah took her friend's list and gave it the royal treatment. She decided to go with a princess theme, since it was too obvious to resist.

The first glitch came when she asked Riley who she wanted to invite. The little girl mentioned her new friend, Grace, then added Kevin and Caridad and Estavan before
rattling off the extensive list of all her aunts, uncles and cousins. She didn't mention her grandmother, and when Hannah asked about adding her to the list, the princess wrinkled her nose.

“Do I have to?”

“She is your grandmother, and you invited everyone else in the family,” Hannah felt compelled to point out, even as she wondered if she was making a mistake.

But she couldn't help remembering Michael's comment about his mother barely knowing his daughter, and though she didn't think an invitation to one birthday party was likely to change that, she couldn't help hoping that it might be a start. And maybe, if the princess royal got to know Riley, she would give up on the idea of sending her away to boarding school.

“Everyone else in my family is nice,” Riley said simply.

Hannah didn't quite know how to respond to that. She'd never actually met the princess royal and she didn't want to prejudge, but the princess's response made her wary.

“Would it be nice to invite everyone except her?” she prodded gently.

“No.” Riley sighed, and considered her dilemma for another minute before she finally said, “Okay, you can put her on the list. But she doesn't get a loot bag.”

 

After the guest list was finalized, Hannah turned her attention to other details. Taking her friend's advice to heart and unwilling to trust in the capriciousness of the weather, she rented a party tent to ensure that the celebration remained outside. Of course, when she called about the tent, she realized that she needed tables and chairs for inside the tent, and cloths to cover the tables and dress up the chairs. By the time she got off the phone, she was grateful the prince wasn't worried about budget.

“I just ordered a bouncy castle,” she admitted to Caridad.

The housekeeper's brows lifted. “One of those big inflatable things?”

“It fits the princess theme,” she explained.

“Riley will love it.”

“And a cotton-candy cart and popcorn machine.”

Caridad's lips twitched. “Apparently you know how to throw a party.”

“You don't think it's too much?”

“Of course it's too much, but after waiting four years for a party, it should be a party worth waiting for.”

“It will be,” Hannah said confidently.

And it was. The tent was decorated with thousands of tiny white fairy lights and hundreds of pink streamers and dozens of enormous bouquets of white and pink helium-filled balloons.

The younger female guests got to make their own tiaras—decorating foam crowns with glittery “jewels” and sparkling flowers. Thankfully Hannah had realized that the crowns wouldn't be a big hit with Riley's male cousins, so they got to decorate foam swords. After the craft, they played party games: pin the tail on the noble steed, musical thrones and a variation of Hot Potato with a glass slipper in place of the potato. And, of course, they spent hours just jumping around in the inflatable bouncy castle that had been set up behind the tennis court.

For a minute, Hannah had actually worried that Michael's mother was going to have a coronary when she spotted it. The princess royal had gone red in the face and demanded that the “grotesque monstrosity” be removed from the grounds immediately. But Michael had been unconcerned and simply ignored her demand, for which the kids were unbelievably grateful.

Riley loved all of it. And she was completely in her element as the center of attention. Hannah was happy to remain in the background, making sure everything was proceeding
as it should, but Michael made a point of introducing “Riley's nanny and party planner” to everyone she hadn't yet met. There was nothing incorrect in that designation, and it wasn't like she expected or even wanted him to announce that they were lovers. But she wished he'd at least given a hint that she meant something more to him than the roles she filled in his daughter's life.

That tiny disappointment aside, she really enjoyed meeting his family. She already knew his sister, of course, and was pleased when Marissa jumped right in to help keep things running smoothly. She was introduced to Prince Cameron, his very pregnant wife, Gabriella, and their daughter, Sierra. The teenage princess was stunningly beautiful and surprisingly unaffected by her recently newfound status as a royal, happily jumping in to help the kids at the craft table.

She also met Rowan, the prince regent, his wife, Lara, and their sons Matthew and William; Prince Eric and Princess Molly and their kids, Maggie and Josh; Prince Christian—next in line to the throne—his sister, Alexandria, and their younger brother, Damon. Even Prince Marcus, who divided his time between Tesoro del Mar and West Virginia, happened to be in the country with his wife, Jewel, and their two daughters, Isabella and Rosalina, so they were able to attend.

They were all warm and welcoming, but it was their interactions with one another that Hannah observed just a little enviously. It had nothing to do with them being royal and everything to do with the obvious closeness they shared. As an only child, she'd never known anything to compare to that kind of absolute acceptance and unquestioning loyalty, but she was glad that Riley did.

As for Riley's “Grandmama”—well, Hannah didn't get any warm and fuzzy feelings from her, so she just kept a careful distance between them. And she succeeded, until she went into the house to tell Caridad that they were getting
low on punch. On her way back out, the princess royal cornered her in the hall.

“I'll bet this party was your idea,” she said.

And so was adding your name to the guest list,
Hannah wanted to tell her. But she bit her tongue. Elena Leandres might be insufferably rude, but she was the princess royal and, as such, was entitled to deference if not respect.

“Riley doesn't need to play at being a princess,” the birthday girl's grandmama continued. “She
is
one. And this whole display is tacky and inappropriate.”

“I'm sorry you're not enjoying yourself.”

The older woman's eyes narrowed on her. “But you are, aren't you?”

“I can't deny that I like a good party, Your Highness,” she said unapologetically.

“Is it the party or the fairy tale?” she challenged. “Do you have some kind of fantasy in your mind that you're going to ride off into the sunset with the prince?”

“I have no illusions,” she assured the prince's mother.

“I'm pleased to hear that, because although my son might lack sense and discretion in his choice of lovers, he would never tarnish his beloved wife's memory or his daughter's future by marrying someone like you.”

One side of Elena's mouth curled in a nasty smile as Hannah's cheeks filled with color. “Did you really think I wouldn't guess the nature of your relationship with my son? I know what a man's thinking when he looks at a woman the way Michael looks at you—and it's not about hearts and flowers, it's about sex, pure and simple.”

She forced herself to shrug, as if the princess royal's words hadn't cut to the quick. “Sure,” she agreed easily. “But at least it's really great sex. And while this has been a fascinating conversation, I have to get back outside.”

“You have not been dismissed,” Elena snapped at her.

“I beg your pardon, Your Highness,” she said through
clenched teeth. “But the children will be getting hungry and I promised Caridad that I would help serve lunch.”

“Well, go on then,” the princess royal smirked. “I wouldn't want to keep you from your duties.”

And with those words and a dismissive wave of her hand, she quickly and efficiently put the nanny in her place.

Hannah's feelings were in turmoil as she headed up the stairs to her own room. She was angry and frustrated, embarrassed that her own thoughts and feelings had been so transparent, and her heart was aching because she knew that what the princess royal had said was true.

Not that she believed her relationship with the prince was about nothing more than sex. They had fun together and they'd become friends. But she also knew that while Michael had chosen to be with her now, he'd made no mention of a future for them together. And she had to wonder if maybe one of the reasons he'd chosen to get involved with her—aside from the obvious convenience—was because he could be confident that their relationship already had a predetermined expiration date. At the end of the summer, she would be leaving. The time they'd spent together was an interlude, that was all, and she'd been a fool to ever let herself hope it might be more.

Marissa was coming down the stairs as she was going up, and the princess's quick smile faded when she got close enough to see the distress that Hannah knew was likely etched on her face.

“Riley asked me to find you,” she said. “She said she's absolutely starving and wanted to know when it would be time to eat.”

“Please tell her that I'll be out in just a minute, Your Highness.” She was anxious now to move things along and get this party over with, but she needed a few minutes alone to regain her composure before she could face anyone. And especially before she could face Michael.

“Hannah.” The princess touched her arm, halting her progress. “I just saw my mother walk out—did she say something to upset you?”

“Of course not.”

But it was obvious that Marissa didn't believe her, and that she was disappointed by the obvious lie.

“I thought we were becoming friends,” she said gently.

Hannah looked away so that the princess wouldn't see the tears that stung her eyes. “You've been very kind to me, Your Highness, but—”

“Will you stop ‘Your Highnessing' me,” Marissa demanded, “and tell me what she said to you.”

“It wasn't anything that wasn't true,” Hannah finally acknowledged.

The princess sighed. “I'm not going to make excuses for her. All I can say is that she's so unhappy, her only pleasure comes from making others feel the same way.”

“I'm not unhappy,” Hannah assured her. She was simply resigned to the realities of her relationship with the prince, but also determined. If they only had two more weeks together, then she was going to cherish every moment.

“Actually, there is one more thing I'd like to say,” Marissa told her.

“What's that?”

“That you're the best thing that has happened to my brother in a long time, so please don't let my mother—or anyone else—make you question what you have together.”

 

Despite Marissa's reassurances, the rest of the day was bittersweet for Hannah, her happiness tempered by the realization that she wouldn't be around to witness the celebration of Riley's fifth birthday. She was only going to be at Cielo del Norte with the prince and his daughter for another two weeks. After that, they would return to their home in Verde Colinas, and she would go back to her apartment in
town and her job at the high school, and she knew that she was going to miss them both unbearably.

She tried not to dwell on that fact, and when everyone joined together to sing “Happy Birthday,” it was a welcome diversion. Caridad had offered to make the cake, as she had for each of the princess's previous birthdays, and Riley was stunned by the three-dimensional fairy-tale castle confection that she'd created, complete with towers and spires and even a drawbridge.

After everyone had their fill of cake and ice cream, Riley opened her gifts. She enthused over all of them, showing as much appreciation for the Little Miss Tennis visor that Kevin gave her to the elaborate back-to-school wardrobe from her aunt Marissa. Of course, her absolute favorite gift was the
Yo Gabba Gabba
CD collection from Grace, and she insisted on putting on the music for the enjoyment of all her guests.

The prince had given his gift to his daughter at breakfast: a three-story dollhouse, which she had absolutely adored. Partly because it came with dozens of pieces of furniture, but mostly because it was from her beloved daddy.

Hannah had walked the mall in San Pedro three times looking for something special for the little girl. She didn't want it to be anything showy or expensive, just something that might remind Riley of the time they'd spent together after she was gone. She finally found it in a little boutique that sold an indescribable variety of items ranging from handmade lace and estate jewelry to the latest in kitchen gadgets and children's toys. At first, it caught her eye just because it was funky and fun: a three-foot-long stuffed caterpillar with a purple body and high-top running shoes on its dozens of feet. Then when she picked it up, she noted the name on the tag: EMME.

“It's a palindrome!” Riley exclaimed happily.

“It looks like a caterpillar to me,” her father said.

Riley just rolled her eyes and shared a secret smile with Hannah.

 

Several hours later, after the guests had all gone home and the remnants of the party had been cleared away by the rental company, Riley's eyes were closed. Even when Michael touched his lips to her cheek, she didn't stir.