Prince of a Guy (5 page)

“But…”

“And second, the way to Sean’s heart is through his stomach.”

“What?”

“Catching Sean, dear,” the older woman said patiently. “You do it through his stomach.”

“Um…okay.” Carlyne smiled through her teeth and backed toward the door, thinking,
Crazy lady alert.

“You think I’m making this up. That’s what others thought, too, and they all failed.”

No, she wasn’t going to ask.

“Go ahead, dear,” Mrs. T said with a knowing smile. “Ask. I know you’re dying to.”

In the end, Carlyne couldn’t help herself. “Others?”

“Well, he’s a handsome man, don’t you think?”

Gorgeous. But absolutely beside the point. “How many others?”

“Oh, I really couldn’t tell all his secrets,” she said demurely. “Just trust me. Feed him. Cook for him. It’ll work.”

This was insane. “I’m not looking for his heart.”

“Well, now. There’s no reason to lie.” And with another knowing smile, the woman waddled away.

Carlyne shook her head and went inside, through the kitchen, where she stopped and stared at the stove.

The way to his heart is through his stomach.

Well, Carlyne didn’t want his heart, though his body would be nice.

And yet she
was
rather hungry. But where to start?

Until she’d come here, she’d never done more than boil water or push the buttons on the microwave. She’d never seen her own mother in a kitchen, other than to thank the chef.

But really, how hard could it be? She was a college graduate, for God’s sake. She could do this. After rolling up her sleeves, she cracked some eggs and dropped them in a pan, contemplating the stove for a moment before turning on the burner. Eggs, no prob
lem. She shoved bread into the toaster. Easy enough. Then she threw some sausage in another pan and flicked on that burner, too. Pancakes took some extra doing, as she had to open the one and only cookbook she found, but following a recipe was easy. Any idiot could do that, right?

So why was the batter thick and sticky enough to form sidewalks?

She was contemplating that when the eggs started making an unusual popping sound—or maybe not unusual, she really had no idea. But when she tried to stir the boiling mess, it was…rubber.

Probably not good. Then she smelled smoke.

Oops. The toaster was on fire. Definitely not good. With a little screech, she snatched it away from the paper-towel rack, pulled the cord from the wall in the process, then promptly dropped it to the floor.

“Ouch!” There was a smoldering toaster at her feet, and the eggs were still popping, probably close to igniting, too. She was a complete and utter failure at being normal, and oh, my God, she’d set her bunny slippers on fire when she’d dropped the toaster.

That was it, the final straw, and the princess who never cried burst into tears. Then
suddenly a big, tough, strong body sat her down on the floor and was slapping at the flaming bunny heads.

While she sat there staring at the burned fuzz, sniffling, overwhelmed by a bad case of self-pity, Sean efficiently and quickly smothered the small flame still coming out of the toaster.

He reached up and turned off the stove.

Then—and this was the part she’d never forget—he dropped to his knees, scooped her against that chest that was even more magnificent up close and personal, and peered into her face.

“You okay?” he demanded hoarsely. “Are you hurt?”

He had the most amazing eyes. And those hands…hands that were at this very moment running over her body, looking for burns, she supposed.

“Carly?”

Oh, my, he felt good.
She
felt good.

“Carly!”

He’d plastered her against him so they had full body contact, which was fabulous as all he wore was jeans—unfastened. And okay, yes, it had been
way
too long since she’d felt such delicious contact, but it
wasn’t the lack of sex in her life that was making her dizzy.

It was Sean.

“Carly! Talk to me!”

His rough, edgy voice was like a bucket of cold water. While she’d been melting into a little pool of longing, he was anxious and probably furious. He certainly wasn’t helplessly turned on, not as she was, and why would he be? She wasn’t a glamorous princess, but a normal plain Jane. This man could have any woman he wanted—why would he want her? “I’m…”
Pathetic.
“…fine.”

Not satisfied, he reached for her hair, probably to smooth it out of her face, and she catapulted into action, because what if he dislodged the wig? Leaping to her feet, she grabbed for a kitchen towel. “Don’t worry, I’ve got everything completely under control now.”

“Carly—”

“We’re lucky I wore out the batteries on your smoke detectors yesterday.” She bustled around, tossing dirty pans into the sink, avoiding his gaze. “I promise, I’m not in the habit of setting the kitchen on fire every time I make breakfast.”

Mostly because she’d never made breakfast before.

Darn it, this was all Mrs. Trykowski’s fault.

Rising to his feet, Sean glanced at the flat, lumpy pancakes. Then at the burned-to-a-crisp sausages and rubber eggs. He raised an eyebrow. “Do this a lot, do you?”

“Sure.” Another pan hit the sink. It would probably never come clean, not with her expertise, anyway. “Every morning.”

“Really?” His expression changed, went guarded. It was as if he just…vanished. He was standing right there in front of her, yet he was gone. Eyes flat, mouth grim, gone. “And you’re not hurt?” he asked in a polite voice twenty-five degrees cooler than he’d been only a second ago.

“No. Sean…”

He avoided her gaze. “As you’ve mentioned, cooking isn’t in your job description. I’ll handle it from now on.”

“But—”

No buts. He’d recognized the lie, was probably disgusted. He walked out the door.

S
EAN TRIED
to immerse himself in work. It should have been easy.

But he couldn’t concentrate. It had never happened to him before, this blankness when it came to designing. Yet every job he looked at, every file, every single blueprint faded away, leaving him instead with the image of Carly when he’d walked out of the kitchen yesterday morning.

She’d been trying to make them breakfast. Why, he had no idea. It was painfully obvious she didn’t have a clue. And it was equally, painfully obvious he had a problem.

First, he’d lost more than a few brain cells when he’d pulled her against his chest, but the embrace had been driven by a real fear that she’d burned herself. Instead,
he
felt scorched. The sweet scent of her, the softness of her skin…the catch of her breath.

It all reminded him of how he’d felt when they’d kissed. Whole. He’d felt whole.

But then he’d watched her luscious lips form the words “every morning” to his question of how often she cooked, and he’d heard the lie. He’d heard it, he’d seen it, he’d felt it.

And he’d lost it. That simple.

Tina again, of course. Still torturing him with memories. Well, dammit, he was over her. Over and moved on.

But damn if he’d trust anyone in the near future or let a woman ever hurt him again.

He finally got into his work, but for the first time in his life, he had to force himself. All he could think about was how the house was faring. He hoped it wasn’t on fire or destroyed. He hoped everyone was in one piece.

He hoped…ah, hell. He was full of it. He wanted to see Melissa. He wanted to see Carly.

But by the time he got home, it was yet again very late. Too late. The house was still standing, thank God, but quiet. No Melissa. No Carly. They were both asleep.

Well, good. This was what he’d wanted. Peace and quiet. Yep. Perfect.

To prove it to himself, he worked like a fiend for several more days, without taking a breather, with no more than a quick check
on Melissa, who was apparently thriving. As promised, he made sure to leave an easy breakfast waiting for them and something for dinner, as well, or money for take-out.

While he was doing all that, he couldn’t shake the new and entirely unwelcome feeling that work was keeping him from something important.

From something like…his life.

C
ARLYNE COULDN’T
believe it. Sean managed to avoid her for days. This was a new experience, being avoided, ignored, and she didn’t like it.

But this was
his
world. He could defy her, ignore her, fire her. Anything. He was in charge, which was yet another new and unwelcome realization for a woman who had been wrapping people around her pinky finger since before she could even walk.

“I wanna swim,” Melissa said to her one afternoon in the second week.

Carlyne looked at the little girl, who’d stripped out of her clothes and was standing there naked as the day she was born, an angelic smile on her face. “How about a bath?”

“No bath,” Melissa said firmly. “Pool.”

“No pool. Bath.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No,”
Melissa said in a whine.

“No,” Carly repeated after the petulant girl.

“Yes.” Melissa stopped short, then frowned.
“Hey!”

Carlyne had no intention of getting in the water. Too dangerous. Sean had been gone every day, all day, in fact, but she couldn’t bank on it. With Sean, she could bank on nothing.

“But I swim good!” Melissa insisted, her chin jutting stubbornly into the air.

Well, actually, that made two of them. At home Carlyne had a case of gold medals and trophies. Big whoop-de-do. “Go get clean clothes, I’ll start the tub.”

Melissa just sent her that same angelic smile, which upon reflection should have been Carlyne’s warning. But happily clueless, she went into the bathroom to start the water.

The little girl didn’t appear. “Melissa?” She wasn’t in her bedroom. Or the kitchen. Or the living room.

“Oh, my God!” At a full run, Carlyne hit the back yard, and sure enough, there was that little blond head bobbing in the pool. Without another thought, Carlyne dove in.

By the time she reached Melissa, her heart was pumping so loud she couldn’t hear a thing over the roar of her blood. Scooping the little girl up, she clutched her close to her chest and swam for the side.

Melissa grinned. “See? Told you I could swim.” Struggling out of Carlyne’s arms, she slipped out of the pool and danced excitedly on the concrete. “I could have stayed under longer, but you swim fast.”

Carlyne, champion swimmer, could hardly pull herself out of the water because her knees were shaking so violently.

“Why is your hair crooked?” Melissa asked, staring at her with fascination. “And your face…it’s melting.” She tipped her head to the side. “How come?”

Because she had on thick foundation, which felt like papier-mâché on her skin. She dragged herself up, held her wig on her head with one hand and pointed toward the house. “Go.”

“But—”

“Go. Dry. Off.”

At the unaccustomed sharpness of Carly’s voice, Melissa blinked in stunned surprise. Then, predictably, her bottom lip started the quiver. “You mad at me?”

Carlyne sighed. She’d lost her glasses in
the pool. She’d have to go after them. Her clothes were clinging to her body, and if she wasn’t mistaken, one contact lens had slipped. But none of this was Melissa’s fault. She certainly hadn’t asked for her mother to leave the country or to be left with a commitment-challenged uncle. Or stuck in the care of a runaway princess pretending to be a nanny.

Melissa’s eyes filled. “Sorry.”

“Oh, honey.” Carlyne sagged with exhaustion. “
I’m
sorry. It’s just that you scared me. Now we need to get all dried and changed because your uncle Sean might be home soon.”

Not that he’d been home before ten o’clock at night all week, but that wasn’t Melissa’s fault, either.

Turning to usher Melissa in the house, she stopped short.

Over the fence appeared Mrs. Trykowski’s face. She was clearly standing on something, clinging to the wood, watching them. Spying. When she saw Carlyne’s horrified expression, the woman smiled and waved. “Hellooo!”

Carlyne held her wig and tried not to think about the makeup running in rivulets down her face. Had that been an I-know-
who-you-are hello? Or a hey-I-just-love-to-spy-on-my-neighbor wave?

God only knew.

Heart in her throat, Carlyne managed a weak wave and vanished into the house, certain her cover was blown.

No matter. Her two weeks were nearly up, anyway. She’d known it would have to end.

She just hadn’t known how very much she wouldn’t want it to.

N
OBODY WAS MORE
surprised than Sean when Mrs. Trykowski called him at the office. He transferred the woman to the speakerphone because he and Nikki were hands deep in the piles behind his desk, looking for a missing blueprint.

“Just wanted to tell you everything is going great at the house,” Mrs. Trykowski said, as if she called him every day to check in.

Sean exchanged a puzzled look with Nikki and let out a little laugh. “Good. Okay. Well…thank you.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me details?”

“Details?”

“Sure, as in what Melissa is up to.”

“Well…”

“And let’s not forget your live-in.”

“The nanny,” Sean corrected.

“Whatever you kids call it these days,” she said with a secret smile in her voice.

Nikki looked at Sean speculatively.

Sean shook his head. “Listen, Mrs. Trykowski, I’m really busy here, and—”

“They’re having a ball, you know. Laughing, giggling, playing… So, when are you going to marry her?”

“Marry—” He nearly choked. “Now just back the truck up.”

Nikki, familiar with Sean’s past and his lack of inclination to go for another relationship, grinned widely.

“She’s really just the nanny,” Sean said weakly.

“Uh-huh,” Mrs. Trykowski said kindly. “And I just had mind-blowing, head-banging, screaming sex last night.”

“Mrs. Trykowski!”

“Well, honestly, Sean O’Mara. That woman you have in your house, she’s the one to make it shine for you, she could fill it with love and laughter—”

And fire,
Sean thought darkly.
Let’s not forget the fire.

“That woman could really turn your place into a home. She’s no simple nanny,
and you know it. Now what I want to know is, what are you going to do about it?”

“Well, I—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake.” A disgusted sigh came over the line. “Don’t tell me you’re going to be a male about this. Figures.” Another loud huff of breath. “Then don’t ask me to tell you what they’re up to again, you big, silly fool.” And she hung up on him.

“I didn’t ask you in the first place,” he muttered.

“Interesting.” Nikki was looking at him in a new light. “You and the nanny, huh?”

“Stop it.” But he had to admit, Mrs. T had spiked his curiosity. What were they doing? “Look, I’m going,” he said, picking up his keys.

Nikki’s mouth fell open. “As in…going to your house?”

“Where else?”

“But it’s the middle of the day.”

“Yep.” He grabbed his briefcase, then stopped, looking at it. “No work tonight,” he decided, tossing it onto his desk.

“You’ve never left in the middle of the day before.” She watched him walk to the door. “Don’t forget to invite me to the wedding.”

W
HEN HE ARRIVED
, the house was silent. His heart started a funny, heavy pounding as he moved through the living room toward the definitely empty kitchen.

Where were they?

Granted, he hadn’t been around much. Okay, not at all, but they had to be here. Panicked, he ran. “Melissa! Carly!”

Then, in the hallway, he suddenly heard it. Laughter. They were outside, in the back yard, sitting under the shade of a large elm tree, both looking happy and content.

The sun hit Carly’s dark hair and her thick glasses, which nearly blinded him with the glare. Her heavy makeup was firmly in place. And those clothes…she wore a ton of them. A long, shapeless, flowery sundress, a sweater, her usual boots. No skin showed beneath her chin.

It didn’t matter.

The feel of her warm, lush curves, the taste of her sweet, sexy mouth were permanently imprinted on his brain.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He didn’t understand that. She wasn’t beautiful, not by a long shot. But when she smiled at Melissa, her entire face lit up.

And Sean’s heart took a tumble.

Melissa had something smeared across
her face, and even as he watched, she shoved what looked like a cookie in her mouth, leaving even more of a mess on her face. “Yum,” she said around a mouthful.

“Well, you can thank yourself,” Carly told her with a smile. “You did all the mixing.”

“No fire,” Melissa said with obvious glee.

“No fire,” Carly agreed dryly. “I’ve stayed clear of the toaster, thank you very much.”

“Uncle Sean!” Melissa cried, catching sight of him.

The little pixie rose to her feet, shoved the last of her cookie in her mouth and sprinted for him.

By now, Sean knew what was coming. He spared a thought for the shirt he wore. His favorite. He thought of the chocolate that was going to hit it and probably stain it, and with a resigned sigh, he opened his arms.

She leaped right into them with such faith he found his arms tightening around her in a hug he hadn’t known he needed to give.

“Nice day?” he asked her, burying his face in her sun-warmed hair because she smelled like summer, like cookies, like one-hundred-percent kid.

Nodding, she did her best to smear choc
olate all over him. “We made cookies, but we were real careful, Uncle Sean. No fire.”

Sean glanced over her head and met Carly’s eyes. She wasn’t smiling, just watching him. He watched her back.

“And then we walked around the block,” Melissa continued happily. “We laughed at Mrs. Trykowski’s cat cuz she chased a squirrel up a tree and got scared. And stuck. Then I was hot. Really hot, Uncle Sean, so that’s why I did it. That’s why I went swimming.”

Sean’s heart stopped. “Swimming?”

“Uh-huh. Water’s warm.”

Hard to talk when there sat a lump in his throat the size of a regulation football. “You aren’t supposed to go in the pool without me, Melissa. Remember?”

Melissa lifted her head, looking both contrite and thrilled at the same time. “I remember. But I forgot. And I scared Carly and she jumped in.”

Sean stared at Carly. “But she doesn’t know how to swim.”

“Oh, yes, she does,” Melissa told him. “She swam right to me, really fast. Then when I told her I could swim, she cried
and
laughed. Right, Carly?”

Carly swallowed hard, her gaze never leaving Sean’s. “Right, Melissa.”

Slowly, because his heart was still thundering in his ears, Sean set Melissa down and continued to stare at Carly. “You told me you couldn’t swim.”

“I know.”

She knew. Damn, but he’d done it again, fallen sucker to another woman who lied. “Melissa, why don’t you go pick out some stories for me to read to you?”

“But you always say you’re too busy to read to me.”

He winced. What kind of an uncle was he that he hadn’t made any time for his niece? “I’m sorry about that. I was wrong. Go pick a few out. Take your time.”

Melissa clapped, then skipped to the house.

Carly rose, probably hoping to escape, as well.

“Wait,” he said.

She looked toward the house. “I thought I should help her—”

“She’s fine.”

“Then I should—”

“Stay,” he said, putting a hand on her arm. An electric current seemed to run through them, and annoyed that now, even now, she could still get to him, he dropped his hand.

She crossed her arms and stepped back.

A defensive pose. Sean’s heart twisted. “Let’s get this straight, okay?”

“Okay.”

“You can’t cook, though you said you could. But you
can
swim, though you said you couldn’t.”

“Yes.” Her voice was a mere whisper, and she was studying the tops of her boots, apparently fascinated.