Prince Daddy & the Nanny by Brenda Harlen Read Free Book Online Page B

white blouse with a blue chiffon skirt now, and the lovely pink dress was in a heap on the floor beside her dresser. A quick glance at the unmade bed revealed a damp circle.
    â€œAccidents happen,” Hannah said lightly, pulling back the covers to strip away the wet sheet. “It will only—”
    â€œIt wasn’t an accident,” Riley insisted. “It was your fault.”
    Hannah knew the child was probably upset and embarrassed and looking to blame anyone else, but she couldn’t help asking, “How, exactly, is it my fault?”
    â€œYou’re supposed to get me up at three-thirty—when the big hand is on the six and the little hand is halfway between the three and the four,” Riley explained. “But now it’s after four o’clock.”
    She probably shouldn’t have been surprised that the child knew how to tell time—that basic skill was hardly on par with speaking foreign languages—and she began to suspect that the next two months with Riley would be more of a challenge than she’d imagined.
    â€œBrigitte would have woke me up,” Riley said, swiping at the tears that spilled onto her cheeks.
    â€œ Woken, ” Hannah corrected automatically as she dropped the sheet into the hamper beside Riley’s closet. “And I know you miss Brigitte a lot, but hopefully we can be friends while I’m here.”
    â€œYou’re not my friend, you’re the new nanny, and I hate you.”
    â€œI promise that you and I will have lots of fun together this summer. We can go—”
    â€œI don’t want to go anywhere with you. I just want you to go away! ” Riley demanded with such fierce insistence that Hannah felt her own eyes fill with tears.
    She knew that she shouldn’t take the little girl’s rejection personally. Despite her extensive vocabulary and adolescent attitude, Riley was only a child, reacting to her feelings of loss and abandonment. But Hannah understood those feelings well—maybe too well, with the news of her father’s recent marriage still fresh in her mind—and she hated that she couldn’t take away her pain.
    â€œWhat’s going on in here?” a familiar, masculine voice asked from the doorway.
    Riley flew across the room and into her father’s arms, sobbing as if the whole world had fallen down around her.
    The prince lifted her easily. “What’s with the tears?”
    â€œI want Brigitte to come back.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his throat, crying softly.
    He frowned at Hannah over her daughter’s head, as if the new nanny was somehow responsible for the child’s tears.
    â€œShe’s feeling abandoned,” she told him.
    His brows lifted. “Is she?”
    She couldn’t help but bristle at the obvious amusement in his tone. Maybe she didn’t know his daughter very well yet, but she understood at least some of what the little girl was feeling, and she wasn’t going to let him disregard the depth of those feelings.
    â€œYes, she is,” she insisted. “She was upset when she woke up and the only person who was anywhere around was me—a virtual stranger.”
    The prince rubbed his daughter’s back in an easy way that suggested he’d done so countless times before. “She’ll get used to being here and to being with you,” he insisted.
    Hannah wished she could believe it was true, but she sensed that the princess would resist at every turn. “Maybe, eventually,” she allowed. “But in the meantime, you’re the only constant in her life and you weren’t around.”
    â€œI was only downstairs,” he pointed out.
    â€œBehind closed doors.”
    â€œIf I didn’t have other things to deal with, Miss Castillo, I wouldn’t have hired you to help take care of Riley for the summer.” Now that the little girl had quieted, he set her