The Nanny Solution. SUSAN MEIER
wasn’t the kind of girl who had to be the belle of the ball, but just once in her life she would like to dance with the Prince without making a fool of herself.
“Come on, Hannah. We’re about to sit down for dinner.” Hannah’s older sister, Sadie, had opened the door and peeked inside. Dressed in a sleek pink gown and dangling diamond earrings, Sadie not only glowed, she also canceled Hannah’s belief that all of the residents of this town were unsophisticated. Sadie had recently married Troy Cramer, the software billionaire, and from her chic outfit to her demeanor, Hannah’s sister was the picture of poise.
“Okay.”
Hannah left the powder room and followed her sister down the hall. But the whole time she and Sadie walked toward the party she stared at her sister wondering when this transition had occurred. Sure, Sadie had gone away to college. She had attended the police academy. She had also lived in an apartment in Pittsburgh and worked on the city of Pittsburgh police force for five years. Hannah knew Sadie was a little more worldly than everybody else, but she hadn’t noticed her turning into somebody who could fit in at a presidential reception. Yet, here she was.
“Let’s go find Troy,” Sadie said, gracefully maneuvering through the crowd and heading toward the French doors, directing Hannah to Jake’s patio where a tent protected round tables that had been arranged for dinner. Covered in white linen cloths and decorated with fat bowls of fresh roses, the tables formed a large U around the pool. The June air smelled of blossoms.
The elegance of the house, the beauty of the grounds around it, and the casual romance of the night had Hannah almost sighing with longing, not so much out of desire for Jake’s exquisite home as for the man who owned this wonderful place. Jake was handsome, masculine and vibrantly alive. He had as much charm and charisma as his wonderful estate. When she’d danced with him she would have happily cuddled closer—if only because he was irresistibly sexy. But, stunned by the impact of those dark eyes of his, she’d panicked, acted like a schoolgirl and blown any chance she might have had with him.
Sadie began guiding her to the table where Troy sat with Jake, and Hannah stopped abruptly. There was no way she was eating with him. None. She had already made herself look foolish enough. She wasn’t adding to his already miserable impression by dropping a shrimp in her lap, which she would undoubtedly do if he gave her one of those looks again.
Before Sadie got too close to the table, Hannah indicated with a movement of her hand that she was about to go right. “I think I’ll sit with Mom and Dad.” She pointed to her parents, Lily and Pete Evans, who had an empty seat at their table.
Sadie gasped and scrambled back to Hannah. “Why? For Pete’s sake, Hannah! Jake is single…”
“Which is exactly why I’m…Oh, no!” Hannah said, realizing Jake might have danced with her because her sister had put him up to it! Oh, Lord! If Sadie had told Jake to dance with her and was now forcing them to sit together because she was matchmaking, Hannah would die of embarrassment. “No. Now for sure I’m not sitting with you.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Hannah countered incredulously. “Because you’re matchmaking! And it’s obvious!”
“Don’t you like him?” Sadie asked with a laugh.
“Or maybe she does like him.”
Hannah whipped around to face her oldest sister, Maria. Short and cute, with abundant curves and thick black hair that fell almost to her waist, Maria looked more like a Spanish singer than an all-American mom with three kids and a nearly bald husband. Though the sleek red dress Maria wore contributed to her saucy demeanor, Hannah knew a person had to have a certain “something” to carry off the sexy aura Maria projected; she experienced the same rush of recognition that she had with Sadie. Just like sister number two, sister number one had “it.”
“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