I stand to my full height, heat scorching me from head to toe. I’m shocked the floor is not burning beneath me. I stare at her incredulously. “You want me to coerce a strange woman into staying and being my children’s nanny?”
A coy smile. Then a shrug as she rights her body and folds her arms over her chest. “Couldn’t hurt to feel her out a bit.”
My hands dive through my hair. “For fuck’s sake. No. We know nothing of this woman. She could be a fucking terrorist. She could be just like everyone else, here to exploit us for her own personal gain. Some random American walks into my palace and suddenly everyone is so in love with her? There can’t be anything that special about her.”
“You haven’t met her yet.”
“Nor do I want to!” I shout, losing my patience. “You spoke to her for two minutes. Nannies require screening, and royal nannies must have a certain skill set I can promise you this woman does not possess. And what of her father?”
She straightens her spine, and I can already tell I’m not going to like what she has to say next. “I think she’s special and different. Exactly what you asked for. The rest she can learn. The girls already seem taken with her when they’ve never been taken with anyone we’ve brought in to be their nanny. Her father lives in a facility. The guard who brought Miss Wright in has been on the phone with them, working all this out. They confirmed Mr. Wright’s diagnosis and will come and retrieve him if necessary when we’re ready to release him.”
My hands fall to my hips. “Do you hear yourself? I can’t just allow some intruder to care for my children.”
“I’ve asked Javier to run a background and information check on her. He’s doing it as we speak.”
This is getting out of control. The sooner this woman leaves my palace, the better. “Where is she now?”
“In your study, sir.”
Fan-fucking-tastic. She’s likely stealing or breaking morepriceless items. Without a word, I storm past Emily and out of my office, down the hall, and into my study. My favorite room in the palace, my sanctuary, my quiet place. This is where Emily had to stick her? I open the door and find the woman standing by my bookcase, reading a book she has no business touching. But the moment she turns and our eyes lock, it’s as if the breath is being stolen from my lungs.
Long, wavy dark hair, a little wild like it’s been tussled by a man’s hands. Golden, heart-shaped face kissed by the sun with a dusting of freckles along the bridge of her slightly upturned nose and across her cheeks. Large, round blue eyes more luminescent than a summer sky and more stunning than the rarest of jewels framed by long, dark lashes. Full, pillowy, naturally red lips parted on a silent gasp. Petite, with generous curves, they’d fit perfectly against me and overflow the palms of my hands.
Instantly, visions of her naked and open to me in a hundred different ways consume me. Spread-eagle on the sofa, arms bound behind her, and at my full mercy. Bent over the sofa, ass in the air, moaning around my spankings as she takes my punishments while begging for more. On her knees, blue eyes on mine, ready to take my cock down her throat.
Heat floods me everywhere, sending sparks of electricity across my skin and thickening my cock. I can’t handle how fiercely my body is reacting to her. How wild and uncontained my thoughts are at the mere sight of her. There is a natural innocence about her that awakens the depraved savage within me.
Fuck me.
What do I do with this, and how do I get it all back under control?
5
SEBASTIAN
Gawking at me, she doesn’t speak for the longest of moments, her eyes wide, hardly blinking. “Your Majesty,” she finally manages in French, her voice shaky as she does some sort of awkward curtsy-bow thing. She quickly replaces the book she had been looking through, fear flickering across her features, though she’s maintaining eye contact with me.
Brave. I’ll give her that much.
Her fear does things to me I wish it wouldn’t, and I mentally fumble for a way to diffuse it, pissed off I’m reacting to her at all.
I enter the room, storming until I’m standing almost directly before her. Above her, for how much shorter she is compared to me, and I’m reminded just how small and feminine she is. How I got this close, I don’t even know.
I can’t breathe. I can’t run. All I can do is sneer as my defense and utter, “Miss Wright?”
“Yes, sir. I’m so very sorry,” she rushes out, switching to English, her beguiling blue eyes searching mine, hopeful intheir inventory. She won’t find what she seeks there, and when she realizes it, the corners of her mouth tilt down ever so slightly. She clears her throat. “I came here to find my father and take him back to the facility he’s living in. One of the guards brought me inside the palace, and while I was waiting, I was appreciating…well…your family portrait.” She emits an uncomfortable laugh, a small blush staining her cheeks. “Anyway, I took a step back and knocked into a pedestal. I was unable to save the bust of your great-grandfather before it fell and broke.”
“I see.” My tone is harsh. Cold. Indifferent, perhaps, and she shifts her stance, and in doing so assaults me with her scent that, much like her eyes, reminds me of sunshine and summer. It’s annoyingly distracting, just like her. “So after you coaxed your way into my home, it is my understanding that you then spoke with my daughters at some length.”
A smile overtakes her face andJesus. No wonder the girls and Emily are so taken with her. Her smile is completely disarming and enchanting. How awful. I keep my guard up and my distance for a reason. It doesn’t escape my notice that she’s the first woman in…fuck, ages,eternity, to capture my undivided attention. To have my body craving and my mind wandering, exploring.
An enchantress, she immediately has to go.
“Yes!” she exalts, oblivious to what she’s doing to me. “They found me just after the accident happened. They’re such lovely, sweet gir…er, princesses. I hope it’s okay that I spoke with them.”
“No. It’s not okay. Why would I want my daughters to speak to strange, clumsy women who entered the palace uninvited and broke our things?”
Hurt flashes through her that she quickly replaces with something else. Ire, maybe. Her gaze flickers to the left, out toward the window, as she tries to rein it in before returning tome. Holding my gaze, she doesn’t cower for a second beneath my withering stare.
