flaming pink, her eyes wide and vulnerable. “I mean, whether or not I, personally, like you isn’t the issue at all. And as for Becky, well, of course I love taking care of her. But I only want what’s best for her. I only want—”
He moved a step closer, hiding his smile when she had to steel herself from shrinking back. And then he spoke, his voice low and gentle and utterly unyielding. “Take the baby into her room and put her in her crib. There’s a monitor in there. Turn it on and bring the receiver back in here with you.” He reached out. She stiffened. But then she saw what he meant to do. She actually aided him, shifting the baby to one arm for a moment, as he slid the strap of the diaper bag off her shoulder and set the thing on the floor. “Do it now,” he added, even more softly than before.
For the first time in the twelve days he’d known the woman, she obeyed. She headed for the door a few feet away and vanished through it. A moment later, she reappeared—minus the baby, carrying the receiver.
He gave her a smile. She did not smile back.
“Now,” he said. “Come with me.”
Across the hall from the nursery, in his private sitting room, Cord gestured at a leather wing chair. “Have a seat.”
Hannah Miller obeyed for the second time, perching right at the edge of the chair, tipping her head to the side a little, so she reminded him of a nervous bird, ready to take to the air at the slightest provocation. She still had the receiving half of the baby monitor clutched in her hand.
“Here.” Cord took the device from her and set it on the marble-topped table at her elbow. “Relax. Drink?”
She frowned, then coughed, fisting her hand and placing it delicately against her mouth. “No. Thank you.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
At the liquor cart in the corner, he took his sweet time dropping ice cubes into a glass and pulling the crystal stopper out of a whiskey decanter. He poured himself a shot, reconsidered and splashed in enough to make it a double. Then he restoppered the decanter and looked at Ms. Miller again as he swirled the amber drink, ice cubes clinking in the process. He knocked back a sip. It warmed his throat, hot velvet, going down. Ms. Miller remained absolutely still on the edge of her chair, eyes wide and wounded, watching him—and waiting for whatever grim information he had to impart.
Cord sipped from his drink for a second time. The woman didn’t fool him. She might look scared as a lost lamb at the moment—ever since he’d figured out she’d let herself get too attached to his little girl. But she was no lamb. She was a thoroughly exasperating creature who had made him jump through hoops to get what belonged to him. She was bossy and she wanted things done her way. Not his kind of woman at all.
But that shouldn’t pose a problem. He didn’t intend to date her or take her to bed. What he did intend to do was to see that his daughter got the best care available. And the woman showed a definite aptitude in that department.
“I’ve just come to a realization, Ms. Miller,” he finally said.
She turned her head, but only enough so that she was facing him straight on. And she waited some more. He found he liked that: her silence, the fact that she didn’t make some eager, hopeful little yes-person noise.
He said, “It occurred to me about a minute and a half ago that you and I want the same thing.”
He paused—mostly to see if she’d lose her nerve and warble out, “What’s that?”
She didn’t. She went on waiting, looking apprehensive, but unbowed.
So he told her, “We both want what’s best for Becky.”
She opened her mouth a fraction—then closed it over whatever words she might have said. He knew, of course, what those words would have been. Something short. And skeptical: Oh, really? or I doubt that.
“It may come as a surprise to you,” he said with ironic good humor, “but I want my daughter to have loving and devoted care every bit as much as you do.”
She was looking at him sideways again. He supposed he couldn’t blame her. Hell if he’d confess it, but he was pretty nervous about the whole idea of being a father. His own mother, Madelyn, had died when he and his twin, Rafe, were only four years old.
And his father was and always had been a coldhearted, verbally abusive SOB. It wasn’t as if Cord—or Rafe, or their older brother, Jack, or their sister, Kate, for that matter—had known much in the “love and devotion” department when they were growing up.
But Becky could have better. Cord had seen it in the look on Hannah Miller’s face when she stared down at his daughter. Becky would get all the love any child could ever want from a woman who gazed at her like that.
He swirled his ice cubes again—and made his offer. “Becky needs a nanny. And you don’t want to let her go. So my question is, why should you? I’ll pay you fifty thousand a year, plus the best benefits package Stockwell International has to offer, if you’ll give up your job at Child Protective Services and come to work for me taking care of my daughter.”
Chapter Two
Through a sheer effort of will, Hannah Waynette Miller kept her mouth from dropping wide-open.
She was stunned. Yep. That was the word for it. Stunned. Astonished. Astounded and amazed.
By Mr. Cord Stockwell, of all people.
He wanted her to be Becky’s nanny?
She’d been sure the man disliked her. And she had told herself she didn’t care. After all, she understood his kind. He was a rich man with a rich man’s ingrained belief that the rest of the world existed for his comfort and convenience.
Well, Hannah Miller cared no more for what a man like that believed than she did for what he thought of her. Since that first day she had called him to tell him about Becky, she had never once put forth the slightest effort to make things comfortable for him—let alone convenient. For Becky’s sake, she had stood her ground against him. She had been determined to make sure that Becky got a real home, a home with love and attention and patience and hope in it. Of course, she always tried to make sure of those things for all of the children assigned to her care.
But she’d tried even harder with Becky. Too hard, maybe…
She hated to admit it, but the man had been right on that one little point.
She was much too attached to Becky, all out of proportion really, and she knew that. Hannah also knew she had to let go of the adorable blue-eyed darling and get on with her life. She had planned to do just that: to make certain Cord Stockwell found a loving nanny, one who would provide the intangibles that all his money could not buy. And then Hannah Miller had meant to be on her way—to return only if the paternity test she’d insisted he take proved he wasn’t Becky’s father, after all.
Cord Stockwell was waiting for an answer, standing there so tall and commanding on the other side of the beautifully appointed room, holding his glass of fine whiskey and looking at her with an amused expression on his too-handsome face.
Hannah knew what that answer should be: Thank you, but no. As much as she might wish it to be otherwise, as much as she had longed in the past seven
