year—and right then, a dangerous thought occurred to him. God. Was there a baby? If so, he needed to know. “We should have been more careful, though. You’re right. Is that why you keep running away from me? Are you—?”
“No,” she cut in before he could even get the question out. “We were lucky. You can stop worrying.”
“I miss you,” he said, before she could start in again about how she had to go. “I miss our discussions, our talks in the library. Lani, we have so much in common. We’ve been good friends.”
“Oh, please,” she scoffed. But there was real pain in her eyes, in the tightness of her mouth. “You and I were never friends.” All at once, her eyes were too bright. She blinked away tears.
He wanted only to comfort her. “Lani…” He took a step toward her.
But she put up a hand and he stopped in midstride. “We’ve been friendly,” she corrected. “But to be more is beyond inappropriate. I work for your brother and sister-in-law. I’m the nanny. I’m supposed to set an example and show good judgment.” She swallowed. Hard. “I never should have let it happen.”
“Will you stop saying that it shouldn’t have happened?”
“But it shouldn’t have.”
“Excuse me. We are two single adults and we have every right to—”
“Stop.” She backed a step toward the door. “I want you to listen, Max. It can’t happen again. I won’t let it.” Her eyes were dry now. And way too determined.
He opened his mouth to insist that it most certainly would happen again. But where would such insistence get him? Except to send her whirling, flinging the door wide, racing off down the walk and out the gate.
He didn’t want that. And arguing with her over whether that unforgettable night should or should not have happened was getting him nowhere, anyway. They didn’t need arguing. They needed to reestablish their earlier ease with each other.
So in the end he answered mildly, “Of course you’re right. It won’t happen again.”
She blinked in surprise. “I don’t… What are you saying?”
“I’ll make an agreement with you.”
She narrowed her eyes and peered at him sideways. “I don’t want to bargain about this.”
“How can you know that? You haven’t heard my offer yet.”
“Offer?” She sneered the word. He held his silence as she nibbled her lower lip in indecision. Finally, she threw up both hands. “Oh, all right. What, then? What is your offer?”
“I’ll promise not to try to seduce you,” he suggested with what he hoped was just the right touch of wry humor, “and you’ll stop avoiding me. We can be…” He hesitated, remembering how she’d scoffed when he’d called them friends. “…what we used to be.”
She aimed a put-upon look at the single beam in the rough-textured ceiling. “Oh, come on. Seriously? That never works.”
“I disagree.” Light. Reasonable. Yes, just the right tone. “And it’s unfair to generalize. I think it can work. We can make it work.” Until she admitted that being what they used to be wasn’t nearly enough. Then they could make it work in much more satisfying ways.
She hovered there in front of the door, staring at him, unblinking. He stared right back, trying to look calm and reasonable and completely relaxed when in reality his gut was clenched tight and he’d begun to lose hope he would ever get through to her.
But then, at last, she dropped her gaze. She went to the rustic dinner table, where she ran her finger along the back of one of the plain straight chairs. He watched her, remembering the cool, thrilling wonder of her fingers on his naked skin.
Finally, she slanted him a look. “I love Montedoro. I came here with Sydney thinking I would stay for six months or a year, just for the life experience.” Sydney was his brother Rule’s wife and Lani’s closest friend. “Two years later, I’m still here. I have this feeling, and it’s such a powerful feeling, that Montedoro is my real home and I was only waiting to come here, to find the place I was meant to be. I want to write a hundred novels, all of them set right here. I never want to leave.”
“I know. And no one wants you to leave.”
“Oh, Max. What I’m trying to say is, as much as I love it here, as much as I want to stay forever, if you or any of your family wanted me gone, my visa would be revoked in a heartbeat.”
“How many times do I have to tell you? No one wants you to go.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t get it. Love affairs end. And when they end, things can get awkward. You’re a good man, a kind man. But you’re also the heir to the throne. I’m the help. It’s…well, it’s hardly a relationship of equals.”
Why did she insist on seeing trouble where there was none? “You’re wrong. We are equals in all the ways that really matter.”
She made a humphing sound. “Thanks for that, Your Highness.”
He wanted to grab her and shake her. But somehow he managed to remain still, to speak with calm reproach. “You know me better than that.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you get it? We went too far. We need to back off and let it go.”
Let it go—let her go? Never. “Listen. I’m going to say it again. This time I’m hopeful you’ll actually hear me. I would never expect you to leave Montedoro, no matter what happened. You have my sworn word on that. The last thing I would ever want is to make things difficult for you.”
Heat flared in her eyes again. “But that’s exactly what you’ve done—what you are doing right now.”
“Forgive me.” He said it evenly, holding her dark gaze.
Another silence ensued. An endless one.
And then, at last, she spoke again, her head drooping, her shining, softly curling hair swinging out to hide her flushed cheeks. “I hate this.”
“So do I.”
She lifted her head and stared at him, emotions chasing themselves across her sweet face: misery, exasperation, frustration, sorrow. After a moment she confessed, “All right. It’s true that I miss…having you to talk to.”
Progress. His heart slammed against his rib cage.
She added, “And I adore Nick and Constance.” His son, Nicholas, was eight. Connie was six. Lani was good friends with Gerta, Nick and Connie’s nanny. Rule’s children and his often played together. “I…” She peered at him so closely, her expression disbelieving. “Do you honestly think we could do that, be…friendly again?”
“I know we could.”
“Just that and only that.” Doubt shadowed her eyes. “Friendly. Nothing more.”
“Only that,” he vowed, silently adding, Until you realize you want more
