The Billionaire Prince’s Nanny (European Billionaire Beaus Book 1)
Page 13
He tightened the axle back in place and set his tools in their box, wiping his hands on a rag as he contemplated her. It had been a long time since a woman had affected him this strongly, this quickly—but judging from the efficient, completely un-self-conscious way she was juggling her bosses’ luggage, she had no idea she was drop-dead gorgeous. Her innocence was refreshing after all the stuffy gold-diggers he’d watched drive up, who he’d now have to spend the next few weeks courting.
He stood, dropped the rag, and straddled his bike. He’d just been thinking he needed an escape, and now he couldn’t conceive of a better one than shirking tonight’s duties to spend some quality time with the gorgeous creature in front of him. Usually his flings had to go through layers of security checks before he was alone with them, but he was feeling restless and reckless, and the beauty in front of him would be the perfect cure for that.
Decision made, he revved the engine.
Ella had her hands full, literally and figuratively. She’d finally managed to find a way to carry all five of her and her stepsisters’ bags at once, but now Daphne was blocking the front entrance while she admired a pretty chandelier, and Anna had caught a servant and seemed to be interrogating him about the location and contents of the house’s library. Judging by her older stepsister’s disappointed slump, it didn’t house the medical journals she’d likely been hoping to sneak off and read.
Ella bit her lip, shifting one of the overnight bags to get a better grip on it. If she couldn’t keep those two focused, there was no way either of them would walk out of the Summer House Party with that giant royal rock on their finger, and she needed one of them to lock down the king. It was the only way Ella would be free to finally live her own life.
She gave in to temptation and paused to stare longingly at the most dazzling thing she’d ever seen. A groom was exercising a beautiful Arabian stallion in a round pen, and the high-strung animal was stunning. He was a dazzling bright white with a fine-boned nose, mincing his steps and tossing his head like he was royalty himself. She hoped the king appreciated his wealth of horses. When Ella married off one of her stepsisters to him, her stepmother would no longer need her as a backup plan for her own social climbing, and Ella’s first order of business would be to return to the States to train horses and eventually run her own riding school.
Behind her, an engine revved, snarling thunderously. She squealed and jumped and the thirty-year-old Louis Vuitton bags went flying out of her arms. One hit the pavement at just the wrong angle and the zipper split wide open, spilling kitten heels and stilettos all over the royal driveway. She groaned, carefully setting down the one bag she’d managed to hold onto before kneeling on the pavement to scoop up the scattered shoes. “I knew we should’ve bought new bags,” she muttered as she chased down a strappy sandal. “Target even had them on sale.”
Behind her, the limo’s door creaked as its last occupant, her stepmother, climbed out. She’d almost certainly heard the Target comment but didn’t grace it with a response as she stepped past Ella toward the Summer House. She didn’t like acknowledging how far the Fernstone family had fallen, and she certainly would never advertise it to the rest of the nobility with bags from a big box retailer.
Ella scooped up the last shoe and dropped it back in the bag. As she stood and dusted off her pinstripe skirt, the Darth Vader theme emitted from her pocket—her stepmother’s ringtone. She groaned again. Other members of the Danovian nobility had been calling all day to talk about the Summer House Party, and if Ella had to speak to another snooty duchess she would scream. She spotted a parked motorcycle at the other end of the drive, probably the one that had revved earlier and scared her, and briefly considered just climbing on and zooming away on her own. Surely it couldn’t be that different from riding a horse.
The beep of a voicemail brought her back from her daydream, and she snorted. Who was she kidding? Ella Fernstone was all about duty and helping others and following the rules, and right now her duty was to fix this damn zipper and get her ass in the Summer House so she could foist one of her stepsisters on the king. Then, and only then, would she finally be free of the obligations that had ruled her life.
She yanked at the zipper again, but it stubbornly refused to zip. “Fine,” she snapped, and lifted her chin. “Have it your way.” She bunched up the fabric on the top of the bag so the shoes wouldn’t spill out and then hefted it. She would just have to come back for the others.
Someone tapped on her shoulder. She twisted her head to look back but didn’t move the rest of her body, because one twitch in the wrong direction would send the shoes scattering across the pavement again. A man was standing behind her.
She paused and reassessed. A hot man was standing behind her. A sex-on-a-stick hot man, with biceps nearly as big as her waist and long, tangle-your-fingers-in-it blond hair pulled back into an awesome man bun. He looked a little like a superhero, one with perfect hair and even more perfect abs. The dark streak of oil on his right cheek somehow only enhanced his appeal and she imagined all kinds of fun ways to get him even dirtier. It was easy, especially with him standing right behind her like that, so close she could picture him stepping just a little closer, wrapping those strong fingers around her hips, holding her in place as he bent her over the nearest piece of furniture and made her moan his name. Whatever his name was.
She cleared her throat. “Yes?” she said, and was amazed it came out sounding normal.
“I believe this is yours,” he replied. The words were round and musical in his deep voice. Mmmm, that Danovian accent would sound downright delectable in bed when he was telling her what to take off.
She cleared her throat again—maybe she should’ve brought a bottled water—and glanced down. He was holding a shoe out to her, a glittery silver pump that looked tiny in his broad hands. He touched it gingerly, trying not to get it dirty, and the absurdity of the scene made her smile. She balanced the shoe bag on her hip, freeing up one hand to reach for the pump.
But the mechanic pulled it back, a sexy smirk touching the corner of his mouth, and angled his head at the bike. “I was thinking,” he said, “taking a ride with you sounds like a hell of a lot more fun than some stiff royal get-together.”
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