Chapter Nine
Enrique became very still. He turned and looked at Gabriela.
She wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“But on my terms,” she said sternly, as if anything as flimsy as terms could keep all this dangerous awareness between them at bay, could take the charge out of her inadvertent use of the word proposal.
He snorted quietly, and she did glance at him then. He lifted a shoulder as if to say he had expected nothing less.
“These are my terms. First, it can only be temporary.”
“No,” he said. “That is not acceptable.”
Did he not know what he was asking her? How cruel it would be to hang out on the periphery of his life, forever?
That was the problem with dealing with a prince! All his life he’d gotten his way, he’d dictated the terms. No wonder he felt her boundaries would be up for negotiation.
“So,” she snapped, “you think I should just put my life on hold until Marcello is, what, eighteen or so?”
It might have made the barriers that had come down between them come back up if he had answered her in kind, but instead his voice was pensive.
“Gabriela, he’s lost his mother. Guido’s sick. You tell me our friend Geraldo is on borrowed time. My son does not trust life, as it is, and I see so much more loss—that I can’t stop or protect him from—coming at him. What if he becomes attached to you—and how could he not—only to lose you, too?”
And how could he not. Without even trying, Enrique was making her feel precious and valuable. And very, very vulnerable.
Plus, his voice was raw with pain for his son. It made her want to throw her whole life at his feet if it would ease his torment.
But she forced herself to be firm.
“Enrique, it’s you—not me, or Guido or the cat—who must be the constant in his life.
You must be the one he turns to and can rely on.
You must be the one who will teach him, that yes, bad things will happen, but that you will have his back.
You must be the one who helps him uncover his own strength. That’s your job.”
His gaze met hers. “It is this, exactly,” he said softly, “that makes me so sure you are perfect for the position of his nanny.”
“Temporarily,” she reiterated stubbornly.
He, just as stubbornly, said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes.
“Surely you can see paid companions will always have the potential to be temporary? You, on the other hand, are not. You are his forever.”
She wished she had not spoken that word, taken aback at the stab of longing in her for things she could never have. Not with him.
And because of him, possibly not with anyone.
Forever.
Enrique sighed heavily. “I want it to be as you say, but Marcello and my relationship is strained. I want to be the one he sees as completely reliable in his life, the constant—”
“The one who loves him best of all,” she inserted in a whisper.
“—but that does not seem to be what he wants from me.”
“You can’t let a five-year-old decide what he wants! Good grief, he’ll be having cookies for breakfast and ice cream for lunch. He is not the boss, Enrique.”
“See?” he said with satisfaction. “You are perfect for the position.”
“But not,” she said, exasperated, “as a substitute for his father.”
“What I’m trying to tell you is that Marcello doesn’t seem to like me. I wasn’t as close to him as I should have been when his mother was alive. She made him her whole world, and to be honest, I was content to let her.”
Guido had already hinted at a less-than-ideal relationship.
“Before she died, he seemed indifferent to me. And after, downright hostile.”
To be entrusted with these confidences rattled her, and made her weak with wanting to take his pain away.
But to preserve herself, she had to fight the impulse to reach across the space between him, touch the troubled lines of his face, assure him that love would make everything right in the world again.
Love.
The secret she kept, even largely from herself. She’d never fooled Guido, though. This was a complicated space she was stepping into, a difficult dynamic to navigate. How was she going to not get hurt?
Her father would tell her that was the wrong question.
She drew in a deep breath. When she spoke, she was trying desperately to channel the television super-nanny who was so popular in New York.
“Well, it seems our work is cut out for us,” she said, her tone completely no-nonsense.
“But meanwhile, he needs to know his hostility means nothing to you. That you will always be his father, you will always be there for him, you will always be consistent, you will always protect and guide him. You must be the constant in his life.”
“I needed to hear that, Gabriela, thank you. You will be good for us.”
But would they be good for her?
Or, between the two princes, Enrique and Marcello, was her heart going to end up shattered into a trillion tiny fragments?
Guido, she reminded herself, again, would say that that was not the right question.
“If you come to the palace, first thing in the morning, I’ll have Phillipe work out the details of a contract with you.”
He was trying to find familiar footing, to put some barrier back up between them. As much as that would be to both their benefits, this relationship, even as a working one, simply was not going to be on his terms.
She got up off the bench. Her wrapper had fallen open, and she pulled the lapels closed and tightened the belt at her waist.
“I think it would work better if you brought Marcello here, tomorrow morning at ten,” she said, still channeling the super-nanny, Jo-Jo. “You bring him. Do not assign it to someone else. And do not, under any circumstances, tell him or anyone else I am his nanny. Am I clear?”
Even Geraldo seemed to get that she was not a woman to be trifled with. He got up silently from the Prince’s lap, and slid off the bench into the darkness.
Gabriela watched with some satisfaction as Enrique’s mouth fell open, and he nodded.
“You may tell him you’ve been invited for a visit.” Then she turned on her heel and left him sitting on the moonlit bench by himself.
Enrique watched her go, her head high, in defiance of that dressing gown that had slipped open and shown him the mist-and-smoke lingerie underneath.
He thought over the unexpected twists and turns of the garden meeting they had just shared.
He would have to cancel a number of engagements and an important overseas business call to answer her summons in the morning.
“Hey,” he called softly after her, still trying not to wake up the rest of her household, “how long should I plan on being here in the morning?”
“As long as it takes,” she called back, and then slipped in the door and shut it with a firm click behind herself.
It occurred to him that nothing with Gabriela was ever going to go quite as he expected.
And in a life where everything was arranged, always, to meet his expectations, to fit in with carefully choreographed plans, and highly structured days, he had to admit, even if reluctantly, that not knowing exactly what tomorrow held was like an invigorating breath of fresh air.
It had always been like that with her. She had been the one who had given liveliness and life to the days of his youth.
Even before that kiss they had shared, his heart had belonged to her, even though he had never said it.
How could he say it? Even as a young man, he had known Gabriela would not be considered a suitable match.
It was after she was gone that he had known, acutely, how much light she had brought to his life.
For months after, it had felt as if he walked in the shadow of a dark cloud of loss.
But then his responsibilities had increased exponentially, and one step at a time, life went on.
Once he was married, he had not allowed himself to think of Gabriela, their warmth and their connection.
Thoughts of her would have made the life he had to live too hard to face.
Maybe, for that reason, secretly, he’d been happy she was gone, that he did not have to face, every single day, the haunting loss of her laughter and her light from his life.
Even now, he was aware these kinds of thoughts had to be curbed, that no good could come from them, that he had to keep his desire for the happiness and well-being of Marcello at the forefront of all his dealings with Gabriela.
The next morning, Enrique was in his office early to try and rearrange his schedule and get a few things crossed off his to-do list for the day.
Phillipe, as always, had beaten him there.
“I’ve moved your morning appointments, and assembled the paperwork Miss Olivera, er, requested,” he said.
So, Gabriela had also been up early this morning.
Phillipe looked slightly caught off-balance, which was unusual. The uncomfortable way he said the information had been requested made it seem as if it might have been more of an order than a request.
“What did she request?”
A look passed between them, an age-old look between men that said a bomb was about to go off in their world. And that it was a woman.
“I’ve put together the structure of the childcare service for her, and the names and background information of each of the nannies. She said she wants to review it.”
Enrique was suddenly reminded that she had a world that did not include him. He’d heard reports that she was very good at what she did, and he could see, now, that she was a force to be reckoned with.
“She also asked for the names and contact information of every four-to-six-year-old boy within these criteria.”
Again, the emphasis on asked suggested she might have ordered what she wanted. Phillipe passed him a neatly typed piece of paper. Enrique glanced at it.
Had Gabriela been up all night? It felt like a whirlwind was moving on the periphery of his world.
“Is that all right, sir?” Phillipe said uneasily. “I mean, can she just ask for all this?”
Order it.
The unspoken question: Who was she? What was she to the household?
Questions he realized he had not given nearly enough thought to. Again, he’d approached her about taking over as nanny on an impulse. Impulses were not a norm in his world.
No. Worse than an impulse.
On the advice of a five-year-old.
“Wouldn’t she need some sort of security clearance, Your Highness? To be looking at the personal information of royal staff? To be inquiring about their children and grandchildren?”
Enrique shot him a look. It was clear that while Phillipe obviously knew who she was, he had no idea what she was to this household.
A member of the most trusted family on the island, a family whose fates had been intertwined with that of his own since the dawn of time.
And whose fault was that, that she was an unknown in her own home?
She had made that quite clear yesterday. The blame fell solidly on his family.
“I’ll vouch for her,” he said, taking the thick sheaf of papers from Phillipe. “She’s agreed to assist with Marcello’s care, for the time being. Give her whatever she asks for.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
Leaving a rather astounded Phillipe, Enrique went to fetch Marcello and found a flustered nanny—Miss Helena?—rattling the handle of the nursery bathroom door. The sound of water running, while Marcello sang lustily behind it, penetrated the door.
“Your Excellency,” she said, stepping back from the door, “I’m sorry. I wanted to have him ready, but he won’t come out. He’s jammed something against the door so I can’t get in, either.”
“Marcello?” he called.
The singing stopped, while Marcello registered his father had arrived on scene, but then resumed more loudly than before.
It was a sea ditty.
What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor? What do you do with a drunken sailor ER-LYE in the morning?
Where had he learned that?
Admittedly, Enrique’s first impulse was to force the door open, to show his five-year-old son what every other single person on this island—with the exception of Gabriela—accepted without question.
He was the boss.
Instead, he switched direction. “Miss Helena,” he said loudly, “Marcello and I have been invited to the Olivera cottage this morning. Could you tell him I had to go without him? Geraldo will miss him, of course, as will Guido and Gabriela. However, I don’t want to be late.”
The door swung open a bit.
His son was still in his pajamas, soaked to his skin. He seemed to be standing in a puddle.
“Good morning,” Enrique said, resisting the impulse to scold.
“Good morning, Father,” Marcello said, all wide-eyed innocence, as if he wasn’t behaving like the naughtiest boy on the planet.
Instead of pointing that out, Enrique said, evenly, “Where did you learn that song?”
“My mommy and I sang it together. And ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’”
Ah, the world he had been excluded from. “Perhaps,” he said tentatively, “you could teach it to me, sometime.”
Marcello considered this, then lifted a shoulder, hurtfully unwilling to commit.
Enrique did not let his hurt show. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”
“I’m making a magic potion,” his son responded solemnly.
“A potion? For what?”
“That’s a secret.”
Terrifying, Enrique thought, and also another part of his son’s world that Marcello was unwilling to share with him.