Of course he knew! He radiated the conceited confidence of a man who had played this game with many women. Played. That’s why they called them playboys. It was all just a game to him.
“Princess Tasonja!” Susie crowed her toy suggestion. “And the camping play set. I have to have the tent and the backpack. And the dog, Royal Robert.” Seeing her uncle look amenable, she added a piece she coveted from a totally different play set. “And the royal wedding carriage. Don’t get Jake anything. He’s a baby.”
He took his cell phone out of his pocket and tried to dial with his thumb while still holding the baby. Apparently, he was going to have someone round up all the toys his niece had demanded.
“I wouldn’t bother with Princess Tasonja, if I were you,” Dannie managed, in a clipped undertone as Susie slipped free of her hand and skipped over to the sofa where she buried her face in a copper-colored silk pillow. Dannie was pretty sure the remnants of lunch were on that face.
“Why not?”
Why bother telling him that Susie’s attention would be held by the Princess Tasonja doll and her entire entourage for about thirty seconds? Why not let him find out on his own that attempts to buy children’s affection usually ended miserably? Susie would become a monster of demands once the first one was met.
That was a lesson he probably needed to learn about the car, too. Any woman who would be impressed with such a childish display of wealth was probably not worth knowing.
Her own awed reaction to this apartment probably spoke volumes about her own lack of character!
“I suspect you think it’s going to keep her occupied—Susie do not touch the dolphin. But it won’t. Unless you are interested in playing princess doll dress up with her, the appeal will be strictly limited.”
He clicked the cell phone shut. “What do I do with her if I don’t buy her toys?” he asked.
“You are a sad man,” she blurted out, and then blushed at her own audacity.
“I don’t do kids well. That doesn’t make me sad.” He regarded her thoughtfully and for way too long.
Swooning length.
“You don’t just work for my sister,” he guessed. “You hang out with her, sharing ideas. Scary. I’m surprised she doesn’t have you married off.” He looked suddenly suspicious. “Unless that’s why you’re here.”
“Excuse me?”
“My sister has been on this ‘decent girl’ kick for a while. She better not be matchmaking.”
“Me?” Dannie squeaked. “You?” But suddenly she had a rather sickening memory of Melanie looking at her so sadly as she’d dealt with her news about Brent, as if everyone had expected it except her.
Joshua’s look grew very dark. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Not at the moment,” she said coolly, as if she’d had dozens of them, when she’d had only one serious relationship, and the greatest part of that had been by long distance. “But you needn’t worry, Mr. Cole. Your sister would know me well enough to know that you are not my type!”
He had the nerve to look offended, as if he just naturally assumed he was every woman’s type, the title of World’s Sexiest Bachelor obviously having gone straight to his handsome head. “Really? And what is your type?”
She could feel heat staining her cheeks to a color she just knew would be the most unflattering shade of red ever. “Not you!”
“That isn’t really an answer.”
“Studious, serious about life, not necessarily a sharp dresser, certainly not materialistic.” She was speaking too fast, and in her panic describing a man she knew was less than ideal to a T.
“Priests aren’t generally available,” he said dryly.
“I meant someone like a college professor.” Which was what Brent had been. Rumpled. Academic. Faintly preoccupied all the time. Which she had thought was adorable!
“Your ideal man is a college professor?”
“Yes!” How dare he say it with such scorn?
“Miss Dannie Springer, don’t ever take up poker. You can’t lie. You’re terrible at it.”
“As it happens, I don’t like poker, and neither does my ideal man.” With whom her whole relationship, in retrospect, had been a lie, concocted entirely by her, sitting at home by herself making up a man who had never existed.
“The college professor,” he said dryly.
“Yes! Now, if you’ll entertain Susie for a bit, it’s time for Jake to have a bath.” Of course, it wasn’t anywhere near time Jake had a bath, but she had to get out of this room and this conversation. She doubted Mr. Playboy of the World knew anything about baby bath times. Or college professors for that matter! But he seemed to know just a little too much about women, and his look was piercing.
“Entertain Susie?” he said, distracted just as she had hoped. “How? Since you’ve nixed Princess Tasonja.”
“Try noughts and crosses.”
He frowned. “Like those notes she used to give me? Before she hated me? That were covered with x’s and o’s that meant hugs and kisses?”
Dannie steeled herself. He was not really distressed that he had fallen into his niece’s disfavor. His world was way too big that he could be brought down by the little things.
“Noughts and crosses,” she said. “Tic-tac-toe.”
He looked baffled, underscoring how very far apart their worlds were, and always would be.
“Get a piece of paper and a pencil, Susie will be happy to show you how it works,” she said.
“You mean a piece of paper and a pencil will keep her as entertained as the princess?”
“More.”
“Do I let her win?” he asked in a whisper. He shot his niece a worried look.
“Would that be honest?”
“For God’s sake, I’m not interested in honest.”
“I’m sure truer words were never spoken,” she said meanly, getting back at him for being so scornful of her college professor.
“I’m interested in not making a little girl cry.”
“It’s about spending time with her. That’s the important part. Not winning or losing.”
“I have a lot to learn.”
“Yes, you do, Mr. Cole,” she said, aware of a snippy little edge to her voice.
“You have a lot to learn, too,” he said, quietly, looking at her with an unsettling intensity that she would have done anything to escape.
“Such as?” she said, holding her ground even though she wanted to bolt.
“The college professor. Not for you.”
“How would you know?”
“I’m an astute judge of people.”
“You aren’t! You didn’t even know whether or not to be honest playing noughts and crosses.”
“Not miniature people, the under-five set. But you, I know something about you. I wonder if you even know it yourself.”
“You know nothing about me that I don’t know about myself!” she said recklessly. To her detriment, part of her wanted to hear what he had to say. How often, after all, did an invisible nanny get to hear love advice from the World’s Sexiest Bachelor?
But