The Texas Billionaire's Bride / The Texas Bodyguard's Proposal

Okay then.

As she stood, she grabbed her suit jacket from the back of her chair, then smoothed down the skirt of the only conservative business outfit she owned.

She made her way across the room to him, her heels clopping on the hard floor, echoing way too loudly for her comfort.

He avoided the door and led her down the hall.

Where was he taking her?

“Livie will receive a full education,” he said, beginning to fire off his expectations, “even when she’s not in school.”

“I’m prepared to teach Livie,” she said, excitement churning. He was going to make an offer! “With Ms. Sandoval’s daughter, Toni, I planned a different learning experience every day, and doing the same here would be wonderful.”

“Livie would benefit from your dance background in particular.”

Melanie’s blood jolted, but then she realized he was probably talking about all the classes, from ballet to jazz to hip-hop, she’d taken. “Livie has taken dance before?”

“No, but she needs to let out her energy in a constructive manner.”

“I see.”

“Other than that, her schedule is set. Firm. Don’t deviate from it, because she responds well to structure. It might be your biggest saving grace.”

Based on Zane Foley’s well-ordered townhouse, as well as all his comments, Melanie wondered if, when she arrived in Austin, she would find Livie inhabiting something like a high-class jail.

Fuming inwardly, she told herself to stay quiet. You want this job, you need this job, so keep your opinions to yourself for now.

They came to what looked to be a study, with more dark, finely etched antique furniture carefully placed about the room: a desk set that held a laptop computer and organized files, a curio cabinet, shelves teeming with leather-bound books that lent the air a thick, musty scent.

There were also large, framed paintings on the walls, the biggest being an old family portrait of the Foleys that featured brothers Jason and Travis, both of whom couldn’t have been more than ten years old at the time, even though Travis looked a little younger. They stood next to their dad, Rex, an affable looking man with a charming grin. Then there was Olivia Marie, their deceased mom, who wore her own gentle smile as she hooked her arm through Rex’s.

On the fringes of them all was Zane, who even in his early teens seemed to carry himself with a combination of cockiness and seriousness.

When Melanie glanced away from the portrait, she found that Zane was behind her, standing in front of a different painting. Livie’s.

A recent depiction of a sweet little girl in a pink dress, her wavy dark hair held back by a lacy headband. She smiled faintly and held a stuffed lamb.

The picture got to Melanie, yet it was the expression on Zane’s face that just about melted her altogether.

Naked love and devotion.

But then it turned into something else—destruction—and Melanie wondered what could have possibly turned one emotion into the other so quickly.

As Zane stared at his daughter’s portrait, he wasn’t seeing Livie so much as someone else entirely. Danielle.

His wife, dead six years now, but still so agonizingly alive in the face of his daughter.

He couldn’t stand the questions that always came afterward: would Livie grow up to be just like her mother? Would his daughter break her own husband’s heart someday, too?

Would she have the same mood swings—from dark to manic—that had escalated into that awful day when Danielle had taken her own life?

He glanced away, his attention locking on the svelte figure of Melanie Grandy. With sunny blond hair that swept her shoulders and blue eyes that seemed to sparkle even when she wasn’t smiling, she was the opposite of Danielle and Livie. But from her heart-shaped face to her ill-fitting blue business suit that he supposed she’d purchased just for these interviews—she’d worn the skirt the other day, too—he got the impression of vulnerability. A leggy wisp of a woman, she might not be so different from Danielle after all.

At his inspection, she raised her chin, a habit he’d become familiar with even during their short acquaintance.

No, this woman had a core to her. She also had an innate dignity that sent a buzz of heat through his veins.

Raw beauty, he thought, flashes of an unpolished diamond lighting his mind’s eye.

But the glare of it made him realize that there was no room for any kind of attraction, especially since she seemed to be a perfect fit for Livie. And thank God for Andrea Sandoval’s timely reference, because the last nanny had quit, leaving Zane at loose ends. He’d needed a quick hire, and since Ms. Grandy didn’t have a criminal record and had come with the highest recommendation from a family friend, he seized the opportunity.

It was just a bonus that his daughter would match well with her new nanny. Livie required someone with spine enough to stand tall and firm, as Ms. Grandy had gracefully done throughout their interviews.

He chanced one last, long second of looking at her, turning the air into a humid fog.

And she seemed to feel it, too. He could’ve sworn it, because she set her jacket on a nearby end table and folded her hands in front of her while concentrating on the picture, a pink tint to her cheeks.

He got back to business, as well.

Always business. Safer that way.

He moved toward his computer, then woke it out of hibernation mode. He’d brought Ms. Grandy into his study to show her the virtual layout of the Austin estate where Livie resided, but even so, he held off on opening the computer file.

She was still back at Livie’s portrait.

“She’s a beautiful child,” Ms. Grandy said, and he could sense that she was being genuine in the compliment. “I can’t wait to start our first day, maybe with some art, where she can express ideas that she might be too shy to say out loud right away.”

“The last time a nanny got the paint out she was scrubbing it off Livie for what seemed like hours. It was even supposed to be washable.”

He could see a battle playing over Melanie Grandy’s face, and it wasn’t the first time. She was clearly wondering if she should put in her own two cents about her child-rearing philosophies, instead of listening to his own cynical point of view.

The other nannies had always kept quiet, but when Ms. Grandy spoke, he was pleasantly surprised that she even dared, although it raised his hackles, as well.

“I’m not afraid of some extra cleanup,” she said, “if it’s the result of something positive for Livie. Maybe she’s the type who would benefit from stepping out of that structure she’s so used to?”

Now he wasn’t even pleasantly surprised with her.

She obviously noticed. “Mr. Foley, I’m not suggesting anything radical. I’m only interested in getting to know Livie.”

He didn’t tell Ms. Grandy that, aside from that one out-of-control paint day, his daughter generally liked to keep her dresses and hands clean—and it wasn’t just at his insistence.

Or was it?

Guilt set in, just as it always did when he thought too hard about how he’d raised—or not raised—his girl. That’s why it was better that he’d adopted such a hands-off policy; he was far more adequate at shaping Foley Industries and concentrating on other important matters, like keeping those damned McCords in line.

Plus, he didn’t know anything about females at all. That was apparent from what he’d let happen to Danielle.

Melanie was still smiling as she looked at his daughter’s portrait, and his heart cracked at how a stranger could so openly display emotion for Livie, when he had such a hard time himself.

He opened the computer file that contained the slides of Tall Oaks.

“Ms. Grandy,” he said.

She glanced at him, and he could see the hope in her eyes.

He didn’t let that affect him. He and hope had parted company a while ago.

“When can you start?” he asked.

She beamed with one of those warm smiles. “When do you want me, Mr. Foley?”

He couldn’t help thinking that, despite the temptation, on a personal level the answer to that would have to be “never.”

Chapter Two

After accepting the job and then rushing through a whirlwind of formalities, such as a salary agreement and a computer-aided tour of Zane Foley’s Austin estate, Melanie had followed her new employer down the hall and to the foyer, barely able to contain a bubbly grin.

Success!

Melanie Grandy, nanny for the eldest Foley’s daughter. She liked the ring of it, and when she found out that she was to be driven in a town car to her motel, where she would pick up her two pitiful suitcases before heading straight to Austin and Livie, she already felt as if she were flying first class.

Okay, maybe business class, because it wasn’t a limo, but, heck, she’d live.

As they came to a halt near a leather settee under a gilt-veined mirror, she tried not to be too aware of how their image reflected him towering over her. Tried not to get fanciful about how they stood side-by-side, a tense space the only thing separating them.

She fairly hummed from head to toe, as if charged by his presence, but…No. She’d worked hard to get here, and jeopardizing her new position by stepping out of bounds with her new boss had to be the worst idea in all creation.

She tried not to look in the mirror again: his strapping body, his Texas-noble bearing…

“The drive to Tall Oaks is nearly three and a half hours,” he said, thankfully interrupting her weakening will to stop lusting after him. “It should give my staff enough time to put together the final paperwork for your hiring and then fax whatever we need to sign.”

“I’ll look for those papers when I get there then.”

“Mrs. Howe might even have the documents in hand when you arrive. She’s got run of the house and has been taking care of Livie since the last nanny left less than a week ago.”

“I look forward to meeting everyone at Tall Oaks,” she said, extending her hand for a deal-closing shake. “Again, thank you. I was really hoping you’d choose me to be a part of Livie’s life.”

And there it was again—that flash of anguish in his gaze.

But then he took her hand in his, wrapping his long fingers around hers.

Warm, strong…

For a moment she forgot that she was supposed to be shaking his hand. He must’ve forgotten also, because the hesitation between them lasted a second too long—one in which her heartbeat fell into a suspended throb.

As she pulled in a breath, his eyes darkened back to the cool, detached gaze that had already become so familiar.

But how could she be used to anything about him when she didn’t know him at all? she reminded herself, coming to her senses and finally gripping his hand in a professional shake.

She doubted she would ever really know Zane Foley, and that was for the best.

They disengaged, and he stepped away from her. “I anticipate that you’ll be around much longer than the other five.”

As he began to walk away, she said, “I sure will.”

He paused for a moment, and she thought that maybe he was about to say something else.

But then he moved on, traveling with the ease of a shadow lengthening at sunset, until he blended into the dark of the hallway.

Melanie watched him go, her heartbeat near the surface of her skin.

But she had to get over it; this was her chance to prove that she really was better than the girl who hadn’t been expected by her stepdad to do much more than be “bastard issue.”

She exhaled, sitting on the leather settee by the door and preparing for the responsibilities ahead of her. Livie—the child who would depend on Melanie to raise her to be all she could be, too.

A stately grandfather clock stood across from her, ticking, tocking, marking the passing seconds as Melanie waited for the driver. Meanwhile, her excitement leveled off to something like a Champagne buzz.

She wondered what the Austin estate would look like in real life, how different it would be from her and her mom’s first ramshackle apartment, then the trailer that had served as home back in the day.

On a sigh, she went to grab her suit jacket and purse, preparing for the moment she would walk out this door and into the car, where she would be driven off and away to find out.

Her purse was there, but not her jacket.

She remembered that she’d brought it into Zane Foley’s study, putting it down when she’d been looking at the portrait of Livie.

Duh. She’d been too excited by the job offer to pick it back up again.

Okeydokey then. Her new boss had gone in the direction of the study, so she would just scoot back there, knock on the door, grab her jacket, then be out of his hair.

In and out.

But when she went down the hall, her body started doing the jitterbug about seeing him, heart racing, stomping.

Cool it, she told herself. In and out.

She came to the study, noticing that the door was ajar just enough for her to hear his voice. And, Heaven help her, she couldn’t resist standing there a second to bask in the appreciation of how he sounded while talking to someone on the phone.

But the more she listened, the more she felt the bass of his voice scratching down her skin, leaving her hair to rise and the heat to play all over her. She thought of what it might be like to see him smile, just once.

Would it feel like a rolling ball of sun inside her stomach? A burning ache that sizzled and made her go weaker than she was even now?

Then he stopped talking, and the person on the other end of the speakerphone started.

The different voice—still appealing, but not nearly as much as Zane Foley’s—was enough to kick her right out of fantasyland.

She rolled her eyes at herself, then prepared to knock just before her boss responded to the other person on the phone.

“I hired another nanny today.”

Melanie’s fist paused in midair.

So help her, she stood rooted there, waiting for what he might say, curiosity killing the cat.

The voice on the other end of the line laughed. “How long’s this one going to last, Zane?”

He cut him off. “Not amusing, Jason.”

Zane’s brother, and, according to everything she’d read, the scamp of the three siblings. But he also had the more solid reputation of being the hardworking chief operating officer of Foley Industries—a man who wasn’t above getting dirt underneath his fingernails or on his fine suits.

Zane was still talking. “And this time, don’t you dare suggest that we bet on her longevity.”

“Damn,” Jason said, “because if I bet she wouldn’t even last a year, just like most of the others, it’d be a smarter proposition than anything Granddad ever put his money on.” There was a pause. “So what’s this one like? Can you tell me that much?”

In spite of her better judgment, an all-too-human Melanie leaned closer to the door.

Zane was standing by a window with a showcase view of downtown Dallas, across from the gleaming Trinity River. He wasn’t sure how to answer his younger brother’s question about what he thought of Melanie Grandy.

Should he be honest?

There was something about the new nanny that made him want to tell Jason about her bright hair and brighter smile, even though he knew he wouldn’t.

With any luck, he would never see her much, anyway. Staying away from Tall Oaks was best for Livie and him.

“This nanny,” he finally answered, “enjoys using art to bring out the creativity in children. She likes dance especially, and I think that’ll be good for Livie. Ms. Grandy’s got a lot of…spirit.”

Jason, as perceptive as he was, called Zane out.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

“That’s all you’re gonna get.” Zane turned away from the window and headed toward his desk. It was second in size and comfort only to the one in his downtown Dallas office, where he would be right now if it hadn’t been for the interview. “Now, I suspect you didn’t call to gab about nannies, Jace. What’s on your mind?”

“The McCords.”

Zane could almost picture his brother behind his own desk in Houston, as his voice lowered to a more serious tenor. They’d all spent too many years sharing an intense dislike of the other family for Zane not to recognize the signs of a very serious discussion about them coming on.

“Travis gave me a heads up about something I thought you’d want to hear, too,” Jason said. “It’s about his ranch.”

God, the ranch. The property had sparked a feud between the families way back when Grandpa Gavin had put the West Texas land up for grabs during a poker game that a card cheat named Harry McCord had been manipulating. To add insult to injury, the place had produced silver—the foundation for the McCord jewelry store empire, which catered to the rich and famous and was renowned worldwide as the height of luxury—the premier jewelers of the earth.

“What about the ranch?” Zane asked, an edge to his question. “We signed a long-term lease for the land after the mines were played out. The McCords have no reason to be sniffing around it just yet.”

Of course, the McCord matriarch, Eleanor, had once been courted by Zane’s father, Rex, so that might’ve had something to do with the olive branch the other family had offered. And one would think that her generosity would’ve defused the feud, but her husband, Devon, a devil who was surely getting his just desserts now, after his recent death, had still kept the animosity alive with all his talk about how he’d “won” Eleanor and Rex had lost.

“But,” Jason said, “they do seem to be sniffing, and if Grandpa Gavin were still alive, he’d be yelling like thunder. We didn’t all pitch in and make that ranch what it is, only so he could live his last years there. Dad accepted the lease because he thought you, me and Travis would benefit from what it could yield.”

“Damned straight.” Zane would sooner brave the fires of hell, before he saw the McCords relocate Travis, who’d decided to forgo family business in favor of ranching on the property that should’ve belonged to the Foleys in the first place. “It’s just like the McCords to rub salt on a wound. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were just trying to remind Travis that they’re the ones who still own the property.”

“And they’ve got to know it burns him, with all the blood and sweat he’s put into it.” Jason’s tone grew even angrier. “But I’m not sure it’s just about reminding Travis of what’s what. The McCord kids are taking after the old man after all.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because, when Devon passed from that heart attack, the clan actually backed off for a while. He was always the one who took the greatest pleasure in the feud. That’s what I thought, at least. Now I’m not so sure. Rumor has it that the family lawyers have been taking a real long look at the lease…”

Zane didn’t even have to hear the rest.

“…just as if they’re trying to find a way to get out of it.”

His blood ran hot at the notion of his baby brother losing what meant the most to him.

He wanted to strike out at the McCords, but as his gaze fixed on the portrait of Livie, he pulled his temper back.

Again, he saw Danielle in his daughter.

Living with a bipolar wife had taught Zane that losing his head only made everything worse. Retreating—whether it was into work or into himself—had been the best way to handle her.

She’d also taught him that there was a difference between his personal life and business. In the latter, he could uncork the frustration that built up at home, striking quickly and lethally during deals, allowing him a sorely needed outlet.

And the McCords were just asking for it.

Dragging his gaze away from Livie’s image, he refocused on the old family portrait above the fireplace. There was a measure of serenity at seeing the picture that’d been painted just before his mom, his daughter’s namesake, had suffered a fatal fall during a horseback ride. His father had tried his best to raise the three boys on his own, but they’d missed their mom terribly.

And sometimes her death even made Zane wonder if all the women in his life would leave before their time.

At any rate, her absence had bonded all of them, and it had molded Zane into a man early on, as he’d taken up where his father had to leave off in raising Jason and Travis. Even now, at the age of thirty-six, Zane felt as if he was still in charge of so much: their holdings, their tanglings with the McCords.

Jason was speaking again: “At first, I wasn’t sure why the McCords would be so interested in the ranch right now. I thought maybe they wanted to sell off the acreage, if those rumors about money trouble in their jewelry business are true. But then, what difference would that relatively small cash influx make? Then I thought about the silver mines on the property.”

“Those are abandoned, Jace. Tapped out. That’s why the McCords leased the land to us.”

“I take it that, during this latest nanny search, your ear hasn’t been to the ground.”

He stiffened until Jason chuckled, revealing that he’d only been injecting a little humor where some was sorely needed. But Zane took his duties as oldest brother seriously. Having the McCords get the best of them during his watch was never going to happen.

“One of my assistants,” Jason said, “heard that Blake McCord has been buying up as many loose canary diamonds as possible on the world market.”

Diamonds?

Zane started to see where his brother might be going with this.

Jason added, “I imagine you’re remembering those news reports from several months ago?”

“The Santa Magdalena Diamond,” Zane said. He’d filed the information in the back of his mind, way behind Livie and other more urgent matters, but he sure as hell hadn’t forgotten.

A flawless, forty-eight-carat canary gem with perfect clarity, the Santa Magdalena Diamond was legendary, said to transcend even the beauty and brilliance of the Hope Diamond itself. Supposedly, the piece had been mined in India, and was cursed, because it had resulted in bad luck for everyone who ever owned it. It was only when the gem rested with its rightful owner that any personal misfortunes would end.

The diamond had been missing for over a century, but fairly recently, divers had uncovered a wrecked ship that was supposed to have been carrying the jewel, in addition to other treasures of murky origins.

Really, the only reason the Foleys were interested in the diamond was because their great-grandfather, Elwin Foley, had been on that ship, which might have also been populated by thieves, although that never had been proven. When the transport went down, a few passengers had survived, including Elwin, and according to family stories, he’d snagged the gem, along with a jewel-encrusted chest of coins. But since no one had found either object since, the tale had passed into legend.

However, the ship’s recent discovery had resurrected all the rumors, especially since the diamond and the chest hadn’t been located.

“The Santa Magdalena Diamond came to my mind, too,” Jason said. “I’ve been going through a lot of scenarios, but the best I can figure, maybe the McCords believe that Elwin Foley did get away with the gem when he survived the wreck, and he hid the diamond somewhere on the land where Travis’s ranch is located now—land that used to belong to Elwin before it passed to Gavin, who lost it in that poker game. And don’t you think the Santa Magdalena would pay a few bills for a cash-strapped business?”

“The theory’s a stretch,” Zane said.

“But the timing’s pretty telling. The divers find the shipwreck, rumors recirculate about Elwin taking the diamond, then the McCords express a heightened interest in the property.”

“Whatever their intentions, I’m not about to let Travis be hassled by that family.”