Hired: Nanny Bride Read Online Free Page B

nature was not any kind of defense against a man like Joshua Cole. He was a complete masculine, sexy package, with that brilliant smile, the jade of those eyes, the perfect masculine cut of his facial features, the way he carried himself, the exquisitely expensive clothing over the sleek muscle of a toned body. All of it put together would have been enough to rattle Mother Theresa!
    Dannie had known Melanie’s brother was attractive. She had seen two pictures of him in the Maynards’ home. Not that those pictures could have prepared her for Joshua Cole in the flesh.
    Melanie’s two framed photos showed her brother through the lens of an ordinary family. Nothing extraordinary about Joshua at twelve, on the beach, scrawny,white, not even a hint of the man he would become. In fact, whatever had been behind that impish grin seemed to be gone from him entirely.
    The other picture showed Joshua in a college football uniform, posed, looking annoyingly cocky and confident, again some mischief in him that now seemed to be gone. Though he was undeniably good-looking, that photo showed only a glimmer of the self-possessed man he now was.
    “He never finished college,” Melanie had said, with a hint of sadness, when she had seen Dannie looking at that picture. For some reason Dannie had assumed that sadness was for her brother’s lost potential.
    Melanie had seemed to see Joshua as the exasperating kid brother who was an expert at thwarting her every effort to interfere in his life with her wise and well-meaning sisterly guidance. From Melanie’s infrequent mentions of her brother, Dannie had thought he managed a hotel or a travel agency, not that he was the president and CEO of one of the world’s most up-and-coming companies!
    So, the article in People to Watch had been a shocker. First, the photos had come a little closer to capturing the pure animal magnetism of the man. The little-boy mischief captured in his sister’s snapshots was gone from those amazing smoky-jade eyes, replaced with an intensity that was decidedly sensual.
    That sensuality was underscored in the revealing photos of him: muscled, masculine, at ease with his body, oozing a self-certainty that few men would ever master.
    Melanie had certainly never indicated her brother was a candidate for the World’s Sexiest Bachelor, though his unmarried status seemed to grate on her continually.
    Again, the magazine portrayal seemed to be moreaccurate than the casual remarks Melanie had tossed out about him. The magazine described him as powerful, engaging and lethally charming. And that was just personally. Professionally he was described as driven. The timing of the openings of his adventure-based adult-only resorts was seen as brilliant.
    In the article, his name had also been paired with some of the world’s wealthiest and most beautiful women, including actress Monique Belliveau, singer Carla Kensington and heiress Stephanie Winger-Stone.
    By the time he’d stood them up at the airport, Danielle Springer, the steady one, had already been feeling nervous about meeting Joshua Cole, World’s Sexiest Bachelor, and had developed a feeling of dislike for him, just knowing he would exude all the superficial charm and arrogance of a man who had the world at his feet. He would move through life effortlessly, piling up successes, traveling the globe, causing heartbreaks but never suffering them.
    She had already known, before the plane landed, that Melanie had made a terrible mistake in judgment sending them all here. That knowledge had only been underscored by the fact the Great One had not put in an appearance at the airport, and she had not been able to penetrate the golden walls that protected him from the annoyances of real life.
    Which begged the question: Why hadn’t she jumped at the opportunity to go to Whistler when he had offered it? It was more than the fact small children and hotels rarely made a good combination, no matter how “child-friendly” they