The Billionaire’s Handler (10 page)

“No, it's
not
okay.”

“Maybe this time will be the charm and your brother will actually mean what he promises.”

“Oh, yeah. That'll be true when hell freezes over.”

You'd think his tone of voice would have warned her off pursuing this topic. Instead, she seemed determined to wave a red flag in front of a bull. “Maguire…you feel responsible for so many people. You really work up a sweat about doing the right thing. I just think life is always touchier when it's about family. Next time, maybe you'll be able to say no. But even if you don't…I don't think it'd be all that awful if you cut yourself a little slack.”

“What is this, the mentor suddenly turning into the mentee?”

“No, you big lummox,” she said patiently. “It's about trying to crack open that hard, hard head of yours and letting someone else in.”

“Like you, I suppose.”

“Yup. Just like me. C'mere, Maguire. You're hurting. What's so terrible about letting someone else comfort you?”

She'd called him a lummox.

No one called him a lummox.

No one in the universe would think he was the kind of man who needed “comforting.” The idea was idiotic. Absurd to the nth degree. So ridiculous, he couldn't believe it.

Touching her wasn't on his mind. Kissing her wasn't remotely on his agenda. He was just…aggravated…that was all. That she'd think he needed someone. That anyone as jaded and tough as himself would ever, ever lean on the Softie of the Universe. A man would never do that. Not a good man. A good man never preyed on the vulnerable.

And my God. She was softer than silver. Than pearls. Than a kitten's cry.

He didn't slam her up against the glass wall because he would never use aggression with a woman.

He didn't slam his mouth over hers, either. Same
reason. You didn't bruise roses. You never got rough with a lady.

He was just a tiny bit out of control. For that one small second.

And then she messed with his head. The way she'd been messing with his head from the second he met her.

She kissed him back, all hot and rough. She spread her hands up on that glass wall, inviting him to pin her harder, sharper. Inviting his chest to iron those soft, small breasts. For his pelvis to grind against her hips like some kind of dominant jungle idiot.

Maguire valued finesse.

He just couldn't find it for another minute. And while he was looking, searching, trying to figure out what had happened to him, how to apologize, how to backtrack…

Carolina flicked a wet tongue on his lips. Shivered her hips to nestle tight against him. Made sounds. Not soft sounds. Hissy sounds. Dares. Taunts.

Invitations.

Somehow she wriggled around, threw him off balance, and suddenly she had him against the glass wall, with the hundred-foot drop below…and a thousand-foot potential drop, from the expression in her eyes. She leaned him against that glass pane, risking life and limb. Sneaked her hands between their bodies to find the buttonhole of his jeans, the zipper.

Talk about a way to put combustible fuel in his engine.

“Wait,” he said.

But she didn't. And he didn't, either. The truth was…hell, he didn't know what the truth was. Her taste, her scent, pushed every trigger he had. Her top peeled up; her jeans peeled down.

Where was the foreplay? Darned woman never did anything he could expect. You didn't start out with the zipper. You started out with tenderness. Any man knew that. But now there were all these windows, all that sunlight, all that nakedness.

He couldn't remember feeling this naked, this raw. Physically, yeah, of course. But not soul naked. Not with anyone.

She was just
there.
For him. The way no one had ever been there for him.

So maybe he couldn't put the cork back in the champagne. But she couldn't have everything her own way.

He lifted her, kissing her at the same time. Her legs swung tight around his waist and her eyes closed. He bumped a shin against something, cracked a toe on something else. Eventually he located the double beanbag chair, which was completely useless as a mattress.

It had potential, though.

He curled her on top of him, started on a long, lazy
tongue bath. He found a cookie crumb on her right breast, went searching for more. She convulsed in giggles when his tongue did the
Mission Impossible
thing—possibly not the response he was seeking—but damned if that laughter of hers didn't challenge him to make her laugh again.

He tried toe kisses. Behind-the-knee kisses. Upside-down kisses. Sideways kisses.

He tried strokes and rubs. He tried soft caresses, whispered touches…and then demanding pressure, bold kneading. He tried loving her with his eyes. He tried test after test, to discover what she liked, what moved her, what surprised her, what pleased her.

He loved her skin. Her lips. Her hair, the fine-lined scar on her shoulder, her bony knees, her sleek, slim body, the smell of her. And for a while, he was concentrating so hard, so fiercely, that he almost didn't realize that he was going out of his mind.

She was doing the same thing. Exploring him. Every which way. Her gaze intent, absorbed, her touch wild, then measured and tender. She shivered from thrill, then from…something else. And when she met his eyes, he thought maybe time had stopped forever.

He swished her beneath him, whispered, “Hold on, Cee.”

She whispered, “You'd better hold on too, Maguire, because I'm not gonna be gentle.”

How could there be laughter again, in the midst of so much tense tight need? Desire made his heart slam, his pulse skid, his body heat beyond boiling. Yet he flowed inside her, butter on butter, a smooth, tight, hot joining that made her cry out.

And urge him on.

A tumultuous ride of pure sensation, wild and free, sunlight flooding on her slim white body, her face, as if she were just that. Sunlight. Pure sunlight. The light in her seemed to reach him like nothing else ever had.

Her body suddenly arched, pleasure bursting from her in a cascade of shudders, and that light of hers, that heart-light, pushed him over the edge.

Later, she slept on his chest. He grabbed a jacket to cover her, but he didn't nap. He couldn't. Heaven knew what had just happened, but positively, it had never happened to him before.
She
had never happened to him before.

He was in love with her.

Forbidden or not, that's what it was. Right or wrong, there was no other name for it.

It was the craziest thing—at his advanced age of thirty-five, with all the complicated crazy life he'd already been through—to discover that he'd never been in love before.

He'd dealt with crisis his entire life. But never one this momentous or petrifying.

“O
h, my…oh, my…oh, my.” Maybe she'd daydreamed about spending the night in a tree house, but the reality was infinitely more wonderful. Right outside the window, on a nearby branch, perched an owl. A big owl. A big, beautiful whiteish owl. Just sitting there, where she and Maguire could look at him. “Isn't he magnificent?”

“Compared to you, no. Compared to other creatures—yeah, he's pretty damn amazing.”

She twisted in his arms. The cushions on the floor made a mattress. Moonlight pouring in was brighter than any artificial light. She was scooped in his arms, using one of his arms as a pillow, his other arm tucked
around her, both of them naked beneath a mound of sleeping bags. “Did you just call me magnificent, Maguire?”

“Couldn't have.”

“Because it sounded like it.”

“You misheard. Or it was a slip of the tongue, because it's so late and we're both tired.”

“We're both tired because
you
were so magnificent.”

Oops. Wrong thing to say. He tensed up like a shutter slamming out sunlight. For a while, he'd been lazy and relaxed, the Maguire she knew could be coaxed out of hiding. He was a man who laughed, teased her, took teasing back, inhaled the silver-and-black-velvet night out there with the same relish she did.

Apparently he forgot he was the relentless alphamale Maguire for a few hours…but now he went quiet on her again. It occurred to her—it kept occurring to her—that she'd used silence as a way to protect herself in a very similar way. Maguire might not have a case of hysterical deafness, but just like her, he'd found a way to shut himself off from things that were threatening to him.

“Hey, lover,” she murmured, trying to capture his attention, and of course, she did. She got “the eyebrow” at the use of the endearment. “The tree house is impossibly wonderful. I'm really glad you found it.”

“Me, too. I can't believe I never even thought about one before.”

“It's such a perfect hideaway. Nothing big to take care of. Just a place to hide out. Forget civilization for a while.” Without skipping a beat, she segued into the topic on her mind and heart. “Maguire, if you're feeling guilty because of something to do with me—don't.”

His head swiveled toward hers immediately. His eyes looked huge and dark in the moonlight. “Want some wine?”

“Nope. Just want to say…I'm hugely glad we did this.”

“Good,” he snapped.

She'd survived putting her finger in an electric socket before. And was willing to risk it again. For him. “You know,” she murmured, “I have every right to love you if I want to. Every right to admit that you turn me way, way on. To admit that I care for you. To admit that I've never felt…this kind of desire before. And that I'm old enough to throw caution to the winds and do something just for myself.” When he didn't respond—how easy for Maguire to shut up and dodge her that way—she said bluntly, “You care a lot for me too.”

“Of course I do.”

“No. Not like a big brother. Not like a responsibility. I mean…the lover kind of caring.”

“Do we really have to have this talk?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded vigorously, propped up on an elbow.

He sighed, heavier than a north winter wind. “Here's the thing. This shouldn't have happened. The making love. The problem is…your vulnerability. I came into your life to right a wrong, to fix things. Making love with you was taking advantage.”

“Hello. Do you remember my participation both times? Did you have to sell me tickets?”

“Two weeks ago you were crushed.”

“Yeah, I was. A mess. But that was then. I wanted this. You wanted this. We're both bringing trust and respect and a whole lot of plain chemistry to the table. I don't see anyone getting hurt in this scenario.”

“You could be hurt.”

“Maybe. But isn't that what you said our time together was about? Making me tougher. Making me stand up for what I want and need. Making
me
decide what's right for me and how to go about it.”

“Carolina. You're not in love with me. This is just a moment in time. Two weeks. Not a vacation from life, but a moratorium on stress. Nothing you want or do is wrong. I just don't want you getting long-term hopes—or fears—that are distracting. I want you going back to your life feeling strong and good.”

She leaned closer. Touched his bottom lip with
her fingertip, saw his eyes, that flash-fast spark with fire.

“Okay,” she said, “but what I've been trying to tell you, Maguire, is that you're exactly what I needed. Not just the mentoring lessons and all the spoiling. But you, specifically you. Making love with me. There's no guilt or wrong. What you've been with me has helped me become stronger.”

“That sounds real good, Ms. Toughie. But it doesn't make sense.”

“You're not a woman. It makes perfect sense to me.” She touched his arm—not in invitation, not about the discussion, but to motion him outside. The white owl had spotted prey somewhere in the darkness. One instant he was perched high and silent, the next soaring, swooping down…silent and beautiful.

“I have the feeling a mouse is going to have a very bad night,” Maguire murmured.

“But our owl has to eat too. He's been sitting there for hours in the cold.” Like Maguire, she thought. He took it for granted. That he'd always be alone in the cold. “Okay, you.”

“Okay, what?”

“Okay, I know you're sick of talking. That you don't like this kind of talk. So I just want to say one more thing and then you're free.”

“No. Nothing good ever follows after a woman says she only wants to say one more thing.”

She grinned. But not for long. She went soft and quiet. “You made me reexamine my life, Maguire. Made me think about all the things I've yearned for or wanted—and most of them, I figured out, aren't about money at all. They're about fun. And wonder. And new experiences. And wanting richness—not money richness, but richness in life experiences and relationships with people.”

“Yeah. That was exactly where I was hoping you'd go. Not letting anyone define stuff for you. Defining what you want and need for itself.”

“And I get it. You've been a fabulous mentor.”

“Good.”

“But what about
you?
” she whispered. “How come you're alone? You've never wanted a wife, kids, that kind of personal life? What do you do in your free time that makes you happy?”

He shot her a familiar look of impatience, even as he stroked the curve of her shoulder. “When you're ten years old, you worry about what'll make you happy. When you're an adult, I'm not so sure that “happy” is a meaningful criterion of anything.”

“Okay. We'll use a different word. You, being you, need to feel productive at the end of a day.”

He glanced at her. “Yeah, I do. If I haven't accomplished concrete things at the end of a day, I feel off kilter.”

She nodded. “You have to make a difference. You
have to behave by your own high standards—whether anyone else is looking or not. You have to live by what you believe in, no matter what anyone else says or thinks.”

He rolled his eyes, as if that evaluation were true of everyone. “Okay, so where are you going with all this?”

“Here's the point. Have you ever done what you asked me to do? Make a list. A list of things you'd like to do or see. Then go after those things. Name them. Protect them. Get them on your life agenda.”

“I've got what I need,” he said impatiently.

Yeah, she thought. And
she
wasn't on the list.

How could she expect otherwise? They'd known each other for the briefest of times, under only extraordinary circumstances. Their backgrounds were different, their families, education, everything. When it came down to it, they had nothing in common except for Tommy.

And that she'd fallen hopelessly, helplessly in love with him.

“Okay, you,” she said. “No more talking. You have what you need. I got it. But…”

“More talking?”

“Nope,” she whispered. “I was just going to show you one eensy-teensy thing that you might still need tonight.”

“No. Not that. Anything but that.”

“Shut up and take being seduced like a man, Maguire,” she said gruffly, and then, gently, “although, you can offer a suggestion here and there if you feel like it. I'm a believer in making rolling readjustments.”

“Are you now?”

Her man was thirsty and hungry. Not for water or food. For sustenance of the heart. But…

She was about to give him a second helping. Something to hold him for a while.

Because she was leaving after that. She knew it. He knew it.

And she had absolutely no way to stop it.

 

A day had never passed so fast. Maguire never specifically said, “That's it, back to real life now”—and neither did she. Carolina didn't need to talk about an elephant in the living room to know it was there.

Chores followed chores—the MG had been returned, the messes from their overnight in the tree house dismantled and taken back to the lodge, then the lodge tackled. She put her belongings together, cleaned the fridge. Maguire made heaps of phone calls and worked to make the lodge “turn key,” prepared for an absence.

At some point, the schedule went on the table. At ten in the morning, Henry would fly her directly to South Bend, and see that she was settled back at her place. Maguire had a temporary business thing
in Denver, after which he was disappearing back to wherever else he lived, whatever else he did.

There was only one way she could handle this, Carolina determined, and she bounced down the stairs a few minutes before ten the next morning. She was wearing her red shoes, old jeans, new sunglasses, her hair all flyaway and her cheerfulness out front, brassy and brazen.

With only minutes left, she wanted him to see exactly what she wasn't. A princess. A well-mannered, well-bred, perfect type of rich man's wife. She was what she was—a teacher who came from a blue-collar background. Who was going to love her red shoes until the day she died. Who loved sleeping with owls. And pigging out on lobster. And who was always going to have to work at certain flaws in her character, because they were pretty close to unchangeable.

“Okay, let's get these goodbyes over with and this show on the road. Kiss,” she demanded of Henry. Who pecked her properly, even as he stood in the door with her luggage.

She pranced over to Maguire, her cheerfulness beaming even brighter. “Kiss,” she demanded.

He held her by the shoulders, his grip just a little too tight, his eyes just a little too dark. “Listen,” he said.

“No. I've listened to you until I'm blue in the face. You've taught me all you're going to teach me, big
guy. But I've got advice for you. Don't kidnap any other women, okay?”

He grinned, but the smile faded away, and still he held on to her shoulders. “When you were a kid, I'll bet you read a book by Shel Silverstein.
The Giving Tree.
”

She blinked in surprise. “Well, yeah, who hasn't? I adored it.”

“That's what you need to guard for, Carolina. Your nature is to be that giving tree. But you can't do that—give and give and give—without stripping yourself bare. You put up your boundaries. You get tough.”

“Yes, sir. Are you going to give Tommy a big hug from me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to let me visit him sometime? And vice versa?”

“Absolutely yes.”

“So where's my kiss goodbye, Maguire?”

She was trying to sound saucy and sassy and fun. But he didn't want to kiss her. She could see it. She could feel it, like a knife twisting in her heart, a sharp ache of awareness. He might want her. He might like being with her. He might even love her, to a point.

But he didn't want to.

She was just a project for him. A responsibility. A problem he had to fix.

“Okay, okay,” she said teasingly. “No kiss for you. Just know, I'm not about to forget you.”

She made it inside the plane before she started crying. Henry didn't see her, nor did the copilot up front. Both were locked in the front cabin, while she had the whole fancy back to herself. A down blanket and poofy pillows were set up for her to nap, a gourmet lunch with cold shrimp and lobster dripping ice whenever she wanted it.

All she wanted was to find some Kleenex.

The trip was around four hours, and by the time the jet landed, her eyes were over-dry, but she'd tidied up everything in back—washed her few dishes, folded up the blanket, nothing out of place, as if she'd never been there. Henry came through from the front and took one narrow-eyed look at her face.

“Are we doing okay?” he asked tactfully.

“Of course we are.”

“Mr. Cochran set up a car waiting.”

“Of course he did,” she said hollowly.

Henry drove her from the airport to her old apartment. Carolina thought the short drive was a little like landing on Mars. All the familiar landmarks seemed to be someone else's landmarks. She knew the roads, the restaurants, the gold dome of Notre Dame, the infamous Grape Road—but none of them gave her a feeling of being home.

Her apartment was the worst, although Henry kept
up a steady patter to fill her in. “We had your car checked out, tires, gas, oil, all that, because we didn't know what shape it was in when you left.”

“Thanks, Henry.”

“It was Mr. Cochran who did it all, really. I wouldn't have thought of all the specifics and details, not the way he did. In the meantime, your regular email and phones have been turned back on. I've got a folder of contacts—who we contacted, so they'd know you were all right. And who was trying to reach you. You realize we'd have given you the communications before if there'd been any kind of emergency—”