Jennifer Greene - The Billionaire’s Handler

This whole week had been disturbing and tantalizing and scary and wonderful, and above all, distracting.

But she had a life in shambles back home. It hadn’t disappeared. Maybe she’d desperately needed a break. Maybe she could be excused for hiding out for a few days. But she’d done that now, and the crushing weight of decisions and problems was still waiting for her.

She had to push the stop button. She couldn’t keep falling for a man who wasn’t for her, living a fantasy life that wasn’t hers…behaving like a woman she couldn’t be.

Maguire disconnected from all electronics, locked down his business and headed upstairs. The staff claimed Carolina would likely take a solid two-hour nap, but he hadn’t checked on her in a while now. He didn’t want to make further plans for the day until he evaluated what she felt up to.

As the elevator let him out on the third floor, he considered that he wouldn’t mind a serious nap himself. His neck creaked, and a sharp headache threatened around his eyes. He was used to lack of sleep, but he’d been pouring on work hours on top of time changes and travel.

Adding Carolina to his life had created all kinds of complications. Some, he’d expected. Some were mightily confounding him.

The door to their suite was an oval-shaped piece of carved wood-very cool and castle-like-but it was darned hard to unlock the door without making a sound. Still, he tried, let himself in, and then immediately stopped dead.

“Hey,” he said, but he thought, Hell. Hell times ten.

Carolina wasn’t sleeping the way she was supposed to be, but sitting on the hearth rug, her head on her knees, kind of rocking back and forth. Her toes peeked out of a gown that couldn’t be legal in public. God knew every inch of her was covered-except for pale pink toenails. But the slinky-slidey material revealed every hint of curve. Her nipples. Her adorableness.

And he’d have been happy to concentrate on that, but it was downright impossible to miss her disconsolate posture. She had that look in her eyes again. The lost-waif look. The why-would-you-kick-my-puppy look.

“Hey,” he said again, trying for his most blustery voice. Wary of making anything worse, he moved closer, crouched down next to her. “This isn’t how the story’s supposed to go. You were supposed to love all this. Sleeping in the cool old castle. All the history crud. The spa thing.”

“I did. I do. But, Maguire, I just can’t keep playing. I have to go home!”

Here he’d expected Armageddon from those anxiety-drenched eyes. Instead, this was nothing more than a little crisis. “Of course you’re going home,” he said, and leaned forward, to poke a long fork into the flames, push at the logs, creating a fireworks of sparks shooting up the giant chimney-and a spray of light that glowed on her skin. “Just not quite this minute. See, back home, you have all those people who want to bite off a piece of you. That’s what happens when you inherit serious money. It brings out the vultures in people, even normally good people. And you know the real problem with that?”

“Everything.”

“No.” He hooked an arm around her shoulder-not too close-no fingers touching what they shouldn’t. Just a hug-hook. Nothing more. “The real problem is that you got lost in that picture. All you’ve been hearing is what everyone else wants, what everyone else expects. We’ve got to switch that back, and make it about you. The money’s a chance for you to say…what do you want from your life? What really matters to you? So we work on that stuff. We don’t go back home until you know exactly what you want to do from here. You go back strong. You go back feeling good about yourself, your life, what you want. And until then, you get to hide out, and let Maguire-that’s me-take care of all the crappy details.”

“You’re a goofy man, Maguire.”

“I’ve been insulted worse. Trust me.” He looked around, too damn aware of her warm skin, the scents surrounding her, that tousled brush of silvery-blond hair.

“I don’t want to be…beholden to you. You don’t owe me anything, much less all the time you’ve been taking-”

“This isn’t about owing. It’s about understanding. I know exactly what that inheritance did to your life because I know exactly what it did to my own family. It’s been sabotaging everything you could do or be. But I can stop that from happening to you. I can help you make it work.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Actually, I can, Carolina. I can teach you to be tough. I can show you how to handle this, the way no one else can, because you know positively that I don’t need or want anything from you.”

She frowned. “You always sound so logical when you start talking. Only, what I’m saying is logical, too. No matter what I do, people are going to be unhappy with me.”

“And that’s a big deal, huh?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t be for you. And I’m not trying to win a popularity contest like a thirteen-year-old kid, Maguire. I’m just trying to live a decent life. Do the things that matter to me.”

Somewhere around here, there had to be some liquid refreshment that didn’t involve sour-tasting herbs or mystery gray stuff that was “good for you.” He got up, prowled around the various cupboards and shelves, found a carafe, sterling goblets, plain old bottled water. “I want you to think for a minute,” he said.

“I am thinking.” She also took the goblet of simple cool water and gulped it down.

“Back when you became a special ed teacher, you were influenced by what you believed you could do. That affected where you could go to college, the goals you had then, the places you applied for work. Essentially you established boundaries that worked for your life then-but now, you can take all that fencing away. Imagine, if you could have gone to any university on the planet, would you still have chosen the school you went to?”

She sipped more water. “That’s impossible to know.”

“Nope. That’s the point. What was impossible before could be totally possible for you now. If you wanted-and still want-to do things for kids with special needs, you have a whole basketful of options to pick from these days. You can still teach, if that’s what you want. But you could also start your own school for kids with special needs, if you wanted that. Or you could get a group of experts together, come up with entirely new program ideas for special-needs kids. There’s no limit to where you could take just this one part of your life.”

She frowned. “You’re messing with my head, Maguire.”

“And that’s exactly what I want to do for a couple weeks. Mess with your head. Show you how to use that money instead of it using you. Help you get what you want.”

“Maguire? What if I want something that you don’t agree with.”

“That’s easy. This isn’t about me. I don’t have to agree with anything. If you want it, then we’ll find a way to help you go for it.” He thought the whole talk was going pretty well. Very well, in fact, but there was something in her expression that changed. She faced him, her soft eyes glued on his, studying, examining. Thinking. Thinking too much. It was obvious she was the kind of woman who got in trouble if she spent too much time thinking. “What?” he said impatiently.

“I could want to go after something, no holds barred, risk everything, that you’d really have a problem with.”

“Like what?”

“Like what if I wanted you, Maguire? What if all I wanted was to fall in love with you?”

Her voice was softer than melted butter. He almost had a heart attack, but thank God, the phone vibrated in his pocket. He grabbed for it with a palm that was wet with sudden sweat-shock sweat-and could barely manage a coherent conversation.