Jennifer Greene: The Billionaire’s Handler

Her muzzy mind processed more information. The monitors and equipment off to her right suggested she was in a hospital, even if the silk-blue walls and couch and flat-screen TV hardly resembled standard hospital decor. Again, she tried to recall why she was here, how she’d gotten here, but it was as if there was a door in her mind. On one side of the door was something huge and upsetting and exhausting, something so overwhelming that she couldn’t gather the strength to force that door open.

Her arms were wrapped around her knees, her knees tucked to her chin. She remembered curling up this way when she was a little girl in the dark, trying to hide, to make herself invisible so the alligators under the bed couldn’t find her.

But she wasn’t a little girl, and there were no alligators now. Just the strange man who seemed to have popped into her life with no more logic than a dream. He suddenly spun around, lasered a compelling stare in her direction again-and caught her eyes open.

Immediately he snapped the cell phone shut and strode straight toward her. His mouth opened, as if he was furiously barking out orders to people unseen, people behind him, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

Bits and pieces of reality started seeping into her mind. Nothing about him. But about that crisis moment when she suddenly lost her hearing.

The last weeks all came back in a blotchy rush. The stunned joy and shock when she was told about the fabulous inheritance. The disbelief. The thrill. The racing around her apartment like a mad thing, screaming at the top of her lungs, calling everyone she knew. Checking back twice with the lawyer to make sure it was real.

But when that giant check arrived, so did repercussions that she’d never anticipated, and had no possible way to be prepared for.

Two days ago? Three? She remembered her brother’s face when he’d found her. Gregg looked so scared. She’d been locked in her bedroom, hands over her ears, wrapped in an old wool stadium blanket in the corner. No one could reach her, she’d thought. She’d pulled out the landline, drowned the cell phone in the tub. And anyway, she couldn’t hear anymore.

Hysterical deafness, the doctor had called it. There was nothing medically wrong with her ears, with her hearing. The doctor never specifically labeled her a head case, but Carolina had always been one to call a cigar a cigar. She’d caved like a ninny. It was embarrassing and mortifying-but being mad at herself didn’t seem to bring her hearing back.

Still. None of those events explained how she’d gotten in this specific hospital room, or who the powerful sexy stranger was…much less what he was doing anywhere near her life.

Maguire had debated between the Lear 35A or the Gulfstream III, but by late afternoon, he was pleased that he’d opted for the Gulfstream. It was the older jet, not as fancy as the Lear, but the full-size divan in back made the most comfortable possible bed for Carolina.

By then they’d passed the rainy Great Plains, hit a burst of late-afternoon sun and the first view of the mountains. Any other time, Maguire would have enjoyed the flight. Now, though, he was too restless to settle down, and kept getting up to check on the slight, blond woman in back.

Carolina didn’t need him keeping vigil. Every time he checked, she was sleeping like a stone. He just couldn’t seem to stop looking at her.

Spiriting her away-Maguire didn’t like the “kidnapping” term-had been challenging, but not impossible. Money, of course, always effectively eliminated problems. He just normally did nothing impulsively. He’d been monitoring Carolina’s life for the last two months, but he never expected she would ever have to know that-much less that he’d have to suddenly and completely step in.

It’s not as if he suddenly wanted this woman in his life.

He’d had absolutely no choice.

“Mr. Cochran?”

Maguire glanced up at the pilot’s voice. “Problem?”

“A little turbulence coming. I’d prefer you strap in.”

Right. Maguire had flown too often with Henry to believe “turbulence” was the issue. Henry was worried about their passenger, and even more worried about what his employer was up to this time.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said, yet still he lingered by Carolina.

He’d covered Carolina earlier with a silk sheet and lightweight blanket. She hadn’t stirred in the hours since he’d lifted her from the stretcher on the tarmac and carried her aboard.

He hadn’t been the one to sedate her, was totally against drugging her at all, and he’d had a rousing argument with the hospital doctor about…well, just about everything. Her medicines. Her treatment. What she needed. That Maguire had no business taking her off someplace without medical permission or involvement. All that blah blah blah.

But that was water over the dam at this point. He checked the straps, making sure she couldn’t fall or be thrown, and then redraped the blanket up to her chin. She kept kicking off the cover. He didn’t want her exposed to drafts.

That simplest, basic contact-his knuckles to her bare throat, nothing intimate about it in any way-sent a sharp streak of desire straight to his groin. The darned woman. There was absolutely nothing to explain that scissor stab of sexual awareness.

She was as ordinary as peaches and cream. Her features were more fun than attractive-a miniature ski jump for a nose, bitsy cheekbones, a mouth almost too small to kiss. Her hair was butter yellow, mixed with a little pale wheat, might be shoulder length-it was hard to tell; it was such a curly mess. He doubted the whole package could weigh a hundred and ten pounds, and he should know, since he’d carried her up the plane’s steps. No butt or boobs that he’d noticed.

He’d caught an unexpected glimpse of her bare feet, though. The toenails were painted a wild purple-a startling surprise.

Except for those wild toenails, she looked beyond vulnerable. Frail. As if a slap would beat her down.

Maguire’s father hadn’t slapped her. At his death, Gerald Cochran had left her fifteen million dollars. What should have been an incredible gift had turned into an incredible burden-and there was precisely the problem. The doctors didn’t get it. Lawyers certainly didn’t get it. No one in Carolina’s hard-working, middle-class family had any prayer of getting it.

That money could destroy her. Maguire knew it too well. In less than two months, it almost had.

“Mr. Cochran.”

Henry again. Maguire stood, catwalked up the aisle, past the leather seats and galley to the cockpit, and then strapped himself into the copilot’s chair.

He’d hired Henry four years ago. Henry was barely thirty, but he had an old man’s face, bassett-hound eyes and forehead wrinkles of worry that were already set in. Maguire always figured Henry came out of the womb an old soul, probably never had a childhood, and for damn sure never stepped on a crack in the sidewalk. But those weren’t bad character traits for a pilot and man Friday. Henry had turned into one of the few people Maguire could trust.

“Everything on track?” Maguire asked easily.

“Should be landing by eight. Washington time, of course. Weather patterns look good.” Henry lived for flying, yet his expression was as somber as mud.

“But.” Maguire knew there was one coming.

Henry shot him a darting glance. “Even for you, sir, this is a little unusual.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I’m not questioning you. You know that. It’s just that this is so…”

“Unusual,” Maguire supplied, when it was obvious Henry couldn’t think of another word to put out there.

“Yes. The lady there…” Henry shook his head. “I just don’t quite understand how we’re going to communicate with her if she can’t hear.”