Jennifer Greene - The Billionaire’s Handler

She didn’t want him believing that he’d made love to the Wimp of the Universe.

Maybe she hadn’t suddenly turned into a brilliantly strong person. But she hadn’t caved. She’d done what she thought was right and reasonable. And now, Carolina considered, she deserved a reward.

So she jumped to her feet, grabbed a coat and car keys, and hightailed it to a bookstore. She had just the thing in mind.

There was a spit of snow in the area when Maguire arrived back at the lodge. He’d worked himself crazy for the last two weeks, but now he had a break. It’s not as if there was ever a complete shutoff button on responsibilities, but he planned some Tommy time, some walk-in-the-woods time-and some serious rest.

His eyes were stinging tired, his stomach restless. Henry barely spoke to him on the ride home-but then Henry had barely spoken a civil word to him since he’d let Carolina go.

It was pitch-black-except for the shards of ice coming from the sky-when they stumbled from the car with their gear. Maguire had the key out and ready, pushed open the door, flipped on a light.

Par for the course, Henry had left the current mail on the table, where Maguire could go through it over coffee the next morning. He saw the pile, and wouldn’t have hesitated to leave it, except for the box on top.

The postmark was Elkhart, Indiana. No one he knew or had ever known was from Elkhart. The box was square, bigger than a shoe box and heavy.

Behind him, Henry carted in bags, locked up, aimed for the fridge. Normally he’d have gone straight to bed, but he’d obviously seen Maguire pick up the package.

“Just came in yesterday,” Henry said.

“It’ll wait until morning.”

“Sure will.” But Henry didn’t move because Maguire didn’t. Damn, but he couldn’t stand mysteries or undotted i ’s. So he peeled off the wrapping. Three hefty books fell in his lap. Plans to Build Your Own Tree House, How to Build Your Own Tree House, and Tree Houses-Hideouts for Grown-ups.

Maguire felt something knot, tight and thick, in his throat, as he paged through them. There was no note. No signed anything. Eventually he glanced up to see Henry staring at him.

“That damn woman,” Maguire said.

“That’s what I was thinking, sir,” Henry agreed.

“She doesn’t play fair.”

“She certainly doesn’t.”

“This isn’t honest warfare. She’s being sneaky, even sneakier than me. It’s just not right. It’s under the table. It’s a low way of getting to a man.”

“I thought the same thing, Mr. Cochran. The minute I laid eyes on her, I thought, well, no one like her has ever been in Mr. Cochran’s life. She doesn’t play by his rules.”

“She misled me, Henry. I thought she was a good woman. A decent woman. An honest woman. And then she does something like this. It’s unconscionable.” Maguire paced around, shot a finger at Henry, then paced some more. “This changes things. I’ve tried to do the right thing. I’ve tried . But damn it, if she refuses to play fair, why should I be the only one suffering?”

“Now you’re talking, sir.”

Carolina was just pulling a major chunk of mail from her mailbox when she saw her brother pull in to the driveway. She jogged over to give him an enormous hug. “Come on in, you sweetie! Want some coffee?”

Gregg had on his old high school jacket, and was wearing his hair a little long. He was the one who’d found her weeks ago, raised all the flags for help, got her to the hospital. Back when they were in high school, he’d started football, quit. Started college, quit. Started one job after another, quit. Gregg never heard of an idea involving quick money that he didn’t fall for-but Carolina loved him, warts and all.

“You’re looking good. For a sister.” He ruffled her new haircut while she thumped down the mail and started a fresh pot of coffee. “Hey. I had an idea.”

“Yeah?” She paged through the heap of mail, tossing out the junk mail, separating the bills…and then stopped. Her heart, her head, everything stopped.

She saw Maguire’s Washington return address. Opened the heavy envelope, found a fat, thick catalog. It was for an auction in Paris, of last year’s designer shoes. She paged through, her throat thickening. There were pages and pages and pages of frivolous, uselessly, miserably uncomfortable, gorgeous shoe designs.

My God. How dirty could Maguire get? How ugly? And by using his real return address, he’d of course identified himself as the culprit-upping the ante.

“It’s just…” Gregg knew where her mugs were, poured two cups. “I’ve got an idea for a start-up business, sis. A coffee shop. I know, there’s lots of those. But most of them are really expensive and fancy. What if I started a place that served really good coffee, but cheap. I’ve got a friend…”

Her head shot up, although her finger was still stroking the page with the ostrich sandals.

“He’s got the coffee. He’s got the plan. We just need some seed money to get it going-”

Temporarily, only temporarily, she closed the shoe catalog. “You know what, Gregg? One of the cold hard truths I’ve tried to face in the last month is that I’m just plain terrible with numbers.”

“That’s not a problem, sis. See-”

She carefully interrupted again. “So I decided I’d better not make financial decisions myself. I’ve researched some really good people, with terrific reputations. If you want to give them a business plan, I’ll tell them you’re my brother. But actual decisions on issues like this, I’ve moved out of my hands.”

Gregg’s jaw dropped. “But it’s your money.”

“I know. But I wouldn’t do my own brain surgery. Or fill my own cavities. Same with this, you know. This isn’t something I’m good at, so I found people who were.”

“But I’m your brother.”

“And I couldn’t love you more in a million, thousand years.”

Her brother left twenty minutes later, not too happy with her, but that was okay. Someday maybe family could have a conversation with her without asking for money-but if not, not.

She had more interesting things to worry about.

She jogged back to the catalog, thumbing through it again, page by page. That damn man. Tempting her with shoes. How low could a man get? What happened to Maguire’s integrity, his honor?

And if he’d sink this low…just maybe she could entice him to sink a wee bit lower.

Like down to her level.

“Sir! Mr. Cochran! Sir!”

Maguire and Tommy both turned at the same time. They’d only ambled a half mile into the woods when they suddenly heard Henry’s voice. Maguire had never seen Henry run hell-bent for leather before.

Henry reached them, put his hands on his knees, heaving in breath. “Sir, you need to go back to the house.”

“Are you all right? What’s wrong?”

“It’s not me. I’m fine. But at the house-” Henry motioned, still breathing too hard to talk well. “She’s done something.”

Henry could have been referring to any number of “she’s” worldwide, but there was probably only one that could induce that panic-stricken gallop across the woods. “Is Carolina ill? Hurt? Need help?” Maguire asked swiftly.

“Nothing like that. You and Tommy. Just go back to the house. You’ll see.”

Maguire had already started running back to the lodge, Tommy keeping pace beside him-but it was Tommy who surged ahead when they reached sight of the back door, Tommy who let out a squeal loud enough to wake the mountains.

The dog sitting on the porch step seemed to have a foot-long tongue-and a five-foot-long tail, which immediately started wagging when Tommy ran toward him. The golden retriever looked to be full grown, extra big, extra golden. Maguire shouted a warning to Tommy, who paid no attention, just surged toward the unfamiliar dog with his arms outstretched.