Jennifer Greene - The Billionaire’s Handler

Carolina opened her mouth, closed it. She had to let him finish.

“Okay. So Second Son-even though he hasn’t got a legal right in the universe, even though it’s none of his business in any way, even though he doesn’t have time to mess around with a stranger’s life-tracks down this Carolina Daniels. I don’t know what you call that. Guilt? Lunacy? Trying to fix the sins of the father? Whatever. Second Son gets the impression that maybe this teacher isn’t the toughest nut on the tree. In fact, this new, fabulous fortune isn’t working at all like the fairy tale’s supposed to be. Her money’s brought out every vulture and piranha in the area. She’s never had to cope with sharks before. She’s never been trained to deal with greed at this level-or what levels people will fall to-to get a cut out of her. All that money, but she can’t get safe. She can’t…”

Carolina was still listening, but some of his monologue made her zone out. Her heart suddenly felt hugely full, brimming over. She still didn’t have all the answers she wanted, and she hadn’t had time to phrase even half the questions she wanted to. But he’d told her enough.

Her kidnapper was a good man. Better than a good man. Maguire was a true modern-day white knight who actually stepped up for damsels in distress-even if she wasn’t a damsel, much less the kind of woman who counted on a man to save her from anything. Carolina never needed saving, anyway. She’d just desperately needed two seconds to think, to put her new life together, and there hadn’t been a single stretch where she could hide from the bombardment of ceaseless pressures and demands being made of her.

“Maguire?”

“Yeah?” His voice edgy, wary now.

“You know I thought Maguire was your last name. You never once let on your real last name was Cochran.”

He answered, “Well, hell. I didn’t want you to have a negative impression right off the bat. It’s not like I had any choice over the family I was born into. Believe me, I would have chosen Smith. Or Jones.”

She got it, that he was hoping she’d laugh off the “little deceit” he’d pulled on her. But she couldn’t stop thinking. “I kept trying to understand why I felt an…instinctive trust for you. Why I wasn’t more afraid. I mean, for Pete’s sake, you were kidnapping me.”

“Borrowing,” he corrected her swiftly. “Less prison time if we use a little different term than kidnapping.”

“I had every reason to think you’d be after my money. Because everyone’s been after my money. So why would you have taken me if not for ransom? It’s the conclusion any sane person would come to, wouldn’t you think? But it just didn’t make sense in my mind. It just didn’t…fit.”

“You’ve been pretty drugged up, cookie. You shouldn’t be expecting yourself to think rationally or normally for a while yet.”

“Maybe. But I still knew. Somehow. That you weren’t going to hurt me. That this wasn’t about your wanting something from me.” She leaned forward. “Maguire, how’s Tommy?”

“Good. He’s in Seattle. I petitioned the court for custody after my dad died, but as I mentioned, Gerald and I had issues. Dad did a good job of financially protecting him, but that’s the best I can say. I see him at least twice a month, and sometimes he stays with me for weeks at a time…”

“So who is he with?”

“As odd as it sounds…with Jay’s ex-wife. One of Jay’s ex-wives. Shannon. The one thing Tommy needed that no amount of money could give him was a plain old mom. The nurturing of a mom, the warmth of a mom, the parenting relationship of a mom. He’s crazy about Shannon. So it isn’t a blood tie, but probably that’s best. The Cochrans aren’t exactly famous for their maternal or paternal judgment.”

“So she volunteered for this? She’s good with-”

From nowhere, in that quiet night, over the sparks of fire and zesty scent of pine, she suddenly heard a sound. A phone. A cell phone. Nothing more than that…but she instinctively responded as if she’d heard a rifle shot. She curled up, froze, covered her head.

“Carolina, it’s okay, it’s okay…I’ll turn it off. Hell. I forgot I even had it on me…”

But there seemed to be an invisible mute button in her head that was punched hard. She stopped hearing the phone. His voice. The crackle of fire. It was gone again. Her whole sense of hearing.

She was back in that closet of silence, where no sound seemed to penetrate and nothing got through. She could feel herself shaking, a deep trembling from her fingertips to her lips. Her heart started pounding, pounding, as if she’d been running for her life and just had no breath left, nowhere to hide, nowhere to go.

She saw Maguire leaning over her, saw his mouth move. Was fairly positive his lips framed a mighty annoyed swearword. But that was all she could figure out for some time…

Within an hour of Henry’s arrival, Maguire had the central dining table spread out with contracts, correspondence and various legal documents that supposedly required his immediate attention.

When Henry got in, he took one look at his boss’s face and headed silently for the refrigerator. After inhaling every lunch food in sight, he’d poured a coffee, located himself against the counter and was being silent as a tomb. Possibly he’d worked for Maguire long enough to sense when his boss was crabbier than a bear with a sliver.

Maguire hadn’t slept. He couldn’t imagine sleeping in the near future.

This whole plan wasn’t working. Well. Actually, it’d been working really well until Carolina heard the damn cell phone last night.

That she’d lost her hearing again wasn’t the frazzler. Two different doctors had told him that could happen, and was even likely to happen. She had to be completely removed from stress for a serious stretch of time. The phone was a trigger for her.

She’d get her hearing back. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was him. Instead of seeing her as a responsibility-a job, something he had to do-he kept feeling a pull toward those heart-big blue eyes. He touched her or tucked an arm around her, and just like that, he was harder than a teenage boy. That tangle of sizzle and rush happened every damn time they were in the same room.

He needed her to trust him. Which meant he had to earn that trust. And he sure as hell couldn’t do that if she was afraid he was going to jump her.

Which, of course, he wasn’t.

It was a matter of her never guessing that was even a remote possibility in his head.

“Where is she?” Henry risked asking a question, although he was still keeping a wary distance, still had his aviator jacket on.

“She’s upstairs. I heard the shower a little while ago.” He zoned in on the documents in front of him again-or tried to. The problem was that there were repercussions when he failed to concentrate on what mattered. If he failed to pay prompt attention to all this business, for example, he could lose a lot of money.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to give two shakes about losing money. He’d learned long ago that there were far worse things.

“Henry, you need to sleep over before flying again.”

“Yes, sir.”

“About all the issues we discussed regarding Carolina’s place…”

“All done. Except that I also took the initiative of hiring a housesitter-actually, a concierge service-because I barely got to her place before there were people knocking and pounding and calling. She has some frantic relatives.”

“I’ll bet she does. Excellent judgment on getting the concierge service on board.”

“Her sister, particularly, I believe, expected to be let in. Said Carolina had some things that were hers that she was supposed to get-”