“I … I just wanted you to know that I don’t support this. And I’m sorry. And I hope she loses.”
“So do I. If I have anything to do with it, she will.”
“I believe that. In fact, you might be the only one who can stop her.” She paused, turning her cup in her hands. “You must hate me for all this.”
“I don’t think I could hate you even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, by the way.”
Her eyes were bottomless, fathomless. “I wish things were different.”
“So do I.”
“And I wish I could stop thinking about you, but I can’t.”
With a hard swallow, I said something I shouldn’t, “I can’t seem to help myself from coming here, looking for you, and I doubt I’ll stop. I don’t hate you, Maisie. But I hate this. It’s not often I want something I can’t have.”
“Because you don’t often want?”
“Because what I want, I get.”
“And you can’t have me,” she said, finishing the thought.
“And I can’t have you,” I echoed.
Her gaze dropped to the cup, her throat working. “It’s cruel, really. I don’t know why. I don’t even know you. Maybe it’s just the injustice of it all. Maybe it’s just another choice my mother has taken from me. But either way, I hate it too.”
I drew a painful breath, one fraught with indecision. I knew I should go—I shouldn’t have come here to start. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave.
“I wish there was a way,” I said. “If there were, I would have already found it. Trust me, I’ve looked.”
For a moment, she watched me, her head shaking slightly. “I can’t believe that the two of us want the same thing, that even though we’re in agreement, we can’t do what we please.”
“Your mother would turn you out. Mine might have a cardiac event. And keeping it a secret would only hurt everyone, us most of all. It’s not often I wish I had my brothers’ ability to jump into a fling. Be casual. But I know myself better than to pretend this doesn’t mean something. And that would be the only way. We have no future, so I don’t see how we can have a present. Right now, we’re disappointed, but later … later, it would hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, Maisie.”
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” she said softly. “Maybe, someday, things will be easier.”
I tried to smile.
“Maybe,” I answered without believing it.
Her sigh told me she didn’t believe it either. “Then I guess this is goodbye again.”
I didn’t want to agree. I didn’t want to be rational or reasonable. But they said a leopard couldn’t change his spots, and I could no easier pretend that ignoring my instincts was the answer.
“Come on. Let me get you a cab,” I said as I stood, avoiding answering her directly.
She complied, standing and falling into step at my side. Without thought, my hand moved to the small of her back as I guided her out, and in that spark of connection, I imagined opening the door like this for her in a dozen different settings that we’d never see.
Neither of us spoke as I stepped to the curb, lifting my hand to hail a taxi. When one pulled up, I opened the door. Extended a hand to help her in, reveling in the feel of her soft, small palm against mine. But I held the door, held her eyes, held my breath for a painful heartbeat.
“I’ll see you around, Maisie,” I finally said.
“I hope so,” she answered.
And with a lamentable thump of the closing door, so did I.
6
What If
MAISIE
I was on fire.
Cheeks warm. Coat too thick, too heavy. Palms damp. Heart aflame, kicking my ribs with every painful thud.
I shifted in the cab to peel off my coat, fantasizing about cracking the window to let the cool air in. Though I didn’t know if it would help. In fact, I didn’t know if anything could help me.
Sitting across from Marcus, I should have been focused on what he’d been trying to say—that we couldn’t see each other, probably ever, and for reasons I understood all too well. I should have been bolstering myself with the reminders of what would happen to me if I were so stupid as to start seeing Marcus Bennet, starting with the defiance of sneaking away from my mother to come to the coffee shop, looking for him.
I didn’t do casual either, and I certainly didn’t think I could start with him.
I should have been doing a lot of things as I sat in the taxi, smart things, things that would keep me safe.
But instead, I only had one thought—Marcus wanted me.
He’d said it with regret in the depths of his brilliant eyes. He’d said it with his broad lips curled down at the corners. He’d said it like he meant it more than he’d ever meant a word he’d spoken, and I suspected Marcus didn’t say anything he didn’t mean. But these words in particular had been so earnest that they struck me still, there in the crowded coffee shop. We could have been the only two people in the world.
Up until that moment, I supposed I hadn’t known. I’d imagined. I’d hoped. I’d feared he wanted me and feared he didn’t, but I hadn’t known. And now that I did, I had no idea what to do with that knowledge.
What I should have done was forget it. Or perhaps acknowledge it before tucking it away in the box in my heart labeled What If. He was right, of course. Pursuing it made no sense.
But I wanted to all the same.
As he’d said, what I preferred and what I was allowed were not in alignment. The difference was, I found I had little interest in doing what was allowed.
It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice in the matter, though. My mother would crucify me, revoke our deal, take away my little joys, business or otherwise. I could leave, of course. When faced with the loss of the only life I’d known, and—perhaps the most heartbreaking—the loss of my avenue to help so many, it wasn’t quite so easy. It wasn’t at all simple.
But I couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be worth it.
Marcus wanted me. And if there was a way, he’d be with me.
My heart sank, the flame of hope streaking through my ribs. Because there was no way. Not without risking it all.
By the time we reached my mother’s building, only my temperature had waned. Beneath that, I was roiling heat, brought to the surface of my soul by the knowledge of his affection. And I didn’t know how to vent it off. Didn’t know how to cool it down.
The closer I got to my mother’s office building, the less I had to worry myself with that—proximity to her was a bucket of ice water. A snowball to the face. A belly flop into the deep end.
And when I stepped into the chaos of her office, all I could consider was what was in front of me, and I welcomed the distraction with open arms.
Office might have been an understatement. The space my mother bestowed upon herself was larger than most retail spaces in Manhattan. It was a corner office with a sweeping view of downtown, the rivers, the bay beyond peppered with ships, and the sky crisp and blue and dotted with cheerful clouds.
Inside, however, was a flurry of motion and people—eight, to be exact, nine including myself. My mother stood at a light board with her bold black readers perched on her nose as she looked over magazine pages with an editor at her elbow. A florist fiddled with arrangements on a table that looked to be set with samples for a spread. Two assistants I didn’t recognize flitted around the room as well as one I did know—my mother’s assistant, Shelby.