The Last Plus One

by Ophelia London

  She pulled out one earbud and just breathed it all in. This here was Maggie’s beach. Where she’d always felt the most at home. Where she could pick through tide pools and poke at critters and sit on a rock…and, okay, sometimes pretend she didn’t have a voice. But look, new legs!

  There was no playing today. No mermaid dreams. Only a lot of being in her head, and she didn’t like it one bit. In fact, this was the very activity—and place—she’d managed to avoid by not coming home for years. And years. And years.

  The waves seemed to echo her thoughts. Each woosh sounded like years. Mocking her.

  “Okay, I got it!”

  “Got what?” A voice carried over the sound of the surf, and of course it was him.

  Should’ve known she wasn’t safe here. No woman was.

  The only thing to do was to get up and start walking toward the main house. There would be no scrabbling up the rock face to get home. The impulse to find another human being—any other human being—as fast as she could wouldn’t be suppressed.

  But she was a different woman now than the one who’d found Hannah Kline sobbing on these rocks once long ago as high tide was coming in. Back then, only the quick thinking of Tommy Harrington had saved them both.

  No, she was a different woman—she was, in fact, actually a woman now. And a powerful one at that.

  She palmed her phone, thankful for once it was permanently attached to her, and made a show of saying “uh, huh—uh huh, no, no, tomorrow morning at the latest” and a bunch of other stuff she wouldn’t remember into the attached mic. Didn’t matter anyway, because there was no one on the other end. But Cinco didn’t need to know that.

  She visibly “cut it off” and wound her earbuds around it before sticking it in her back pocket.

  He stepped closer.

  “It’s been a long time, Maggie.”

  “Yeah, all of an hour.”

  “You always did like to scramble down along here. With the other sea trash.” The way he paused for effect made her wonder how long he’d been practicing that remark.

  It worked, though. Cutting deep. She would not recoil visibly to his grotesque reminder that locals—townies, trash, all synonyms to Cinco—pretty much stopped and turned around at these rocks. And for good reason.

  “All these dark, shaded places. Shady places…”

  “You know, I didn’t come here for the nostalgia tour. I came here to get a little work done. And some fresh air after being cooped up in the car all morning.”

  “Mr. Brown couldn’t spring for a helicopter transfer?”

  “Oh no,” she said, deliberately misunderstanding his insult, “that was Cruz Griffin. My business partner.”

  “It’s remarkable who they will put on the cover of Fortune magazine these days.”

  “Well, I guess you were too busy for an interview.” The slick banter came easily, which was a good thing since her mind was occupied mapping escape routes. The tide was coming in, and she had no business scrambling back up the rocks in her ballet flats—but if she went back via the Cove beach, she’d have to pass him.

  “No, seriously, where is he? Did you leave him at home? Shouldn’t you be concerned with him poking through the past? Or, God forbid, all the rented silver on the premises.”

  That did it. She started to brush past him—ice princess would only go so far, and she didn’t want to be indicted for cracking his skull against the rocks the week before Laurel’s big day—to head for the main beach. If she were lucky, her dad would still be there.

  Luck wasn’t on her side. Cinco grabbed her arm. She refused to shake him off, physically. A verbal attack was generally effective. In public. But they weren’t in public now. So though she’d planned a really steady, low-voiced delivery, she was a little shaky when she said, “I think you’d better have a care, August.”

  He let his hand fall and tucked it in his pocket. His Nantucket reds and flip-flops were seasonally appropriate, but they weren’t a good idea on the jagged rocks of the point. Of course, he’d strolled over from the pristine sand in front of Virtue Cove.

  Maggie couldn’t help but wish he’d step on a jackknife clam.

  “I can’t believe you’re being so brave without your muscle here.”

  “Not my bodyguard—my boss.”

  “You’ve always had a penchant for that, haven’t you?”

  Ugh, he was such a smarmy asshole when the light of the world didn’t shine on him. But more than that, he was dangerous without that light keeping him in line. “You’ve never been the boss of me.”

  Cinco went on, ignoring her words. He was vile. “And yet here you are without your puppy on a leash.”

  “They’re your mother’s dogs,” she said, a little thrown off balance.

  “Oh no, I mean Doctor Tom. Word is you haven’t been back to the Cove since you left, so I guess he won’t be coming to save the day. Or back up any unsubstantiated accusations.”

  She stood her ground, such as it was with the waves licking at her feet. He knew—and she knew—it would only be a matter of minutes before those licks became ferocious blasts.

  “I’m disappointed in you, Maggie.” He wasn’t the first person at the Cove to be, but he was the first one she didn’t give a flying fig about disappointing. “I’d heard you were attending alone. Had really been looking forward to catching up. It’s been a long time.”

  She gave a tight smile and invited him to continue their little reunion later. Her leather flats were already ruined, but she’d be damned if she had to stand there and take lashes from the waves along with his verbal ones. Maggie didn’t need Tom, or anyone, to save her now.

  “Although,” he continued, relentless as the waves, and just as destructive, “I thought someone who made it through Stanford—and the lower rungs of the business world—would at least know better than show up with an uninvited guest. But I guess blood will tell.”

  Cruz listened to her arguing with the senator’s son. He caught bits and pieces, mostly protests about working on a “really big freaking deal”—rhetoric that didn’t sound at all like his boardroom ball-buster. And that she couldn’t afford to lose face time with him blah blah blah. It sounded a lot like the excuses she’d made to him in the car, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  Water was seeping through his favorite running shoes, and that pissed him off, too. Just something else to pin on the asshole Cinco. And there was a lot, he’d determined while eavesdropping.

  Maggie would have hated it if he’d come in guns blazing and headed the guy off. But the moment he’d seen the creep strolling down the beach in his pink-ass shorts, in the direction Mr. Kennedy had said she’d likely gone, he’d started to follow.

  And now he had heard more than enough.

  Rounding the big, flat rock, he almost collided with Maggie and grabbed her by the shoulders to steady her. Steady himself, really. He was relieved she’d finally escaped.

  “You good?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Oh, maybe because of the way her muscles were all bunched up and the panicked expression on her face before his had registered with her.

  He had to strain to hear her, and he didn’t like her vacant, guarded look, but there was nothing much he could do about that now with their audience.

  Which is why he was somewhat perplexed to find himself leaning down to kiss her.

  It was brief, just a little brush of dry lips that was over much too soon. But it was enough to put some color on her cheeks.

  “Sorry,” he said softly. “That was the only thing I could think of to get him off your back without bashing his brains into the cliff behind us.”

  “Yeah, I’d already crossed it off my list, too.”

  “I love your lists.”

  Something flashed in her eyes, and before he could explore it further, she seemed to shake it off. “Tide’s coming in fast. We need to head out.”

  Cruz was aware they were trapping Cinco, standing as they were, bl
ocking the slim path—well, it had been a path before the water started encroaching—back to the beach area. And as much as he’d like to leave him there to flounder, Cruz wouldn’t endanger Maggie.

  “Oh, hey, buddy. Didn’t see you there. You part of Maggie’s dad’s crew? Didn’t know they were working down here this far.” That earned him an elbow jab from Maggie, but he used it as an excuse to pull her a little closer to him. Especially when the guy named Five walked by, without a word.

  She let him hold her for a few moments before pulling away. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

  “Do the tides really come in that fast?” he asked.

  “Don’t mean the tide. Though we don’t want to be here much longer.” She turned to look out to the waves, then back again to the rocks to their right.

  “How did you—”

  “I have my secrets.”

  And didn’t he know it?

  She started wading through to the strip of sand that would take them back to the main beach, pausing when they reached a certain spot and stepping out of her metallic shoes with a frown. That ass owed them both new shoes.

  He didn’t miss the way she winced when they came upon a party of youngish folks down on the beach—messing up what her father and his crew had, more than likely, just finished. Maggie gave a quick wave and hurried up another path, strong-arming him a little bit. Pinching him like the mom who wants her child to behave in church.

  “So drinks at the main house?”

  “Remember, you promised.”

  “We’re still on that?” he asked. “I thought we’d dispensed with that routine now that your parents, and probably that Five guy, think we are together.”

  “We have not,” she said tightly.

  “Ah, this is your secret path.” Cruz looked around, trying to identify some landmark so he could find his way back down to her beach without going to the main house first, but the world was just a jumble of tree branches and leaves and grass. “Such that it is.”

  “Don’t play in the pukahbrush.”

  “The…?”

  “Puck-er-brush.” She pointed to the natural debris and kept moving.

  “About tonight,” he ventured again, knowing she wouldn’t volunteer any information.

  “They dress for dinner.” Her tone was somewhere between scoff and scold. “If you don’t have anything appropriate to wear, I’ll go alone.”

  “Since we weren’t really invited to dinner, I don’t see what difference it makes.”

  Maggie stopped, turned, and pinned him with a look before continuing on the path at a rapid clip. She was annoyed after that kiss on the beach, he was sure, and he wondered if she was as discombobulated as he was.

  Once they got back to the house, she grabbed her bag and announced she was getting ready in her parents’ room. “I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”

  She whirled back in the doorway and narrowed her eyes. “Or be late. That’s preferable, because that way I can leave your ass here.”

  He made it downstairs in fifteen. Not bad for a quick shower and spiffing up. There was no way he’d let her brave the lion’s den alone. Apparently, his mission this week was to be the buffer between Maggie and the world.

  He sat on the couch, and it was a sign for an assortment of dogs to come over and sit with him. Oh well, if they belonged to Mrs. Ramsey, surely she’d be covered in dog hair, too, and wouldn’t mind.

  A few furry heads snapped up and looked around moments before he heard the rhythmic clicks indicating Maggie was on her way out. He stood up to greet her, dog hair on his lap long forgotten. Hot. Damn.

  Who was going to be his buffer from her?

  She was in head-to-toe bombshell mode, and he had to blink a few times. The beach must have made her cheeks pinker, because no makeup could replicate that flush, and her fiery red hair was still a little wild from the wind. She’d half caught it up in some elegant clip, the rest swinging around her shoulders as she walked in. It was sex hair. Sex flush on her cheeks. And Cruz watched her move toward him through a haze of something that left him feeling—

  “Oh, you’re here.”

  Wild horses couldn’t drag him away. She stood in the doorway to the cozy living room in some navy dress that was flowy yet clingy and made her all boobs and hips with a little bow tied on the side. Shoes that made her legs look a thousand miles long. Who the hell was this woman? First it was the pearls and heels getup last month for “the luncheon,” and now here she was. Wearing that.

  “Oh, Maggie.” Her mom came out of the hallway, brandishing something vaguely sparkly. “I have the perfect necklace for you. It’ll match your polish.”

  His gaze flicked downward, and, sure enough, Maggie’s toes were slicked with a coral that looked to be the exact match of a swatch from their forthcoming women’s collection.

  “You don’t think it would be too much with this neckline?”

  No necklace on earth could compete with her spectacular cleavage in that dress. He wisely held that opinion to himself.

  “No, you’re absolutely right.” Maggie might not have been home in years, but you’d never tell from the way she and her mom moved in sync in this mysterious feminine ritual of getting ready. “But maybe you should pull up the other side of—”

  She batted her mom’s hands away from her hair. “Cruz, let’s go. We’re going to be late.”

  “Sure thing. Have the keys?”

  “Oh, I’ll drive you down in the cart,” her mom insisted. “Helen and I are working late tonight since the tents are finally up.”

  Maggie looked to him, and he said okay, which he thought was an acceptable answer, but apparently it wasn’t because she gave him a Look on the way out. A few minutes later, with a full complement of canine sentries, they pulled up to the main house. Rather, to the rear of the main house.

  They moved to a door, Cruz noticed, marked by the glint of a gold sign that proclaimed it the servants’ entrance. It said it in more PC terms, of course, but the message was clear.

  Mrs. Kennedy didn’t seem to think a thing about it, and why would she? She probably came in and out this door many times a day. Maggie, however, bristled, and he put his hand on the small of her back and murmured, “Want to walk around to the front?” He wasn’t taking the chance on another Look.

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  So he escorted her through a surprisingly unbustling kitchen. No caterers, only the woman he assumed was Helen standing in front of a mixer. If it was a small party, why the hell hadn’t they been asked?

  “Helen, get a look of my Maggie here all dressed up.”

  Helen groused and said something about having her hands full looking at her meringue, but she beamed after Maggie bent to give her a quick kiss. “We’re drove right up, Margaret Kennedy, so unless you’re offering to put on an apron and get those Yorkies out of the oven before they crisp to black—”

  “We’re leaving, we’re leaving.” Maggie motioned them through a long, narrow hallway. It was dark and windowless. Vaguely tomblike.

  “Uh, y’all eat dogs up here?” Cruz pitched his voice low, lest it echo.

  Maggie stopped and burst out laughing, as he’d intended. “Yorkies are puddings, not terriers. Popovers?” She swatted his arm and dragged him through another twist and turn in the hallway. “Didn’t you learn anything when you lived abroad?”

  “I wasn’t exactly studying cuisine.” But speaking of, they spilled out into a dining room that looked like it belonged on some BBC show about debauched aristocrats. Which, given what he knew about the scion of the family, was pretty accurate.

  Before they could reach the noise coming from one of the antechambers, the polite clink of ice in highball glasses recognizable in any hemisphere, she pulled him aside and reminded him of their deal one more time.

  “It’s getting old, Mags. Tonight’s no different than any other party we’ve attended together. I’ve got your back. Always.”

  She
didn’t say anything, just nodded and turned to sashay through the doorway, leaving him a little dazzled.

  Fortunately, he didn’t have to break his promise of not talking to the senator, because he had been delayed. Once the elegant—but surprisingly down-to-earth—Mrs. Ramsey had made his acquaintance, she grabbed his arm and confessed all.

  “The house is in a fizz, what with everyone coming in tomorrow. Oh, and guests arriving tonight, too, of course, and everything just has to be perfect for Laurel because my Janine eloped and now our first grandson will never be president.”

  Maggie’s laughter, though it came at all the right spots, was pitched a bit too high. Normally, at parties, she was the perfect guest, making introductions and smoothing his way like a pro. Which he’d always been a little in awe of. Now that he knew where she’d learned it, it was disconcerting to be the one to smooth the way.

  While he and Mrs. Ramsey got to know each other, she—without missing a word or beat—alternately plucked small dogs off the settee and sipped what smelled like scotch, neat.

  He spaced out a little when Maggie reached for his arm, holding it close to her side. And kind of to her chest. It wasn’t warm out, but he was going to sweat through his sport coat if she kept that up. Okay, so they were playing it this way? It was hard to keep up, but as long as he followed her lead, he assumed he’d be fine.

  Laurel and her fiancé came wandering in, and upon spotting them, greeted them with hugs and squeals—on Laurel’s part, anyway. Her fiancé, Tyler James, came at him like they were long-lost brothers.

  “Mother, the dogs.” Laurel rolled her eyes and captured Maggie’s arm, drawing her away from him. He almost growled himself. “You promised.”

  “Oh, don’t be so uptight. They’re going to be all cooped up the rest of the week, won’t you, darlings,” she cooed to them as she handed Cruz one puppy and picked up two more wriggling balls of fluff while balancing her scotch in the crook of her elbow. The woman was a miracle. “You’re not hurting anyone, are you? No. Nobody here minds at all.”

  She sent her daughter an aggrieved look and went off with the fluffballs. An eagle-eyed waiter came by and collected the dog in Cruz’s arms and offered to get him something from the bar.