by James, Avery
“What’d you think of Dolores?” he said, changing the subject. “I have a feeling she might know a few things about this place that aren’t on the official tour.”
“I have a feeling she knows a few more things than that,” Maggie said. “Maybe you can marry her.”
Harry headed across the room and started looking at a typewriter on the desk. “Can you imagine writing an entire book on one of these things?”
“I can’t imagine writing an entire book on anything,” she said.
“I’ve always wanted to,” he said.
“Is there a starving artist hiding beneath that billionaire playboy façade?” Maggie asked. “Is that why you wanted to come here today?”
“I just think this is a fascinating place. I’ve been here a few times before, and I love the way you get to step into another life. You can imagine what it was like to be in this town in that time. For a little bit, you get to forget yourself. After what you said last night, I thought you’d like that.”
He was right. Well, she would have really enjoyed this if Harry weren’t her client or if he’d stop flirting with her now that they both knew the truth. Instead, she kept thinking about all the possible ways the rest of this trip could go wrong. First and foremost, she was afraid she’d convince herself to let him kiss her again. “Tell me the truth. Have you even read his books?” Maggie asked.
“Everyone knows cool kids don’t read,” he said. He walked over to a bookshelf and pulled a book out, running his fingers down the spine. “Yes, of course I’ve read Hemingway. There was the one about the guy who wanted to kill the fish and the other one about the guy who was in war.”
“You’re messing with me,” Maggie said.
“Maybe just a little bit,” he replied. He raised his eyebrows a little bit as he grinned. He was terrible at hiding his smile. She liked that about him. In her time at Haven, she’d dealt with too many people who were good at hiding their true emotions. Harry was an open book. And right now, he was enjoying himself.
“Is this because I’m your handler?” she asked. “Or do you treat everyone you like this way?”
“Maybe a little bit of both,” he said. He put the book back on the shelf and looked at Maggie. “What do you think Hemingway would have thought of you?”
“That’s a ridiculous question.”
“Is it, though? You said you wanted to take more risks. He was a risk-taker. He’d hop on a plane and go to Africa or Cuba or anywhere, just like that. He didn’t answer to anyone.”
“Oh, so you want to be him?” Maggie asked. “Is that why you wanted to come here, so you could give me advice and pretend it was coming from the great American writer?”
“I think I’d look particularly good with a big white beard and one of those safari jackets, don’t you? No, I brought you here because you seemed like you’d enjoy it. I had no other motives.”
“Aside from the fact that I’m still not sure what to think about us, I am enjoying myself,” she said. “But what about me made you think Hemingway?”
“When I was talking about adventure and risk-taking, I was actually thinking of you, not me.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Never mind,” he said. “What if I were to say that I don’t care that you’re my handler and that I think you’re special and that we have something real together?” he asked.
“I’d accuse you of changing the subject,” she said.
“To a more important one. I’m trying to answer your question. What would you say?”
“I’d say that it’s unprofessional of me to have feelings for you.”
“Does that mean you do have feelings for me?”
“If annoyance and frustration count as feelings, then yes,” she said.
“I want you to know that you should live life on your own terms, and not anyone else’s,” he said. He walked over to the door and nodded to the next room. Maggie followed.
“By your logic, that would include your terms,” she said.
“Exactly,” he replied. “You shouldn’t have to do things you don’t want to do. Like, do you feel like chasing me around Key West?”
“Depends on the nature of the chasing,” Maggie said.
Harry headed right across the room to the next door. “So right now, if I were to run out of the building, would you follow?”
“I’d have to,” she said. His eyes lit up and he darted through the door. Maggie chased after him, but he was waiting for her in the other room. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“Proving a point. You shouldn’t have to chase after anyone. You especially shouldn’t have to spend your life dealing with people like me or my father. You should do something you want to do.”
“That’s easy to say when you have a fortune at your disposal.” I usually like this job, she wanted to tell him. I’m usually good at it.
“What would you do if I gave you a million dollars right now?”
“I’d tell you you were crazy.”
“I’m serious, what would you do? It’s a drop in the bucket for me, but for you, it could open a lot of possibilities.”
“I’d refuse it.”
“Why?”
“A million dollars isn’t going to change my life.”
“What about ten or twenty? What would you do then? Would you quit your job? Would you make sure your parents had everything they needed?”
“I don’t know what I’d do,” she said.
“If I gave you a million dollars, would you quit your job?”
“And do what exactly?”
“Stay with me for a while,” he said.
“You’re crazy,” she said. “You’re really, actually crazy.”
“You were the one saying you feared passing up opportunities in your life. What if this happens to be one of those opportunities?”
“What happens if I decide to run off with you and you get bored? Then I’ll be unemployed, alone, and probably stranded wherever your latest flight of fancy took us.”
“I would never get bored of you,” he said.
“You’re just saying that because we’re in this flirtatious stage, but what would happen when we got past that?” Maggie asked. “Monday morning, you’re getting on a plane, and you’re going back to reality. You’re not going to throw that all away because you think I’m attractive and you like a challenge.” The whole thing came out harsher than she had intended, but it was the truth. There was no world in which the two of them had a future, and she was the one who would end up getting hurt.
They walked through the rest of the house in silence, pretending to admire the architecture as they both stewed. Harry finally spoke as they were heading out into the gardens. “I would, you know. I’d throw it all away for that.” Maggie didn’t know what to say, but she felt a tightness in her throat. She reached out and took Harry’s hand, walking out into the sunlight with him. If things were different, if they were just two strangers… If they were just two strangers, they would have never met. When she’d left for Key West, the only thing she had wanted was to do a good job. Now she didn’t know what she wanted.
She couldn’t tell Harry that, though. She couldn’t tell anyone. As they walked across the grounds, she squeezed his hand tight, pretending she was doing it for him and not for herself. “I have to be off limits,” she said.
“Off limits, there with me but just out of reach. I don’t know if I can do that,” he replied.
“What if I find someone else to take on your case?” she said.
“I don’t know if I can do that either,” he said. Maggie wasn’t sure how to reply. Part of her wanted to kiss him. Part of her wanted to take his offer and run off, but she knew she couldn’t. She couldn’t pinpoint what she was feeling, the strange emotions that tugged her in a hundred directions at once. She wondered what she looked like to Harry. She wondered what she’d look like to anyone, for that matter. She’d look like she was on a date. She’d look like part of a
couple. When they had crossed to the far side of the garden, Maggie looked back at the house. Dolores was standing in the doorway, nodding in approval.
Chapter 5
Maggie sat at the table in one corner of her suite and stared down at the manila envelope the concierge had eagerly delivered upon her return to the hotel. She knew what it was before she’d even seen it: Harry’s file, the information that would have kept her from mistakenly kissing him. The information that would have inoculated her against his charm. Abby had promised its arrival in the morning, and now it had arrived, far too late to be of any real good.
Now all it could do was cause trouble. After her day with Harry, Maggie was more conflicted than ever. On the one hand, Harry made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t felt in a long time. He could delight or frustrate her with the littlest action. He could make her laugh. He even listened when she talked instead of just waiting for his turn to speak.
After they’d left the Hemingway House, they had walked through the streets of Key West, holding hands and talking. They wound along a serpentine path, cutting back and forth between the tin-roofed buildings under what little shade the palm trees provided. Maggie would pull him one way or he’d pull her the other as they found different areas to explore.
As she sat at the desk, wondering whether or not to delve into Harry’s file, she thought back to how happy she had been walking with him. They had walked and talked for hours, though it felt like it had been minutes. It had been so effortless. Until the sun had started to set, she’d barely noticed that any time had passed at all.
When they’d gotten back to the hotel, she had made an excuse about needing to make a few calls. The concierge had intercepted her on her way back to her room. Now she was staring at the file, deciding whether or not to ruin the image of Harry she had built in her head. She knew he wasn’t perfect. She had heard all of the warnings from Amy and Callie, but she wanted to believe for at least a little while longer that he was as good as he seemed.
Eventually, she’d have to look. He was her client, or his father was her client, and she had an obligation to know everything there was to know about him. Usually when she took on a new client, she welcomed every piece of information she could find. After all, knowledge was power, and by knowing every one of her clients’ little secrets, she was able to protect them from others and themselves. Some clients had files so large they filled entire filing cabinets. Harry’s file couldn’t have been more than a few pages, judging by the weight of it. How bad could it be?
Maggie slipped her finger beneath the seal and ripped the envelope open. There was a Post-it note on top of the folder: Enjoy, Mrs. Howard! Couldn’t include the best part. Will explain on Monday. Maggie wondered what Abby couldn’t put in the file.
Inside Harry’s file there were only a few pieces of paper, but each one gave a wildly different idea of who he was. The sheet on accomplishments showed that Gavin Harris Howard, thirty-one years old, was an honors graduate of The Hotchkiss School and Yale University and had racked up significant time volunteering for different causes across the globe. If Maggie had stopped with that sheet, she could have believed he was an angel. But she knew there was more.
There was his police record. Fortunate sons like him all seemed to have them, and they were always expunged or wiped clean. That never stopped Haven’s researchers from putting together an accurate picture. At the same time Harry was pulling down an almost perfect GPA, he had amassed more than one arrest for underage drinking. After he’d graduated from Yale, he’d barely escaped charges for commandeering a houseboat. There were a few citations for noise from the New Haven Police Department, and he was wanted for questioning in St. Moritz. The sheet didn’t say what for. Maggie wasn’t sure she wanted to know.
Then there was the information on his personal life, a list of exes and friends and another list of all of the important people those friends were connected to, each listed with a risk level for causing trouble. There were a few blurry pictures of Harry in social situations, usually with his arm around a girl or two, but there was nothing as bad as she had feared. After only two months working for Haven, she’d been conditioned to expect the worst, and this wasn’t so bad. Harry wasn’t a saint, but he wasn’t half as bad as any of the clients she had helped in the past. Still, if this was all there was on him, why had Abby withheld information? Something didn’t add up.
Maggie almost jumped in her chair when she heard a knock at the door. She knew it was Harry before he even spoke.
“Maggie, are you there?” he asked. “I thought you might be hungry, so I brought dinner.” Maggie closed the file and dashed across the room, checking her hair in the mirror on her way to the door.
When she opened the door, Harry was holding about five bags in each hand. “I didn’t know what you liked, so I just ordered everything.”
“Everything?” she asked.
“Thai food, Greek, subs, tacos, a cheeseburger and seafood.”
“What if I told you I wasn’t hungry?”
“I’d have a feast with fifteen of my closest friends down at the bar.”
“What’s the Thai food?”
“Pad Thai,” he said, holding up one of the bags as he let the rest slide down his arm. “I was hoping for the tacos anyway.”
“Maybe I want the tacos,” she said.
“Good, then I’ll have your Pad Thai,” he said. He pulled the bag back and Maggie grabbed at it.
“No way. What happened to wanting tacos?”
“I’m a hungry man,” he replied. He gave her a wink and handed her the Thai food. He carried the rest of the bags over to the table and set them down next to the basket of fruit, right on top of his file.
His file, Maggie froze.
“Mrs. Howard?” Harry asked.
“I might have told my friend Abby about what happened between us, and she may or may not be the one who was responsible for sending me your file.”
Harry picked up the file. “So this has all of the dirt on me?” he asked.
“Save for some particularly juicy bit Abby is withholding.”
“I have an idea of what that might be,” he said. “Does it involve a certain diplomat’s daughter?”
“Maybe?” Maggie said. “Would you care to elaborate?”
Harry flipped through the pages and tossed the file back down. “You try to play a prank on your friend and you happen to hide the wrong houseboat, and it haunts you forever.”
“You didn’t just steal a houseboat, you stole the wrong houseboat?” Maggie laughed as she opened the container of Pad Thai. It smelled heavenly. Suddenly, she was starving.
“I returned it as soon as I realized it wasn’t the right one. It’s not like I was alone. I had half a dozen… well, maybe that’s enough of that story for tonight. Want to eat outside?” he asked. “It’s cooled off nicely.”
“That would be nice,” she said.
“You want a drink?” Harry picked up one of the bottles of alcohol that had been in her welcome basket.
“I shouldn’t,” she said.
“That’s right, can’t mix work and pleasure,” he said. “Mind if I do?”
“Mix work and pleasure?” she said. “That would require you working, you know.”
“Very funny,” he said. “Do you have any water?”
“Some in the mini fridge,” she said. “But I think it costs like eight dollars a bottle.”
“You’re in a suite, Maggie. It’s all comped.” He walked over to the fridge. “Sparkling or still?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. I knew I should have been born rich.”
“Free water aside, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” he said. He poured two glasses and handed her one. “Money makes people do strange things.”
“Like steal houseboats?”
“Like lose perspective,” he said. He opened the door and brought the food outside. Maggie followed. She dug into her food as soon as she sat. It tasted even better than it smelled
. “Look at that view,” he said. “Would it be any less attractive from a room a fifth of this size?”
“Of course not,” she said through a mouthful of noodles.
“And our conversation wouldn’t be any better over a two-hundred-dollar steak,” he said.
Maggie nodded as she chewed. “You should give away all your money,” she said. She attacked her food again.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he replied. “I’ve already been doing it for years.”
“Like at that casino in the Caymans last year?” Maggie asked.
“Huh?” Harry asked.
“Your file says you blew half a mil over one very bacchanalian weekend.”
“I don’t even know what you’re… ohhh, now I remember. Yeah, that was a good weekend.”
They ate and talked some more and watched the surf rise and fall against the beach. The moonlight washed over the water in a streak of silver and lit the night well enough for Maggie to see the crests of even the smallest waves. For a while, Maggie forgot all about her job and all of her confusion about what to do about Harry, and then she found herself sitting next to him, with her head on his shoulder. The conversation had died down, but that didn’t matter. She felt comfortable, like in her silence she could say everything to him she couldn’t express in words.
“This is another one of those moments, isn’t it?” Harry said. It had been a long while since either of them had spoken. “Will you forgive me for ruining it?”
“How have you ruined it?” she asked as Harry kissed her. At first, the kiss was as soft as a whisper, but he slid his tongue against her lip, and her lips parted as she let out a little moan of delight. She hadn’t meant to return his kiss, but she couldn’t help herself. Passion had taken hold inside her, and she ran her fingers through his hair as she slid her tongue against his. Her heart raced as she pulled at the buttons on his shirt. She felt dizzy, breathless, wonderful. She pressed herself against him. She knew this was wrong, that this couldn’t happen, but that only made her want it more. Just a few more seconds, she told herself.
She pulled back and pressed her fingers to his lips. Harry kissed her fingertips and locked his eyes on her.