“I can start the fire,” Maggie insisted.
“You don't need to.”
“I want to.” She turned her body, shutting him out the same way he'd shut her out from setting up the tent, then sat back triumphantly as the spark caught and a small fire flickered to life. “Told you I could.”
“I never doubted you for a second,” he agreed as he leaned in and caught her lips with his.
Maggie stiffened. They hadn't kissed in front of Annabelle before. What was he doing? She glanced at her charge.
Annabelle watched them in frank, open fascination. Maggie braced herself for the questions. But instead of commenting on the kiss the way she commented on literally everything else that ever happened, Annabelle went quiet. She speared her marshmallow on the end of her stick, poked it into the flames, then blew it out. She removed the charred outer layer and popped it into her mouth before repeating the process three more times. By her fifth marshmallow, she was openly yawning.
“Sugar crash,” Vane murmured as Annabelle slumped to the side. He brushed Maggie's hair back from her neck. “I'm going to put her to bed.” He scooped the mumbling, protesting Annabelle into his arms and gently deposited her into her sleeping bag in the tent before returning to Maggie's side. “You want to try something with me?”
“Mm, what?” His hand on her neck felt good after feeling so strangely detached from him all day.
“I was thinking—” He brushed his lips under her ear. She shuddered and sighed. “We could go back up to the dune—”
“Mmhmm?” She shivered as he lightly brushed her jawline. Her body still craved him so much. Maybe this was what she needed. To feel connected to him again. To feel like they were on equal footing, like he wanted and needed her as much as she knew she wanted and needed him. To stop burying their feelings.
“The nearest neighbor is just down the beach a bit,” Vane growled in her ear. “What do you say we give them a show?”
Maggie turned sharply. “You're in to that?”
Vane smiled boyishly. “Well, I never have been before.” He tugged at her shirt collar. “But then again, I never had a hot teacher to show off before either.”
A lump rose in her throat. “I'm your hot teacher?” she asked, voice quavering. She tilted her head to search his face.
But he was intent on her bra. “How does this thing work?” he complained. “Why are you even wearing one, anyway?”
She stiffened and pulled back.
Vane immediately snatched his hand away. “Did I do something wrong?”
She crossed her arms miserably over her chest. “No,” she sighed.
“Are you okay?” He touched her cheek and finally looked her in the eye. “You seem... I don't know. You've seemed off all day.”
“Have I? Sorry.”
He frowned. “What's wrong?”
She shook her head and looked away. “You know what? I don't even know.” She turned towards the horizon. A thin band of blue still clung to the border between the sky and the sea, and for one moment the only thing she could think of was sprinting towards it. What lay on the other side of that line?
Shouldn't she be trying to find out?
13
A steady rain drummed on the roof. Or rather, Maggie assumed it did. She could look outside and see that it was raining. But she sure couldn't hear it.
“What?” she asked Annabelle for the third time.
“Argh!” the girl shrieked and clapped her hands over her ears. “It's so loud!” The near constant pathwack of a nail gun had been going for at least an hour now. Maggie wouldn't have minded if there was some kind of pattern to the noise. But the randomness and occasional ear-splitting tearing sound were enough to make her eyes water. “I said what about blue!” Annabelle shouted.
Maggie nodded and tried to wrench her thoughts back to the task at hand. She was helping Annabelle pick out the paint colors for her secret room. “I think that would definitely make it feel bigger, yeah.”
Annabelle grinned. “If it was blue, would you not be scared of going in there?”
“I'm not... “ Maggie pressed her lips together. How to explain a phobia to a child? “My mind isn't scared. It's my body. You ever have that? Where nothing is actually frightening, but your heart is pounding anyway?”
“And your scalp gets all tingly?” Annabelle touched her head. “Yeah. I have that a lot.”
Maggie's jaw dropped. “A lot?” she asked.
Annabelle nodded, still touching her head. “I thought it was because maybe my Dad was visiting. That's what happens in the movies anyway. When a ghost comes, your hair gets all prickly.”
Maggie swallowed hard. “Maybe that's what it is, then. I don't have that though. I just get really nervous in small spaces. I feel like I'm trapped.”
“You do?” Vane was standing in the doorway, carrying a box and looking heartbroken. “You feel trapped?”
Why did explaining feel like she was lying to him? “I was talking about my claustrophobia.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.” He didn't look convinced, but further conversation was cut off by another scraping sound outside the window. When it was over, he went on. “I brought you some things you could use to decorate your room.” The fact that he had to shout over the noise made it seem like he was yelling at her, which only made Maggie more uncomfortable.
“What?” Annabelle reached into the box and pulled out a framed picture. “It's me!' she squealed.
Maggie looked over her shoulder. “Oh!” It was a print of his shot of Annabelle on the dune. Her hair whipped in the wind and her face tilted upwards in a heroic pose, her profile highlighted by the sun. “Vane, it's beautiful!”
“There's more,” he said, looking pleased.
Maggie flipped eagerly through the shots of Annabelle. Here she was mid-leap off the porch. Here she was intently dripping sand through her fingers to make a drip castle. Here she was tearing across the sand like an Olympic athlete. Each shot was beautifully lit and carefully composed, capturing her quintessential Annabelle-ness. “You're really good,” she marveled.
He thanked her and stood up. “I have to take a call in a few minutes, but I thought you might want to hang some in the secret room. You pick whichever ones you like, and give me the ones you don't so I can hang them in my office, okay?”
Annabelle beamed at him. “Thanks, Uncle Vane.” She turned excitedly back to the box of photos. “What do you think, Miss Stewart? With the blue, right?” She held up a picture of her that was mostly sky.
The two of them spent the rest of the afternoon organizing and then painting Annabelle's secret room. By the time dinner rolled around, unable to decide on just a few, Annabelle had covered an entire wall in her favorite pictures of herself. She chose a few more for her bedroom, and as she closed her eyes that night, she smiled one last time at the picture of herself on the dunes.
“This feels like mine now,” she said sleepily.
Maggie padded silently to her bedroom with a smile on her face. She was still smiling as she settled onto her bed and undid her hair from its clasp.
“She asleep?” Vane was in her doorway still in his work clothes. His collar was unbuttoned at his throat, and his sleeves were rolled up, exposing his tanned forearms. For the first time that day, Maggie noticed it was finally silent enough that she could hear her heart beating in her ears.
“She is. And she was smiling.” Maggie stood up and went to him. “You made her so happy with those pictures.”
He took her hand readily in his. “I hoped she would like them.”
“She said it made this place feel like hers.” She touched his face and searched his eyes. It was so much easier to feel connected to him when he showed his simple thoughtfulness rather than his immense wealth. She brushed her finger over his lips and then followed it with a kiss. “You are doing right by her.”
“How about you?” he asked with a groan, pulling her into his arms. “I haven't felt like I'm doing right by you th
ese past few days.” He pressed his lips against her ear. “Can you let me try to do right by you now?”
She sagged against him, and as she yielded to his kisses, she deliberately shoved aside the misgivings of the past few days. It wasn't bad to want him. It wasn't bad to crave the way he made her body feel. She didn't need to go rushing off. Not when she had his warm, strong body pressed against hers.
Honestly, where else could she possibly want to be?
“Missed you,” he growled against her throat before spinning her around. She landed on her back on her bed, and opened her arms. He peeled off his shirt and dove for her like a starving man at a buffet.
They made love easily, picking right off where they'd left off. And as she shuddered in his arms and he trembled before groaning out her name, she felt that rightness again. The feeling she'd been searching for was back in her grasp.
Vane kissed her lips then her forehead before pushing back from her. “I didn't mean for that to happen, but it was a nice surprise.”
“Why else would you come to my room at night?” she teased, tugging the blankets up to her chest.
“To bring you this.” He stepped out into the hallway. When he turned back to her, he had another cardboard box in his hands. “These are for you.”
She sat up straighter. “My pictures?”
He grinned. “I hope you like them.”
“I'm sure I will; you captured Annabelle so perfectly I—” She trailed off as she pulled the first one from the stack.
It was a shot of her hand, bent at the wrist. A pink flower trailed casually from her fingers. It was a beautifully composed shot. But it was just her hand. She pulled out the next one.
“It's your smile,” Vane explained softly.
She swallowed and nodded. Another of her body parts, this time just the corner of her mouth and the tip of her earlobe.
Every single picture in the box was like this. There was a not a single complete shot of her. It was all parts. “That's my favorite part of you,” Vane explained as he pointed to the picture of the curve of her neck. “I love it when your hair is down, but when it's up I can see your neck like this.”
“Is that how you like me to wear it?”
“It's my favorite part of you,” he reiterated.
Maggie leafed through the photos again. “You took pictures of all your favorite parts, it looks like.” She tried to sound teasing, but her voice sounded unnaturally high in her ears.
“What can I say? I wanted to remember them.” He wouldn't meet her eye.
She turned away too. His favorite parts were only fractured images of the whole person. Was he not interested in her as a whole person, then? Was he only interested in the parts of her that were useful to him? She was good for having sex with and being around to look after his ward. He'd taken pictures of her neck, her hand, her smile. What clearer sign did she need to know that he only saw her this way? As a collection of parts? “Thank you,” she said stiffly, feigning a yawn. “Wow, I'm really beat. You wore me out.”
Vane frowned. But rather than ask what was wrong, he just nodded and left her room.
Maggie fell back on her bed. Her body was still sore from his loving and her lips still bruised from his kisses, but her mind was already far away. Tomorrow was the last day of her initial six-week contract.
She sat upright. If she was only a collection of parts, a convenient person to have around to suit his needs, then why should she stay? Keep moving, her mother's voice in her head, quiet up until now, suddenly shouted.
She jumped from her bed and grabbed her phone. “You up?” she texted Kiara.
The little dots blinked immediately. “Lying here ignoring the lack of man in my bed,” Kiara replied.
Maggie grinned in spite of herself. “You're better off without him.”
“I keep telling myself that. What's up?”
Maggie pressed her lips together and shoved the idea of Annabelle having to adjust to someone new from her brain. This was always the way it was supposed to happen, right? Vane was always going to have to find someone new after she left. She was doing him a favor, really. “Do you still talk to Melinda? Is she looking for a job right now?” Melinda had been Kiara's boss back when she worked at the co-op. A fifty-year-old who still thought she was twenty-five, she was perennially short on cash. But she had a sweet, motherly air about her, and she would be perfect. Really.
The dots reappeared. “If she wasn't so damn picky, she'd have found something by now. But she stormed out of an interview last week because she found out the boss of the company didn't recycle.”
Maggie smiled again. “Give her my number. I have a position for her.”
For all her slowness when it came to the men in her life, Kiara was always quick to pick up on everything else. “You leaving early?”
“I'm leaving when I said I would.” Maggie leaned back and stared at the words she'd just written. Seeing them there, in stark black and white, didn't feel as good as she'd hoped. Hoping that doubling down on it would make it feel more enticing, she added, “It's time for my next adventure.”
From down the hall came the sound of Annabelle murmuring in her sleep. Maggie braced herself for the scream of a night terror.
But Annabelle giggled.
14
Maggie tripled checked the email before hitting Send. Then she zipped up her duffel bag.
It was still dark outside, but she could hear Vane moving around downstairs as he got ready for the day. She took one last look at her empty room, checking to see that the “parts” pictures were all carefully returned to their box, before shutting off the light and closing the door.
She should be feeling excited, she reminded herself. And she was. Starting the next stage of her adventure was a happy moment, not a sad one. It's the lack of sleep, she rationalized. You were up half the night.
Once she made up her mind, everything happened fast. Kiara contacted Melinda, who had texted her well past midnight. She'd emailed the references Maggie asked for right away, impressive for a hippie who wore her gray hair in a fat braid that extended past her hips. Maggie had even paid for the background check, just to give Vane peace of mind. She'd emailed it right to him so it was there waiting for him after she said goodbye.
After she said goodbye.
She squared her shoulders. How would he react? She'd lain awake half the night imagining his reaction. All the variations, from indifference to tears to rage. She was pretty sure she could handle most of them.
Except indifference. Though that should be the easiest to deal with, she would prefer he yell at her rather than show her he'd never really cared.
She swallowed and descended the stairs. When she stepped into the kitchen, he looked up with a bright smile that faded the instant he saw her bag. “Going somewhere?”
She nodded. This was not the time to lose her nerve. “Yes. Today is the day I was always supposed to leave, Vane.”
He blinked. “You said you'd stay longer.”
“Because you need childcare longer, right?” she pressed. And waited. Waited for him to say this was so much more than just her watching Annabelle. Waited for him to say he wanted her to stay for him, because he loved her... dammit. She swallowed hard as she realized that was exactly it. She wanted him to love her the way she loved him. “Right? That's why you wanted me to stay longer?”
He blinked again. “Well... yeah.”
It was so innocuous, but to Maggie it was a punch to the gut. The air exploded from her lungs as if he'd struck a blow and took with it all her nervousness and hope.
In its place was anger. Bright, hot, and all consuming. “Then you're fine,” she snapped. “Because I arranged it all for you. I have another nanny all lined up.”
“Another nanny?”
“Yes, isn't that what you need? Someone else to watch Annabelle?”
“No. Wait, you're really leaving?” He was suddenly thunderous. “How could you do this, Maggie?”
“You knew
all along I would do this! Don't pretend to be surprised!”
“I'm not surprised, I'm pissed!”
“Why?” She was crying and didn't want to be. She wanted to be strong, and he made her feel so weak. They weren't equal and never had been. He'd always been her boss. “Tell me exactly why you're upset." It was pathetic how much she needed him to change her mind. Tell her why he wanted her to stay.”
“Because you're going to break Annabelle's heart!” he roared.
She stared at him. “Her heart? Just hers?”
Vane's voice broke. “Please don't leave, Maggie.” He swallowed. “She needs you.”
She laughed and shook her head. “No, Vane. You're her guardian. She needs you. And I need to go.”
* * *
She left.
Vane stood stock still in the center of the kitchen. He felt like his feet had turned to stone, but his mind was spiraling downward.
A knock at the door shook him out of his breakdown.
Bewildered, he robotically moved to answer it. Why would Maggie be knocking at the door?
On the porch stood a flustered-looking middle-aged woman he’d never seen before in his life. He was sure of this, because she was instantly memorable, with her long, thick rope of graying hair and startlingly young eyes.
“I’m so sorry I am late,” she babbled as she burst in through the door. “I was looking for someone who could watch my granddaughter, since she’s home for the summer, but there wasn’t anyone. I hope it's not a problem I brought her with me."
“I’m sorry, who are you?”
She was completely unfazed. “Melinda. Maggie sent me.”
“You have a granddaughter?” Annabelle had appeared at the door and was peering around it eagerly.
McClellan Billionaires: The Complete Series Page 29