In the Boss's Castle

by Jessica Gilmore

  She knew better. How many times had her mother told her that this is the one? The man who was going to rescue them. The man who was going to give them a home, make them into a real family. Every time Tanya Carter fell all the way in straight away, offering herself up like a sacrifice only to wonder why every time she was left with her heart ripped out, alone and defenceless. Maddison had learned early that you kept your heart locked away, you didn’t let anyone into your soul—and you made sure you came out on top, always.

  Only where had that knowledge got her? She hadn’t allowed Bart into her heart and he had still left her—only for her to crash headlong into an ill-thought-out flirtation. She’d known Kit was dangerous early on but hubristically had thought she was invincible, that she could handle him. And what had happened? She had allowed Kit perilously close. But not all the way in. She wasn’t that stupid. Thank goodness.

  The ache in her chest intensified. She was so tired of being lonely, that was all. She was ready for her safe, secure happy ever after. No more deviations.

  But was she really ready? Maddison sighed, staring blindly out at the sea. These last few weeks had thrown her badly off balance, all her plans, her dreams now up in the air. Did she want to try and get Bart back? She tried to picture the future she had dreamed of but the vision was blurry. No, she wanted more than a loveless marriage of convenience. Did she want to put all her efforts into her career? At least that was going right—but what if she missed out on meeting the right guy? Ended up fifty, alone and childfree?

  She wanted it all. Kit’s face floated into her mind, that amused smile on his mouth, laughter in the blue eyes. Maddison’s mouth twisted. Had she learned nothing? He wasn’t even here. Her heart began to beat painfully, each thud reminding her that she was alone once again.

  Maybe she needed to look backwards before she looked forwards. Maybe it was time she faced just who she was, who she had been. Maybe that way she would find the answers she needed.

  She checked the time again. Seven-thirty. She could do with coffee, juice, something to push away the ache in her head and her chest. What was the etiquette with breakfasting in castles anyway? She doubted that a maid would come in with a breakfast tray. She should find her way to the kitchen and sort out a coffee and a plan. A plan always made everything better.

  Resolutely Maddison got to her feet but before she moved a step the door swung open to reveal Kit, fully dressed, shadows emphasizing his eyes, his stubble darker than usual. He looked as if he hadn’t slept a wink. Maddison’s heart began to beat faster, adrenaline mixing with anticipation and dread. His mouth was set in a grim line, his eyes unsmiling.

  ‘I brought you a coffee.’ He held out a huge mug and she took it gratefully, cradling it between her hands, drawing courage from the warmth.

  ‘Thanks, I was about to venture out in search of the kitchen but I didn’t have a ball of string long enough to guide me back.’ She kept her voice deliberately light and carefree and saw some of the tension leave him. ‘It’s a beautiful day. Which is a shame because I’d really like to explore the area, I’ve hardly had a chance to do more than glimpse it, but I really need to be getting back.’

  He must know that was a lie. He knew she knew hardly anyone else in London, knew that all her time was spent either working for him, testing out routes with him or on her own with a takeaway. But he didn’t challenge her. She hadn’t been expecting him to but disappointment stabbed through her anyway. ‘I was thinking of staying here a few more days.’

  I, not we. Not unexpected. ‘That’s a good idea.’

  ‘I went fishing with my father this morning. There’s a lot we need to discuss. About the future of this place. My role in it.’

  ‘Kit,’ she said as gently as she could. ‘You don’t need to explain, not to me.’

  He carried on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘I feel bad that you have to make your own way back, though. There’s a taxi booked to take you all the way to Glasgow and I’ve bought you a first-class ticket back to London. As a thank you for coming with me.’

  ‘You didn’t have to do that.’

  ‘I did.’ His mouth tilted. ‘You gave up your weekend again. It was very kind of you.’

  ‘Well, thank you.’ She took a sip of the scaldingly hot coffee, the pain almost welcome in this falsely polite exchange. ‘I meant what I said yesterday, Kit. I’m not Camilla. We didn’t make any promises and I’m not the kind of girl who reads wedding bells into every kiss.’

  ‘Not unless you planned it that way.’ There was a hint of warmth in his eyes and she wanted to hold on to it, blow it into life, but she held back, wrapping her dignity around her like a protective cloak.

  ‘You know me, always with the plan.’ And that, Maddison realized, was the part that was so hard to say goodbye to. He did know her. Almost better than she knew herself. More than anyone else in the whole wide world. And that wasn’t enough for him. She wasn’t enough.

  She’d done good work here. She’d helped him break down some of his guilt, helped ease some of his burden, shown him that he was a man worth knowing. Maybe she’d paved the way for someone with more confidence, someone who didn’t care about rejection, someone who knew what they were worth to come in and finish the job. And obviously that thought hurt because she was a little raw right now, but that was a good thing, right? She cared about him; he was her friend and he deserved happiness.

  And he had done the same for her. The last couple of weeks she had been happy. He’d given her the tools to set her free; she just needed to use them. She was a work in progress, not set in stone after all. The future was hers if she had the courage to embrace it.

  ‘What time is the taxi coming?’

  ‘Soon. It’s a couple of hours to Glasgow and a long train ride. I thought you would want to salvage some of your weekend.’

  ‘I’d better pack, then.’ She glanced over at the Halston dress hanging forlornly on the wardrobe door. Last night it had been fantastically, recklessly glamorous. Today it looked limp and a little worse for wear. Like its wearer. ‘Don’t feel that you have to keep me company, Kit. I have a few things to do and I’d like to make sure I say a proper thank you to your mother before I go. Honestly. I’m fine.’

  He paused then nodded, dropping one light kiss onto the top of her head before turning away. It wasn’t until Maddison watched Kilcanon disappear behind her that she realized that he hadn’t even said goodbye.

  * * *

  Kit swivelled his office chair round and stared unseeingly out across the London skyline. A view that denoted success, status. Just as his expensive chair, his vintage desk, his penthouse office did.

  It was cold comfort. In fact there was precious little comfort anywhere. Not here, in this gleaming, glass-clad, supersized office. Not at night in a house far too big for one person, especially a person who barely spent any time there. He’d never noticed before just how bland his house was, like a luxurious and tasteful hotel, not a home. Had he chosen a single one of the varying shades of cream, olive, steel or grey, positioned any one of the statement pieces in the large empty rooms? No, it looked almost exactly the same as it had when the expensive interior decorator had walked away. Like a show home: all facade and no heart.

  A bit like his life.

  Kit’s mouth pressed into a hard line. He knew better than most how hard Maddison’s life had been, how she was searching for a place of her own, for security. And what had he done? Made her feel so unwanted that her only option was to leave. Leave a job she loved, a fantastic opportunity she had been headhunted for, in order to avoid him. The irony was that his own notice was in and he would be moving on himself in a couple of months. She should have stayed; he could have moved her to another department if she really wanted to avoid him.

  He’d been relieved, that morning in Scotland, at her apparent lack of emotion. Alarm bells should have been
screeching. He should have looked deeper but he’d seen what he’d wanted to see. What it was easier for him to see. Again.

  He’d told himself that he was doing the right thing, that giving her some space was exactly what they had both needed. But when he’d got back to London she had gone. Family emergency, apparently. Which was interesting because he knew full well that she didn’t have any family, not that she was in touch with anyway.

  So, it wasn’t hard to deduce that she had disappeared in order to avoid seeing him. He should be glad. It made a difficult situation a lot more tenable. No tears and constant phone calls from Maddison; she had more class than that. His mouth thinned. He couldn’t just let her vanish into thin air; he should make sure she was okay, that she had somewhere to go. He owed her that. Otherwise he was no better than that idiot on the porch swing.

  After all, Bart had obviously had no idea of Maddison’s worth, but Kit didn’t have that excuse. He knew exactly what she was, who she was; he knew just how brightly she shone. Had pushed her away, afraid of being burnt by her flame. The whole time he had been in Scotland he had wished that she were there, had wanted to discuss the compromise he’d made with his father with her. Wanted to hear her thoughts on his plan—a plan that involved spending half the year in Scotland and branching out as a freelancer again. Using his entrepreneurial skills to help shore up and revitalize the Kilcanon economy.

  He’d told himself that pushing her away was for her own good, that she deserved someone better than him but, he realized with scalding shame, he’d been lying to himself all along. He who prided himself on his unflinching honesty. He’d pushed her away because he was scared, because she made him feel. She’d made him feel hope. And how had he repaid her? He needed to make sure she was okay. He needed to say sorry. He needed to tell her exactly how brightly she shone.

  A call to New York established that Maddison hadn’t returned there and that Hope hadn’t heard from her. Kit racked his brains. She had never said where she was from. All he knew was that it was a coastal town in New England. That narrowed it down to thousands of miles of coastline, then.

  Kit turned back to his desk and, with a few quick taps, brought Maddison’s personnel file up on his screen. He stared at the small yellow envelope. As her line manager he had every right to look in there, more than a right; he had a duty to record appraisals, chart her performance. But, no matter what he told himself, he knew he wasn’t looking as a line manager.

  He wasn’t even looking as a concerned friend.

  He missed her. He was pretty damn sure he needed her. Terrifyingly sure that actually he was desperately and irrevocably in love with her.

  Love. Was that what this was? This emptiness? This need? This willingness to fall on his sword a thousand times?

  He clicked on the icon.

  There they were—her application documents, anonymous forms, filled in, filed and forgotten. Until now. He opened her résumé and began reading. She had graduated summa cum laude from Martha George, a small liberal arts college in New York State, and, while there, had spent her summers working as an intern for various PR agencies before joining a new agency soon after graduating. Two years later she was applying for a job at DL Media.

  He scanned further down. Graduated class valedictorian from Bayside High on Cape Cod... Bayside High...got her.

  But he needed more. He couldn’t just turn up in a strange town armed with a photo of her and track her down, could he? He closed the document, opening up her employee details instead. Name, address, Social Security number...there it was. Next of Kin. Only it was blank. She had cut her mother completely out of her life.

  What must that be like? His own parents were still hurting, still recovering from Euan’s death, from Kit’s own emotional and physical distance, but they were there, always there. What must it be like having nobody at all to rely on?

  Kit opened another couple of documents at random: appraisals, the move from PR to editorial, her references. It was all in order and yet it told him nothing. Finally he clicked on the last document, her college reference. It was a breakdown of her entire time there, classes taken, grades achieved—and her scholarship recommendation.

  He read through the recommendation, words jumping out.

  Despite her difficult background...

  Three jobs...

  Tenacious and hardworking...

  Ambitious...

  Legal emancipation...

  Needs a chance...

  No parental support, emotionally or financially...

  Seeing her past written there so baldly hit him in a way her confession hadn’t. No wonder she pushed everyone away. No wonder she always had to be in control, couldn’t show that she needed anyone.

  She had never been able to rely on anyone.

  Well, hard luck. He was going to be there for her whether she wanted him to be or not. And when he knew she was okay, then he would walk away. If that was what she truly wanted. Only if that was what she truly wanted.

  He’d thought that keeping the rest of the world at bay was what he’d deserved, that he owed Euan a lifetime of remorse and loneliness. Wouldn’t it be better to honour his brother’s legacy by living? By feeling? The good and the bad.

  Kit walked back to his desk and read the reference again, noting down the address.

  He was going to find out exactly what made Maddison Carter tick, and when he had done so he was going to fix her. He was going to make everything better for someone else for once in his life, no matter what it cost him.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MADDISON’S HANDS GREW clammy and she gripped the steering wheel so tight the plastic bit into her palms. Ahead of her the road segued smoothly onto the bridge that separated Cape Cod from the mainland.

  The bridge that would take her home.

  It was eight years since she had bid it farewell in her rear-view mirror. Waved and sworn never to return. Up until today she had kept that vow.

  But it was time to face her demons, confront her past—then maybe she could move forward. Maybe she too would finally deserve some kind of happiness. Her stomach twisted and she gulped in air against the rising panic. Would she be able to find happiness without Kit?

  No. This wasn’t about Kit. This was about her, Maddison, finally taking stock of who she was and where she had come from. This was about moving on. This was about learning to be happy. If she could...

  The bridge soared over the narrow strip of water separating the Cape from the mainland. Mouth set, eyes straight ahead, Maddison maintained a steady speed over the bridge and onto the highway, which ran the full length of the Cape all the way up to Provincetown on the very tip. She wound down her window and the smell hit instantly: salt and gorse. Despite everything she breathed in deeply, letting the familiar air fill her lungs. Despite everything it whispered to her that she was home.

  Her turn-off was thirty miles up the Cape, at the spot where the land narrowed and twisted, like an arm raised in victory. She turned instinctively, driving on autopilot, until she found herself entering the small town of Bayside.

  Bayside always looked at its best in early summer, when everything was spruced up ready for the seasonal influx that quadrupled the town’s population. The freshly painted shopfronts gleamed in the morning sun, the town had an air of suppressed anticipation just as it did every May, a stark contrast to the weary fade of September.

  But some things had changed; several cycle-hire stores had sprung up offering helmets, kiddie trailers and tandems as well as a bewildering assortment of road and trail bikes. Maddison’s mouth twisted as she remembered how she had been teased for riding her rusty bike around the town, not driving like her classmates. She guessed she had just been ahead of the curve. The cycle shops weren’t the only new stores; driving slowly, Maddison noticed an assortment of new delis, coffee shops, organic
cafes and bakeries, many of which wouldn’t have been out of place in the Upper East Side or on Stoke Newington Church Street. It was a long way away from the ice-cream parlours and burger joints of her youth.

  Bayside had always been a town divided, not once, but two or three times. Locals versus visitors. Summer-home owners versus two-week vacationers. Vacationers versus day trippers. And at the bottom of the heap, divided from everyone, were the town’s poor, dotted here and there in trailers or falling-down cottages, on scrubland worth millions less than the prime real estate on the ocean edge. That had been Maddison’s world.

  Her stomach tightened as she drove out of town, past the small, dusty road that led to Bill’s Bar, a small, shabby establishment frequented only by locals—her mother’s second home. If she took that road and pulled in would she see the all-too-familiar sight of her mother, propping up the bar, another drink in front of her? She accelerated past, heading for the Bayside Inn where she had reserved a room. Once she’d asked them for a job and been turned away. Now her money was as good as anyone’s.

  Two hours later, showered and refuelled by some excellent coffee, Maddison was back in the car, continuing on the road out of town following the shore. The town was situated by a huge natural bay and the beaches were sheltered, the water warm and safe; in low tide it was possible to walk out for what seemed like miles and still only be waist deep. The beautiful sand-dune beaches on the other side of town plunged swimmers straight into the icy swell of the ocean, where seals frolicked within swimming distance—and where the seals swam the great whites weren’t far behind. Property overlooking the ocean on both sides was at a premium and Maddison drove past tall electronic gates prohibiting access to the vast, sprawling houses within, their views worth more than their opulent interiors.