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It was the perfect thing for him to do. He was perfect. Everything was perfect. Except none of this was real. He was only doing this out of pity.
“Matt,” she started, but he shook his head.
“Don’t say anything now,” he said. “Let’s take a walk.”
He tossed a small wad of bills onto the table, and held out his hand for her. She let him lead her out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk that led to the marina.
The sky was clear and the moon was up.
Maggie shivered in the cool air, and Matt moved to put his arm around her shoulders, but she sidestepped him.
He caught her arm. “I made a mistake last night,” he said, breaking their silence.
“Matt, I know—”
“Wait. Just hear me out, okay?”
She nodded, moving over to the railed fence that lined the edge of the seawall. She couldn’t meet his eyes, instead looking at the moonlight reflecting off the surface of the water.
“I was trying to be noble,” he told her. “I thought I was protecting you. But I was wrong, and I want to rewind and take it from the hot tub, okay?”
She closed her eyes.
“Come on, Maggie, look at me.”
Slowly, she turned.
“I want to make love to you.” He pulled her toward him. She didn’t know how he did it, but he actually managed to make his eyes hot with desire.
“Matt—”
“I’ve wanted to make love to you since we were in high school,” he said as he pulled her close, as he kissed her neck, her throat, her jaw.
“Please stop,” she said weakly. If he kissed her on the lips, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stop.
And then he did. His lips found hers, and he kissed her slowly, languidly, his tongue exploring her mouth and…
Maggie smacked him on the butt with the cardboard flower box. He let go of her, staring as if she were insane.
Maybe she was. Anyone who would willingly stop a man from kissing her like that had to be more than touch crazy.
“I know what you’re doing.” She backed away so that there was distance between them. “I thought you’d try something like this. When you found out today about Vanessa and Brock… You feel sorry for me and you’re trying to make me feel better.”
He laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think so—”
“It’s not working,” she told him. “You can turn off the act.”
“This isn’t an act.” He reached for her, but she brandished the flower box again. He laughed. “Maggie, I swear—”
“And I’ve kissed you often enough on stage to know that you can play the part of the passionate lover with your eyes closed and both hands tied behind your back.”
“Oh, come on—”
“Please, Matt,” Maggie begged. “I’m exhausted. I don’t want to fight with you right now. Don’t make this worse than it already is.”
He shook his head and started to speak but stopped himself. Without another word, he led her back to his car.
They drove home in silence, but as he pulled into the garage, he looked at her. “It’s not an act.”
“Good night,” she told him, and nearly ran into the house, into the room she’d claimed as her bedroom.
She locked the door behind her. But she wasn’t sure if she was locking him out—or herself in.
Nine
Matt’s eyes opened as the sun streamed into his tower bedroom.
He glanced at his clock: 6:18. Four hours of sleep. Not bad. Not great, but not bad, considering…
Maggie was only one floor beneath him, but after last night, she might as well be a million miles away.
He’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, trying to ignore how much he wanted her, trying to figure out how he’d be able to return to his status of friend after tasting her lips. But he’d done it before. He’d fallen desperately in love with her more than ten years ago, and he’d survived.
Or had he?
Matt had spent the night alternately praying that it would simply be a matter of time before she came to him, and praying that he would have the strength to keep his distance from her.
It was probably a good thing that she’d told him no last night.
It was ten days and counting until he was scheduled to go back to the hospital for a checkup. He’d all but decided not to go, thinking it was little more than a visit to a high-tech fortune teller. Whether he was going to live for one year, ten years, or a hundred years certainly mattered to him, but knowing wouldn’t change the way he lived his life.
Except now everything had turned upside down, and now he desperately wanted to know.
He pulled himself out of bed.
He had work to do.
Maggie grabbed an apple from the refrigerator, still humming the melody from the summer musical’s closing number.
The first rehearsal—a read through of the script—had gone well, except for the fact that she’d counted seven different times she was going to have to kiss Matt on stage. Each kiss would have to be set up, blocked and rehearsed. Over and over again. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.
As she took a bite of the apple, she opened up the connecting door to the office and turned on the lights.
“Whoa,” Matt said. “What are you doing?”
“I want to look over those numbers some more,” she said.
She held her apple in her teeth as she used both hands to clear a stack of file folders from one of the chairs. The conference table itself was stacked high with files and bound reports and computer printouts. They had worked hard all day, right up to the rehearsal.
“It’s nearly midnight.” Matt cleared off another chair so he could sit, too. “This will still be here tomorrow.”
“These numbers are bad,” Maggie said. “I’ve looked at the quarterly reports for the past four years, and the gross profits have remained pretty darn constant, even after your dad died. There’s not a lot of room for increased profits here, Matt.”
“So what do we do?”
She stretched her arms over her head. “I guess we have to start thinking creatively.”
“Oh, good.”
“Good?” She looked at him in disbelief.
He grinned. “Quarterly reports and gross profits make my head spin. But creative thinking is something I can handle.”
It was true. Even back in school, Matt had never had the patience for math. He hadn’t been very good at following rules. But in terms of creativity, he was a pro. Put him in an empty room with a canvas and paints, and you’d get a masterpiece. Most likely the canvas would remain blank and the masterpiece would be painted on the wall, but it would be truly magnificent.
“Tomorrow we should go down and take a look at the plant,” she said. “Maybe that will trigger your creative process.”
“Okay,” he said easily, idly picking up a thick file folder and leafing through it. “God, can you believe a temporary secretary costs more than forty dollars an hour from some of these agencies? That’s not within our budget, is it?”
Maggie searched through the piles of reports for the current year’s annual budget. “Actually, it is. But we can cut costs. I mean, jeez, we could hire Stevie to be our slave for fifteen dollars an hour.”
Matt smiled. “That’s a great idea. Let’s hire Steve.”
She looked at him in exasperation. “I was kidding.”
“Can he type?”
“Probably. He’s always online.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow.”
“Matt, sometimes I think you’re totally nuts.” She rubbed the back of her neck, twisting her head to stretch the muscles. She’d have to make time tomorrow to get in a workout at the club.
With a start, she felt Matt’s hands touching her shoulders. She stood up quickly, breaking free. “Don’t,” she told him.
“Mags, lighten up. I was trying to help you relax.”
“Well, just don’t, okay?”
He didn’t say anything then. He stood there, looking at her, his eyes guarded, his face nearly expressionless.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I know it must have confused you when I… did what I did the other night. I was upset and angry and I wasn’t thinking clearly. Sometimes I wonder if I’m still not thinking clearly. But I do know that you were right. Our friendship is far too valuable to throw away for a little sex.”
She risked a glance at him, and found he’d turned to stare out the window. Part of the lawn was lit by spotlights aimed at the house, and the semicircles of bright green grass stood out as islands in the surrounding sea of darkness.
“I’m still feeling really vulnerable,” she said softly. “Every time you touch me, I question your motivation. And damn it, I don’t want your pity, Matt.”
He just shook his head. “You know, if I’m feeling sorry for anyone here, it’s myself.”
She rolled her eyes. “I need you to give me some space so we can get things back to normal.” Sooner or later she’d start feeling human again. Sooner or later, she’d be able to accept a back rub from him without wanting his hands to caress her entire body.
“All right.” He glanced at her and forced a smile. “I’m going up to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He made a wide circuit around Maggie, careful not to get too close, and went out of the office without looking back.
Wait, she wanted to say, but she kept her mouth tightly shut.
“You did what?” Angie’s voice sounded remarkably clear over the international connection.
Maggie smiled, imagining the look on her friend’s face. “I moved out. It was right after I had a fight with Van, who moved back home because she and Mitch are getting a divorce, and now she wants to go out with Brock, so he dumped me, but that’s okay because he was a jerk, and this all happened on the same day I quit my job because I’m working full-time for Matthew now.”
Angie’s stunned silence was extremely impressive because she was Angie and rarely stunned or silent.
“So what else is new?” she finally asked.
“I got the lead in the summer musical,” Maggie said.
“I was kidding,” Angie exploded. “Damn, Mags is that all?”
“That about covers it.”
She sat in her nightgown, with her feet up on the late Mr. Stone’s big desk, talking on his private line. She’d gotten up very early to give Angie a call. It was already lunchtime in London, and she knew her friend was rarely home in the afternoon.
“Let me get this straight. You’re working for Matthew?”
“Yep.”
“He’s paying you?”
“What, do you think I’d do it for free?”
“You? Yes.”
Maggie laughed. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“How is he?” Angie asked.
“He’s fine,” Maggie told her friend. “He’s great, actually. He’s changed an awful lot, Ange.”
She snorted. “Don’t count on it. With Matt, you never know what’s reality and what’s just an elaborate song and dance. My guess is right now he’s taken on the role of the prodigal son. He’s probably imitating his dear departed father, dressing like a businessman and saying things like, ‘Let’s do lunch.”’
“No,” Maggie said. “He’s not. I don’t know exactly what happened, but he went through some very tough times over the past few years. He’s different now. You’d probably have trouble recognizing him.”
“Now that I refuse to believe,” Angie said. “Hey, tell me what happened with that jungle guy from the club. You meet him yet?”
“Um,” Maggie said cautiously. “Yes, I did.”
“And…?”
