crisis. “Of course you’re going home,” he said, and leaned forward, to poke a long fork into the flames, push at the logs, creating a fireworks of sparks shooting up the giant chimney-and a spray of light that glowed on her skin. “Just not quite this minute. See, back home, you have all those people who want to bite off a piece of you. That’s what happens when you inherit serious money. It brings out the vultures in people, even normally good people. And you know the real problem with that?”
“Everything.”
“No.” He hooked an arm around her shoulder-not too close-no fingers touching what they shouldn’t. Just a hug-hook. Nothing more. “The real problem is that
“You’re a goofy man, Maguire.”
“I’ve been insulted worse. Trust me.” He looked around, too damn aware of her warm skin, the scents surrounding her, that tousled brush of silvery-blond hair.
“I don’t want to be…beholden to you. You don’t owe me anything, much less all the time you’ve been taking-”
“This isn’t about owing. It’s about understanding. I know exactly what that inheritance did to your life because I know exactly what it did to my own family. It’s been sabotaging everything you could do or be. But I can stop that from happening to you. I can help you make it work.”
“No, you can’t.”
“Actually, I can, Carolina. I can teach you to be tough. I can show you how to handle this, the way no one else can, because you know positively that I don’t need or want anything from you.”
She frowned. “You always sound so logical when you start talking. Only, what I’m saying is logical, too. No matter what I do, people are going to be unhappy with me.”
“And that’s a big deal, huh?”
“Maybe it wouldn’t be for you. And I’m not trying to win a popularity contest like a thirteen-year-old kid, Maguire. I’m just trying to live a decent life. Do the things that matter to me.”
Somewhere around here, there had to be some liquid refreshment that didn’t involve sour-tasting herbs or mystery gray stuff that was “good for you.” He got up, prowled around the various cupboards and shelves, found a carafe, sterling goblets, plain old bottled water. “I want you to think for a minute,” he said.
“I am thinking.” She also took the goblet of simple cool water and gulped it down.
“Back when you became a special ed teacher, you were influenced by what you believed you could do. That affected where you could go to college, the goals you had then, the places you applied for work. Essentially you established boundaries that worked for your life then-but now, you can take all that fencing away. Imagine, if you could have gone to any university on the planet, would you still have chosen the school you went to?”
She sipped more water. “That’s impossible to know.”
“Nope. That’s the point. What was impossible before could be totally possible for you now. If you wanted-and still want-to do things for kids with special needs, you have a whole basketful of options to pick from these days. You can still teach, if that’s what you want. But you could also start your own school for kids with special needs, if you wanted that. Or you could get a group of experts together, come up with entirely new program ideas for special-needs kids. There’s no limit to where you could take just this one part of your life.”
She frowned. “You’re messing with my head, Maguire.”
“And that’s exactly what I want to do for a couple weeks. Mess with your head. Show you how to use that money instead of it using you. Help you get what you want.”
“Maguire? What if I want something that you don’t agree with.”
“That’s easy. This isn’t about me. I don’t have to agree with anything. If you want it, then we’ll find a way to help you go for it.” He thought the whole talk was going pretty well. Very well, in fact, but there was something in her expression that changed. She faced him, her soft eyes glued on his, studying, examining. Thinking. Thinking too much. It was obvious she was the kind of woman who got in trouble if she spent too much time thinking. “What?” he said impatiently.
“I could want to go after something, no holds barred, risk everything, that you’d really have a problem with.”
“Like what?”
“Like what if I wanted
Her voice was softer than melted butter. He almost had a heart attack, but thank God, the phone vibrated in his pocket. He grabbed for it with a palm that was wet with sudden sweat-shock sweat-and could barely manage a coherent conversation.
The call only lasted a minute. By that time, he’d managed to shoot to the other side of the room, with a massive old medieval table between them, which had to weigh five hundred pounds. Not that he was afraid of her. The waif? How could he possibly be afraid of the waif? He just felt more…secure…with a little distance between them. At least until he recovered from the words she’d blurted out. Especially that one word. The four-letter one.
“We can talk seriously. And nonseriously. About a lot of things.” That was a promise. “But right now, there are some people coming up here.”
“Wait a minute. What people? Why?”
Thank God they got here. Initially he’d been wary of setting up the Shoe Project, wary that Carolina wasn’t ready for any commotion yet. But “Italian shoes” had been high on her wish list, and rather than spend time actually shopping in Rome or Milan-not his favorite pastime, for sure-he figured it’d be more time efficient to bring the products to her. It wasn’t as if her shoe size had been hard to find out ahead of time.
He sprang up when he heard the first knock on the door, and then the parade began. Almost all the vendors were men, carrying boxes and carts, with labels like JP Tod, Miu Miu, Fendi, Versace, Casadei.
Carolina-the precariously fragile woman he’d found curled in a hospital bed in a fetal position-started shrieking like a child on a playground.
The scene deteriorated from awful to worse. Maguire hiked to the bar, grabbed a malt liquor and hastily retreated to a corner, out of harm’s way. It only took minutes for their serene living space to turn into Armageddon. Boxes were opened, splayed. Carolina was fitted, argued over, and encouraged to walk up and down the room in various shoes.
He had no idea that shoes had their own language, but he kept hearing terms he’d never heard before, like “Dorsay pumps” and “kidskin with a Swarovski buckle” and “burgundy strapper.” One Miu Miu was defined as a “feather shoe,” which is exactly what it looked like-a bunch of silly feathers-so Maguire was confounded how the pair could cost five thousand bucks. A lavender sandal from Versace almost made Carolina drool-she was groaning like a woman in the throes of orgasm-and then came something identified as a red patent-leather lace-up. One look at that pair and she started giggling. And dancing around the room with the swagger of a goofy drunk.
En route, he accidentally noticed that he’d vastly underestimated her legs before. Maybe she was generally built on the scrappy side, but her ankles and calves and thighs… there was nothing wrong with those legs. They were toned, shaped perfectly, an erotic dream for a guy who had a leg fetish.
When his thoughts strayed in that direction, Maguire pulled those reins tight. This wasn’t about him. In fact, Carolina acting like a giddy, happy schoolgirl highlighted exactly what the real issues were about. She had a serious character flaw. That flaw was that she was a serious, hard-core, possibly unfixable softie. As far as he could tell, she was forever giving, always thinking of others, always looking to help others.
The world was going to kill her-particularly now that she had money-unless Maguire found ways to toughen her up. Her guileless warning that she could fall in love with him only echoed his own conscience. She had no defenses, not against feelings of the heart.
Only a manipulative user of a man would take advantage of that. He had to keep his hands off her.
Which was, temporarily, relatively easy.
“Maguire!” she shrieked. “What do you think?”
