to make it all better?”
“Yes,” he informed her with breathtaking arrogance. “We did not have a relationship. I broke no promises. You should not be so upset.”
Pain that should not be possible considering how numb she felt in her misery sliced through her. “No. We didn’t…don’t have a relationship, but you told me you wouldn’t fire me if I came to your bed.”
His face cleared as if finally he understood what was upsetting her. “And I will not,” he said as if he deserved a medal or something. “It was a simple misunderstanding.”
She shook her head at his misreading of the situation. “I’m going to be looking for another job today.”
He frowned in irritation. “You cannot.”
“I can.”
“Not over this. There is no reason. It was a foolish mistake we would both be better off forgetting.”
“There is every reason. I can’t forget it. I’m sorry.”
“I do not want your apology. I want you to stay on as my housekeeper.”
“How can I?”
“You are being unreasonable. You have no reason to be embarrassed or want to leave. As far as I’m concerned, last night never happened.”
“Does Liana know that?”
“I did not mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
“It is inappropriate for you to comment on my private life in that way.”
“Pardon me. I guess it’s a good thing I’ll be looking for other employment, then, isn’t it? I’m obviously not as discreet as you need me to be.”
“This morning is an aberration. One I intend to forget.”
Just like she had been forgotten when a beautiful woman had come along to usurp her in his sexual desires.
“Have you considered it will not be so easy to find another job?”
“Yes.”
“At least agree to stay until you find something else.”
“Fine.”
She’d ended up staying until the end of the semester as she’d originally planned, because finding another job to work with her tight school schedule had been impossible. But things changed between them.
She still took care of the domestic side of his life, but she spent a lot more time on campus, at the library and with the few friends she’d made. She now prepared most of his meals ahead of time and left instructions for heating. When he wanted Liana to dine with him, she made the extra portions without complaint, but never shared another meal with him herself. Not even breakfast.
Thankfully Liana was not a local college student, so she wasn’t there often, but her presence could be felt in the daily constraint between Tom and Maggie.
When he asked the other woman to marry him, Maggie was not surprised, but being prepared for it did not soften the blow, and her heart bled.
He invited her to the wedding and she told him they didn’t have that kind of relationship, that she didn’t plan to see him again after school ended for the summer. He was her boss, not her friend and when school got out, he would no longer be even that.
For once, he had not stubbornly insisted on getting his own way, which said all she needed to know about how he really saw her.
She’d worked out a job and living arrangements by the end of the semester and moved out a week before he did. She did not bother giving him her new address and did not ask for information on where he planned to live after graduation.
She would not be able to handle seeing him married to the other woman, but she hoped he was happy. She loved him too much to ever wish otherwise.
She attended the graduation ceremony though, sitting high in the bleachers where he would not see her watching him receive his master’s degree with honors. He’d worked hard to be at the top of his class.
She clapped enthusiastically when his name was called, but was gone from the stands by the time the graduates left their designated seating to join the crowd.
She’d never seen Tom Prince again, but she’d never been able to forget him, either.
Some women only fell in love once, or so she’d been told, and she figured she was one of them. He’d married a woman worthy of his incredible looks and dynamic personality, but there was a part of Maggie’s heart that would always belong to him.
Maggie had only been asleep for about forty-five minutes when the feel of a small body climbing into either side of her bed woke her. She opened her eyes. “Gianni?”
“Anna got scared, Maggie. She wants to sleep with you.”
The little girl snuggled up to Maggie’s back, giving credence to her brother’s words.
“And you do, too?”
Gianni nodded in the shadowy dark of the room. “I had a bad dream.”
“I miss Papa,” Anna said from behind Maggie.
Maggie was too tired herself after staying up with her memories and the movie to argue. She merely cuddled them both close and slipped back into sleep herself.
However, two hours later, after the third small and pointy elbow poked a sensitive body part, she carefully climbed out of her bed and went in search of somewhere else to sleep.
Both children were sleeping too soundly for her to willingly wake them and put them back in their own bed, but she wasn’t sure what to do with herself.
Their beds were much too short for a grown person, even a woman of her no more than average height. The Victorian-style sofa in her sitting room was no longer than a love seat and no better a proposition. To her knowledge, the only other bed made up was in the master suite.
She stumbled sleepily down the hall to Anna and Gianni’s father’s room. He would never know she’d slept there. She’d get up in the morning and wash the sheets and replace them and when he returned the next day, he would be none the wiser.
She tossed the extra decorative pillows from the bed onto the floor and slid between the sheets. There was something vaguely familiar about the scent on the pillow where she laid her head, but she was too tired to work out what it was.
Tomasso let himself into his home quietly, forcing a brain muddled by lack of sleep and other things to remember the alarm codes to allow his entry without setting off sirens. He’d pushed himself mercilessly for the last five days so he could finish his business early and come home. He missed his children and he was impatient to see Maggie again, to find out if she was all that he remembered.
He’d gone totally without sleep for the last thirty-six hours, catching only a catnap on the plane between bouts of work.
