Her Wish--A Playboy Genie Romance

by Sophie H. Morgan

  Hurt twisted with temper. “Amaze me,” she snapped.

  “Because I want to be there when you realize your mom was not a victim. When you realize your mom was a shallow bitch all along, you’re going to need someone to hold on to.”

  “My mom loved me.”

  “I’m sure she did until she realized she could catch a rich guy faster without a kid tagging along.”

  She sucked in a breath. Needles, thin and tipped with acid, slid in her heart. “Out of line, Jax.”

  “Gorgeous.” He sounded as though he were pleading with her. “I don’t mean to hurt you. But don’t do this to yourself. Just accept it: WFY had nothing to do with your mom’s change.” A sigh came down the line. “Please stop before you hurt yourself.”

  Charlie’s thoughts touched on Luka. “Is that why you sent your boss to watch over me? To make sure I don’t lose it like the nut I am?” Her voice turned biting.

  “Luka’s a good guy.” Stubborn.

  “If he knew you stole these files, he’d be the first to turn on you.”

  “You’re wrong.” The phone crackled. “Look, I’ve got an early meeting.”

  “Fine.”

  “Charlie . . . don’t be like this.”

  Her temper snapped. “Jax, I can’t believe what you want just to make you happy. My mom loved me—she wouldn’t have left me without that wish.” Her hold on the phone tightened until it creaked in protest. Her stomach coiled tight. “I don’t need your help. I don’t need you to do anything for me.”

  “Is that why your store was in the red before I came along?”

  Hurt pierced her like an arrow.

  “Shit.” He sighed. “This call’s gone to hell. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

  “Jax—” Charlie pressed her lips together as the dial tone sounded. “Jackass.” Why was she in love with him again?

  The phone dropped to the leather cushions as she drew her knees up and buried her head.

  I want to be there when you realize your mom was not a victim. When you realize your mom was a shallow bitch all along, you’re going to need someone to hold on to.

  She kicked out at air. He was wrong. Her mom had loved her.

  Her stomach clenched, bile climbing her throat in a sticky rush. She pushed away Jax’s words.

  Her eyes drifted back to the laptop screen. Natalie Peckinsee/Natalie Pevinsey would prove Jax wrong. A woman didn’t disappear for nothing. She would prove that wishes were life-destroying things and then Jax would have to apologize.

  Until she realized she could catch a rich guy faster without a kid tagging along.

  Charlie thrust away the unintentionally cruel words, closing down her laptop. With measured movements, she packed her computer, boxed her cupcakes, and washed the dishes. Shutting off all the lights, Charlie walked out of the apartment with directions to a small town named Innocence and a burning desire to prove Jax’s words wrong.

  20.

  The drive to Innocence took around four hours, with a break in the middle for breakfast. Charlie had set off early that morning, after leaving a note for Kate about having to get out of the city for the day. She felt like the lowest of the low for lying to her friend, but the more Kate knew, the more she’d have to explain.

  The more people she’d have to justify this wild goose chase to.

  She drove past the sign declaring Innocence about eleven o’clock. The weather was considerably better than it had been for the past month, sun beating back the wash of clouds and painting everything in the colors of spring. It seemed like a pretty town with plenty of local businesses, one busy diner, and charming brick houses surrounding the town square. Flowers bloomed in pots and splashed color onto a gray street as Charlie nosed her rented car into a space.

  Stepping out, she inhaled the smell of roasting beans from a nearby coffee shop and slung her satchel across her body. Best to try the local gossip spot first, which was usually a coffee shop or diner. Since she’d already had breakfast, she locked the car and strode into The Coffee Bean. The smell of hot, buttery pastry and rich coffee assaulted her, the sounds of jazz in the background, plates clinking and machines gushing out water adding to the ambience.

  She waited in the line, wondering how to play it. Should she come out and ask, or play it more low-key? The straightforward approach had always worked for her in the past, even if this was a supersecret covert mission. Her lips curled in nervous amusement at herself.

  When she got to the front, she ordered a cappuccino and casually leaned on the countertop. “I’m actually here about a glass artist I met down in Charlotte a couple years ago. Natalie Pevinsey?”

  “Oh, sure, all the folks around here know Natalie.” The pretty blonde in her twenties in a black uniform cast a friendly smile at Charlie as she mixed her drink. “She’s got a real hand with glass. That’s hers.” She nodded to a small piece by the cash register.

  Charlie smoothed a finger down the hand-sized piece. It was like a living flame, clear until the very center where a vivid red streaked from the heart. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “She has talent,” the girl agreed, sprinkling cocoa powder on the top of Charlie’s drink. She slipped a plastic lid on the takeout cup. “She makes little things like this for all the local merchants for hardly anything. I swear, if she got herself to New York, she could make thousands. Instead, she’s happy just to hibernate in her cabin.”

  “Cabin?”

  “She lives in one of the cabins on the outer limits. Just head down Main Street and take a left. There’s a hill that’s crowded with forest, and if you keep on that road for about two miles, you can’t miss her place.”

  “Thanks.” Charlie paid for her coffee, giving a generous tip, and walked out of the coffee shop. Small towns weren’t exaggerated in books, she thought as she slipped back in her car. They really were big on chatter.

  * * *

  And good at directions. At exactly 2.2 miles, her car came to a stop outside a cabin more the size of a house than what Charlie had been imagining. One story, it sprawled over the acreage, blending into the wildness surrounding it so she could almost believe it was as much a part of the land as the garden planted by human hands to the right. A washing line swayed in the breeze with some underwear and a few sweaters pegged on it.

  Roses climbed around the porch, a rocking chair perched upon it, a welcome mat just in front of the sturdy wooden door. It was the picture of country escape, something Charlie, a city rat at heart, could appreciate but not crave.

  As she stepped out of the car, a golden retriever ran from out back, barking as its tail wagged furiously.

  “Ah, hello, big dog.” Charlie put out a hand and hoped it wouldn’t get bitten off. “Good dog.”

  “Othello.” A woman’s voice floated into the air, frustration and amusement blending together in one lilting tone. “Come back here, you scoundrel.”

  Long legs rounded the corner and the woman from the photograph emerged, thirty years or so older. She wore jeans so worn they were tissue thin and a checked shirt the color of violets. Dirt smudged her knees and she held a gardening fork in one hand.

  She stopped short as she saw Charlie. “Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

  “I just drove up.”

  “I hope Othello didn’t scare you.” The woman—Natalie—slapped her leg in a command for the dog to come to her side. Othello whimpered and slunk to its owner’s legs, beseeching Charlie with his eyes.

  Charlie laughed. “He’s a charmer.”

  “He thinks he is,” Natalie agreed with a smile. “Are you lost?”

  Charlie hesitated. “Actually, I’m here to see Natalie Pevinsey.”

  “That’s me. What can I do for you?”

  She went for broke, twisting her hand around her satchel’s strap. “Did you win a wish in the lottery in 1976? Are you Natalie Peckinsee?”

  The woman’s eyes cooled. “I’ll have to ask you to leave,” she said, taking a step back.

 
“Are you?”

  “Please, I don’t want to talk about this.”

  Othello, sensing the atmosphere had changed, whimpered, looking from one woman to the other.

  Charlie dug in. “It’s important.”

  “I’m sorry, but you have to go.” Natalie turned her back on Charlie and strode to the house. She’d just reached the door when Charlie called out her name.

  “Natalie, I’m Charlie Donahue.” Charlie took a few steps forward. “I won a wish in the lottery four weeks ago, but refused to go through with it.”

  “Why are you here?” Natalie’s voice was low.

  Charlie wet her lips. “I guess I’m hoping you’ll tell me what happened to you.”

  “Why?”

  “My mom wished for beauty when I was little and it changed her. I’ve not trusted wishes since.” Charlie shrugged. “I’m here because your wish is missing from WFY’s records. I’m here because I think you might be able to prove that what I suspect is true.”

  Natalie half turned. “What do you suspect?”

  “That Genies aren’t as great as everyone thinks. That their wishes destroy lives. That they’re responsible for the bad things that happen after.”

  The breeze blew past Charlie and lifted her hair as she waited for Natalie to speak. Her reaction was both promising and worrying. What could have happened to make the woman so averse to talking?

  Natalie finally spoke, her voice humming with unspoken questions. “You’d better come inside.”

  21.

  Charlie wandered around Natalie’s giant of a living room, hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t be tempted to stroke the various glass sculptures dotted between the rustic furniture. As a whole, the cabin had a rural feel with its exposed brick and wood, beams that ran across the ceiling, and the various faded rugs that snaked over the floor. Yet it still managed to be comfortable, welcoming visitors in, inviting them to put their feet on the solid pine coffee table and sink into the plush, tobacco-colored couch.

  She turned as Natalie brought in two cups of tea. “Your work is amazing,” she said, waving at a piece that looked as if it were an ocean wave in the midst of breaking. Droplets had even been created on the edge, and the color at the heart was a striking blue-green so clear it was as though Natalie had tapped the Mediterranean.

  Natalie smiled. “Thank you.” She placed the cups on the table and indicated the couch. “Please.”

  Charlie crossed to the couch and sank into it, gripping her hands together on her knee. Othello bounced over and pushed his nose into her hands, lapping enthusiastically.

  “Othello,” Natalie warned.

  “No, don’t worry.” Charlie stroked a hand down his golden fur, rubbing his ears between two fingers. She smiled as Othello made a crooning noise of ecstasy.

  “I recognize you.”

  Charlie looked toward Natalie with wide eyes. “I’m sorry?”

  “From the TV.” Natalie tipped her chin toward the old-fashioned box of a TV near the fireplace. She wrapped her hands around her steaming mug. “You’re Jax Michaels’s girlfriend.”

  “Sort of,” Charlie hedged. “It’s kind of undetermined.”

  Natalie gave her a piercing look. “If you don’t trust Genies, why are you dating one?”

  Charlie pushed Othello’s nose away and reached for her mug. The china was hot to the touch, almost burning as she held it on her lap. “It’s complicated,” she said with care. “He’s . . . different. Not like most Genies.”

  “Have you met many?”

  “No.” Charlie smiled, a rueful edge to it. “But Jax isn’t like anyone.”

  Silence crackled between them until Natalie brought her cup to her lips. After swallowing some of the burning liquid, she glanced at Charlie. “Why did you come looking for me?” The question was blunt.

  “Honestly? I don’t even know.” Charlie shrugged. “To satisfy myself that a wish changed my mom?” Even to her ears, it sounded weak.

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

  “The truth.” Charlie stared at her. “Why is your name scrubbed from the records?”

  Natalie looked at her and sighed. For some reason, Charlie sensed pity from her. “I’ll tell you what happened to me, but I’m not sure it’ll be what you want to hear.”

  “I need to know.”

  Natalie looked down into the depths of her tea again. “It started in LA. We’d moved there two years before for my husband’s job. Me, my husband, my daughter. He’d gotten a promotion at the advertising firm he worked at, and it required us to move. So we packed up our little house in Pittsburgh and moved across the country. We were happy. I got a job in a small gallery, and my daughter, Annie, got on well with her school. Simon was climbing the ladder. Life was perfect.”

  She let out a breath and drank some more tea, as though it were laced with whiskey. Maybe it was.

  “Until I found out that my husband wanted a divorce. I was distraught. I drove all night after he told me, wondering what it was that I had done wrong. He told me there was nobody else, but I didn’t believe it. Simon was—is—a handsome man, and in LA you’re surrounded by younger, fitter, more attractive women. In a moment of weakness, I bought a lottery ticket, thinking that if only I could wish for my husband to love me again, everything would be okay.”

  Charlie pressed her lips together in silent empathy as Natalie stared at her tea.

  “Of course, I woke the next morning, horrified. My mom and dad were very strict on the idea that you shouldn’t count on anyone else to solve your problems. If they’d been alive, they’d have been disappointed that I’d even thought of turning to Genies, let alone bought a ticket. And, like you, I didn’t trust wishes or the Genies who cast them. Nothing should be that easy. So I threw it in the garbage. But of course, who wins . . .”

  “Wishes,” Charlie finished. She didn’t know what to think or where this was going, but her stomach tied into pretzel knots.

  Natalie glanced at her and nodded. “The divorce was my own fault. I realized it then and I realize it now. I never trusted Simon for a second when we were in LA. I was always so insecure about myself. I was sure he’d turn to one of the perky blondes who worked the reception at his office. I don’t blame him for leaving—what kind of relationship can you have without trust? I tried to explain to Jared, the Genie who came knocking, that I didn’t want the wish, that I’d sort out my own problems, that I’d happily give the wish to charity or something, but he refused.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He started showing up when I left work, in the car, in my house. Always insistent that I wish, always threatening what would happen if I didn’t.”

  Until the threats, it had sounded like Jax to a tee. But he’d never threaten anyone. Charlie frowned and set her cup carefully on the table. “What do you mean threats?”

  “It wasn’t anything specific. Aloud wondering. Like how pretty my daughter was, and how it’d be a real shame if she got in an accident one day, wouldn’t it?”

  “Why didn’t you just wish?”

  Natalie gave her a tired smile and leaned back into the cushions of her chair. “Maybe I should have. But my parents raised me never to back down to a bully.”

  “WFY didn’t do anything?” Charlie balled her fists on her knee as her blood simmered. Temper bubbled. “How can they let their Genies get away with something like that?” Her spiraling mind latched on to the easiest explanation. Because they don’t care about what happens after a winner wins.

  “I didn’t wait to find out. Annie, my daughter, was staying with her dad—had been since the lottery—so I packed a bag and drove like a bat out of hell for my sister’s in Arizona.”

  Othello rested his head on his owner’s knee and whined. Natalie smiled and stroked his head.

  “It wasn’t until a few years later that Director Clare of the East Coast branch caught up to me.”

  “What did she do?” Charlie was on the edge. She could feel it. Final
ly she’d know the truth.

  “She was very cordial. Reminded me of that wave.” Natalie nodded to the glass Charlie had been admiring. “So powerful and yet so contained. She apologized for everything Jared had done to me.”

  Roaring in her ears. “What?”

  “She’d been watching Jared for years and had finally brought enough evidence to the Partners to have them drum him out of the business.” Natalie lifted a shoulder. “They’d kept the disgrace quiet so I hadn’t heard. The official story was that he’d resigned, I think.”

  “She admitted he was wrong for pushing you? She cared?” The bottom of her world had flipped to the top and Charlie found she was paddling water. A Genie giving a damn about the consequences of their actions. “Did you forgive them?”

  Natalie drank some tea. Over the rim of her cup, her eyes were both sympathetic and honest. “Do I forgive Jared for threatening my daughter’s life? No. But I don’t hold it against Genies.”

  “How?” Charlie thrust her hands through her hair. “That Genie stole your daughter from you. A wish—even if you didn’t speak it—destroyed your life.”

  “I ran when I should’ve stayed and fought.” Natalie wet her lips and adjusted her hold on the mug. “Sometimes we need to blame others for things that are too hard to accept. If I hadn’t been as much of a coward, come forward, trusted that Genies on the whole want to do good . . . Jared might have been locked away that much sooner. He wouldn’t have hurt innocents. He was the true destroyer, not the wishes he granted. And one out of thousands isn’t a bad margin.”

  Charlie’s heart thudded like a marathon runner’s feet on tarmac. “If you aren’t hiding from them, why are you living under a different name?”

  “It was under this name that I hit success with my glass. Call it a stage name. Or call it easier than having to explain the whole story. Either way, I’m sorry. I can’t give you what you want.” Someone to blame. Words unsaid with pity.

  Charlie was having trouble with her breathing. Jax’s words mingled with Natalie’s, all connecting and weaving a picture that was hard to look at. “My mom loved me. She wouldn’t have left me with my grandparents if the wish hadn’t changed her.”