Pride and Papercuts

by Staci Hart

  But every day, I was disappointed.

  Sometimes twice.

  Today was no different. Disappointment sank in my chest like a stone in a river as I headed for the line with heavy feet. Somehow, the sensation still surprised me. Somehow, I didn’t expect to be disappointed, floating here every day on the hope that maybe, just maybe, I’d catch a glimpse of her again in a place where we could just be us.

  I’d thought a lot about what I might say, both what I wanted to and what I should, which were two very different things. But instead, I would buy a cup of coffee I wouldn’t drink and tell myself that maybe tomorrow would be different.

  I wanted to see her again as desperately as I hoped it’d never happen.

  It was strange, this feeling, an invasion of my very self. She crept into my thoughts in mundane moments and times when I should have been thinking about anything but her. And I didn’t know why. Perhaps that was part of my obsession with seeing her again, that noisy, unshakable quest for answers. I was not a man who lost control, but when it came to her, I was a runaway train. And the desire to know why was almost as deep as my desire to know her.

  These were my thoughts as I stood in line, scanning the crowd once more with a destructive affliction—the guileless certainty that I’d find her if I looked one more time.

  My gaze snagged the back of a small girl with short blonde hair who had materialized at the end of the counter. Everything around me ground to a screeching halt. My heart thundered in my ears as my disbelieving feet pointed in her direction. Here she was, as if I’d summoned her, standing there like I’d imagined a hundred times. All that was left of the things I’d thought to say turned to static.

  I reached out. Touched her arm. She turned to me.

  And I realized with no small amount of shock that she was not Maisie.

  The stranger’s brows furrowed. “Can I help you?”

  Now my disappointment was coupled with embarrassment. “I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

  She gave me a suspicious look. “Sorry to disappoint.”

  I was about to excuse myself when someone tapped my shoulder.

  The stranger looked around me, smiling as she cocked her head. “I think you were looking for her.”

  This time when I turned, I was rewarded.

  Maisie stood before me with a timid smile on her lips, her cheeks smudged with color and her dark eyes soft as velvet.

  “Hello,” she said nervously, hopefully.

  “Hello.”

  For a moment, we were silent, and when we finally spoke, it was at the same time.

  “Do you want a coffee?” I said as she said, “Could we sit?”

  To which we both answered simultaneously, “Yes.”

  With a laugh, we moved to a table, sitting first. Well, she sat. I asked her what she wanted before getting back in line. And all the while, my mind ran a rut in my skull.

  There were so many things I wanted to say, and I couldn’t seem to recall a single one as I stood there in what felt like an endless line, trying not to watch her. But I couldn’t seem to help myself, too thirsty for the sight of her to abstain. My comfort was that she couldn’t seem to either.

  I took that as both a good and dangerous sign.

  Once coffees were in hand, I took the seat across from her.

  Her hands circled the paper cup, and her eyes struck me in the heart. “Would you think me strange if I told you I’d been coming here hoping I’d find you?”

  “How could I when I’ve been doing the same?”

  Warmth sparked between us, lit by her smile. “Really? I thought after … well, after the last time I saw you, I got the impression that you’d prefer never to see me again.”

  “My preference has nothing to do with it. What I’d prefer and what I’m allowed aren’t in alignment.”

  “No. I don’t suppose they are.”

  A heavy silence settled between us.

  “I’m so sorry, Marcus, for all of this,” she said. “I don’t agree with her. My mother.”

  Judging by the sudden relief I felt at the admission, I realized I hadn’t known.

  “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what she’s doing to Longbourne—to you—wondering why. It’s inexplicable and small, but she’s decided to dig in her heels, and when she decides”—Maisie sighed—“well, that’s that. Nothing will stop her other than victory or death, metaphorical or otherwise.”

  A minuscule laugh through my nose accompanied the thought.

  “I … I just wanted you to know that I don’t support this. And I’m sorry. And I hope she loses.”

  “So do I. If I have anything to do with it, she will.”

  “I believe that. In fact, you might be the only one who can stop her.” She paused, turning her cup in her hands. “You must hate me for all this.”

  “I don’t think I could hate you even if I wanted to. Which I don’t, by the way.”

  Her eyes were bottomless, fathomless. “I wish things were different.”

  “So do I.”

  “And I wish I could stop thinking about you, but I can’t.”

  With a hard swallow, I said something I shouldn’t, “I shouldn’t want to see you, but I do.”

  Hope flickered across her face.

  “I shouldn’t keep coming here, but I can’t seem to help myself, and I doubt I’ll stop. I don’t hate you, Maisie. But I hate this. It’s not often I want something I can’t have.”

  “Because you don’t often want?”

  “Because what I want, I get.”

  “And you can’t have me,” she said, finishing the thought.

  “And I can’t have you,” I echoed.

  Her gaze dropped to the cup, her throat working. “It’s cruel really. I don’t know why. I don’t even know you. Maybe it’s just the injustice of it all. Maybe it’s just another choice my mother has taken from me. But either way, I hate it too.”

  I drew a painful breath, one fraught with indecision. I knew I should go—I shouldn’t have come here to start. But I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

  “I wish there was a way,” I said. “If there were, I would have already found it. Trust me, I’ve looked.”

  For a moment, she watched me, her head shaking slightly. “I can’t believe that the two of us want the same thing, that even though we’re in agreement, we can’t do what we please.”

  “Your mother would turn you out. Mine might have a cardiac event. And keeping it a secret would only hurt everyone, us most of all. It’s not often I wish I had my brothers’ ability to jump into a fling. Be casual. But I know myself better than to pretend this doesn’t mean something. And that would be the only way. We have no future, so I don’t see how we can have a present. Right now, we’re disappointed, but later … later, it would hurt. I don’t want to hurt you, Maisie.”

  “I don’t want to hurt you either,” she said softly. “Maybe, someday, things will be easier.”

  I tried to smile.

  “Maybe,” I answered without believing it.

  Her sigh told me she didn’t believe it either. “Then I guess this is goodbye again.”

  I didn’t want to agree. I didn’t want to be rational or reasonable. But they said a leopard couldn’t change his spots, and I could no easier pretend that ignoring my instincts was the answer.

  “Come on. Let me get you a cab,” I said as I stood, avoiding answering her directly.

  She complied, standing and falling into step at my side. Without thought, my hand moved to the small of her back as I guided her out, and in that spark of connection, I imagined opening the door like this for her in a dozen different settings that we’d never see.

  Neither of us spoke as I stepped to the curb, lifting my hand to hail a taxi. When one pulled up, I opened the door. Extended a hand to help her in, reveling in the feel of her soft, small palm against mine. But I held the door, held her eyes, held my breath for a painful heartbeat.

  “I’ll see you arou
nd, Maisie,” I finally said.

  “I hope so,” she answered.

  And with a lamentable thump of the closing door, so did I.

  6

  What If

  MAISIE

  I was on fire.

  Cheeks warm. Coat too thick, too heavy. Palms damp. Heart aflame, kicking my ribs with every painful thud.

  I shifted in the cab to peel off my coat, fantasizing about cracking the window to let the cool air in. Though I didn’t know if it would help. In fact, I didn’t know if anything could help me.

  Sitting across from Marcus, I should have been focused on what he’d been trying to say—that we couldn’t see each other, probably ever, and for reasons I understood all too well. I should have been bolstering myself with the reminders of what would happen to me if I were so stupid as to start seeing Marcus Bennet, starting with the defiance of sneaking away from my mother to come to the coffee shop, looking for him.

  I didn’t do casual either, and I certainly didn’t think I could start with him.

  I should have been doing a lot of things as I sat in the taxi, smart things, things that would keep me safe.

  But instead, I only had one thought—Marcus wanted me.

  He’d said it with regret in the depths of his brilliant eyes. He’d said it with his broad lips curled down at the corners. He’d said it like he meant it more than he’d ever meant a word he’d spoken, and I suspected Marcus didn’t say anything he didn’t mean. But these words in particular had been so earnest that they struck me still there in the crowded coffee shop. We could have been the only two people in the world.

  Up until that moment, I supposed I hadn’t known. I’d imagined. I’d hoped. I’d feared he wanted me and feared he didn’t, but I hadn’t known. And now that I did, I had no idea what to do with that knowledge.

  What I should have done was forget it. Or perhaps acknowledge it before tucking it away in the box in my heart labeled What If. He was right, of course. Pursuing it made no sense.

  But I wanted to all the same.

  As he’d said, what I preferred and what I was allowed were not in alignment. The difference was, I found I had little interest in doing what was allowed.

  It wasn’t as if I had much of a choice in the matter, though. My mother would crucify me, revoke our deal, take away my little joys, business or otherwise. I could leave, of course. When faced with the loss of the only life I’d known, and—perhaps the most heartbreaking—the loss of my avenue to help so many, it wasn’t quite so easy. It wasn’t at all simple.

  But I couldn’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be worth it.

  Marcus wanted me. And if there was a way, he’d be with me.

  My heart sank, the flame of home streaking through my ribs. Because there was no way. Not without risking it all.

  By the time we reached my mother’s building, only my temperature had waned. Beneath that, I was roiling heat, brought to the surface of my soul by the knowledge of his affection. And I didn’t know how to vent it off. Didn’t know how to cool it down.

  The closer I got to my mother’s office building, the less I had to worry myself with that—proximity to her was a bucket of ice water. A snowball to the face. A belly flop into the deep end.

  And when I stepped into the chaos of her office, all I could consider was what was in front of me, and I welcomed the distraction with open arms.

  Office might have been an understatement. The space my mother bestowed upon herself was larger than most retail spaces in Manhattan. It was a corner office with a sweeping view of downtown, the rivers, the bay beyond peppered with ships, and the sky crisp and blue and dotted with cheerful clouds.

  Inside, however, was a flurry of motion and people—eight, to be exact, nine including myself. My mother stood at a light board with her bold black readers perched on her nose as she looked over magazine pages with an editor at her elbow. A florist fiddled with arrangements on a table that looked to be set with samples for a spread. Two assistants I didn’t recognize flitted around the room as well as one I did know—my mother’s assistant, Shelby.

  She smiled when she saw me and weaved around the obstacles before her with grace and ease. Because this chaos was her domain, and no one ran it like she did.

  “Maisie,” she said warmly. “How are you?”

  “Good. Did I get the time wrong? I thought we had a meeting this morning.”

  She stepped to my side and surveyed the madness, saying softly enough that only I could hear, “She’s avoiding her accountant.”

  A nod of her head directed me to a small, balding, and impatient-looking man who sat in a chair well out of the way, like a child put in time-out. His gaze alternated from his watch to my mother and back again.

  I would have laughed had it not been so very much like her. “Of course she is. He’s probably going to tell her to cut back on her shoe allowance, and if he can’t get to her to say so, she can’t be obligated to listen, can she?”

  Shelby chuckled. “As if anyone could stop your mother from buying shoes.”

  The accountant decided he’d had enough, shooting to his feet and scuttling across the room. “Evelyn, I have another meeting, and I cannot keep waiting—”

  “Then don’t,” she said lightly without looking up. “I’m terribly sorry, Roland. I didn’t realize my meetings would run so late.”

  “You need to make time for this,” he blustered. “There is much to discuss, and soon. We’re running out of time to—”

  “Yes, yes. It’s just that I’m so very busy.” She finally looked up, offering him a mild smile. “I’ll have Shelby schedule you for earlier in the day next time. Perhaps if she’d done so from the start, this could have been avoided.” She shot Shelby a warning look before turning back to the light table.

  Shelby stiffened at my side. I knew good and well she’d done exactly what my mother had asked of her, which was to purposely double-book her. But my mother not only paid Shelby well for her abuse, she also held the power to ruin any of Shelby’s future prospects.

  But rather than balk at my mother throwing her under the bus, Shelby smiled and stepped to Roland’s side. “It’s all my fault, Roland. I hope you can forgive the oversight. If you’ll come with me, we’ll get you scheduled with Mrs. Bower soon.”

  “Very soon,” he insisted, scowling and smoothing his suit over his paunch as he cast one more look at my mother over his shoulder.

  “Yes, of course,” she said, ushering him out.

  The second he was gone, my mother straightened up, taking off her glasses. “That will be all,” she said, making no more eye contact as she walked to her desk and took a seat as if the room weren’t full of people she’d summoned.

  Confused glances were exchanged, but no one dared argue. Instead, they gathered their things and began filing out of the office in silence.

  “Don’t just stand there, Margaret,” she said to her desk as she wrote something in a notebook lying open in front of her. “Sit down, for God’s sake.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself from sassing her and took one of the low-backed armchairs in front of her desk. Only when I was firmly in my seat did she look up, sweeping her glasses off her face.

  “What did you want to see me about?”

  “What did Roland want? He said you were running out of time—”

  “That is not why you’re here.”

  I frowned. “You want me to know the business. In fact, I already own a sliver of it. Isn’t whatever Roland needs part of the business?”

  “What Roland does is currently above your pay grade. Now, please tell me what you need so we can both get on with our days.”

  “Well, that’s just it. I don’t really have much to do. Part of our agreement was that I’d be able to work in the charity division, but you’ve kept me out of it, dragging me to pointless legal meetings, ignoring me when I try to ask. So now that I have your undivided attention, I’m calling in the promise.”

  She leaned
back in her chair, eyeing me. “I will never understand your obsession with that silly little project.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” The defensive ember that always flickered between us glowing brighter. “There’s no power in it. Maybe that’s why I like it so much—it’s not about me. It’s about others. But it doesn’t matter why I want it. You promised it to me, and if you want me here, you’ll honor our terms or I’ll go,” I said, meaning every word. “The lure works both ways.”

  Her eyes narrowed, either from thought or defiance, I couldn’t tell. “Part-time,” she answered without answering. “You are limited to twenty hours a week—”

  “But—”

  “But what? You have an obligation to me first and foremost. Your duties as my successor are nonnegotiable.”

  Betrayal and frustration whistled through me. “I should have known there would be a catch.”

  “Yes, you should have. But if you’d rather forfeit the charity—”

  “No. I’ll do it,” I ground out the words.

  Bitter blood-red lips curled into a smile. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

  “I’m starting today.” I didn’t dare ask if she had any objections for fear she’d fill my plate with tasks to rob me of my time.

  “Then the clock will start too. Use your time wisely, Margaret.”

  At that, she turned to whatever was on her desk, sliding her glasses back on. And I was invisible to her once more.

  I rose on shaky legs and carried myself out the door, blind with a confusing mixture of pride and disappointment. I’d stood up to her, gotten the thing I wanted, just not how I wanted it. She knew just how to strip my spirit, cut me down, keep me pinned. And I should have known.

  I shouldn’t have come back to New York.

  Shelby stepped around her desk, her face touched with concern. “Are you all right, Maisie?”

  “No, I am not all right,” I answered with an unsteady voice. “She promised me Harvest but only delivered on half.”

  Shelby sighed. “I had a feeling. I’m sorry I couldn’t warn you.”

  “Don’t be. I know better than anyone why you didn’t.”