by Haley Oliver
"Valerie." His breath stirs my hair, caressing the shell of my ear, and makes me shiver. "What are you thinking?"
I draw back a little to look at him. His hands, his arms, still won't relinquish me, but he's studying me intently. "You're still holding back from me," he says.
So are you! I want to exclaim. While we're throwing accusations around about suppression, how about we start with you? "I'm... there's a lot you don't know about me," I say. I want to kick myself for letting even that much slip out.
"Tell me." His gaze penetrates me. "Why are you so guarded all the time? So serious?"
"Someone on the sixth floor has to be!"
"Don't deflect me now. We both know this has nothing to do with work," he argues. "Your family... your childhood..."
"Were very different from yours." I tuck the piece of hair he's curled with his finger back behind my ear.
"Henry told me you had four siblings? All younger?" Daniel sits back, and I realize he's settling himself in for a story. I realize I'm practically sitting in his lap, as close as the construction of our towels will allow. Surprisingly, I don't mind it. It feels comfortable. It feels... right. So long as he doesn't point it out.
"My parents divorced when I was little. My siblings were... littler." I wince. I've never really talked about myself or my family with anyone else. The words slip out awkwardly, like they don't know the proper order to arrange things in. "And so, I mean... Dad traveled all the time for work, so Mom was the one who raised us. Only she couldn't keep up, after a while. I used to blame her for being weak, but..." I shake my head. "I don't any more. People are just... people, you know? Nobody is a monster, and nobody is a saint, not really. Everyone tries their hardest until they just can't anymore. And some people reach that point..."
I fiddle with the edge of my blanket. Already this feels like too much. My story has no beginning and no end, because it's gone on longer than I've been alive, and there's still no conclusion in sight. Daniel takes my nervous hand in his own and presses his lips to it in a not-quite-kiss. Somehow, this gives me the courage to go on.
"... so anyway. I put myself through college. Mainly online courses. I hated being away for too long. Then Mom..." I drag in a deep breath. "Mom got sick. Real sick. Before I graduated college, the medical bills were already starting to pile up. She got laid off from work. And my siblings..."
I shake my head. "Dad took the two kids who were still living at home, who were still in school. They're doing alright. I send them money to help put away for college. Missy and Jacob, the two in the middle, already graduated. I help them financially whenever I can. They want nothing to do with Mom. I fight with them about it... a lot. But they've got their lives to live. They're still young. I'm hoping they'll figure it out before..."
I shake my head again. It's like there's something I want to keep back, but something gets knocked loose instead. A single tear rolls down my face. Daniel hisses in displeasure and pulls me to him again.
"You've taken on every burden," he says in wonder. "Every single one. What about that boyfriend of yours... the one with the earring?"
I laugh in surprise, which accompanies a shudder as I try to regain my composure. It's appropriate, anyway. "What boyfriend? You mean my ex, Chris? The guy from three years ago?" I haven't dated anyone since... not that I expected Daniel of all people to ever notice.
"Chris." Daniel repeats the name like he doesn't enjoy the taste. I remember that's how he always used to say it, too. "Didn't he ever help you out with any of this?"
"Chris ghosted me the minute he found out I was taking care of a mom in a nursing care facility." This isn't exactly true. The reality dragged out a lot longer, and was a lot more painful, than my flippant dismissal of it now.
"Why?" Daniel seems genuinely bewildered. This is the second time tonight I feel like I could kiss him. I sit back and rearrange myself a little against the fireplace. He faces me, and my back faces the fire. Things feel a little more manageable this way.
"He knew my attentions were divided. And so was my income. Four... five ways, depending on how you looked at things." There was Chris. There was my mom. There were the kids living with Dad. There was you and work. Finally, what crumbs I had left over, I reserved for me. I got used to putting myself last. "I guess he was ready for a stronger commitment than I could offer him."
"That's bull crap. Pardon my French," Daniel says, in the tone of someone who doesn't want to be pardoned at all.
"Daniel!" I laugh as I shove him, but in all honesty, his adroit assessment makes me feel validated. That's what I thought! I want to shout it to the roof of this empty, gorgeous summer home. That's what I thought all along!
"I like it when you call me 'Daniel'," he says. "You should do it more often. In fact, you should do it every time."
My cheeks warm, but for once my blush isn't getting out of hand. In fact, I find myself... embracing it. I don't hate how I feel in this moment. No, I definitely don't hate it. "It's how I always refer to you when you're not around."
"Is it?"
"There are an awful lot of "Mr. Sways", if you haven't noticed. Us secretaries have to tell you apart somehow."
"There are an awful lot of Sways," Daniel grumbles. He folds his arms behind his head and lies back. After a long moment, I tentatively lay myself down beside him. In this minefield we're navigating, it seems like the safest maneuver... or at least, the safest one available to a woman who suddenly seems bent on being in a war.
Only, strangely, both sides appear to be on the same half of the line in this twisty scenario.
We lay there together in silence for a long moment. "Warm enough?" Daniel's voice, quieter than the crackling of the fire, enquires from the flickering darkness.
"Warm enough," I reply. When I turn my head to study the man beside me, I'm terrified and exhilarated to find him studying me in turn. "You?"
"I'm warm enough," he replies.
"How much trouble do you think we'll be in in the morning?"
"Let me worry about that."
"Deal." I roll over quickly to punctuate my readiness to let him take the fall for this. It's his fault, after all. "And you can explain to your son why his nanny didn't get to sleep in a real bed tonight."
"Fair enough." Daniel sighs deeply, and I feel the heat of his breath on my neck. I try not to notice. I try to exist in the moment as a secretary, though I'm certain no secretary to come before me has ever had to bear what this man is putting me through... in all the ways that are obvious to him, and all the ways that aren't. "Good night, Val."
"Good night, Daniel."
Despite an awareness that keeps me up for at least an hour after we've stopped speaking, I can't help feeling more protected than I ever have in my life with him lying there beside me. My boss. Why is it so easy to forget who we are when we're together?
How much trouble do you think we'll be in in the morning? My own question rebounds around inside my head as I drift off to sleep. I have the answer before sleep takes hold of me.
I'm already in trouble.
Chapter Twelve
Daniel
I open my eyes. The pleasantly acrid, smoky smell of last night's fire lingers in the air, with a quieter note of heavy rain still drying beneath it. There is a warm, soft weight settled in the crook of my arm, unfamiliar, yet so right that I don't question it at first. I turn my head and my nose, my lips, brush up against a downy-soft head of hair.
Valerie, my secretary, is sleeping beside me, a few feet away.
I lay there for a long time, trying not to move again. I think about my son. Henry must have spent a terrified night missing us, uncertain of where we were or if we were coming back. We. The woman beside me is an inexorable part of the equation now. She was before I ever met Henry. Valerie has been there, by my side, for years as I struggled to make something of myself in a world too ready to hand me everything. She's never made it easy. She's treated me as a boss, but also like anyone else.
Only
recently, our relationship has started to change. I see the way she looks at me—not as intense as the way I look at her. I feel it now, as she stirs and opens her eyes to take in our situation. Her gaze widens, and she sits up quickly. Sleep-teased strands of blond hair fall across her flushed face. Her right cheek is a darker shade of red from where it spent the night pressed against the floor.
"You were drooling," I say.
"I was not." She hunts around for her glasses, and I hold them up, waiting for her to notice. I'd been turning them over in my hand as I waited for her to wake up. She takes them gratefully and pushes them up her nose. "You were snoring," she accuses.
"Didn't seem to bother you. Seems like you slept like a log."
"At least I wasn't sawing logs."
"Coffee?" I suggest.
Her lips pull down in that frown of thoughtfulness I've grown to lo... cherish. "That's supposed to be my job."
"We're on vacation, if you haven't noticed."
"In someone else's vacation home," she quips. She pulls the blankets up with her as she stands. I half-spin toward the fireplace and find myself unceremoniously dumped out on the ground as she pulls the blanket out from under me. "Let me see what I can scrounge up."
"Hey." I haul myself to my feet and follow her into the kitchen, yawning and stretching a few of the kinks out of my muscles. My back isn't going to thank me for that particular overnight, but no amount of soreness can ever overshadow the vision I woke up to. I seat myself at the breakfast bar as Valerie moves around the kitchen, looking as elegant as a bride dragging the train of her dress. "Crap. The wedding." I had completely forgotten about it.
Valerie tuts as she pulls a can down from the pantry and scrutinizes it. "It's tomorrow," she reminds me.
"Thank you for the reminder, Miss Brown." I'm rewarded when she blushes lightly at this.
We spend the morning resetting the house the way we found it. By the time the coffee's done brewing, and every dish wiped clean again and put away, sans two mugs we decide to borrow, Valerie and I get dressed in yesterday's clothes, now dry, and wander down to the beach to await rescue.
"Watch your step." I catch her elbow as she teeters on the last step down to the beach and sloshes a little coffee onto the sand. I take her mug away and refill it with some of mine as she glances around in astonishment.
"Look at all this." Scattered around us is the wreckage from last night's storm in the form of broken tree branches, and in some cases, fallen trees. Shorebirds skitter to and fro, investigating the debris, and crabs scuttle out of their way. Most incredible to witness is all that the sea has tossed up. We wander through driftwood, constellations of sea glass, shells and plastic, lost beach toys and bottles. We find an enormous umbrella that Valerie recognizes as being blown here all the way from the resort. "We can't be that far from it," she reasons as we take shelter beneath it to watch the water. "I'm sure we'll see a boat any second now."
"You have to admit," I say, "being stranded on a desert island with me is pretty fun. Even if I'm not your first choice."
"What makes you think you aren't my first choice?" she returns. I lean back a little, surprised by her ferocity.
"I just assumed..."
"True, you are the most aggravating man I know," she reflects. "And way too old for your recklessness to be cute anymore."
"Hey now..."
"... but that doesn't mean you'd be my last choice," she concludes.
I raise an eyebrow. "We're talking about your first choice."
I notice how the hand not holding her coffee cup makes a perfect, delicate star impressed into the sand between us. I let my own hand drift closer. I don't think she notices until one of my fingers brushes hers. She glances at me, startled.
"What... what was the question again?" she stammers.
"No question," I reply. "At least, no question left but one."
My hand takes hers, covers it, protects it. She squeezes back, a quick pulse. An acknowledgement, maybe even permission. I lean in.
A blast of sounds from the water, startling us apart like two guilty teenagers. I shade my eyes against the morning sun to look, and see a tall figure standing on the bow of a police boat. I'd recognize that outline anywhere.
"Gabe," I mutter. I mutter something else, something that still doesn't taste as much like a curse as my elder brother's name does. Valerie pushes me and gets up.
"Looks like our rescue's just arrived, Mr. Sway."
"Daniel," I remind her idly as I stand up beside her. "It's Daniel now."
"Daniel," she agrees with a secret smile. But it's a secret we're both in on.
* * *
I spy a brilliant head of coppery red hair as we pull into dock. Pasted to Jane Fox's side is Henry. He detaches from her and races toward the incoming boat.
I feel a rush as someone goes by me. I watch in surprise as Valerie is the first to disembark. She hops over the gap between ship and dock. She drops to one knee and holds her hands out to Henry.
"Mom!"
I watch as my son catapults into those open arms. Valerie wraps him in an embrace and stands, jogging him up and down, her lips moving as she strokes his hair and shares words of comfort just for the two of them. Once he's buried his head in her shoulder and gripped onto her like he'll never let go again, she turns aside and meets my gaze. That uncanny way we have of communicating with one another takes hold.
Mom.
She heard it. I heard it. I stand frozen, too in awe to even remember how to properly step off a boat. Mom. The word resonates between my ears, growing louder and more insistent by the second.
Turns out my brother also heard.
"Good to have you back," Gabe intones quietly beside me. We hadn't spoken for the entirety of the trip back to the resort, except for a cursory exchange of words to make sure neither Valerie or I was hurt due to my reckless stupidity. "How are we going to spin this?"
"Figured I'd leave that up to you. I know you already have something in mind. In fact, why don't we just forget about the whole thing?" I don't want to be having this conversation right now. Right now I want to join the two people on the dock, the two people who I…
"We can't forget about the whole thing," Gabe says severely. He, too, is watching the young woman holding the boy. "You and your secretary disappeared for a night. What exactly…"
"Nothing happened."
"That's not what it looks like."
"I don't care what it looks like! Don't you dare drag her name through the mud!" I snap. I turn to my brother, but he's already stepping onto the dock without me. "Gabe…"
"Hug your son," Gabe advises me. "And don't ever leave him for a woman again."
Rage wells inside me. Before I can retort, he's moved out of earshot to talk with one of the local officials waiting for him on the dock. I feel like a kid, completely reduced to the role of the younger, dumber brother, unable to come up with a comeback in time even to defend the woman I…
"Dad!" Valerie sets Henry down and he runs to me. I drop down to scoop him up, losing myself in the familiar, milky scent of him. I stroke the hair back from his face.
"I'm sorry," I mutter. "I… your dad promises not to go away again like that, Henry."
"Because next time I'll come with you!" Henry declares.
I chuckle and scrub his head harder, ruffling the hair I've just smoothed. "You got it, champ. Next time."
I turn back to face the music, and stand up abruptly.
Valerie and my brother are gone.
Chapter Thirteen
Valerie
Gabriel Sway has set up his suite to almost exactly replicate his office back in New York. Jane told me as much a few days earlier, but I didn't quite believe her. It throws me for a moment as I follow him now through the door. She wasn't exaggerating in the slightest.
He invites me further in with an extended hand, and I take a seat robotically across from his desk. He sits down, steeples his hands, looks at me. I half-expect him to offer me a bev
erage, before realizing that's what Daniel would have done. They may be brothers, but the two men couldn't be more different.
I have a feeling it will serve me well now to remember that.
"The boy called you 'Mom'," Gabe says. My spine stiffens, and I'm instantly on alert. If I wasn't certain before what this meeting was about, I am now. "Did you tell him to call you that?"
"Of course not!" A hot rush of anger courses through me at the accusation. Just what does Gabe think is going on here? "And his name is Henry. Not 'the boy'."
Gabe sits back a little and seems to survey me with renewed consideration. I keep my posture straight, eyes focused, and try not to swallow too audibly. I'm not afraid of him. I am not. Even though he holds my job, my livelihood, in his hands... I can't afford to show weakness. Literally, I can't afford it. Gabe Sway is a shark, and if he smells blood in the water, he'll close in for the kill.
I just never thought I'd be the one floundering at the mercy of those cunning gray eyes.
"You don't have to act a part around me, Miss Brown. You can be yourself here. What I'm seeking now is some clarity on your relationship with my brother... and your intentions toward him and his son."
"My intentions?" I can't seem to stop echoing Gabe's words back to him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sway, but I'm not sure I grasp what this conversation is about."
Gabe Sway's eyes bore into mine. "Then let me help you grasp the conversation a bit better." He slides something across the table to me, an overturned piece of paper. I stare at him a long moment, uncomprehending. Something makes me desperately wary of that piece of paper, like to touch it is to accept whatever is going on here without fully knowing what Gabe is up to. "Please." He invites me with a single word, a single casual sweep of his hand.
I pick up the piece of paper.
"What is this for?" I stare at the unsigned check. I'm like a broken calculator, unable to process the amount of zeroes I'm looking at. "I'm sorry, but I still don't..."
