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“Work, looking after Gran, making ends meet at least until I can work things out.”
I nod. I’m halfway to letting myself accept this because it’s not my business, not really, when all of a sudden, I can’t stop myself.
“There are pieces of you, Magnus, that I can’t make fit, no matter how often I turn them.”
“People are complicated.”
I nod slowly. “Yeah, but you… Who is she to you?”
“Gran?” That smile again. “Or who I had to meet after I saw gran last night?”
My stomach knots. “Don’t play games with me,” I say quietly. “I can’t stand it and I don’t deserve it. So who is she and why were you at one of the most exclusive places in Manhattan?”
Chapter Seventeen
Magnus
For someone full of sweetness and light, with marshmallows tumbling in her veins, Zoey is way tougher than she looks.
I’m not a fucking idiot. I know exactly what she’s asking.
Amelia, who apparently decided to call herself Amanda, did well. Turning up at the right moment. But I need to sort this out first.
The stupid part is, nothing happened with Michaela. It was business. It could have turned into something more, but I chose not to, and Michaela was fine with that either way.
Zoey’s bombshell of a friend who has money and clearly dates very moneyed men is a wrench in the works, but one I’m about to use and spin into gold.
Not the friend, per se, but the fact I was with Michaela at Jones’ Bar.
I squash the little bursts of guilt that flare. After all, I need Zoey’s place. I need to get my plans moving on the heart front, or moving further than where they are. And Michaela is a good way to do it.
But now I need to slightly spin things to fit.
“For someone who doesn’t care, you seem to care, Zoey.” I lean in and whisper my next words against her ear, and breathe in her scent. “I like it.”
“Magnus…”
I straighten up. “I told you how I was ready to move and I lost my job…”
I take a deep breath, like I’m telling her a dark secret, and the ping of unease in my bones helps. Of course it does, I’m creating a mood. I like her, she’s just caught in my plans and she’ll be compensated more than fairly, so I’m not feeling anything like guilt. Magnus Simpson does, over his dear gran, and that’s all it is.
“Thing is, Zoey, I never told you why. I needed to move on to help my grandmother. If I stayed in marketing, took another job, it would be long hours, way too many hours…”
“I don’t know much about the corporate world,” she says as I pause. I’ve paused to give myself space to think of the next words, and to gague her response. “But…I imagine it’s just like that.”
“You’re not going to suggest I should have hired someone to look after her?”
“No! She’s got her faculties. She’s strong. She reminds me a little of Tuesday Harry. Of my own grandma. They’re old, not imbeciles. People treat old people terribly. But not you. I think…I think you’re a good man. And you’re doing the right thing. I admire you.”
Okay, that might be a little guilt I feel, but I squash it dead. It’s just from hanging out with Zoey all day. She’s dangerous to black hearts everywhere. And she’s useful to me in a lot of ways.
“I worked with her, Michaela. She took me for drinks to try and talk me into working in the UK. I said no. That’s all. I also tried to get her to donate to that charity, where we went.”
She looks at me, her big eyes soft and sweet and she rises on her toes and kisses me and it takes everything I am not to grab her here and now. “You’re a good man, Magnus Simpson.”
“Come on.” I take her hand. “I’ll walk you to your door.”
As her fingers close around mine, I don’t probe why I’m not pushing this.
