Maggie laughed as she went to the counter, where Michael paid the bill, and they walked together to the front of the café, reaching for the door at the same time.
Michael put his hand out for the handle. Maggie reached for it at the same instant. Their hands landed on the brass together, his over hers. Lightning zapped up his arm, and neither of them moved.
Michael went very still. Maggie's hand was soft and warm beneath his, and she did not pull it away. He looked at her. She was looking up at him, and his heart went wild when he realized how close they were. So close that he could see the small fleck of gold in her hazel eyes. He swallowed. Her lips parted, and he had to use every bit of willpower he had not to bend his head and kiss her. That thought knocked him out of his trance-like state.
"Sorry," Maggie said softly, and slid her hand out from under his.
"My fault," Michael answered, and his voice came out rough. “I wasn’t paying attention—again.” He gave a soft laugh.
He pushed the door open and held it for her, while she stepped through into the morning sun. Michael took a steadying breath before following her out of the cafe. They said their goodbyes on the sidewalk outside. Michael promised to call her in a day or two once he'd read everything properly. Maggie thanked him again, and this time she didn't try to hug him; he didn't try to kiss her cheek, and they were both painfully careful not to touch.
So painfully careful that he knew he must’ve looked like a stiff cardboard cutout.
"I'll be in touch soon," Michael told her, like he was talking to a stranger he’d just met.
"Thank you," Maggie replied equally stiffly. “I’ll wait to hear from you.”
She gave him one last tight smile, then turned and walked down the street toward her boutique, her blue blouse bright in the morning light.
Michael stood on the sidewalk with her file under his arm and watched her go.
His heart was hammering hard like it was trying to chip through the bones encasing it. He could still feel her hand under his. He could still smell the lilies and vanilla. He stood there as whatever was left of the walls that kept his feelings for Maggie away crumbled a fraction more.
MICHAEL
Michael walked back into Hearts Hotel with Maggie's file under his arm and his heart still not quite where it was supposed to be.
He took the back staff entrance and made his way down the corridor toward Uncle George's office, nodding to the young woman at the front desk as he passed the lobby. The hotel was quietly humming with its midmorning rhythm. Somewhere in the back, Molly was clattering through pots in the kitchen, the smell of fresh bread drifting through the hall. Rosa was guiding a small cleaning trolley toward the upstairs lift. The hotel might not be as full as he remembered it to be at this time of year, but it was still alive. An ache hit Michael’s heart as he really needed to keep it this way. Alive and as his family’s. He thought again, with a quiet ache, of how much it deserved to stay that way.
He let himself into the office he was now sharing with Linda and closed the door.
The room was empty. Linda must have gone over to Heart House. Good. He needed twenty minutes of quiet to put his head back together before she walked back in and read every flickeron his face the way she'd been reading him since they were children.
Michael set Maggie's file down on the desk and stood for a moment with his hand still on top of it. He forced himself not to think about what was going on with his rogue emotions and let his mind drift to what he remembered of Maggie’s husband. The man hadn’t been around a lot in all the years Kevin and Maggie were married. Michael remembered that most Christmases she’s shared with his family, Kevin must’ve attended three times. Even at his own son’s funeral, he’d ducked out after five minutes at the gathering at Maggie’s house.
Maggie had made the excuse that Kevin was taking Daniel’s death badly, but it hadn’t seemed that way to Michael. He’d watched the man the entire time, and even Evelyn had mentioned how cool and detached Kevin had looked. Maggie was struggling, but she’d had to wear a mask for Toby, and someone had to be there for the guests. Daniel’s wife and Laura’s family had also attended. The only people on Laura’s side were her grandparents. They lived in a retirement home, and Maggie was the only guardian capable of looking after Toby. Something no one had had to ask her to do at all. He was everything to her and the reason why Maggie had pushed through her grief as she had. She was no stranger to grief and understood the journey through it.
Michael swallowed, and he closed his eyes as he remembered going to the bathroom, stopping by her bedroom door to find her quietly sobbing on her bed. His heart had squeezed as he’d quietly pushed the door open and walked in. He hadn’t said a word but sat beside her, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry. He’d lost track of the time until Evelyn had found them there. She knew the scene before her was nothing more than afriend comforting a friend. She’d told them that the guests were starting to leave, and Michael and Toby had offered to go and see to it, while Evelyn took over for him for a while. About twenty minutes later, Evelyn and a refreshed Maggie had walked back into the living room. Most of the guests were leaving, but the dining table was filled with comfort food.
While Maggie had taken Toby to bed, Michael and Evelyn, along with Linda, had stayed behind to put the food away to help Maggie. When she finally came back into the room, she was wearing sweatpants and a comfortable sweater. Her feet were encased in nothing but a pair of chunky socks. Linda stayed with her, and by the time Michael and Evelyn had left, which was hours later, Kevin still hadn’t returned. Maggie had always made excuses for him, but they had all known what he was really like, and it was such a relief when Maggie announced their separation and, ultimately, their divorce. She had never deserved to be treated the way that good-for-nothing husband of hers treated her.
Michael still couldn’t believe that the man had the audacity to try to get his greedy hands on Toby’s inheritance or Maggie’s boutique. Anger boiled through him. “You’re going down, Kevin Sullivan, and I’m so glad I’m the one who gets to finally cut the invisible ties you have on Maggie.”
He sat, pulled open Maggie's file to the first tab, and began to read in earnest.
For the next half hour, Michael went through her file. He found the soft spots in Kevin's case. He marked the boutique provenance as ironclad. He flagged the inheritance trust as airtight. He noted the timeline of Kevin's attorney's motions and circled three of them where the procedural choices were so weak he could file to have them dismissed with prejudicewithout breaking a sweat. By the time he closed the first section of the file, he had four pages of strategy notes and the small grim pleasure of a man who knew exactly how to dismantle an opposing counsel inch by inch.
He set Maggie's file aside and pulled the Heart’s Hotel folder toward him.
This one was harder. The hotel's problems weren't a case to be argued. They were a debt to be carried, paid down, and outgrown. Michael ran his eye over the mortgage stacks again, the supplier statements, the long, careful ledger Martin had built of Tom's and Maggie's quiet contributions to the staff payroll. He started a fresh page on his legal pad.
Three days.He wrote it at the top, then crossed it out.Two days,he corrected,until the Wayne meeting.
He'd told Martin to set it for the day after tomorrow at three in the afternoon. That gave them two full working days to prepare the family's position, walk through the property valuations, anticipate every angle Mr. Wayne might come at them with, and decide together exactly how the no would be delivered.
It was tight. It was doable. Michael had built his career on tight and doable.
The office door opened.
