But I'm not that helpless, heartbroken boy anymore. I'm a successful businessman, a minotaur known in all circles of power for his ruthlessness and cunning.
Still, I feel closer to that boy than to the CEO I really am as my grandmother watches my reaction with predatory intensity.
"Why her?"
"Because she is good at her work and because I am seventy-eight years old and I will not have a stranger I do not know in my home for two months. I have known Madison Berwick since she was a child. She is a familiar face. She is the only caregiver I am willing to accept."
No. Not even Agatha Thornwood can force me to do this.
"There are agencies." I shake my head and my horns cast a long shadow over Agatha's bed. "I can have a dozen nurses for you to interview within the hour."
"I want Madison Berwick, Demetrius, or no one at all."
I look down at her hands, folded neatly on her lap above the wool throw and it strikes me again how fragile they look. How thin her skin is. How vulnerable.
And behind that thought, uninvited: Madison Berwick watching me with those big, angry eyes. Madison Berwick walking right by me and bumping me with her shoulder as she went away, all prickly pride and wounded beauty.
Madison Berwick, the girl who made me the man I am today.
I take a deep, long breath. I know I'm being irrational. The Madison Berwick I knew when I was a teenage boy, wearing my heart on my sleeve and waving it around like a target, is no more.So much time has passed, I shouldn't be feeling this way just hearing her name.
So what, she broke my heart into a million pieces and danced all over the remains? It was years ago. Water under the bridge now.
Then why does this feel so hard?
"You win. I'll hire her for you."
Agatha's smile turns triumphant and she squeezes my hand.
"I look forward to going home now."
"All right, Grandmother."
I stand, then pull the wool throw up to her waist. I tuck the edge on the side of the mattress, just like I know she likes it. I stand at the bedside for a moment, watching my grandmother settle in the bed, her eyes already closing.
I leave the room and I walk to the elevator, ride it down to the lobby, and push through the front doors into the parking lot.
I sit in my car for longer than I need to.
I am, it occurs to me, nervous. I am thirty-four years old. I have acquired eleven companies on three continents. I once sat across from a naga king and told him no to his face without blinking. And I am sitting in a hospital parking lot working up the nerve to knock on a door in the tiny coastal town of Saltford Bay.
Oh. To Hell with it. Just get it over with.
Then I drive. It shouldn't surprise me that I remember the way to the Berwick house as well as if the last fifteen years haven't existed at all.
What's the worst thing that could happen anyway? I'm over Madison Berwick.
Chapter Five
Maddie
Theromainelettuceisnot going to put itself away.
I know this. My brain knows this. My brain has also, in the past three days, demonstrated a remarkable commitment to ignoring things it knows. So I stand there and stare at the openrefrigerator door, the cold air pouring out over my feet, while my arm hangs suspended with a head of romaine in its grip.
My brain is busy. My brain is doing other things.
Specifically, my brain is replaying a pair of dark brown eyes, wide shoulders and an impossibly muscular chest clad in a tailored suit. My brain is a stubborn asshole and it's deeply inconvenient, especially for my poor head of romaine lettuce, which is getting all crushed in my grip.
