Both my guardian angel and I ignore this, and I can't help giving a little squeal of joy when Theseus hands me back my phone. Not only did he give me Mr. H's mobile number, but he also gave me his office number and address, his email, and—
"Any chance you'll give me his real name, too?" I ask hopefully.
Theseus smiles. "Not a chance."
I smile back. I knew he'd say that, but smart girls never stop trying. And in any case—
"Thank you for this, Mr. K!" I clutch the phone to my chest like a woman who's just been handed the deed to a house. "I have to go now, but I hope you're his best man at our wedding!"
MAXIMO ALREADY KNEWwhat his friend had to say as Jassy waved at them for the seventh time before completely disappearing from view—
"Not one word, Theseus."
But this only had the other man smiling. "That bad, is it?"
Maximo had a feeling he would regret asking this, but he asked it anyway as he turned to face Theseus. "What is?"
"Her effect on you."
And indeed, he was right.
"She's nothing to me," Maximo said curtly.
"What I saw implies otherwise." "She doesn't even know my name."
"But you're still talking to her instead of asking my firm to issue a restraining order. That implies something, too."
Maximo didn't answer. The lobby moved around them, all that money and marble, but he saw none of it, with his thoughts revolving around a girl who didn't seem to realize how wearing her heart on her sleeve made her so dangerously vulnerable.
"Seriously. Who is she to you, Maximo?"
"Someone forbidden," he answered at last.
Theseus frowned. "Because she's too young?"
A humorless smile twisted over Maximo's lips.
If only it was just that.
"No. It's worse."
Theseus's gaze narrowed. "How so?"
"Because she has Mary's heart."
Chapter Three
I GOT THE JOB.
I got thejob.My first real, credited, someone-is-actually-going-to-pay-me-to-pretend job, and I'm standing in my kitchen the size of a phone booth, vibrating with the need to tell somebody, anybody, so I grab my phone and scroll to M for Mom and my thumb is already moving—
Oh.
Right.
My thumb stops, and my chest drops like the floor of an elevator giving out.
Because Mom made her choice a long time ago, and it wasn't me, it was the man who married her and looked at me like furniture, and you can't call a person to celebrate when they've already told you, gently, over a nice dinner, that maybe some space would behealthy.
