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But if she really is Swan, it would make sense.His inability to focus with her around, the draw he felt toward her even when she wasn’t around. The need to see her, talk to her…just be with her.
If she was Swan, she had a lot of fucking explaining to do. And so did Denise.
“Alexstrasza Marie Williams!” A woman with frizzy red curls, and a flushed face, dressed in tight jeans, loose t-shirt, and cowboy boots blasted into Tony’s family seating room, glaring at the little girl. “You about gave me a heart attack! You can’t go running off like that!”
The little girl tucked her wobbling chin into her chest and pouted. “But Mama, I was just coming to see Auntie Maeve. I missed her so, so much.”
Oh hell…that little girl was trouble with an adorable T.
“Tell you what, munchkin,” Maeve cooed, dropping her posh accent. “Once you and your momma are settled, you and I will bake a batch of chocolate-chocolate muffins. How does that sound?”
The little girl squealed, jumping up and down. Her mother grinned down at the girl, then at Maeve.
“Auntie Maeve, always baking up something delicious. Lord, I missed your baking, woman.”
Baking.
Maeve did bake, didn’t she?
Voices, conversations, and the sounds of the restaurant muffled as if through water. Unbidden, his thoughts narrowed to a pinpoint, laser focused on one person.
Maeve Thomas.
What did he know about Maeve? She was efficient, hardworking, intelligent, and she was a good friend to his sister and Anna.
But what else did he know about her? Over the course of the last month alone, he’d learned more than he had in the months she’d already worked for Harris.
Mentally, he jotted down a list.
She baked. Swan baked delicious cookies.
She could fake a brilliant British accent. Swan spoke with the same accent.
She had an out of control mug collection. Swan had an out of control mug collection.
She loved mocha chocolate coffee. Swan obsessed over the stuff.
She knew were AJ lived. Swan had couriered her care packages right to his doorstep.
She worked at White before taking the position at Harris. Swan had been at the company party, and knew details about the building a visitor wouldn’t.
Maeve used Cherry Vanilla Coke Chapstick. Swan tasted of cherries and vanilla.
He might not have spent a lot of time with Maeve outside of the office, but from what he did know of her, how she was with Sally and Anna, and how she was with clients, Blaze, Sly, and even him, she was a sweet, thoughtful, funny, and quick witted woman—if a little socially awkward. What he knew of Swan from her emails told him that, in person, she was everything Maeve was…but also sexy. Maeve was gorgeous. Sensual. A woman of passion wrapped tightly in uncertainty and shyness. She had no idea of her appeal, as though she’d been hiding too long. Behind beige and boxy clothes. In the office, she was a mouse. That night at Velvet, she’d been a vixen.
Maeve was like two different women, both of them intriguing.
Both of them tying him up in knots.
Was it possible? Could Maeve be Swan?
If so, what the fuck did Denise have to do with it? Were they working together to make a fool of him?
He immediately discounted that.
Maeve—in either iteration—wasn’t that kind of woman. If she was, Sally and Sly would have sniffed her out long before now. AJ trusted those two and their bullshit meters with his life and career. If they’d, for a moment, thought that Maeve was something other than what she portrayed, she never would have made it into their inner circle. But, there she was, chatting with his friends and family as if she belonged.
She does belong.
