“I liked it before, too,” Hugh murmurs. “You hungry?”
“I am, actually.”
“Get a beer, I’m makin’ dinner.”
Red alert, red alert, go into your room and masturbate or something, Maggie. Don’t stay out here with all this sexual tension.
It’s a bad, bad idea.
Yet, I take all my things to my room, get a beer, and find myself sitting at the counter talking to Hugh as he cooks what looks like a delicious curry and, I’m not going to lie, I can’t wait to dig in.
“I didn’t know you cooked,” I say, watching as he fluffs up the rice with his wooden spoon.
“I can do a lot of things,” he says, giving me a sideways grin, “include take care of myself without parents, or a woman. Shocking, I know, that a grown man might actually be able to run a house on his own.”
I laugh. “You can make jokes, but it’s actually incredibly hard to find.”
“Men are fuckin’ lazy, then. Don’t take much to learn how to cook, clean, and live on your own. It’s not fuckin’ rocket science.”
“No, it isn’t, but that doesn’t mean they want to do it.”
He grunts. “Useless.”
I sip my beer. “Have you heard from Delilah?”
“No.”
“That good, huh?”
He glances at me again. “Yep.”
I say nothing more on the matter.
We drink and chat, and then Hugh serves me the best chicken curry and rice I’ve ever eaten. By the time I’m done, I’m practically in love with him.
“I’m not going to lie to you, I’d probably marry you just so you could cook like that for me every day.”
He pauses mid-way through another beer that he just got when he took our plates up, and raises a brow. “Because I can cook a basic fuckin’ curry?”
“It wasn’t a basic curry, and you have no idea how good it feels when someone cooks for you. It’s just ... so nice.”
“Well, fuck me, Maggie. I’d marry you just because you’re so bloody easy to please.”
I laugh. “It’s that obvious?”
“You’re like a fuckin’ puppy who has just seen a human for the first time. You’re so damned excited over the most basic shit it almost seems like you’re not real.”
“Trust me, I’m real. I just know how to appreciate things.”
“Tough upbringing?”
I shake my head. “No, not really. But it was just me and my mom, and she worked a lot to keep a roof over our heads. So, when we had extra money to do those little things other people take for granted, I appreciated it. Life out there can be hard; you take what you can get and you be thankful for it.”
“You better stop talkin’, I’m already designing your ring.”
I burst out laughing.
He does, too.
“Come on, let’s go outside, smells like curry in here, and I need some fresh air.”
I take my beer and we go outside and sit on the porch until the earliest hours of the morning. We don’t stop talking—we talk about everything from family, to friends, to the things we believe in. The conversation is effortless, flowing, the kind you just don’t get very often in life. It’s the kind of conversation you pray for, the kind that you want to go into a marriage with, because you’ll never get bored.
“I should get some sleep,” I say, standing. “It’s not often I get the chance to sleep in. But this, this has been ... it has been good.”
He stares at me and god, the look he gives me makes my heart all soft and squishy.
He stands too and takes a step forward.
I suck in my breath. “Hugh, please, don’t.”
“You want this as much as I do, Maggie,” he murmurs.
“Yes, I do, but I can’t do that to Delilah. I can’t do it to Star. If you don’t want to be with her, you need to make that choice. If you decide to leave, then we can talk about this. If you decide to stay, then you just have to understand this will never happen.”
“I can’t be with her anymore.”
“That’s something you have to discuss with her.”
He steps forward, curling his hand around the back of my neck and pulling me in. He doesn’t kiss me, he just brings me close enough that I can feel the warmth of his breath on my face, I can smell the beer on his breath, I can feel his hard body so close to mine we’re nearly touching. “There’s somethin’ about you that I need in my world, but I need my daughter too.”
God dammit.
“You can have your daughter without having Delilah,” I say carefully. “You don’t have to be with someone you don’t want.”
“Problem is, I’m scared she’ll take her if I leave.”
“She doesn’t have that right.”
“No, but she has money and money talks.”
He’s right, it does.
“That’s why you have to do this properly, Hugh. Talk to her. Be honest. But until then ...”
He growls, low and guttural. “I know.” He leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead. “I know.”
He releases me and takes a step back, then, with one last glance.
He’s gone.
Dammit.
That was intense.
9
I wasn’t going to do anything, I really wasn’t, that is until I walked toward the kitchen at the country club the next day where the nannies are hosting the morning tea and heard them all talking about me before I even got into the nursery room where we all put the babies down or play with them when we’re here. They were saying horrible things, about my clothes, the fact that I’m not rich and the fact that I got them into trouble and they want to make me pay.
Until that moment, I hadn’t wanted to play out a prank, even though Eve instructed me on exactly what to do to make sure it worked.
But then, I changed my mind. Done with all these people, I decide I’ll teach them a lesson about how it feels to look stupid in front of those women out there, the same way they made me look the other day. I glance into my bag at the packet of salt, some flour that is apparently really dense, and a powder that Eve told me to put in the baking powder so it won’t rise and instead become heavy and awful.
I turn and make my way toward the kitchen, praying nobody is in there. Being that today is the one day the staff don’t use the kitchen, I am lucky enough to find it empty. I get to work right away, tipping the sugar into a spare bag I brought and replacing it with salt. Then I change the flours, taint the baking powder, then stuff everything else in my bag and get the hell out of there. I’m just going down the hall back to the nursery when the girls all walk toward me.
The girl who caused all the trouble for me, whose name is Shakira, nudges me with her shoulder as they walk past.
“Oh, oops, I didn’t see you there. You just blend in so well with the walls.”
I stare at her in utter horror and shock. The walls are a yucky faded yellow sort of color, so basically, she is saying I’m trashy looking. Anger bubbles in my chest, but instead I give her a smile. “Have a wonderful time baking, ladies.”
I walk off and into the nursery where me and another girl are going to be watching the babies while they cook.