“Who, me?” My smile rose on one side.
“Yes, you.” Maisie leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of my lips. “It’s driving her crazy not to know what I’m doing, who I’m seeing, but rather than admit it, she just makes snide comments about how it won’t last.”
“She’s wrong.”
Chin down, she looked up at me with a sweet shyness that made me want to throw my Chinese food over my shoulder and get her out of my shirt.
“About what?” she chanced.
“Everything,” I answered.
I was rewarded with a flush of her cheeks and the happiest of sighs. “When you say it like that, I believe it.”
“Good, because I’m generally right.”
She swatted at my arm, laughing, and I feigned flinching.
“How’s the property search going for Harvest Center?” I asked, changing the subject before I really did end dinner early.
Maisie lit up like a lightbulb, lowering her forgotten carton to her lap. “It’s going well. There’s one in particular that I love, if we can get the permits and permissions we need from city council.”
“Where is it?” I popped a piece of chicken in my mouth.
“Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a vacant lot next door to a commercial building that I think would be perfect. I’m going to see it tomorrow, and I … I don’t know. It just feels right, you know?”
I swallowed hard and smiled sideways. “I know the feeling. One look, and you’re a goner.”
That flush again. God, she was so pretty when she blushed.
“I wanted to go today, but I was so busy with meetings and paperwork. Oh!” she exclaimed, rolling out of bed while somehow keeping her food upright. She did not, however, keep my shirt in place. The flash of the cleft of her ass and the shadow of promise beneath it stirred my attention.
I set the carton on my nightstand without any plans to pick it up until I had dessert.
She knelt to rummage in her bag rather than bend at the waist—a tragic loss—and when she found what she’d been looking for, she bounded back, leaving her dinner on the floor next to her things, chopsticks on display like bunny ears.
Maisie climbed back in bed, crawling toward me with a packet of papers and an envelope in her hand. She handed over the envelope first, and as I opened it and unfurled the letter inside, she nibbled on her lip.
“When I came home yesterday, I saw this in her trashcan next to her writing desk in the foyer where she opens her mail. I figured it was nothing, but then…well…”
I frowned as I scanned the letter from the judge’s wife to Evelyn, recounting all the ways she’d convinced her honorable husband to side with Evelyn in our case. This was followed by a full page of garden club gossip.
“A letter? Who even writes letters anymore?” I asked, flipping it over curiously to see if there was anything on the back.
“They’ve always done it. Mother said it started as an exercise through cotillion. Thank God they didn’t make us do it when she made me go through the debutante ball.”
One of my brows rose, amused. “You were a debutante?”
“How on earth does that surprise you?” She laughed.
“I need pictures of you in a white ballgown and satin gloves.”
“Not on your life. Those photos will never see the light of day.”
My eyes found the papers in my hand again. “This isn’t good.”
“No, it’s not. Surely he won’t take her side. Will he?”
“I hope not. We’ll find out soon enough. If we build a compelling enough argument, I think he might have to. I can’t imagine he’d be willing to tarnish his reputation as a judge for his wife’s place in the garden club pecking order.” My lips flattened. “You don’t think she’ll miss this, will she?”
Maisie smirked. “I put a dummy envelope in the trash just in case she noticed it was missing.”
“Look at you. See, you’re more Carmen Sandiego than you think.”
“It’s the trench coat. Pretty sure it has magical powers.”
Her smile faded as she offered me the pack of papers still in her hand, and I took them, immediately worried again.
“So I was going through some paperwork, trying to get myself reacquainted with the finances for the center, and I found these,” she said, sitting on her feet, knees together. “I don’t know exactly what to make of it.”
I frowned, skimming the details of the invoices and fund reporting. “That’s because it makes no sense.” I flipped the page. “Where did you find these?”
She tucked that lock of hair behind her ear again, and it almost immediately slipped loose. “Jess had finance send over ‘light records,’ which ended up being four banker boxes full of paperwork. I’ve been digging through them for a week, trying to get my head around the monthly costs and income, making notes, and I realized these didn’t match.”
My frown deepened, bringing my brows together as I added up the missing money. “This has to be a bookkeeping error. Did you find more than this?”
“No. But I can’t help but wonder if there’s more.”
I made a noncommittal sound. “Did you ask Jess?”
“Not yet. I will though. And I’ll talk to accounting too. Someone has to know. I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“That’s very trusting of you,” I half-teased. “What if someone is misappropriating funds?”
Her eyes widened. “Jess? Do you think she’d do that?”
“I don’t know her, so I couldn’t say. Would she have a reason to?”
“I … I don’t know. I want to say no, but …” She shook her head. “There’s some reasonable explanation, I’m sure. I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy before I went accusing anyone of anything. If my mother caught wind that someone was stealing from her company, she’d flay them in the lobby, and I’d hate to be some poor accountant’s executioner.”
She took the papers from my hand and tossed them off the side of the bed with a thump. A wanton smile curled her lips as she crawled over, affording me a convenient view of her body in the gape of my shirt, and before I could fully appreciate that, she slung one leg over mine, settling into my lap.
My hands slid up her thighs until they rested in the juncture of her hips.
“Had enough work talk?” I asked, my thumbs finding another juncture, the one split over the hard column of my shaft.
“Mmhmm.” Her hips rocked in a long stroke, and mine rose to meet her.
“Good, because I was about to pop every … single … button … of my favorite shirt,” I said, unfastening each one with a snick until she was naked.
And I spent the rest of the night doing another sort of work altogether.
One that involved far less math.
16
Ace in the Hole
MAISIE
A few days passed, marking a long and lovely week spent working in the charity I loved and luxuriating in Marcus’s arms.
Almost every day, the second I could get away from work, I headed straight here. Marcus had given me a key since twice he’d had to detain his mother to make sure I got in unseen. A few hours at night, one in the morning, and the occasional extended lunch. In the mornings, I’d sneak into his place with the sun—Mrs. Bennet was not a morning person, apparently—and at the last possible second, I’d hurry off, catching a cab only once I was around the corner and out of sight of Longbourne.