Page 11 of My Girl to Take

“And now?”

“Still am.” He looks at me. “You talk more.”

“I had to grow into it.”

“It suits you.”

He stands.

Not toward the door. Toward me. His approach is slow enough that I could stand up, cross the room, and put a chair between us. There’s a second where both of us know that option’s available.

I don’t move.

“Kiera.”

“Yes?”

He stops close enough that I have to tip my head back. His hand comes up and settles along my jaw, thumb just under my cheekbone. He doesn’t do anything else. He waits. He isn’t asking; there’s nothing on his face that’s asking. He’s just letting the moment sit there open, with the door still behind him and my legs still working.

My breath goes shallow. I lean into his hand. It’s barely anything—more of a decision not to pull back than a movement.

He reads it, and he moves.

His mouth is on mine—firm and demanding, not gentle. I’m being consumed, not kissed. My hands climb his chest and around his neck; my fingers curling into the hair at his nape. He makes a low sound against my lips, and his other hand finds my waist and pulls. The space between us stops existing, and I am not thinking about my stepfather or my mother or the fact that this man has known the adult me for approximately thirty hours.

I’m not thinking at all. That’s the part that should frighten me.

“Kiera?”

The nurse’s voice, from the hall, not close.

We come apart fast. He steps back with his jaw set and drags a hand through his hair. I turn toward the window and put myself back together with my hands shaking.

By the time she reaches the doorway, I’m fine. I am completely fine.

“He’s awake,” she says.

“Thank you,” I say, and my voice is perfectly steady. I hate how good I am at that.

***

Garth is sitting up when we come in. He’s had the nurse do his hair, which tells me exactly how much this visit means and exactly how much he’d deny it.

Logan takes the chair on the right side of the bed this time. It takes him a moment. I watch it take him a moment.

They talk about nothing for twenty minutes—a trial back east, the weather in London, a man they both knew who’s dead now. It’s stilted and careful, and it’s the single best thing that has happened in this house in many years.

Then my stepfather says, “I want to ask you for something.”

Logan goes still.

“There’s no one running my firm,” Garth says. “There hasn’t been, properly, since spring. Kiera’s holding operations together, and she shouldn’t have to. But the board is starting to circle.” He takes a breath he clearly needs. “Take it. On an interim basis. Just until I’m stable, or until I’m not. Then it’s yours to do whatever you like with.”

The word sits in the room.

Interim.

Logan’s face doesn’t move at all.