Chapter Seventeen #2
Maggie leaned back. Cora’s apartment was tidy as ever, sparsely furnished yet welcoming, a calm space in the turmoil of Maggie’s mind. “I didn’t want you to worry. I still don’t. I hate bringing this into your life and making you think about things that I should be able to control.”
Cora laid her hand over Maggie’s. “Mags. I’m not a kid anymore. You know that, right?”
Maggie looked over at her sister, at Cora’s calm smile, the tiredness in her eyes. “You work too hard,” she said automatically.
“Mags,” Cora repeated softly, the undertone of concern so alien that Maggie wanted to push back against it. Cora shouldn’t be worried about taking care of her. It had always been the other way around.
Maggie couldn’t hold back the passage of time. “I wanted you to have a normal life, like it would have been if we hadn’t lost Mom and Dad. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether there’s enough money in the bank.”
“But that’s what people worry about.” Cora squeezed her hand. “We’ve had a lot of privilege, you and me. And I appreciate all you did to protect me from the stresses. But now, I’m grown up. And I’d much rather be part of these decisions than left out of them.”
Maggie nodded. She should have realized Cora would react like this, in her typical levelheaded style. “I have a hard time accepting that you’re grown up,” she admitted. “You don’t need me like you used to.”
Cora tsked. “But I’ll always need you. You’re my big sister. Time doesn’t change that.”
She was right, of course. “I still don’t know what to do,” Maggie said.
Cora’s brow furrowed. “Of course you do.”
“What?”
“You’re going to break the deal with Chauvel.” Cora said it as if it were completely obvious. “That’s why you’re here.”
“The inheritance might get frozen.”
Cora sat up straighter. “If Mom and Dad got that money illegally, it’s not ours to keep. And we can work. We both live within our means.”
“Chauvel will surely pull your funding.”
Cora nodded slowly. “I’ll have to talk to Vanessa. But we don’t want to be relying on one donor, anyway, and especially not if he’s an asshole. We’re still sending out other grant applications.” She gave a wry smile. “All we can do is keep trying. If this falls through, we’ll find another way.”
Against her better judgment, a tiny tendril of hope began to curl open in Maggie’s chest. Maybe she could talk to Blake. He was a grant writer. He might be willing to help, or at least look over the grant applications. She would ask him before she volunteered him for anything, though.
The last threat was the biggest: Chauvel’s implication that he could have her blamed for obstructing the investigation.
“I have to tell Wiggins and James everything.” Maggie would need to make her lawyer and her financial adviser aware of Chauvel’s promises and threats.
She squirmed at the thought of confessing how she’d gone along with Chauvel, even knowing the legality was questionable at best, but she needed to confront the repercussions on her own terms. “Chauvel has been using my reluctance to confide in people against me. If I’m going to get free of him, it has to stop.
” She looked at Cora. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. ”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Cora had a gravitas that Maggie had never fully appreciated before. She spoke confidently and calmly, and Maggie felt better even with the uncertainty ahead of them.
Maggie pulled Cora into a hug, surprising them both. Cora paused, then returned the embrace. Whatever uncertainty lay ahead, at least this was certain: she and Cora had each other.
Maggie pulled back, swallowing the unexpected lump in her throat and composing herself. “When I meet with them, do you want to come with me?”
Cora nodded. “Definitely.”
By evening, Blake knew he had to go home. He couldn’t stay away forever. Andrew was still at that wedding with Zane, and his other friends were all busy on such short notice, so he’d killed time doing paperwork at PlantSeed, then spent the rest of the day in the library until they closed.
When he got home, though, after dark, the condo was empty. It was unlike Maggie to leave without a note of some kind. He may be avoiding her, but he wasn’t an asshole, so he sent a text.
Just got home. Nobody’s here! You OK?
She wrote back right away. Heading back from Cora’s. Thanks for checking up on me.
He felt a wave of relief. It had been strange to enter the condo and not know where she was. Even though he was angry about the way Rose had lied to him, he somehow couldn’t transpose that anger onto Maggie, even though he knew intellectually that they were the same person.
He changed into sweatpants and checked his phone again. No message from Rose, either, which was probably good. She’d lied to him, and he couldn’t ignore that lie.
Maggie wouldn’t lie to him like that.
She’s the same person, he repeated, and yet … they didn’t feel the same. That disconnect had been warring in his thoughts all day.
Maggie wouldn’t lie. Maybe Rose wasn’t lying, either. If she’d really been enjoying their time together, and if she felt the same for him as he did for her, then perhaps they could find a way to keep Chauvel from getting in the way.
He should give her the chance to tell him the truth.
Blake checked the plants throughout the house, the motions automatic even as his mind continued to race.
He spritzed the air plants, then set a few extra-dry succulents into a dish of water.
Working around the room, he pinched off dead leaves, watered a dry pot or two, rotated those in the window so they wouldn’t lean.
He understood plants. They broadcast their needs through their leaves and flowers and soil, and he responded accordingly.
He was great at paying attention to their subtle communication.
There was no reason he couldn’t do the same with a romantic partner.
He cared for these plants, and he could care for another person, too, with the same diligence.
Maybe he was scared. Not scared of caring, but of being cared for. Being open and vulnerable and honest. Being both Blake and the Scarlet Pimpernel. Right now, if either of those identities was rejected, he had the other half to fall back on.
It didn’t feel like a double life, though. It felt like half a life.
He wanted to be whole.
If Maggie was the real thing, if she was genuine and honest and truly authentic as herself and as Curious Rose, maybe he could be authentically himself as well.
All of himself. If he was honest about his feelings and hopes—Did he love her?
Was he falling in love? Was it too soon even to wonder?
—there would be nothing else to fall back on.
She might want nothing at all except an article.
She might want each half of him separately, and in different ways, but not the entirety.
Or she might want everything.
And if he bailed now, he would never get the chance to find out.
Blake nearly jumped out of his skin as the front door opened. Maggie spotted him standing by the wall of plants. “You didn’t lock it.” She gave him a tentative smile.
“Distracted, I guess.” He swallowed and tried to return her smile. If he was weird, she was going to think he never wanted to have sex with her again.
Maggie slipped off her shoes. “You’re never distracted.”
“Sometimes I’m distracted.” He felt a strange, childish urge to stick his tongue out, a sign of how little he felt like himself. “Like tonight.”
“Well, good thing it’s just me. I could have been a murderer.” She set her keys in the key bowl and hung up her purse. He watched her, and tried not to watch her, as she went into the kitchen for some water. She stood in front of the fridge and chugged the entire glass before refilling it.
“Impressive,” he said.
Maggie smiled. Then her smile faded. She opened her mouth like she wanted to talk, then closed it again, then opened it a second time and asked, “Are we good?”
Blake’s heart twisted. Maybe she’d been worried all day.
He tried to think of her as Rose, making up an interest in kink, lying to get him to reveal his identity.
But then he thought of her in bed last night, her eager enthusiasm, the way she’d wanted everything he wanted to give her. If she wasn’t lying …
He tried to set aside all his own worries about revealing himself as the Pimpernel, and telling her the truth, and whatever might come after that.
Instead, he focused on this person he cared about, his friend who was clearly worried about their friendship.
He stepped into the kitchen, took the glass from her hand, and set it on the counter next to them. Then he took her in a hug.
Maggie stiffened, her hands going to his biceps in surprise, then she relaxed and wrapped her arms around him. It wasn’t romantic. It was the right kind of embrace for now.
“Yeah.” He squeezed her. “We’re good.”
She pressed her cheek against his and returned the hug. “OK. Are we gonna talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about, right?” He stepped back. “We said that beforehand. That it didn’t have to mean anything.” It was the worst kind of half-truth, but all he could do was try to allay her concerns until he figured out how to tell her the rest.
She narrowed her eyes, studying him with a pensive look. Then her face relaxed. “OK, good.” She grabbed her water off the counter and headed into the bedroom.
Blake needed Rose to tell him the truth.
Maggie was barely changed into pajamas when a message from the Pimpernel popped up on her app.
Hey, he said, as if it was any other day.