The Billionaire's Handler. Jennifer Greene

But she’d recalled enough to make her want to curl up in a closet again, go back to where she’d become so agitated she couldn’t keep food down, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t rest, couldn’t escape. Anywhere.

      So maybe it was irresponsible and downright dumb to dwell on Maguire’s voice … but temporarily, it felt like self-preservation. Just listening to him allowed her to push her real life away for a little longer. It was hard to feel too guilty. Nothing was waiting for her in real life but more unsolvable problems and anxiety.

      “Okay,” Maguire mumbled. “Moving away from the food list and onto the major life wishes list. And right off the bat, cookie, I can see this list has more potential to be challenging …” He was still obviously talking to himself. He hadn’t lifted his head from the legal pad. “You want to have dinner in a tree house. A real tree house. Hmm. You want fifteen pairs of Italian shoes. No surprise there—the shopping gene was bound to surface sooner or later. You want to sleep in a castle. A real castle. You’d like a weekend at a spa. Now you’re talking. You want to ride in an old MG, like a ‘53, one of those ‘darling ones’ with running boards and all. You want … well, hey. Are you actually listening to this monologue, Carolina?”

      Maguire had abruptly looked up. Looked straight at her.

      He’d caught her. There was nothing she could do but fess up, so she nodded. “My hearing’s coming back. I can’t make it stay, but I’ve been listening to you talk. And I can hear my own voice. My hearing just seems to fade in and out. It’s not consistent. I don’t understand it.”

      “I do. The doctors all explained it the same way. You stopped hearing because your life had become an overwhelming pressure cooker. Remove the pressure, and there was every reason to believe you’d get your hearing back again.”

      “But nothing’s changed.” Anxiety nipped at her nerves, then took a serious raw bite. “The pressure and problems are all there, all real. In fact, I have to go home. I have to get up. I have to—”

      When she made a move to push off the couch, he interrupted. His voice was quiet, calm. “I’ve got a deal for you.”

      “I’m not a make-a-deal kind of person, Maguire. There is no deal. As crazy as it sounds, I haven’t minded being kidnapped, but now … it’s all coming back. I don’t have time to mess around. I have to go home—”

      “Hold it, hold it. This is a deal that’s going to work for you. I promise. You want to know how I happened to bring you here, don’t you? So I’ll fill in all the missing information. All you have to do is give me a chance to do that.”

      She hesitated. She did want to understand—fiercely—how this whole crazy thing had happened. But she wanted to hear about it right away, with no interruptions.

      She should have known better. Everything had to be his way. He came through with a man’s parka and hat and gloves for her, dragged her outside again. Early evening, the last color was just purpling the snow on the mountaintops. Not a breath of wind stirred. He helped her into an old Adirondack chair, buried in down blankets, but mittens out—so she could hold a glass of wine. Maguire started building a fire in a copper pit by the chairs.

      It only took a few minutes before a blaze of golden sparks lit up the night. Wood smoke whiskered off in the valley, mingling with the pungent scent of pine. Maguire, wearing a leather jacket so old Goodwill would probably reject it, took the chair next to her, but his attention was on hunching over, stirring the fire, keeping it heaped up and hot.

      And then he finally started talking. “Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a man named Gerald who had three sons. Gerald’s daddy had invented something so fantastic that he made millions, then billions, and Gerald inherited it all. He devoted his life to buying anything he wanted … That wine okay with you? ”

      “The wine’s fine,” she said impatiently. It was better than fine. It was some kind of fancy Pinot Noir, rich and dry and deep as the night. “Don’t trying diverting me, Maguire. Keep talking.”

      “Okay, okay. Well, Gerald’s first son was named Jay. Jay never worked, and probably never will. From the time he was sixteen, he was going through drugs and women, smashing fast cars, getting into every kind of trouble he could think of. He sounds rotten, but I swear you’d like him. Everyone does. He’s a charmer.”

      Maguire checked her glass, saw she’d only had a sip or two, poured himself some, then went on. “Gerald went through that wife, then another. Eventually he had a second son. They got along like a snake and a mongoose. About the time Second Son was in college, he had a huge fight with his father because Gerald made a manslaughter charge against Jay disappear. Jay happened to be driving drunk, and hit an old man. The guy was homeless, so he didn’t matter, right? No one knew him. No one missed him. The father couldn’t figure out why his second son got his Jockeys in such a twist, but that was the last time Second Son spoke directly to his father.”

      Maguire paused for breath, but Carolina didn’t comment. She’d stopped breathing altogether. For the first time in months, she easily put aside her own life and problems. It didn’t take rocket science to figure out that Maguire was the second son, that he was talking about himself.

      “A wife or two later, a third son came into the picture. Tommy was a complete surprise. Unfortunately, when Gerald’s wife was eight months pregnant, he thought she’d enjoy taking a hang-glider ride. Apparently, they both did enjoy it, until the glider crashed. Gerald wasn’t hurt, but his wife went into premature labor. She never made it out of the delivery room, lots of complications. Tommy lived, but he was born weeks too soon, was never right.

      “Gerald solved the problem of Tommy like he did everything else. Threw money at it. The kid had full-time help at home, every toy ever made, was dragged to the best medical specialists on a regular basis. Since all the records pointed to the premature birth, the lack of oxygen—and maybe to the recreational drugs Gerald and his wife enjoyed—no one really expected to find miracles for Tommy. But at least there was no fear he wouldn’t always be well taken care of.”

      Carolina watched him. He was restless now, couldn’t sit still, had to fuss with the coals again, even though the fire was vibrantly shooting gold sparks into the night sky. “Last summer, Gerald put Tommy in a special place. He’d heard there was this really unusual summer program near South Bend, a school that had fresh ideas for the range of kids who just can’t seem to progress because of their mental disabilities. Gerald wasn’t really expecting Tommy to improve, of course. He just wanted to vacation in Corfu, wanted a place to stash him.”

      “Maguire.” She said his voice softly, gently. She couldn’t just let him go on, not when he was expressing so much hurt—in such a tough voice.

      But he motioned her with a hand. “I know this is a long story, Carolina, but I really hate telling it. I’m almost at the end, so just let me get through it, okay?”

      She nodded.

      “So Tommy goes to this incredible place. And he has a seizure. Seizures aren’t unusual for someone with Tommy’s brain issues, but this teacher thinks there’s something that doesn’t make sense. So when an ambulance picks him up from the school, she goes to the hospital with him. Everybody starts getting mad at her. The doctor, the medical staff. They think she’s interfering, full of herself, doesn’t know anything. But the thing is, this teacher—by the name of Carolina Daniels—was right. All this time, there was actually a reason for a lot of Tommy’s mental and physical disabilities. He had a tumor behind one eye.

      “Now Tommy still isn’t perfect. Never will be. But his life just became damn close to normal, thanks to her. Gerald, being Gerald, offers her money. This Carolina woman won’t take it. But that’s all Gerald has ever known how to do—throw money at problems—so he puts her in his will, leaves this unsuspecting teacher somewhere around fifteen million dollars. Of course, Gerald wasn’t actually planning on dying. But whatever. Gerald wanted her to have some payback, and being Gerald, he got what he wanted.”

      Maguire finally tried stretching out his long legs toward the fire, leaning back