“Everything all right?” For some reason, he found her drawl soothing tonight.
“Of course.”
She gave him a knowing look, and when he gestured that she should get in the car, she shook her head. “You don’t look happy. You want to talk about it?”
“Do I ever want to talk about it?” he bit out.
That didn’t faze her. Maylee beamed a smile up at him, still cheery from her raid of the souvenir stand. He’d never seen a woman get so excited over ugly postcards and bumper stickers, all purchased for “Mama and them.”
“You can talk to me. I’m a good listener.”
He glanced over at the driver, then noted the street they were on. It was quiet, nearly empty. He doubted he’d get recognized at this late hour, but you never knew. For some reason, getting back into the car felt like admitting defeat. Like admitting that he was trapped into being their creature instead of the independent man he wanted to be.
“We’re not far from the hotel,” Griffin said, then hesitated. “Do you think we’ll get noticed if we walk back? I don’t want to have to deal with anything tonight.”
She put a finger to her lips and studied him. “Can I try something?”
“Be my guest.”
Maylee reached up and undid his bow tie. She yanked it off and tossed it into the back seat of the car, and then reached forward and loosened the top buttons of his collar, rumpling it a little. She crooked a finger at him. “Bend down.”
That crooked finger was doing insane things to his imagination. Griffin forced himself to concentrate on the moment and not on his dirty thoughts, so he obediently leaned forward.
Maylee’s fingers dragged through his gel-stiffened hair and she roughed it up, tousling it into a mess. She patted and smoothed it down again. Stepping back, she surveyed her handiwork. Then, she shook her head and held out her hand. “Jacket?”
He slid it off and held it out to her . . . and tried not to wince when she tossed it in the back of the car, too. But then she grabbed his hand and undid his cufflink, rolling up his sleeve. His hand was close enough to her body that he immediately thought of that breast pressing into his palm.
He couldn’t have pulled away if he’d tried.
Once Maylee had finished rolling up one sleeve, she moved to the other. “Much, much better.” She shut the car door and gestured for him to glance into the tinted window at his reflection.
The man staring back had fashionably tousled hair, a rumpled shirt, and looked nothing like his normal stuffy self except for the glasses. After a moment’s hesitation, he took those off and handed them to her.
“No one will recognize you at all,” she said, pleased. “We can take as long as we want on the walk back.” And she moved to his side and slid her arm into the crook of his.
Like they were dating.
It was too presumptuous. She took way too many liberties—something that his mother or anyone in the royal family would scold both him and her at the sight of. But there was no one around, and it was just a quiet evening street, and she was smiling up at him like he was special and she wanted to hear what he had to say.
And so he placed his hand over hers and led her down the street.
They walked a few blocks in silence, enjoying the night air. After a few minutes, Maylee squeezed his arm. “Give me a second. These shoes are killing my feet.” She leaned on him as she lifted one foot and removed one shoe, than the other.
He shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d decided to go barefoot through the streets, he told himself. Maybe she never wore shoes at home. For some reason, the thought of a barefoot Maylee padding around New York City made him smile to himself.
“Oh, that’s nice,” she said with a relieved sigh, tucking her shoes into her free hand. She beamed up at him. “You look like you’re relaxing a little, too. Feeling better?”
“A bit,” he admitted.
“Sometimes I like to get away,” she told him, lifting her face to look at the claustrophobic huddle of buildings around them. The snow-capped mountains loomed in the distance, and Maylee’s breath was puffing into the air next to him, but Griffin wasn’t cold. Her hand on his arm felt as warm as a brand. “You know. The whole city thing gets to be too much, and even my apartment doesn’t feel like home, so I take a day and just walk around the city.”
He could imagine that her apartment didn’t feel like home. It probably felt like a cave . . . an unsafe one at that. “Where do you like to go in the city?”
“Central Park is pretty,” she began.
He grimaced. Everyone always said the park.
“But I like the museums better,” she continued. “They’re so full of life. Not just the people there, but the things. Everything there represents so much knowledge and talent and creativity. I go there and I feel like I’m surrounded by the pinnacle of what people can attain. You know? And it refreshes me and makes me think I can keep going.”
Griffin was surprised to hear her say that . . . surprised and a bit pleased. That seemed far more astute an observation than a country girl would have. “I am a big advocate of museums.”
“Of course you are,” she said with a brilliant smile. “It’s clear you’re smart as a whip.”
“Are you flattering me, Miss Meriweather?” Because he was. Flattered, that is.
“Just callin’ it like I see it,” she said. “You’re always reading and trying to learn. I admire that.”
“What was your major in college?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“Filing.”
“I . . . beg your pardon?”
“I went to an advanced secretarial school,” she told him proudly. “Best one in Arkansas. We learned all kinds of good stuff like how to answer the phone, do spreadsheets, and take messages, but I was real good at filing.”
“They have classes on . . . filing?”
“You bet.”
“And you paid for these classes?”
That full lower lip stuck out. “Are you making fun of me?”
He immediately felt like an ass. “Not at all. I was merely curious.”
The hand on his arm tightened a little, as if she wasn’t sure if he was making fun of her or not, and she was bracing herself for a cut-down. “My mama heard about the classes and she told me that if anyone in our family stood a chance of making a real living, then I needed to go there. So she saved her money for months and I took a second shift at the Burger Shack to make ends meet.”
“Burger Shack? People really eat at a place with “shack” in the name?”
“Hush, you’re distractin’ me from my story. So, Mama saved her money, and I saved my money, and I went to the school on the nights I wasn’t working. And once I graduated, Mama gave me a nest egg she’d been saving and told me that if I was going to make something of myself, I needed to go to the big city. Not just any big city, but the big city. My success would help my sisters, she told me. So up I came to New York.” She looked up at him, her big eyes wary. “It probably sounds silly to you.”
“Not at all,” he told her honestly. “You’re making sacrifices for your family. It’s very noble. And your mother’s right. I doubt there’s much of a career in a burger shack.” He couldn’t even imagine.
“Our town is very small,” she said. “And you can’t get far on burn talking. So Mama thought I should get a fresh start. You know, let hard work speak for itself. I guess she was right, because without her, I’d have never worked for Mr. Hunter in his fancy office, or come to this pretty place.” She gestured at the narrow streets of Bellissime.
He tried to see what she was seeing, but all he saw was a city that looked more like a Swiss tourist trap than its own country. He saw buildings that were crowded close together and outdated for all their quaintness. He saw cobblestone streets that made a godawful racket when one was in the car. He saw a place that felt stifling and choking when he was here.
Griffin glanced down at Maylee, who saw none of these things, and was regarding their surroundings with a satisfied look.
He liked her purity of spirit. He liked that she was pleased with the smallest gestures and didn’t seem to care about the bigger ones. She had a good heart, he decided.
“So how did you get to New York, Mr. Griffin?” she asked, daintily sidestepping a puddle as they walked. “You obviously grew up here.”
“I did. When I was eighteen, I decided I wanted to go to college in the States. Dartmouth. I wanted to major in art history and archaeology, but my brother was the duke and my family was in rather dire financial straits at the time, so George said the only reason he’d let me go to the States was if I majored in finance. So I did.”
That sympathetic little hand squeezed his arm again. “So we both sacrificed for our family.”
He wasn’t sure that his was much of a sacrifice. An Ivy League college versus a school where they taught you how to work a filing cabinet? There was no comparison. “After I graduated, I was doing well fiscally with some small investments, so I decided to stay in the States. I chose New York City because it seemed like a central place.” That, and his friends in their secret society were all located in or around the city itself. “I’ve been there ever since.”
“You must love it.”
He actually hadn’t given much thought to it. He still lived in the same book-scattered townhouse that he’d purchased when he’d first moved to New York. The others had acquired penthouses or entire buildings. That didn’t interest Griffin. It was simply a place to sleep in between trips around the world, usually with Jonathan on another one of his expeditions.
He sighed. And Jonathan was currently in Spain, digging up the site of what could possibly be the ruins of Atlantis.
“Oh, no,” Maylee said. “Don’t sigh, Mr. Griffin. I thought we were distracting you from whatever made you so sad. I can tell you more about my move to New York City, if you like. Did you know I cried the first time I rode the subway? I was so scared I thought I’d be mugged every time I turned around. People always tell such stories about the subway, but it’s really just like a big ol’ bus.”
Griffin gazed down at her as she chattered. Her springy hair was escaping the knot at the base of her neck, and white-blonde tendrils were blowing in the breeze around her face. Her feet picked their way along the sidewalk, and her hand remained in the crook of his arm.
She was his employee, and yet she was trying to cheer him up because he seemed melancholy. That was . . . thoughtful.
For a brief, crazy moment, he wanted to stop her in her happy chatter and put his hand under her chin. He wanted to cover her mouth—that soft mouth with the full lower lip—with his, and see how she’d react. Would she blush and spout some countryish saying? Or would she fling her arms around him and give into the kiss with enthusiasm, as he suspected she would?
Or . . . would she slap his face because she was his employee and she was just being nice by talking to him?
Griffin patted her hand and continued walking, listening to her speak about her adventures in New York. It was clear after hearing a few more stories that Maylee was terrified of the city. He didn’t blame her. For a girl raised in a small town in the South, he imagined it was a very different sort of place.
But she never gave up. She never turned around and went home. She soldiered on, because it meant that her family would have a better life and more money.
When Gretchen had saddled him with Hunter’s laughable assistant, he’d been furious at her idea of a practical joke, in a time when appearances and scheduling was crucial. But the more he got to know Maylee, the more he wondered how someone so strong and determined had ended up being a mere assistant. She was smart and she was kind and she deserved a better lot in life.