The Best Next Thing

What. The. Fuck?

Miles’s eyes darted between his mother and driver incredulously. Were they flirting?

“Yeah, that’s been going on since he helped her into the car at the airport.” Vicki muttered beneath her breath.

His mother returned her smiling attention to Charity. “Well, as I was saying…you needn’t concern yourself about us, Mrs. Cole.”

“Call her Charity.” Okay, so maybe he had barked that command louder than was polite, because everybody gaped at him in surprise.

“Only if it’s okay with her,” his mother said, after an uncomfortable beat of silence.

“It’s fine with me.” Charity said, avoiding Miles’s eyes. She had been avoiding his fucking eyes since his sister had walked through the door.

“Well, then I insist you call me Enid.” The warm directive was followed by an artful peek at the driver. “You too, George.”

Jesus.

This was giving him a throbbing headache.

“Vic, show Mum to her room.”

“What about Tyler?” His sister asked, tossing a disinterested glance at the tall, big guy who kind of faded into the background. Admirable quality in a bodyguard.

“I want to have a word with Tyler. You too, George.”

“Are you going to relieve him of his duties? I’m perfectly safe here, so his services are no longer required, right?”

“Is that why you came?” Miles asked tightly, and Vicki’s eyes widened and then shimmered.

Shit. She looked wounded, and he felt like an arse. Especially when Charity made a soft, disapproving sound in the back of her throat.

“I came because I missed you. And because I wanted to see for myself that you were okay. Excuse me, I’ll show Mum around.”

“Vic…” he began. But she had linked elbows with their mother, picked Stormy up, and led the older woman out of the kitchen toward the family suites. “Damn it. She took my dog!”

He was fucking everything up today. He squeezed the nape of his neck before rounding on the tall bodyguard.

“Why didn’t you inform me of her plans to come here?”

“Well heck, sir,” the man spoke for the first time since he had entered the kitchen. A lazy, slow Texan drawl. “My job is to keep her safe. Not keep you conversant of her every movement. I’m a close protection officer. Not a spy.”

Fair point.

“Well, one of you could have warned me. George, you must have known since at least yesterday.”

“Your sister wanted to surprise you. Far be it from me to spoil the surprise.”

Miles bit back an expletive and glared at them both for a long moment before shaking his head.

“George, please show Chambers to Hugh’s room.” George saluted, and the two men quickly exited the room.

“I hate when he does that. And he knows it,” Miles muttered. But as soon as he realized that he and Charity were alone in the kitchen, dread bubbled to the surface. He gritted his teeth and slowly turned to face her. She was watching him curiously, her head canted to the side as if she were trying to figure him out.

“So why not tell him not to do it?” she asked.

“Because he gets such a fucking kick out it.”

Her lips quirked but her eyes were immeasurably sad.

“Miles, I can stay and…”

“No.”

“But—”

“Charity, if you stay, it won’t be as the housekeeper.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I would want you to share meals with us, go on outings with us. I’d want you to get to know my mother and sister on a personal level. I don’t want you picking up after us. Cleaning up…organizing our lives. Fucking getting emergency whatever-the-hells at all hours of the day or night. You would be staying as my partner, my lover…the woman I—”

He swallowed the words. He couldn’t say them. She needed to make a clean getaway. And telling her how he felt would place an unfair emotional burden on her.

The woman he what? Charity longed for him to complete that sentence. She couldn’t remember anything she had craved more than to hear the rest of what she was certain he had been about to say. But she knew the words were better left unspoken.

For the sake of her sanity…and his.

“Be nicer to your sister,” she advised softly. “Don’t push them away, Miles. They love you.”

“What do you care? Why are you telling me this?” he asked bitterly, then immediately felt petty.

“We’re still friends, aren’t we? That was our deal, right? Friends…possibly lovers. But always friends.”

“Charity,” his voice was hoarse with suppressed emotion, and his eyes glittered when he forced himself to look at her. “I don’t know how to be your friend.”

“You’ve been my friend all along, Miles. And I…thank you for that.”

“Don’t. Just…” He swallowed loudly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with the motion. “You don’t have to thank me for anything, Charity. Ever. Okay? That infers a debt that simply isn’t owed.”

Her lips quivered, and she brought them under strict control, drawing them between her teeth to prevent the movement.