When Henry got in, he took one look at his boss’s face and headed silently for the refrigerator. After inhaling every lunch food in sight, he’d poured a coffee, located himself against the counter and was being silent as a tomb. Possibly he’d worked for Maguire long enough to sense when his boss was crabbier than a bear with a sliver.

Maguire hadn’t slept. He couldn’t imagine sleeping in the near future.

This whole plan wasn’t working. Well. Actually, it’d been working really well until Carolina heard the damn cell phone last night.

That she’d lost her hearing again wasn’t the frazzler. Two different doctors had told him that could happen, and was even likely to happen. She had to be completely removed from stress for a serious stretch of time. The phone was a trigger for her.

She’d get her hearing back. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was him. Instead of seeing her as a responsibility-a job, something he had to do-he kept feeling a pull toward those heart-big blue eyes. He touched her or tucked an arm around her, and just like that, he was harder than a teenage boy. That tangle of sizzle and rush happened every damn time they were in the same room.

He needed her to trust him. Which meant he had to earn that trust. And he sure as hell couldn’t do that if she was afraid he was going to jump her.

Which, of course, he wasn’t.

It was a matter of her never guessing that was even a remote possibility in his head.

“Where is she?” Henry risked asking a question, although he was still keeping a wary distance, still had his aviator jacket on.

“She’s upstairs. I heard the shower a little while ago.” He zoned in on the documents in front of him again-or tried to. The problem was that there were repercussions when he failed to concentrate on what mattered. If he failed to pay prompt attention to all this business, for example, he could lose a lot of money.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t seem to give two shakes about losing money. He’d learned long ago that there were far worse things.