No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) by Angel Payne, Victoria Blue Read Free Book Online Page A

playing around, either. Raised with little knowledge of the word “play” at all, Margaux was only comfortable with the word in the bedroom or the shoe store. Imagine that . I never counted the sole occasion otherwise, when I’d coerced her to play hooky from work and enjoy some time with me on the beach. She’d sworn me to secrecy about that day…
    “It represents happier times,” I finally responded. “And the woman you experienced them with.”
    Her lips inched up. Her eyes softened. Damn . Knowing I’d touched her heart…I felt as huge as a Sequoia.
    “And what else?” she pressed.
    A frown pushed my forehead. “It probably centers you, too,” I guessed. “Focuses you on a stronger version of yourself.”
    Long before I’d even kissed the woman, I’d figured that the sass she slung at the world was a sham, ordered there by an equal hoax of a mother. Andrea Asher had simply expected Margaux to be strong, without the necessary lessons for the integrity beneath it. Fast-food character building, doled by a woman now on the International Wanted List for her caviar taste—and the white collar crimes she’d committed to finance it.
    “Hmm.” Margaux inched her grin up a little more. “That’s a good one. And true, as well.”
    “But there’s more.” I inserted the word willingly this time.
    “A lot more.” She set down her empty highball and made no move for a refill. Instead, she leaned against the counter, thoughtfulness taking over her face, fingers again twisting the ring.
    “It’s okay,” I urged. “I’m here.”
    She pulled in a deep breath. Finally uttered, “Connection.”
    “Connection?”
    “That’s the more. The ring…it’s connecting me. Back to…me.” She shook her head, and I almost thought she was going to laugh off the introspection. Though it made no more sense to me than her, I was glad when she pushed on anyway. “For so long— too long—I’ve been living as an extension of Andrea Asher’s world. Okay, so I was probably the best-dressed one in the garden, but it was still her garden. Yet now…”
    “You don’t know what your garden is supposed to be about.”
    Her shoulders lowered, releasing visible tension. The fact that I’d said it, not her, cleared a lot of the air between us. She reached for my hand and squeezed despite the sadness of her next words.
    “Damn. I don’t even know how to start a garden.”
    “Of course you do.” I grabbed her other hand. “You just don’t know it yet.”
    Her eyes slid shut. When she opened them again, there was no mistaking the bright sheen across their emerald surfaces.
    “I’m still missing pieces, Michael. Lots of them. How am I supposed to promise myself to you, when I don’t even know what ‘myself’ is?”
    I lifted her hands to my lips. Pressed into them, acknowledging—and hating—the desperation of the move. To watch her struggle through moments like this, fighting to learn even the simplest truths about her heart, gutted me. I saw the enormous courage of that heart. I also saw the fucked-up wasteland of a childhood she’d had to drag it through—a wilderness that would’ve beaten her spirit even bloodier, if not for that ring.
    “You think all of us gets to have all the pieces, sugar?” I released her fingers to stroke my knuckles down her cheeks. “News flash, Miss Asher. I fell in love with the pieces I already have.”
    She sighed and smiled. “And I love all the pieces you’ve given me, too.”
    I dropped my hands. “Shit.” Her resolute tone, added to the sigh, didn’t require a rocket science degree to interpret. “There’s another ‘but’ coming here, isn’t there?” Because this night hadn’t gone downhill fast enough from the first two.
    She notched her chin higher. “You deserve more than pieces, Michael.” Then higher. “But so do I.”
    I rolled my stare toward the ceiling. “Yep. Here it comes.”
    “ Don’t .” She stabbed a finger to my sternum. “I’m not your