She swallowed hard, tasting her bitterest defeat.
Five years ago she’d almost nailed him. A circumstantial case, but if only she’d been allowed to take it to trial, she could’ve made it stick. She could’ve convinced the jury that LeCroix was not only the mastermind who outwitted Sotheby’s state-of-the-art computerized security, but also the Spider-Man who scaled walls, ghosted past armed guards, and, in under four minutes, poofed with the Lady in Red rolled up in a three-foot tube.
But her boss was too chicken to take LeCroix on. With his eyes on a senatorial bid, he wasn’t willing to risk having a high-profile defeat splashed across the front page of the New York Times. So Maddie had watched LeCroix waltz out of her office, wave to the media whores who worshipped him like a celebrity, and cruise away in his black stretch limo.
That had been bad. But this . . . this was a nightmare. She was at the man’s mercy. There was no way she could walk away from her job at Marchand, Riley, and White and into another that paid as well. Not in this economy.
She suppressed a shiver. Not since she’d left her domineering father’s house had she felt so vulnerable. She’d sworn never to let a man control her again, but now LeCroix had her by the proverbial balls. And he was diabolical. If he learned about her childhood, he’d use her personal demons to turn the screws tighter still.
She couldn’t—and wouldn’t—hide her revulsion at working for him, but she could never let him know what it cost her.
ADAM ENDED ANOTHER phone call, checked his watch. Six minutes. By now, Madeline would have capitulated and she’d be processing her defeat. Girding her loins—that image made him smile—for the short walk to this conference room and the crow-eating apology the Marchand vixen would expect her to deliver.
His smile grew to a grin. That would be the day. He might have Madeline’s back to the wall, but he knew better than to expect an apology out of her. And he didn’t want one.
What he wanted was his forty-four million, and to see Hawthorne’s high-and-mighty CEO—Jonathan Edward Kennedy Hawthorne IV—blanch when Adam showed up with his former prosecutor in his corner.
Hawthorne mistakenly believed that because his great-whatever-grandfather came over on the Mayflower and started what was now the oldest, most hidebound, hoity-toity insurance company in America, he could jam Adam up. That Adam would quail at veiled threats to dredge up old rumors about the Lady in Red.
Not likely. If Hawthorne’s smarmy lawyers had done their homework, they’d know Adam didn’t give a damn about bad publicity. He didn’t give a damn about the press or the public or the next story about him on Page Six of the Post.
What he cared about was not getting screwed over by anybody. Most assuredly not by some blueblood who thought his money was better than Adam’s simply because it had more age on it.
Well, Hawthorne had a big surprise coming. Never in a million years would he expect Madeline to join forces with Adam, when the whole world knew she’d done everything in her power to convict him. Why, the press had made hay with it across the globe, sensationalizing the story of the upstart prosecutor’s tenacious pursuit of the self-made billionaire, dubbing it the Pitbull versus the Piranha.
For that reason alone, her mere presence on his payroll would neutralize any once-a-thief, always-a-thief argument Hawthorne could make about the Monet. And if Hawthorne cooked up some other reason to deny Adam his money, then Adam would turn her loose on him. Hawthorne wouldn’t have a chance against the Pitbull.
His grin widened. The icing on the cake was that Madeline would hate every minute of it. He couldn’t have dreamed up a sweeter revenge if he’d tried.
When the idea had first come to him a week ago, he’d wondered how he could rope her in. The woman had more integrity than anyone he’d ever met. But a quick and dirty investigation into her finances turned up her Achilles’ heel—her sister, Lucille. Sixty percent of Madeline’s income went to cover the girl’s expenses. Room, board, clothes, travel, and the killer—tuition at the Rhode Island School of Design. The kid got some meager financial aid, but she took no loans at all. Madeline covered every penny of it.
She literally couldn’t afford to lose her job.
After that, all it took were some vague promises of future business to her shrew of a boss, hinging, of course, on Madeline’s cooperation, and he had her right where he wanted her.
The door to the conference room opened and the Pitbull herself strode in. She snarled over her shoulder at whoever remained in the hallway, then slapped the door shut and stalked the length of the room, a short stick of dynamite, ready to explode.
He couldn’t suppress another smile. He’d always loved to blow things up.
She pulled up in front of him, close enough that even from her unimpressive height she was looking down at him. She snapped out one word.
“Why?”
He let his brows rise a centimeter. Gave her not one inch of ground.
“Why what?”
“Why me? It’s stupid to expect me to help you with the Monet. One thing you’re not is stupid.” She crossed her arms. “That means you’re dragging me into this for revenge. Since it’s been five years, and the only price you ever paid for stealing the Lady in Red was to get more attention from your fans in the press, why risk a forty-four-million-dollar recovery by putting me in the middle of it? Why not find someone who might actually believe you didn’t steal your own Monet, and leave me the fuck alone?”
Adam swirled his Scotch. When he’d envisioned this inevitable moment, he’d imagined responding to her attack with a swift accounting of her precarious financial condition, followed by a hard boot in the ass to bring her into line. Now that the time had come, he didn’t want to do either of those things. He liked her this way, with fire in her eyes.
The truth was—and this surprised him—he wasn’t quite comfortable using her sister as a sword to force her to her knees. Maybe he had a soft spot for sibling affection—he wouldn’t have guessed it, having none of his own. But more likely it was his business sense kicking in. After all, her feistiness would be an asset in his battle with Hawthorne. It wouldn’t behoove him to break her spirit.
But he did have to show her who was boss.
“Do sit down,” he said in an even tone that neither challenged nor gave ground. Then he dropped his gaze to the chair, a clear signal that if she wanted to meet his eyes, she’d have to park herself in it.
After five deliberate seconds plainly meant to show that she was sitting because she wanted to, not because he commanded it, she let one cheek touch leather. It hardly made a dent; she couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds soaking wet.
She’d left her jacket in her office, and her sleeveless top stretched over breasts that fit her proportions exactly. Not that he was looking; he kept his eyes on her face, but his peripheral vision caught the action as they swelled up and out with each annoyed breath.
“Listen, LeCroix—”
“Adam,” he cut in. “My top advisors go by given names. I find they speak more freely that way.” He smiled slightly. “Although you don’t seem to have a problem speaking your mind to the boss.”
“You’re not my boss. I work for Marchand, Riley, and White. You’re my client. I’m”—here she choked on her words—“your attorney. You don’t pay me. The firm does. I don’t report to you. I represent you. That’s all.”
He tilted his head, did a sympathetic smile this time. “Perhaps Adrianna wasn’t clear. It’s true that you aren’t directly on my payroll. But make no mistake. You work for me. You report to me. I am your only client, and my whim is your command.”
She shot out of her chair and he almost laughed. He had gone a bit far with that last part. But really, she was asking for it.
“You can take your whim—” she snarled, but he cut her off again.
“I’m sure you have many fascinating and original ideas about what I can do with my whim,” he said, “but that’s not what I’m paying for. I’m paying for your time
, your efforts, and your undivided attention. And by undivided I mean 24/7.”
Her eyes bugged. “I have a life, you know.”
“Do you?” Insulting.
Her cheeks went up in flames.
He could have told her what he knew right then and there, that not only were her finances in the crapper, her love life was circling the bowl along with them. But why let her know that his private investigators had turned her life inside out? He’d save that bombshell for another day.
Still, her lack of romantic involvements—past and present—surprised him. His investigators had checked as far back as her undergraduate days at Boston College and found no relationships lasting longer than a three-day weekend. Granted, it would take a brave man to bare his junk to her—he’d find himself short a nut if he looked at her crosswise—but even so, there’d been no shortage of interest through the years. It was Madeline who refused to get serious.
Her flushed face told Adam there was a story there. In time, he’d find out what it was. For the moment, though, he had all the leverage he needed.
“Get your things,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”
She bristled. “I can get home on my own, when I’m good and ready to go.”
Ignoring her, he set his glass on the table, pulled out his phone. “Fredo, bring the car around. We’ll be down in five.”
“I’m not riding with you!”
He dropped the phone in his pocket. Rose to his full six-foot-two, and watched her head tip back to hold him in her furious glare.
He curved his lips, part smile, all menace. “Five minutes, Madeline. With your things, or without them. That much is up to you.”
And he walked past her and out the door.
CHAPTER THREE
THE LIMO HUGGED the curb, the open door gaping like a hell mouth.
A good-looking guy with olive skin and a dark suit stepped forward to take her briefcase. “Hello, Ms. St. Clair. I’m Fredo.”
“Hi, Fredo. You can call me Maddie.” She let her gaze linger just long enough to signal interest, then mentally slapped herself. The last person she should get naked with was LeCroix’s driver/bodyguard/confidant.
Well, he was the next-to-last person. LeCroix was the last. Women threw themselves at him; his body count must number in the hundreds, or higher. But she wouldn’t be one of them.
Oh, she understood the attraction on a physical level. The man was a god.
But he was also the devil. And anyway, he hadn’t shown one iota of interest. Not five years ago, and not now. Ensconced in the forward-facing seat, a laptop propped open on his right, papers fanned out on his left, he didn’t even glance at her as she ducked inside.
She took the seat facing him, checked out the accommodations. Top of the line, of course. Buttery leather seats, recessed lighting, stocked bar with a fridge. But surprisingly restrained. Since LeCroix was nothing if not a showoff, she took a moment to recalibrate.
As they pulled into traffic, he said matter-of-factly, “If that’s the best you’ve got, I won’t be needing your services after all.”
Startled, Maddie did a quick check of her suit, flicked a glance at her briefcase. She looked like exactly what she was, a high-priced lawyer.
Affronted, she scowled at him.
But he was staring out the window. “No, I won’t change my mind,” he said, and tapped the Bluetooth in his ear.
She felt her cheeks heat up. He hadn’t been talking to her. She wasn’t even that important.
As if to emphasize the point, he tapped some keys on the laptop. Continued to ignore her while she plotted and stewed.
The problem—the immediate problem, anyway—was that she didn’t want him to see where she lived.
Before taking responsibility for Lucy, she’d managed to swing a sweet apartment in Park Slope, a trendy Brooklyn neighborhood where she’d come to know the shopkeepers and students and artists who shared it. Now she still lived in Brooklyn, but not in Park Slope, or Williamsburg, or any other upscale address.
Instead, she was squished into a tiny apartment in a dicey neighborhood that didn’t even have a name, its most attractive feature being proximity to the subway.
“Listen,” she said, trying to keep the anxiety from her voice. “I need to stop for a few things. Tell Fredo to drop me at Macy’s.”
LeCroix didn’t even look up. “There’s no time for shopping. We’re wheels up in ninety minutes.”
She nearly lifted out of her seat. “Wheels up? On a plane?”
“I don’t yet own a rocket. Though I’m working on it.” He glanced up. “Afraid of flying?”
She was. Deathly, back-sweatingly afraid. “No, I’m not afraid of flying. But Hawthorne’s headquarters are here.”
“And mine are in Italy.”
Hours by air. Across the Atlantic.
Sweat trickled down her sides. Heights terrified her. Flying took that terror and poured gas on it, then ignited it with a nuclear bomb.
The limo closed in around her, a rolling jail cell. Flirting with panic, she stared out the window, realized they were crossing into Brooklyn. Obviously, LeCroix already knew where she lived, which explained why he’d been so disgustingly sure of her.
Anger flared in her breast, a welcome reprieve. Scowling at his chiseled profile as he calmly skimmed spreadsheets and scrolled through e-mails, she stoked her fury until it burned away fear, burned away shame.
“Your Monet wasn’t stolen, was it?” she said, breaking the silence. “This is just another scam. Another swindle to prove you’re smarter than everyone else.”
He lifted his head, locked onto her eyes. “If I said it was, that would be a privileged communication between attorney and client, wouldn’t it, Madeline?” His lips curved slightly. “Even if I told you I stole the Lady in Red, there wouldn’t be a damn thing you could do about it, now that you represent me.”
She swallowed bile. “Are you admitting you did?”
His eyes, that startling blue, crinkled as he smiled. “Ever the prosecutor, aren’t you, darling?”
Her blood pressure spiked. “Don’t darling me, you son of a bitch.”
His smile grew. “Forgive me, Counselor. I forget how sensitive you American women are.”
“Cut the shit. You’re American too.”
“By birth, but I consider myself a citizen of the world.”
His background was old news to her. Born to two renowned painters who’d skipped and hopped around Europe, squatting for months at a time in the posh guesthouses of wealthy patrons, Adam LeCroix had spent precious little of his childhood in America.
An only child, fluent in seven languages and blessed with a staggering IQ, at twenty-two he’d sold off the truckload of paintings his parents left behind when they died in a plane crash off Corsica, and parlayed that small fortune into a gigantic one. Five years ago, Maddie had known the net worth of each of his international companies, and the figure was staggering. Since then, his conglomerate had doubled in value.
Now he was one of the richest men in the world. The asshole.
The limo came to a smooth stop. Outside the window, her concrete building loomed grimly.
Fredo came around to open the door. She started to get out, then froze, stooped over, when LeCroix closed his laptop and slid his butt toward the door.
“Wait a minute. I didn’t invite you in.”
He met her snarl with innocent eyes. “This vehicle has many accouterments, but a bathroom isn’t one of them. I hoped to use yours.”
What could she say to that? Nothing, that’s what.
She stepped out onto the pavement with a crick in her back and a scowl on her face. Fredo flashed a grin that seemed sympathetic. She couldn’t help liking him.
Sidestepping between a rusty Honda and a gleaming SUV, she heard Adam say to Fredo, “We’ll be out in ten minutes.”
Ten minutes to pack for Italy?
Swinging around to tell him what she thought of that, she saw movement under th
e Honda and leaped onto the sidewalk, expecting a rat to dart out. But nothing appeared.
Then she heard a faint whine and squatted for a look.
“Oh no!” A dog—more dead than alive—blinked at her once and then closed his brown eyes.
Dropping to her knees, she stuck her shoulders under the bumper.
“What the hell—” Adam knelt beside her. Then, “Oh Christ.” He caught her arm as she reached for the dog. “He’s hurt. He could bite.”
She shook off his hand, but he was right. She worked with rescue dogs, had seen even the gentlest soul lash out when wounded. And this fella was in bad shape. He’d crawled under the Honda to die.
Wriggling out, she sat back on her haunches and turned her outrage at the situation squarely on Adam, who was getting to his feet. “We’re not leaving him!”
“Of course not,” he said curtly. Stripping off his suit coat, he dropped it on the Honda, popped out his cuff links, and rolled up his sleeves. To Fredo, “Get the jack.” To Maddie, “Where’s the nearest vet?”
“Around the corner.” Her friend Parker’s place, where she helped out at the shelter he operated next door to his office.
In no time, Fredo jacked up the Honda. When she looked under, Maddie’s heart convulsed at the cruelty.
A short-haired yellow dog that should’ve been sixty pounds but was probably forty lay on his side in an oily puddle, ribs jutting, fur patchy, and a raw, open wound circling his neck where his collar used to be.
Adam crouched beside her. “Hello, boy,” he said in a tone that soothed even Maddie’s raw nerves. “You look like you’ve missed a few meals. Let’s see what we can do about that.”
The ropy tail twitched once, the brown eyes opened. Then closed again.
Adam reached for his suit jacket, shimmied under the car, and wrapped it around the bony body, then shimmied out again with the dog, his head lolling over Adam’s arm.
“Take a right at the corner,” Maddie told Fredo as he dropped the Honda. “It’s halfway down the block.” Then she swept the laptop aside and Adam followed her into the limo, the dog as limp as a noodle on his lap.
The Wedding Vow Page 2