She speed-dialed Parker. “I’ve got an emergency. A dog. No, I don’t think he’s been hit. But he’s dying.” Her voice caught. The dog’s eyes hadn’t opened. His neck wound was infected. He lay as if he hadn’t a bone in his body.
Parker met them at the door. They cut through the waiting room, past a kid with a squirming puppy, and an old man with a Chihuahua in the crook of each arm, to an examining room at the end of a hallway. Adam laid the dog, still wrapped in his jacket, on the stainless steel table.
“I’ll take it from here,” Parker said, and shooed them out.
The receptionist waited with a clipboard. “Whose dog is it?”
Maddie opened her mouth to claim him, then bit her lip. Dogs weren’t allowed in her building.
“Bill it to me,” Adam said.
“What’s his name?”
“He’s a stray.”
The woman clicked her pen, wrote John Doe Dog on the form, and offered the clipboard to Adam. “You can put your billing information here, Mr. LeCroix.”
Adam didn’t bat an eye at his name. Of course not. He was freaking famous. Not only was his face on CNBC every night, but unlike other gazillionaires like George Soros and Warren Buffett, Adam LeCroix was hot, so People and TMZ were all over him too, scrutinizing his love life the way Wall Street tracked his takeovers.
It was utterly disgusting. The man was a felon. Maddie always turned the channel when the reporters started fawning, and she’d once thrown People across the salon when she came on a bare-chested photo of him on his yacht, supermodel sunning beside him.
For the moment, though, she refrained from sneering, because Adam handed over a business card and said, “Send the bill here. Whatever he needs.”
John Doe Dog would need hundreds in care, and Maddie didn’t have it to spare.
Out in the waiting room, they parked in the hard-backed chairs. The puppy squirted out of the boy’s arms and raced circles around their feet. Across the narrow room, the Chihuahuas vibrated like cell phones against the old guy’s chest, bug-eyes glued to the action.
Adam pulled out his phone, hit speed dial. “We’ll be here for a while,” he said to Fredo. “Park the car, and tell Jacques to cancel the flight plan and stand by.”
“You can go,” Maddie said as he pocketed his phone. “I’ve got this.”
“I think not,” he said, dryly.
“Well. It was worth a try.”
He snorted a laugh, stretched his arm along the back of her chair. She scooted forward, giving him the hairy eyeball.
And for the first time, she noticed the oil staining his white shirt and streaking his tanned (and sinewy) forearms. His dark trousers were grimy from knee to (nicely packaged) groin. And his coal black, longer-than-it-decently-should-be hair was tousled . . . and ridiculously sexy.
She looked away, loathing herself for having nonnegative thoughts about him. But wow, she’d never seen him without a jacket, not in person. He was built, and probably hung.
“You’re filthy,” he said, a smile in his voice.
Her head whipped around. Had he read her mind?
Then his eyes skimmed her suit. Phew. He meant her favorite Armani, not her oversexed brain.
She shrugged. “That’s okay, I’ll expense it. The shoes too.” She pointed her toe, displaying the scratch. “I warn you, they cost more than the suit.”
His lips turned up at the corners. “I’ll have a pair sent over in every color.”
“Size six.” Heh heh. Ten pairs of Jimmy Choos would run him ten grand, plus tax.
“This Parker,” he said, “he’s a good vet?”
“Of course he is.”
“You’re not biased?”
“Why would I be?”
“You seem chummy.”
“That’s because we are chummy. I volunteer at the shelter he runs next door. And I’m telling you he’s the best vet I know.”
“Hmm.” Adam’s assessing gaze swept the room, and suddenly she saw it through his eyes. The water-stained ceiling, curling linoleum, fly-specked walls.
Her back went up. “In case you didn’t notice, this isn’t Beverly Hills. People here don’t do cosmetic surgery on their pets, but they still love them. And the low rent lets Parker put his money into the shelter. He funds most of it out of his own pocket.”
He brought his gaze back to hers. “I admire that,” he said, taking the wind from her sails.
“Yeah, well, you should,” was all she could muster.
She looked away from his bluer-than-the-sea eyes. It was impossible to meet them without losing her edge, and she needed her damn edge; it was all she really had.
Yet try as she might, she couldn’t ignore his presence any more than she could have ignored a panther lounging beside her, sleek and rangy and strong enough to snap her with one swat.
She knew his heritage, knew his parents’ best qualities had synthesized in their son. His killer eyes and quarterback’s build came from his Celtic father, his glossy black hair and movie-star cheekbones from his fiery Italian mother.
But knowing the genesis of The Sexiest Man Alive didn’t make his hotness any easier to handle.
Pissed at herself, she picked at the grit stuck to her knees until Parker poked his head through the door.
“Hey Mads, come on back.”
Adam followed behind her. She couldn’t stop him, since he was paying. But she refused to like it.
They found John Doe on the table where they’d left him, stretched out on a blanket. Adam’s ruined jacket lay on a chair.
Parker glanced up when they came in, eyes only for Maddie.
“He’s not as bad as he looks. Right now, his biggest problem is dehydration, that’s what almost killed him. We’re setting up an IV in the back to take care of that. He’s undernourished, obviously, and without knowing for sure how long that’s been going on, I can’t tell if there’s organ damage.”
He ran a gentle hand down the dog’s bony spine, then brought it back up to his neck, close to the wound. John Doe opened his eyes, chocolaty brown and filled with misery. “It’s okay, boy,” Parker murmured. “Nobody’s gonna hurt you anymore.”
Maddie’s eyes smarted, and one tear got away from her. She swiped it off her cheek.
Adam’s hand touched the small of her back, oddly comforting. “Will that heal?” he asked Parker in a taut voice.
“Oh, sure. I’ve seen worse than this. What happens is, the owner doesn’t loosen the collar as the dog grows, until eventually it’s embedded in the skin. In this case, the fucker must’ve ripped it off the poor fella before he dropped him on the street.”
“Jesus,” Adam muttered, anger, disgust, and compassion all rolled into one word.
“I gave him something for the pain. It’ll put him out, then I’ll apply an antibiotic salve.” Parker glanced at Maddie. “Want to help me bring him into the back room?”
“I can carry him,” said Adam.
“Thanks, but Maddie knows what to do.” Parker stepped around the table, dislodging Adam from her side. “You can get the door, though.”
He took one end of the blanket, Maddie took the other, and they shuffled past Adam.
As he started to follow, Parker kicked the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER FOUR
ADAM CAUGHT THE door with his hand before it bounced off his chin.
What the fuck?
Not since his boyhood had he been so rudely shuffled aside, and he’d hated it enough to spend the last twenty years ensuring that he was always the most important man in the room.
Apparently Parker hadn’t gotten the memo.
Fighting the urge to barge through the door, Adam paced the examining room instead, pausing to glare out the tiny window. It was grimy on the outside, making the narrow alley it faced look grimmer.
He spotted the shelter’s entrance, a freshly painted blue door on an otherwise derelict building. A skinny teen in ripped jeans emerged with a chipper husky mix on a leash. The dog’
s nose immediately went to the ground, sniffing energetically, reading the pavement like a newspaper. The boy ran a hand down its back and it wagged happily, living in the moment.
Adam’s chest tightened. The foolish dog didn’t know it was a stray. That no one wanted it. It simply took what kindness it could eke out of a cold, cruel world and made the best of the shitty hand it was dealt.
He’d done the same himself, but he’d gone that sorry dog one better. He’d quit looking for kindness at a young age. Stopped craving affection and attachment when none was forthcoming.
He’d even stamped out his old childhood longing for a dog, that one steady companion to take with him when his vagabond parents picked up stakes, tearing him away from what few friends he’d made in whichever strange city they’d roosted in.
Living on others’ largesse, as they’d frequently explained, meant traveling light. Bad enough they were saddled with a child. How could they expect their hosts to tolerate a pet as well?
How, indeed. Well, he’d made the best of it, hadn’t he? Learned to adapt, to mix with any crowd, from the moneyed offspring of their benefactors to the motley children of the hired help. He’d learned their languages too, and the language of class as well, the intonations and dialects of the posh and the poor, the parlors and the street corners.
He’d taken that experience, along with the brains God gave him and the sixty paintings his parents left behind when they died, all the way to the bank. And the knowledge that the daily landside of cash flowing into his pocket had its roots in the art they’d created at his expense always prompted a smile, not of joy, but of grim satisfaction.
Behind him, the door opened and Parker came through. “I’ll keep him comfortable,” he was saying over his shoulder, his large frame completely blocking tiny Madeline. “Why don’t you come back after hours? You can check in on him.”
Adam smirked at the obvious ploy. Parker was good-looking, capable, and obviously intelligent. But apparently there was a second memo he hadn’t gotten, the one about Madeline’s drive-by “relationships.”
Predictably, she brushed him off. “I’ll try,” she said, heading for the door. “Text me if there’s a change, okay? And don’t spare any expense.” She jerked a thumb at Adam. “It’s on him.”
Parker swiveled in Adam’s direction. Under the circumstances, Adam wasn’t surprised to see suspicion and dislike in the other man’s eyes. What did surprise him were his own similar feelings. They prompted him to give Parker, a man he’d otherwise admire for his compassion, a haughty stare.
And if that wasn’t odd enough, he heard himself say, “Your assistant has my card. Have her notify me as soon as my dog’s ready to travel.”
Taking Maddie’s elbow, he kept her moving out the door. But when they reached the sidewalk, she shook him off.
“What do you mean, your dog? I found him. You would’ve walked right past him.”
He looked down at her, showing only the mildest interest. “Pets aren’t allowed in your building.”
She glared up at him, patently furious that he knew so much about her, and undoubtedly wondering how much more he knew. He hid a smile behind a bored facade. She’d burst a blood vessel if she knew how thoroughly his people had turned her life inside out.
The car slid up to the curb. She ran a withering eye down its length, then set off for her place on foot.
Let her walk then. As they glided past her, he saw her middle finger shoot up. Behind the tinted windows, he laughed out loud.
His unexpected appearance in her life, not to mention the reversal of power in his favor, had thrown her back on her heels. But soon enough she’d pull herself together. And as much as he’d like to believe he had her by the short hairs, once she was on her game she was just smart enough to wriggle out of his grasp.
Of course, it was her brains that appealed to him. She was a spitfire, and in his battle with Hawthorne both her intelligence and her cussedness would come in handy.
At the moment, though, the latter quality was directed exclusively at him.
Fredo pulled up to the curb as Maddie steamed past. Adam caught up to her as she jabbed her key into the lock.
“There was a bathroom at the clinic,” she snapped over her shoulder.
“So there was.” He reached out a long arm to push the door open for her. She let out a low growl, then stomped up the stairs to her second-floor apartment and assaulted another lock.
He pushed that door open too, and together they stepped into a living room not much larger than the limo. Leaving him to fend for himself, she marched down a short, dark hallway and disappeared into the bedroom.
Halfway down that hallway, Adam found the bathroom, so tiny it would fit in the tub at his villa.
Squeezing between the shower stall and the bowl to take a leak, he cased the room. White tile, chrome fittings. Bathmat kicked into the corner, Colgate uncapped on the sink.
Messy, but clean where it counted.
On the wall above the toilet, four framed pencil sketches were arranged in a square. Farm scenes. Horses, a barn, an old hound dog. To his experienced eye, the drawings were the youthful efforts of a talented artist. Unsigned, but he knew who’d done them.
While he washed dirt and oil off his hands, he looked over the contents of her medicine cabinet. Birth control pills, as expected. Otherwise it was mostly over-the-counter stuff, with one surprise. A prescription sleep aid. He checked the label. Just a few days old, which explained why his investigators had missed it. He sprinkled the pills into his palm—all thirty still accounted for.
He poured them back into the bottle, set it on the shelf where he’d found it. Were Madeline’s financial troubles keeping her up at night? Good. The more worried she was, the tighter his grip on her.
The bedroom door was still closed when he emerged. He wandered to the living room. It bulged like an overstuffed suitcase, jammed with a few nice pieces she’d likely carried over from more prosperous days. A floor lamp with an extravagantly beaded shade stood between a comfortable-looking love seat and matching chair, upholstered in velvety ruby red. An ornate Japanese chest doubled as a coffee table. And facing the love seat, a flat-screen TV scaled for a much larger room filled the wall, dominating the cramped space like a movie screen.
There was clutter here too. A white fleece blanket balled up on the sofa. The Sunday Times askew on the coffee table, the magazine section flopped open to the half-done crossword. A cereal bowl with an inch of milk congealing in the bottom.
Feeling a sudden urge to take the bowl into the micro-kitchen and wash it, Adam shoved his hands in his pockets. When had he last done something so mundane, so normal, as wash a dish? He couldn’t recall. But something about this messy little space struck a chord, made him wonder how normal would feel. Made him want, badly, to prop his sock feet on the coffee table and take a stab at the crossword with the chewed-on pencil that was caught between the pages.
It made no sense. In his own world he demanded neatness and order. He owned a dozen houses, each grander than the next, and not an atom out of place. When he set something down, his servants picked it up. All signs of life were quickly erased, making it easy for him to leave, to bounce from house to house. He felt no attachment to any of them, except perhaps his villa.
But this sad excuse for an apartment, dinky and cluttered and the farthest thing from grand, felt . . . homey. Lived-in. He could see himself on that love seat, could almost feel John Doe’s heavy head on his thigh.
His gaze lifted to the walls, crammed with paintings. He’d scarcely noticed them, so tangled up was he in his inexplicable longing.
Now he focused his attention on the art.
He knew art—how could he not, growing up as he had? And he collected more than just the old masters. He searched out new talent, even played patron to several promising young artists.
These paintings were Lucy’s. He was familiar with her work, had already purchased—anonymously—two of her paintings from a Provide
nce gallery where she’d had a small showing. She was a staggering talent, raw yet, but maturing nicely, and largely unrecognized, so her work went for pennies.
Under other circumstances, he’d be inclined to sponsor her. But becoming her patron would lift the financial burden from Maddie’s shoulders, and he had no interest in doing that. She’d made his life hell for six long months, put fear into him for the first time since he’d claimed manhood.
Now he had her under his thumb, and he meant to keep her there.
“You’re still here,” she said, startling him.
Covering his flinch with a shrug, he continued gazing at the paintings. “Finished packing, have you?”
“No.”
He turned, faking mild surprise. She’d changed into faded blue jeans and a sage green T-shirt, both likely purchased in the children’s department. “Hurry along then,” he said, checking his watch to make the point. “We’ll stay at my penthouse tonight, fly out first thing in the morning.”
The expression on her pixie face remained calm and cool. “Fine. I’ll meet you there later.”
Ah. She’d regrouped. She was pretending to cooperate, hoping that if she seemed compliant he’d let her call some of the shots.
Not bloody likely.
Taking out his phone, he buzzed Fredo. “We’ll be down in ten,” he said, then slipped it back into his pocket and casually resumed studying the art.
He never heard her silent retreat—he’d have to remember she moved on cat feet—but when the itch between his shoulder blades abated, he knew she’d left the room.
He rolled his shoulders, cast a troubled eye around her cramped and cozy space. Forced himself to resist the love seat’s siren call, the crossword begging to be finished.
It was utterly unlike him. Yet in the two hours since Madeline had reentered his life, he’d experienced a gamut of unsettling emotions, not least of which was this bizarre yearning for home and hearth. He’d even taken on John Doe, an impetuous move for a man who lived life like a chess game, plotting six moves ahead.
But once again, she’d bumped the board, jarring the pieces off their designated squares, upsetting plans large and small.
The Wedding Vow Page 3