Getting back into her jeans helped her mood, but not much. She was slumped on the sofa feeling sorry for herself when Bridget popped in to take her lunch order.
“I’m not hungry,” she groused at the girl. “Just give me whatever the big cheese is having.”
Bridget’s brow furrowed.
Maddie rolled her eyes. “The boss man. The string puller. The great and powerful Oz.”
“Ah, yes. Mr. LeCroix requested a light lunch of Caesar salad with two of Leonardo’s popovers piping hot from the oven.”
Mmm, Caesar salad. And popovers, well, those didn’t grow on trees. When was the last time—
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that his usual?”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am. Mr. LeCroix seldom eats lunch in. Will you be dining with him?”
“No.” Then, “Wait. On second thought, where’s he eating?”
“In his suite, with John.” Bridget smiled benignly. “A skinny one, he is, but Mr. LeCroix will fix him up. He’s a good hand with strays.”
“You mean he’s done this before? Taken in a stray dog?”
“Oh dear, no. I meant people. Like Fredo and Henry and me. We were at loose ends, each of us, when Mr. LeCroix came calling. Paying his debts, he said, to the folks who stood by him in his youth.”
“You knew him as a child?” This could be interesting.
“Not myself, no. But my husband, Ian, did him a good turn in a Dublin pub. Something to do with a lass and a dirk, though I never did get the details.”
She touched the small cross she wore on a fine gold chain. “Ian was a reckless sort, and back in the day Mr. LeCroix was cut from the same bolt of cloth. But he mended his ways, made a name for himself. Came back to give Ian a leg up, not three days after he was shot down in a Finglas alley.
“Mr. LeCroix found me at his graveside, not a penny to my name. And look at me now. A steady job and money in the bank.”
She hit her stride. “Now, Henry, his hard luck began as a boy—”
Maddie’s phone whistled the Mayberry theme. Lucy’s ringtone.
“Sorry, we’ll have to finish this later.” She herded Bridget toward the door. “I’ll have lunch upstairs.” With John. She’d be damned if she let LeCroix hog him.
Settling on the sofa again, she stacked her heels on the coffee table, in a better frame of mind. If anything could cheer her up, it was a nice long chat with her sister.
“Hey, Luce.”
“Maddiiiiieeeee! I can only talk for a minute.”
“Okay.” Disappointing.
“I just wanted to tell you I’m coming for the Fourth!”
Maddie shot out of her seat. “Of July?”
Lucy laughed. “Yes, of July. I used your Visa to book the train, I hope that’s okay.”
“Sure, but—”
“And I’m bringing Crash. My boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?”
“That’s his band rehearsing across the hall.”
Which explained the racket. But nothing else.
“I didn’t know—”
The din ratcheted higher. “I can hardly hear you,” Lucy bellowed. “Listen, we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”
“Wait! What—”
“I’m dying for you to meet him!”
“But—”
“Gotta go.” The “music” crescendoed, then died. “See you tomorrow! Bye!”
Maddie stared at her phone as if it was to blame.
Things weren’t bad enough? Lucy had to pick now to get a boyfriend? She had to bring him to New York the day Maddie was supposed to leave the country?
It changed everything. She couldn’t leave them alone in her apartment. Lucy having sex was hard enough to accept. Lucy having sex in her bed with Crash—a musician? That was just not gonna happen.
Italy was out. LeCroix would have to see reason. Or else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
APPARENTLY THINGS WEREN’T bad enough, because Maddie walked into Adam’s suite only to find that he’d changed into ass-hugger jeans and a snug black T-shirt that showed off The Best Arms she’d ever seen. Ever.
And she knew arms. Half the reason she haunted the gym was to ogle arms. Now LeCroix’s were right in front of her, sun-browned and roped with lean muscle. Just the way she liked them.
Stepping past him, she dragged her gaze from The Arms and scanned his parlor. Twice the size of hers, its neutral palette kept the focus on the art, enough to endow a university. The gas fireplace was black marble, with a leather sofa and club chairs sharing an oversized ottoman in front of it, pushed aside now to make room for John’s bed.
A small but elegant dining table stood much too close to the window wall that overlooked Central Park. And Adam’s desk, L-shaped and tricked out with three jumbo monitors, had probably once belonged to the president.
Diabolically, after letting her into the suite, the man himself proceeded to pay her no mind, his tight butt propped against the edge of the desk, ankles crossed, nose in a prospectus, while with the flat of one hand he rubbed his awesome chest, a move that bulged his biceps, stretching his sleeve to the breaking point and whipping her overwrought libido into a full-on frenzy.
Severely disadvantaged, she fell back on surliness. “Where’s lunch?”
He looked up, distracted, and nodded at the phone. “Tell the kitchen you’re dining here.”
“Bridget already knows.” She did a toothy smile. “You said I can spend as much time with John as I want to, so I’m basically moving in.”
And hoping to aggravate him out of taking her to Italy, she plunked on the sofa, pulled out her phone, and proceeded to check Facebook.
MOVING IN, WAS she? Well, that was fine with him.
Plenty of room for her in his king-sized bed. And if she kept eyeing him the way she’d been doing since she walked in, she’d find herself on her back in the middle of it.
“How convenient,” he said mildly. “I’ve another employment contract for you to review, and a stock option agreement with some thorny language that could use fresh eyes.”
He sifted through a short stack of folders, pulled out two, and walked them to Madeline. She took them without a word, dropped them on the seat, and went back to her phone.
He plucked it from her hand.
“Hey!” She grabbed for it. He held it just out of reach. She leaped to her feet. He held it higher. She came around the couch, jabbed him in the chest with her pointy finger. “Give me my phone, you jerk, or I’ll knee you in the nuts.”
He slid it into his back pocket, intercepted her knee with one hand, and used it to tip her, very gently, over the arm of the sofa.
She landed on her back, outrage all over her face. “That’s assault! I’m pressing charges!”
He laughed.
Her eyes glinted.
John Doe whined softly.
They looked at him, then back at each other.
“See what you did?” Snarling lips belied Maddie’s dulcet tones.
“My apologies, John.” His voice was pure honey. Stepping around the sofa, he lifted Maddie gently by the waist, set her on her feet. “See now? We’re all friends here, aren’t we?”
“Bosom buddies,” she got out. But her voice had gone breathy. His pulse sped up in response.
He let himself look down into storm-tossed eyes. Dangerous waters, but he felt reckless.
Then her tongue touched her lips. An invitation?
He took a half step closer. Her breasts rose and fell just a whisker from his chest. Her hands slid up his forearms. Every hair prickled in response.
God, she was light as a feather. He could lift her up and taste those lips if he wanted to.
He wanted to.
His hands tightened on her waist.
And then Henry, double damn him, rapped twice on the door, and the spell between them shattered like glass.
Up shot Maddie’s knee. Adam twisted, taking it on the thigh. Her knee glanced off and she overbalanced.
He
had only to release her, and her butt plopped ignominiously on the sofa.
Meeting her scowl with his most condescending smile, he left her simmering while he explored the lunch Henry was spreading on the table. Airy popovers, crisp Romaine, fresh-grated Parmesan. He could get accustomed to eating Maddie’s favorite foods.
“Will you dine in tonight?” Henry asked. “Or perhaps, since you’re here, you’ll reconsider the gala? You’d mentioned that Mr. Hawthorne would be there.”
“Good point, Henry. Let Dyan”—his secretary—“know that I’ll attend after all. And I’ll be bringing a guest.”
That got Maddie off the couch. She came at him like a bullet from a gun.
He flicked a glance at John, which had her dialing down the volume. Instead, she blasted him with her eyes and kept her tone conversational.
“I’m not going to any gala with you. Period.”
He pretended not to hear. “Send for Raquel,” he said to Henry. “Time’s short, so I’ll rely on you to give her the details on the event. As for the gowns, tell her a size zero should do.”
He sized up Maddie’s breasts. “She can always take it in.”
SHE COULDN’T TEAR him a new one in front of John Doe, so Maddie stabbed up both middle fingers instead. “Read my lips, LeCroix. I won’t be seen out on the town with a felon.”
Oh, he didn’t like that one bit. His eyes glinted, onyx and sapphire. “Read my lips, Madeline. You’re going to the gala, on my arm. As my date.”
“Not a chance.” She vibrated with the agony of suppressing a scream.
“You’ll call me Adam”—his voice was velvet over steel—“and you’ll do it with affection. No one who sees us tonight will doubt your absolute belief in my innocence.”
“I won’t do it. I won’t go.” Her conviction was rock solid.
His jaw flexed. He stepped away, poured a glass of Pellegrino, and took a long swallow, visibly summoning his composure. Then he turned to face her.
“You forget, Madeline, that you have skin in this game. You’ve held yourself out as my attorney. The business press will break that story before the day’s out. If the entertainment news doesn’t beat them to it.”
Fury rose up like a dragon. “You leaked it?”
“I didn’t have to. Hawthorne was already spinning it as he left the room, calculating how to turn it to his advantage.”
“And how would that be?”
The look he gave her was almost pitying. “He’ll say I bought you, of course. That you sold out for money. He’ll paint you as a greedy mercenary without principles or integrity.”
The truth of it hit her between the eyes. How had she missed it?
She’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself, that’s how. Too worried about John Doe, too distracted by Adam’s sexual mojo to see that the sterling reputation she’d built as a prosecutor, and that she’d hoped would leverage her back into the U.S. Attorney’s Office once Lucy was settled, was tarnished for good.
She swayed, clutching the back of the sofa for support. “You knew. You planned this.”
He stepped to the window, looked out. The draperies were partially drawn, but sun streaked through the opening, winking off the bubbles in his glass.
“Of course I knew,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t actively seeking revenge, so I didn’t set out to harm you, if that’s what you mean. But as collateral damage, well . . .” He shrugged one shoulder.
She stared at him mutely. Now that the scales had fallen from her eyes, her mind made up for lost time, fast-forwarding through a hundred humiliating scenarios, both social and professional.
He stared down into his drink with an expression that might have passed for regret on a person with a conscience. But when he looked up, his eyes were bland. “Odd as it may seem, attending the gala with me could undo some of the damage.”
She huffed out a half laugh, all the breath she could muster. “Right. Let’s make like we’re dating. That’ll help.”
“Affairs of the heart are easily forgiven. Better that people believe I’ve turned your head than lined your pocket.”
The fact that it made some kind of sense put the whole disaster into horrifying perspective.
“I need to think.” She dropped down on the couch, head in her hands to stave off the further disgrace of fainting at his feet. Low blood pressure was an inconvenient fact of her life. She was, mortifyingly, a fainter.
John Doe stood up and shook himself, long ears flapping like Dumbo’s, then came to lean against her leg. Stroking his head absently, she second-guessed her every move. Clearly, she should have said no to LeCroix at the outset, told Adrianna to suck it, and gone looking for another job while she still had her reputation.
Now, forget it. Everyone would think she’d sold out to a felon. And the worst of it, the bitterest pill, was that she had sold out. Maybe LeCroix’s cash wasn’t directly lining her pocket, but money had driven her decision.
“Madeline.” Adam sat down on the ottoman. “You needn’t fawn over me. We’ll simply be seen. We’ll drink, we’ll dance, and we’ll leave. Together.”
She looked up. “What’s in it for you?”
“I’m not above tweaking Hawthorne, letting him believe you have a personal stake in my affairs.”
She scratched John’s ear, reminded herself that she’d gotten into this for Lucy. And her job wasn’t finished. “If I do it,” she said, “I want something in return.”
“We’ve just established that you’re getting something. The chance to appear lovelorn rather than mercenary.”
“That’s not enough.” She rose, paced the floor, giving the window a wide berth. “I need to stay in New York.”
“Why?”
She held her temper by a thread. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“That’s not entirely true. You work for me.” He held up a finger to cut off her retort. “Let’s not play semantics. You work for me, so if you have a good reason not to accompany me to Italy, I’ll hear it now.”
Grrr. The things she did for Lucy.
“My sister’s coming tomorrow. With her boyfriend. They expect to stay at my place.”
“And will be pleasantly surprised to have it to themselves.”
“Exactly.” Her nails dug into her palms. “I have to be there to . . . you know.”
“Chaperone? Madeline, she’s a college senior. She’s had sex.”
“I know. But this is her first boyfriend. I haven’t met him. I don’t know anything about him.”
“I’ll have my people run him. What’s his name?”
It felt like spying, but she didn’t care. “She called him Crash, is that enough?”
“Probably. Gio’s very good.”
When he finished the call, she said, “Even if he comes back clean, I need to be here.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s my sister. She’s innocent. She needs protection.”
“Leave a box of condoms on the pillow.”
“Not that kind of protection. Well, okay, that kind too.” She paced some more, getting desperate. “The thing is, Lucy’s naïve. She thinks no one’s ever going to hurt her. She thinks she’s safe now.”
“She wasn’t safe in the past?”
The sudden focus in his tone brought Maddie’s head around. The last thing she wanted was LeCroix prying into her family.
“Nobody’s safe,” she said. “I can’t go gallivanting off to Italy without seeing how he treats her.”
“Then we’ll bring them with us.”
That stunned her silent.
He stood and walked to the table, filled the other glass, and brought it to her.
She glugged Pellegrino while her mind raced. “You’ve got an answer for everything,” she said at last.
“I like to think so.”
“Suppose they don’t want to go to Italy?”
He gave her a pitying look.
“Okay, what if Crash doesn’t have a passport?”
“Why are you doing this?”
He spread his hands. “You want to observe Crash with your sister, don’t you?”
“What’s in it for you?”
He looked annoyed. “That’s twice in ten minutes you’ve questioned my motives.”
“Because you always have one. I just can’t figure it out this time.”
He gave a short laugh. “Sometimes,” he said with apparent chagrin, “my motives puzzle even me.”
WHAT WAS HIS motive, anyway? He didn’t know. But his gut told him to bring Madeline to his villa, and Adam never ignored his gut.
Turning away from those thundercloud eyes, he pulled out a chair, beckoned her to take it. “Let’s eat, shall we? Raquel will be here shortly.”
But Maddie shook her head, the stubborn wench. Nothing was simple with her. Nothing was easy or obvious.
Take her sister. There was another mystery. Why had Maddie taken charge of her when Lucy was sixteen, given up a career she prized to become a high-priced law-bot, then spent every cent sending Lucy first to an insanely expensive prep school, and now to one of the costliest colleges in the country?
She’d taken nothing from her parents, not for Lucy. And not for herself. She’d paid her own way through Boston College with loans and part-time jobs, then earned a partial ride through Harvard Law with stunning grades and near-perfect scores on the LSAT.
After that, she’d focused like a laser on her career. The U.S. Attorney’s Office had snapped her up, and realizing they had pure dynamite on their hands, dropped her into their Manhattan office, exactly where every bloodthirsty young prosecutor longed to be.
In the five years that followed she’d made a name for herself with a string of convictions that seasoned prosecutors envied. Adam himself was her singular failure, and only because politics had, as usual, trumped justice. Then Lucy appeared on her doorstep, and the very next day Maddie threw it all away. She went to work for that soulless Marchand vixen, and since then nearly bankrupted herself giving Lucy every advantage money could buy.
Now she was sweating over Lucy’s boyfriend, to the point of pleading with Adam to leave her in New York. He’d wager that hurt more than the tens of thousands bleeding from her bank account yearly.
The Wedding Vow Page 8