“Anyway,” Lucy went on, “you guys were gone a long time. Did you have fun on the yacht?”
“Eh.”
Lucy eye-rolled. “Yeah, I bet it sucked cruising around the Mediterranean with the coolest, hottest guy in the world.”
“Hottest, I can’t argue with.”
“Coolest, too. Crash worships him.”
“I noticed.” Maddie segued into the question she didn’t really want an answer to. “So, what did you guys do all day?”
“You know. Swam and sunbathed. Took a nap.”
“Nap” was code for sex. Maddie went for nonchalance. “You should get off the grounds, see the town. Hit the beach.”
“We will. But it was so quiet here, and private. We wanted to take advantage of it.”
Maddie twisted the towel, couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You’re getting too serious about Crash. He’s a nice guy, but he’s still a guy. You don’t need a relationship tying you down right now.”
“Mads.” Lucy sat up, sympathy on her face. “You’ve got to let it go.”
Maddie played dumb. “I’m serious. You don’t need a boyfriend.”
“I’m talking about Dad. You’ve got to let it go.”
Maddie quit faking. “No, I don’t. And you shouldn’t either. You grew up in that house!”
“Yes, and it was a sick environment. Dad’s a freaking pervert, and Mom was a classic victim of emotional abuse. It was awful, but we’re away from it now. So is Mom.”
She rose and went to Maddie, took the towel from her clenched fists and tossed it on a chair. “You had it tougher than I did, Mads, because you were older. You defended me when I was little. Made yourself a target to draw him away from me. And then, when the worst happened, you had no one to turn to.” She took Maddie’s hands. “I had you.”
Maddie’s heart ached as she looked up at her sister, so strong, so sure. “Do you want to end up like Mom? Can you really take that risk?”
“Sure I can.” Lucy made it sound simple. “Because I’m not Mom. I’m not helpless, or alone, and I don’t have the bad judgment to hitch myself to a creep like Dad.” She squeezed Maddie’s fingers. “Honey, you have to trust yourself not to make Mom’s mistakes. Trust yourself to be the awesome, independent woman I love and admire.”
Maddie shook her head. Lucy was right about one thing; it had been worse for Maddie. When their father came into her room on the night of her sixteenth birthday, she’d fought him. And when she couldn’t win, she’d done the only thing left to her. She’d gone out the window, fallen two stories into the inky night.
The arm she’d broken throbbed just thinking of it.
“Adam’s a nice guy,” Lucy went on. “He takes care of his friends, like Henry and Fredo. He loves John Doe to pieces. And honey, he’s crazy about you. He took in Crash and me—who could’ve been crackheads for all he knew—just so he could spend the week with you.”
“You don’t know the whole story.”
“I know enough. I know he can’t keep his eyes off you, or his hands. I know he’s got a big heart. I know he’s nothing like the press paints him. Sure, he’s cocky and confident, but God, he’s a self-made zillionaire. Why shouldn’t he be cocky?”
Lucy walked to the table, plucked a strawberry from the bowl that had been magically refilled while Maddie was out. “Forget Mom and Dad. You and Adam are nothing like them. Don’t let your life go by without taking a chance on love.”
She popped the berry in her mouth. When the flavor hit her taste buds, she giggled with pure enjoyment.
Watching her, Maddie wrestled both fear and envy. Fear because Lucy so easily dismissed the lessons of their past and opened herself to the perils of the future.
And envy because by doing those very things, her little sister had accomplished what Maddie had always believed to be impossible. She’d stepped out of the shadow and into the light, and was marching bravely along the bumpy road to happiness.
“ADAM, IS IT okay if Fredo drops us at Madrigal?” Lucy asked.
Maddie looked up from her silky crème caramel. “That sounds like a club.”
“Where the royals party with the merely rich and famous.” Lucy’s eyebrows bobbed. “Henry said showing up in Adam’s limo would get us in.”
Maddie frowned. When she’d suggested Lucy get off the grounds, she’d meant a tame lunch at a waterfront trattoria, not a night of debauchery with a roving pack of self-indulgent Eurotrash.
Still, she couldn’t forbid her to go.
So she’d have to pull herself together and go with her.
It was the last thing she wanted to do. After too much sun, too little sleep, and two glasses of Chianti, she was practically comatose.
Still, she couldn’t leave her sister to the dubious protection of Crash. He might hold up in a frat-party brawl, but in an anything-goes nightclub where half the patrons would have bodyguards, Lucy needed the Pitbull.
Setting her napkin aside, she started to rise. Then Adam said to Lucy, “Gerard will take you. He knows his way around that crowd.”
“Who’s Gerard?” Maddie wanted to know.
“He handles my personal security.”
In other words, a bodyguard. And if he was on Adam’s payroll, he was the best. Maybe even as good as the Pitbull.
“Thanks,” she said after the lovebirds departed. “You hear stories about those places.”
“Largely exaggerated,” he said, “but we’ll both feel better this way.” He touched a hand to her back, guided her so smoothly toward the edge of the terrace she didn’t think to resist.
Below them, Portofino’s colored lights curled like a necklace around the harbor. More lights bobbed on the water; yachts, large and small.
“I’m surprised you didn’t want to tag along,” she said.
“Clubbing’s lost the appeal it once had.”
“Right, I forgot. It’s crosswords in your rocker now.”
He shot her an amused glance. “I’ll get my cane and hobble after them if you want to show off that dress.”
She rubbed the fabric between her fingers, red silk, cut low in front and even lower in back, and so short it barely covered her butt. She loved it, as she loved every one of the runway dresses that had supplanted her suits.
But his high-handedness still chafed, so she pulled a face. “It’s a little extreme for dinner on the terrace, don’t you think?”
“I think you were born to wear silk.”
“You didn’t leave me much choice.”
He slid his palm up her back, then down again, slowly. “You prefer suits, then?”
“No.” That much she’d admit. “But I’m used to hanging out in jeans, not zillion-dollar dresses.”
“Indulge yourself, darling. You’re on the Riviera.”
“Exactly. I don’t belong here.” She shrugged. “But I’m stuck for the week, so if dressing up is part of the job, I’ll suck it up.”
“Your sacrifice is inspiring. Let’s send Adrianna a picture so she knows what a martyr you are.”
That made her laugh. “Let’s not. She’ll dock my pay the price of this number.”
His hand continued that mesmerizing stroke. “She does seem difficult. Why did you go to work for her?”
And there it was, the nosy question, disguised as small talk.
“She’s my best friend’s mother, so I had an in.” Dribble dribble. “And as small firms go, it’s top of the line.”
“But defending insurance behemoths is a far cry from locking up criminals. You seemed, shall we say, passionate about your work.”
He had reason to know that was true, so she dribbled out a little more. “Government work doesn’t pay like the private sector. I needed more money. It’s that simple.”
OH, BUT IT wasn’t simple at all. And if Maddie hoped to appease him with dribs and drabs, she was doomed to disappointment.
“So you relaxed your principles enough to take Adrianna’s filthy lucre,” he said, “but I can’t woo
you to LeCroix Enterprises with five million.”
She actually smiled. “It’s one thing to quit prosecuting felons. Another to take their filthy lucre.”
“Still obsessed with the Lady in Red, are you? Darling, you’ve seen the gallery here. When I desire a painting, I simply buy it.”
“That argument might’ve worked if you made it to a jury,” she said, “but I know it’s bullshit. You’re in it for the thrill, the adrenaline. You get off on the danger. On the chance of getting caught.”
He skimmed her shoulder with his knuckles. “That would make us quite the couple, wouldn’t it? Me thumbing my nose at prison, you determined to throw away the key.”
“Yeah, it would be pretty twisted. If we were actually a couple.”
He let that pass. “The flaw in your case, Counselor, is that I can do my thrill seeking in other, much less complicated, ways.”
“Like rock climbing? Skydiving? Sure. You could even afford to race balloons around the world like the Virgin Atlantic guy. But it still wouldn’t be enough. Because all of those things just get you one up on gravity.”
She jabbed his chest with a finger. “You like getting over on people. Smart people, the best in their fields.”
And didn’t that just prove she was the smartest of them all?
“That hardly seems enough motivation to risk my freedom,” he said, wondering if she’d divine the rest of it too.
“I agree. And that’s the part I don’t get. Why risk prison for another painting when you’ve got more money than God and art coming out of your ass? I mean, with the lawyers you can afford, you’d probably walk even if you went to trial. But there’s always a chance—small, but real—that you’d end up doing hard time as some bruiser’s girlfriend.”
“Well, now you’re just hurting my feelings. I’d like to think I could handle myself, even in prison.”
“Sure you could, if you wrangled a country club, which you probably would. But in Sing Sing, a pretty boy like you would get passed around like a five-dollar hooker until some lifer decided to make you his bitch.”
A chill chased down his spine. “A lovely image. It’s heartening to know that you worked your hardest to make that happen. And would again, given the chance.”
Silence met that remark. Then she said, quietly, “I can’t condone stealing. And I believe people should be punished when they do something wrong. But . . .” She shrugged.
He let that “but” hang in the air. Ambivalence was progress. Not the acceptance he wanted from her, but a step in that direction. Someday soon, he’d make her understand that by keeping art out of criminal hands, he was seeking justice in his own way.
For now, though, he wouldn’t push his luck.
He brought the conversation back around in Lucy’s direction. “Many people,” he said, neutrally, “leave government work for private-sector wages. There’s no shame in wanting a higher standard of living.”
“Yeah, I’m rolling in dough.” Sarcasm dripped. “As if you don’t know where my money goes, Mr. Privacy Invader.”
Why bother denying it? “Lucy was still a minor when she moved in.”
“So?”
“She was your parents’ financial responsibility.”
“Everything isn’t always about money,” she said sharply.
“Darling, you’re the one who brought money into it. And in my experience, it’s often at the core. Did your parents cut her off? Was she was into drugs?”
Maddie hit the roof. “Lucy’s never even looked at drugs! Why would you say that? Why would you even think it? She’s strong and beautiful and way too smart to screw up her life.”
He flattened his palm on her back, a gentling touch, even as he pushed harder, knowing she’d be most likely to open up in defense of her sister.
“Young people make mistakes,” he said. “And Lucy left home for a reason. It’s logical to assume your parents threw her out.”
“Don’t give me logical, buster.” Her eyes flamed. “Lucy left that house on her own, and she came to me because she knew I’d understand and take her in and she’d never be frightened again. I quit my stupid job so I could take care of her the way she deserves, and I never thought twice about it. So don’t you dare think one bad thought about her. She’s sweet and innocent and her life will be perfect.”
She was trembling. She tried to slap away his hand, but he used it to curl her to his chest.
“Maddie, darling, forgive me,” he said, undone. Carelessly, arrogantly, he’d ripped a bandage off a wound that hadn’t healed in five years. It was deeper than he’d imagined, gouged into her heart.
Her breath hitched hard in her throat, and he wrapped her in both arms, shaken by his thoughtlessness, staggered by his own emotion. “Let me hold you,” he murmured. “I need it, even if you don’t.”
He stroked her quivering skin, whispering endearments. When at last she quit resisting and leaned into him, locking her slender arms around his waist, accepting his affection, his shelter, he felt ten feet tall. The primal desire to protect her roared like a lion in his breast.
And with it, the primal need to mate.
SOAKING ADAM’S WARMTH into her icy skin, Maddie rubbed her cheek against the silk of his shirt, the hard planes underneath. In her ear, his heartbeat drummed, a primal rhythm calling to her DNA.
She should be biting out his heart. He’d all but called Lucy a druggie.
Instead, she let her head fall back, let him press his lips to her throat, hot and needy. He trailed kisses over her jaw, a fiery path to her ear. His voice, low and deep, was almost a growl. “I want you. Here. Now.”
Her body lit up like a torch. All day he’d held himself hostage. Now his hands were everywhere, pushing the straps off her shoulders, disappearing down her dress.
His lips dragged across her cheek, taking hers, swallowing her breath. In her throat, a moan rose up, a yearning hum that vibrated through her skin, through her clothes, through the universe.
He took it as she meant it, as if he had a right to her body. Brushing silk aside, he palmed her breast, working her like he’d held back for a lifetime. Like he might never get at her again.
She welcomed it, let him have all the control for a fast, steamy moment. Then out came her nails. She tore at his shirt; buttons pinged off flagstone. Finding his skin, sleek over hard muscle, she raked him, bit him, moaning her need.
Lifting her with one arm, he swept the table with the other. Crockery shattered and she found herself on her back, laid out like dinner, feasted on.
He stepped back to shed the tatters of his shirt. Stepped in again to flip her skirt up to her waist. Then his big hands slid up under her butt, her lacy excuse for panties went snap, and—“Oh God!”—his hot lips fastened on her. His talented tongue went to work, so good.
So good, she was losing control. She should tell him to stop. She even lifted her head.
Then his fingers joined his tongue. Her head thwacked back on the table. She arched up onto her shoulder blades, fisting his hair so he couldn’t quit if he tried, begging him to stop, to release her, to for-God’s-sake end it now.
He ignored her as usual and did what he wanted, going deeper, and faster, pushing past her limit, forcing her to the place where her body ruled and pesky second thoughts were ignored.
In that place all that existed were his mouth and his hands; all that mattered was what he did with them. All she cared about was coming.
Tension tightened like the turn of a screw.
And then, with his tongue and his thumb and two fingers of one hand, he completely erased her mind.
NEVER HAD ADAM gotten off just from making a woman come. But Maddie turned him inside out. Gutted him.
And if she got an eyeful of the stain on his trousers, she’d have his balls too, because she’d know hands down who held the cards in this affair.
For the moment, though, she was limp as a noodle, the rise and fall of her chest the only sign of life. He crawled up on the table, p
ropped himself on an elbow. Her eyes were closed. Her flat belly quivered under his palm.
“Maddie darling,” he whispered in her ear.
“Mmm.” The barest hum.
“You taste delicious.”
Her lips turned up at the corners.
Fuck abstinence. He might as well quit breathing. “I’m going to carry you to bed now. And keep you there.”
“Hmm.”
It wasn’t jubilation, but it wasn’t an argument either.
He scooped her up. John Doe scooted out from under the table and padded through the villa behind them.
In his bedroom, Adam threw back the covers and laid her out, her red dress vivid against the stark white sheets.
She was out cold, so he stripped off the dress along with the shreds of her panties, then took the chance to admire her fully naked and unawares; the long, sooty lashes he seldom noticed when her bright eyes were open; the mobile lips, so expressive when she was awake, now still and slightly parted in sleep.
Her shoulders were slender, her arms delicately muscled. And her perfect B-cups begged the question: Why had he wasted years on Cs and Ds?
His eyes wandered down to her belly, where her tan line gave him pause. Thanks to Gio, he knew she’d earned it on a topless beach on St. Maarten during a long weekend with a friend of a friend.
Tom Raskin was his name, and he was her usual type. Single and fit, someone she’d known for a while. Maddie didn’t pick up men in bars; she wasn’t careless that way. For a sexy weekend, she chose a familiar face. She even managed to stay friendly with some of them afterward.
But not Tom Raskin. Like others before him, he’d wanted more than two nights. So she’d kissed him off, kicked him to the curb.
Just like she planned to do with Adam.
He wouldn’t be so easy to shake.
She’d fight him, and she’d put up a hell of a battle. But for tonight, the field was his.
He stripped off his trousers. Then he climbed into bed and curled his large body around her small one, holding her safe, sharing his warmth. Her hair tickled his nose. She smelled of strawberries.
He closed his eyes and slept.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I REMEMBER BEING able to sleep till noon,” Maddie said, grumpily.
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