by Carr, K
“You. Will. Apologize,” he grated out coldly as he stood and towered above the man who had played such a vital role in shaping him into the success he was today. “You will beg her to forgive you.”
“Matthew.”
“No,” he said in a hard, frigid voice. “How dare you say those things to her? How dare you belittle her in such a manner? I bloody love her, more than anything in this goddamned world and you have the nerve to humiliate her like that?”
“Matthew—”
“I swear,” Matt said coldly. “I will never speak to you again unless she forgives you. Do you understand me, Grumps? I am going to walk out this room and you won’t see or hear from me again until she has forgiven you.”
“Now look here,” Grumps began to splutter, His skin pale from shock at Matt’s outburst.
“I don’t want to hear your excuses.” Matt held a hand up in disgust. He had a moment of pity for the look on Grumps’s face. They had a special bond, and Matt had never railed at him like this before. But that pity disappeared when Matt thought of Madison being subjected to what his grandfather had put her through. Grumps had virtually called her a gold-digging slut, and Matt would not tolerate it. The manipulative bastard had even discussed babies.
He lowered his voice further. “She loves me, and I love her. I don’t care if you approve or not. This is my life, and she’s going to be in it.”
Grumps swallowed hard, a pained expression on his face. “I had no idea you felt so…quite that…I had no idea, Matthew.”
“Now you do.” Matt turned on his heels and headed for the door. He paused when he opened it, saying over his shoulder, “I meant what I said, Grumps. You’d better fix this.”
Matt shut the door and took a few deep breaths to calm down. God. His family was fucked up. Unable to cool the burning anger coursing through him, he strode to the lift. He needed to get the hell out of here before he did something foolish.
“Matthew—”
He heard his mother’s voice calling as he hurried down one of the hallways that would take him to the front doors.
“Goodbye, Mum.” Matt didn’t stop. He stalked out of the mansion and got in his car, the screech of his tires as he sped out of there indicative of how he felt. If they were unwilling to accept her, then it was their problem. Madison DuMont was going to be his wife, regardless of who disagreed with it.
SIXTEEN
I WAS COUNTING down the days to my birthday. October 13th. At least it was on a Monday this year, and not a Friday. Being born on the thirteenth of any month sucked. You knew people were going to think you were the unluckiest person around whenever Black Friday came up.
Three days to go, not counting tonight. I sighed, gingerly bandaging my toes as I sat on the toilet and ignored the flashing light and vibration of my cell. I was a crap girlfriend. The past three weeks, Matt and I had been out on dates. No frigging sex. Honestly. Didn’t he know how hard it was for me? Matt was hot stuff, vanilla ecstasy, swirl-a-fucking-licious, finger-licking good. All I’d gotten at the end of each date when he walked me to my front door was a chaste peck on the lips and a sexy wink. Huh. Proper meanie he was.
Sex was the last thing on my mind now though. I wriggled my toes, stood up and took a few steps. The house phone started ringing and I sighed loudly, leaving the answering machine to pick up the call as I grabbed my cell and walked out of my bathroom.
I paused halfway down the stairs, catching the tail-end of the message.
“—issing you, poppet. Call me when you get this message.”
I’d been hoping Matt would be away on business, no such luck. It didn’t seem to matter if my birthday wasn’t Black Friday, I couldn’t catch a break.
Marie-Sol and Bret were flying in tonight, early morning really. Dante was coming over in an hour to accompany me on the drive to Heathrow. The Cayenne was now my new baby, and I was begrudgingly glad it had more than enough space to hold their suitcases and their persons. My Beetle had been sent to that oh-so-sad place where unfixable cars went.
I pottered about my terrace, tidying up any remaining mess, and generally not knowing what to do with myself. I was seated in my kitchen sipping coffee when my cell vibrated across the table. I sighed and picked it up.
“Hey, hon.”
“Poppet.” Matt breathed out in relief. “I’ve been trying to contact you all day.”
“I know. Sorry, things have been busy at the studio. Are you in your office?” I glanced at the digital clock on my stove. Nine fifteen pm. I knew the answer before he confirmed it.
“Unfortunately, yes. Listen, I’m planning on stopping by tonight. I should be out of here in the next thirty minutes, and I want to discuss what I have in store for your birthday.”
I stiffened on my seat. Darn it. Matt didn’t seem to pick up on my hints, or maybe he was ignoring them. He ignored things if they were contrary to his wants, totally understandable as he always got his way in the end.
Not this time though.
“I’m out tonight, Matt.”
There was a short pause. “I see. Where exactly will you be out tonight, poppet? I’m certain we didn’t have a date arranged, so I’m at a loss as to where you’re going and with whom.”
“I do have a life that doesn’t revolve around you,” I said dryly. Of late, that wasn’t the reality of my situation. My whole damned life seem to revolve around Matthew Bradley. We’d been on seven dates over the past three weeks. Four of those dates had been hijacked by the stupid paparazzi. How on earth they knew where we were? Neither Matt nor I could figure it out. All I knew was, on those four occasions when we left wherever we were, there would be the blinding flash of lights and questions about our romance being hurled in our direction as Matt hustled me into his car. I didn’t know how he lived his life being hounded by the media. I was undecided on how to feel about it intruding in my life.
“Whatever you say, poppet. Where are you going?”
“Heathrow Airport.”
Another pause, this one a bit longer. “May I ask why you’re going to Heathrow?”
“You may ask, but I can’t promise to answer.”
“You can’t sing and you’re not funny, poppet,” Matt crooned down the line. I smiled to myself as he asked why again.
“A couple of my friends are flying in. Didn’t I mention it to you before? I’m sure I did.” I hadn’t.
“It must have slipped your mind,” Matt replied with an undertone of something in his voice. He knew I hadn’t mentioned it before, but he was letting it go. Will wonders never cease?
“Yeah, totally slipped my mind,” I drawled. “It’s going to be a manic weekend for me. Did I mention they were staying at mine?”
Matt exhaled down the line. “I don’t see how you could when you forgot to mention they were coming, Madison.”
Complete first name…someone was getting irritated. Maybe if I caused a major fight that would last for a week…yes, yes. Why didn’t I think of this before? Because my levels of bat-shit craziness had been on a steady decline the more time I spent with Matt. He was having an almost calming effect on me. Time to get my levels back up. Normal women didn’t do this, did they? Pick a fight with their honey-bears in order to avoid seeing them around their birthdays? Maybe they did.
“Matt, you’re smothering me.” My tone was sharp, but my face twisted with guilt. Please let this be one of my ‘good’ bad ideas.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Smothering, you know, overwhelming someone with too much affection with the effect that said person feels restricted.”
“Okay,” he said after a few charged seconds. “What is wrong with you? I know it’s not your time of month. That was last week. Did you have a horrible day at the studio? Have you perhaps lost your bloody mind?”
Aahh. My ‘good’ bad plan seemed to be taking off here. Oh God. I was going to regret this shit.
“No to all those questions, Matt. You can get a bit much sometimes. ‘Where are you, popp
et? Why haven’t you answered your phone, poppet? I want to see you, poppet. Do this, poppet. Do that, poppet.’ It’s like having a parole officer when I haven’t committed a crime. And my picture was in the papers yet again today. The photographer made my ass look big, Matt. I need some time to myself—”
“Time to yourself?” he asked quietly. Why wasn’t he yelling at me? He should be fuming. Matt continued in a calm voice, “But aren’t your friends staying with you?”
“Well, yeah.” I tried to think of something else I could say to annoy my knight. “But they’re my friends. They’re an extension of myself, so they don’t count.”
“I’m smothering you?” he asked. “I want to be clear on this, Madison.”
“Uh hmm,” I mumbled, feeling like the biggest bitch alive.
“Poppet,” Matt’s voice was gentle and I got nervous. He did not sound like a man who’d basically been told by his girlfriend to get lost. “Why are you trying to pick a fight with me? Is there a particular reason you don’t want me around at this time? Talk to me.”
“How do you do that?” I jumped to my feet and began to pace the length of my small kitchen. “Are you part Vulcan? Have you done some weird mind-meld on me? Because it’s like you always know what I’m thinking.”
His side of the line was silent.
I took a few deep breaths before apologizing. It was a ‘bad’ bad idea, a stupid one. “I’m sorry, Matt. It’s—I’m not—now isn’t—” I sighed loudly, unable to construct a proper sentence. My chest felt tight with emotion and my eyes felt dry and itchy, the dry itchiness you get right before you burst into tears.
“Madi, whatever it is, we can sort it,” he said with quiet confidence and my stupid eyes started tearing up. I wanted his anger, not his sweet caring.
I cradled my cell to my ear and leaned against the cabinets. “No, we can’t, Matt. I get real messy around this time, and I don’t want you seeing me like that. Please understand. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you, but the next few days are going to be bad. I’m talking sewerage plant explosion bad.”
He chuckled softly down the line at my analogy and I smiled a little, just a little.
“Shit raining from the heavens kind of thing?” he teased tenderly, and I smiled more than a little.
“Yes, exactly.” I flexed my right foot a few times. “If you see me like that, well, let’s just say the next thing I’ll hear from you is: ‘Don’t call me, I’ll call you.’”
“What time are your friends arriving at Heathrow?” Matt asked suddenly.
The unexpected change of topic left my head spinning, and I answered automatically, “Two am. Why?”
“If I leave now, I can get to yours in well under an hour and accompany you to the airport. I don’t like the idea of you on the roads at that time,” he explained.
“Dante’s coming over,” I blurted out. “He’s going with me to the airport.”
Matt’s side went silent again, then he said, “That’s fine, poppet. I’m still going to pop over tonight, though.”
“Matt, please. You don’t have to come over. I’ll be fine, I just need to do my thing for the next few days, then everything will be back to normal. Don’t worry about me.”
“But I do, poppet.”
“I’m a big girl, Matt.”
“You’re not a girl,” he continued in that gentle tone of his. “You’re my woman and you’re tiny.”
“Ballerina size,” I corrected.
“Pint size,” he joked and I grinned. He was good at making me smile.
“Be that as it may, my lovely knight,” I replied softly. “I need to handle this in my own way. Please understand.”
Matt sighed down the phone. “All right, poppet.”
“Thank you for understanding.” I wandered back to the seat I’d vacated and plopped down.
“As long as you don’t make a habit of shutting me out, poppet. This is going to wreak havoc with my plans,” he said.
That made me curious and a bit alarmed. “What were you planning? Something totally over the top? You haven’t bought me anything stupid, have you? Like a jet or other expensive crap?”
Matt chuckled, his sexy chuckle that seemed to caress my senses. “No, Madi. I was planning a surprise dinner party for you. I thought it would be nice for you to meet my main group of friends.”
Thank goodness I didn’t have to do that shit. Meet more of Matt’s friends? I could barely handle Nathan’s silent disapproval. Matt’s friends would probably be like Nathan, up their own asses and secretly judging me. How Nathan had ended up with someone as sweet as Bella was mind boggling.
“That’s a nice thought,” I murmured, hoping I sounded genuine. “Maybe I could meet them another time.”
When I’m not drunk off my ass and wailing like a banshee.
“Of course, poppet.” Matt paused and I could hear the shuffling of papers. He worked hard, all the time. “When will I be able to see you?”
I thought about it for a few seconds. The fifteenth was the anniversary of my parents’ deaths. Wednesday. Middle of the week. Meltdown day. “Next Friday.”
“Poppet,” Matt’s tone conveyed how much he didn’t like the sound of that.
“It’s a week, Matt.” I let out a hollow laugh. “Honestly, anyone would think you can’t live without me.”
“I can’t,” Matt replied staunchly. “Live without you, that is.”
The air caught in my throat at his words. He was a guarded man, aloof and private.
But never with me. Matt was so open about his feelings it put me to shame. I was trying my best to follow his lead. It was hard, hard to stop hiding behind my walls, to let him in completely.
To trust the way he felt about me was true and not some dream fabricated by my mind. He had to love me. Why else would he act this way? I needed to buy one of those relationship books…just to be sure.
“Matt.” I took a deep breath and tried to quell the voice in my head shouting warnings at me. “I can’t live without you, either.” It was nothing more than a whisper, so quiet I wasn’t sure he heard me.
Until he said, “Good, about bloody time you admitted it.”
I laughed and he laughed with me.
“Friday?” he asked. “That’s a long time away, poppet.”
“A week, Matt. Absence makes the heart—”
“Grow fonder,” he finished my sentence. “All right, Friday it is, but I will be calling you every single day.”
“I wouldn’t expect any less of you.”
“Poppet.” His voice had changed, almost apprehensive. “I know you haven’t spoken about your parents—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off quickly. “It’s fine, I’m fine.”
“If you were, then you wouldn’t be banishing me from your presence until next Friday,” he argued gently. “Look, hear me out for a minute.” Matt took a deep breath, then continued. “I won’t profess to know how you feel about the anniversary of their deaths.” He paused, when I unconsciously let out a wounded sound, but persevered. “I can’t even begin to understand what you’re going through right now, poppet. I want you to know I’m here for you. Whatever you need, I’ll make sure you have it. A shoulder to cry on, a nice cuddle, new shoes, whatever it is you need, poppet.”
I gulped silently. Amazing. Matthew Bradley was a-fucking-mazing. “I love you, Matt.”
“And I you, Madi. Call me when you get back from the airport. I need to know you’ve gotten home safe.”
I hung up after agreeing to call him on my return and more mushy declaration of our emotional attachment. The two of us could form a mutual appreciation club. Members: two. Subscription: lifelong, or as long as we lasted. I could picture a grey-haired Matt bossing me around on some Zimmer frames, while checking out my flabby, wrinkly butt. Nice…unless he turned into his Grumps as he got older. A shudder went through me, thinking of the old man. About a week after my vague confession to Matt concerning the exchange I had with his grandfa
ther, Matt had asked me what exactly had been said. I still hadn’t told him the verbal bullets Grumps had pumped into me, yet I had a niggling sense of unease he somehow knew…which was an impossibility. I couldn’t shake the feeling though that he did know and was testing me, testing my honesty, my willingness to keep things from him. Man, I was paranoid. It didn’t help he was part Vulcan. It was the only explanation behind his ability to read me so easily.
No, I would take Grumps’s words with me to the grave.
Half an hour later, Dante was opening my front door with his keys. I chewed my lower lip, remembering Matt’s directive of reclaiming them.
“Sweet cheeks?” The front door slammed close.
“In the kitchen,” I yelled, hearing him coming further into my home. Seconds later, he sauntered into the kitchen.
“Got any food?” he asked with a wide grin. His dark skin glistening with moisture and his t-shirt had numerous damp spots. It must be starting to rain.
“No, but I can make you something if you want.” I was getting up from the table and moving towards the fridge.
“I want,” he said with a nod, and walked over to take the seat I had vacated.
“It’ll be good to see Marie-Sol and Bret.” I rifled around the fridge. “Chicken salad do you?”
“That sounds good, sweet cheeks, and, yeah, it’ll be good to see my boy, Bret. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I miss Sol’s craziness.”
I laughed and took out the necessary ingredients to make Dante something to eat. It was bad for your digestive system, eating this late. But, so far, our waistlines weren’t showing the ill-effects.
“Have you seen the hits on their website? It won’t be long before they’re proper rock stars.”
Dante nodded in agreement, getting up from the chair to lounge against the counter as I took out my frying pan.
“If our company goes bust, at least we have another route to fame and fortune,” Dante mused thoughtfully.