Love Her Madly

by Christie Ridgway

  Feeling unfurled inside her chest, making it too full. Still, she went on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  “What was that for?” he asked, smiling.

  She held up the bag. It was plain brown paper and just that made her laugh. As they headed back to the street, she glanced at him through her lashes. “Don’t show them to anybody.”

  “No worries.” He took the bag from her hand and slung his arm around her waist to bring her close to his side. “I might be bad but I don’t tell, baby.”

  Another reason to be glad about her Team Maddox status. She could trust Bing. Trust him with herself.

  Her cousin Drea was a different story.

  When they got back to the party, they made their way to the elegant pool area of the boutique hotel. Drea’s friend managed the place and it and the adjacent bar were theirs exclusively for the night. They stood in a short line to drop off their scavenged items—the extra purchases had been left in their bag at the front desk until they were ready to leave—and when they got to the front of the line they saw small piles of the stuff from other guests’ lists. When Bing tossed the last of theirs onto a table in front of Drea, which happened to be the purchased panties, Alexa got a glimpse of what the other teams had collected.

  “A Fanta bottle?” she said, looking at her cousin. “A book on,” she glanced at it. “California highways?”

  “A library book,” Drea said, a sly smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “That had to be a tough one. No library open tonight.”

  Alexa picked up the hardback, flipped open the cover. “Its latest home was a used book store located just down the street.”

  “Oh,” Drea said in an off-hand tone. “Good catch. We’ll disqualify that.”

  Pinning her cousin with her gaze, Alexa flicked the fuzzy handcuffs out of the pile and into her cousin’s lap. “I don’t see any other objects here that required a visit to the sex toy store.”

  Drea smirked. “You mad?”

  Yes. Fuming. It was a burn under her heart. Alexa pressed her fist there and hauled in a deep breath to finally let Drea have it for yet another humiliation dumped on her head. Then Bing’s hand slid through Alexa’s hair and cupped her bare shoulder. Her anger hitched at his touch, and his mouth brushed her temple. “Let’s get a drink, doll,” he said.

  She blinked, breathed, then managed to bank her temper. A family party, she reminded herself. A celebration for an upcoming wedding. Alexa would lose her self-respect if she lost an ounce of her poise. “Sure,” she said, not sparing her cousin a second glance as she tucked her fingers around his elbow. “I could use a glass of wine.”

  Relieved to have escaped the close call, she drank a couple of glasses too fast. But she made the rounds, chatting with everyone, and enjoyed the appreciative female looks that Bing was getting as he stayed mostly by her side. He didn’t have any trouble holding his own socially, though, and so she was able to accept a few flattering compliments about her escort for the evening without him overhearing. Her cousin CeeCee couldn’t seem to stop talking about him.

  “You sure landed on your feet,” she said, and sipped from the straw sticking from her rum-and-diet-coke. “I mean, smokin’!”

  “Thanks. He’s a nice guy.”

  “And nice?” Her cousin’s eyes went wide beneath her platinum bangs. “You two come up for air long enough for you to take stock of his personality?”

  Alexa’s cheeks heated. “Geez, CeeCee.”

  “Just sayin’. I saw that kiss he laid on you at the happy hour. I wouldn’t blame you if you told me you didn’t know anything about him outside of the size of the condoms he wears—”

  “Geez, CeeCee!”

  “Don’t be such a prude, Lex. Guys do girls just because they’re sexy all the time. Why should a woman have to catalog a man’s set of admirable character traits before letting him rock her world?”

  “Well, Bing happens to have a lot of admirable character traits,” she assured her cousin, then stopped. What was she doing? Why was she about to extoll his virtues? Their time together was supposed to be about working through her obsession with his body, with the chemistry that spit and bubbled when they were together, not about Bing’s sterling personality or lack thereof.

  She glanced around to see he’d found a seat close to the pool, one of several surrounding a firepit. “I’m going to the restroom,” she told CeeCee, and walked away from the party to put a little distance between her and her escort. A few minutes of quiet and she’d be more solid about all they were and all they weren’t.

  Returning to the pool area a few minutes later, she ran into a different man from whom she’d tried to keep her distance. Nico caught her at the outskirts of the festivities. “Alexa,” he said, nodding.

  “Nico,” she twisted to skirt past him, but he caught her arm.

  “Can you give me a minute?”

  “No, Nico.” Her voice stayed even, but she couldn’t soften the edge to her words. “I gave you a hell of a lot more than that and look what happened.”

  He didn’t let go. “But it all worked out.”

  She stared at him, thinking, the dolt. “Yeah, for you and Drea. You’re almost man and wife. Me, I’m the cheated-upon, jilted ex.”

  He winced. “I screwed up. I get that. I’ve told you that before.”

  “And I heard you.” Then she sighed, thinking again of her talk with Cilla. “But maybe I screwed up too, the idea of being a bride making me happier than the idea of a marriage to you.”

  “Ouch,” he said, but there was a trace of wry humor in his voice. “I hope we’ve got it right this time, though.”

  “Drea seems sure.”

  “Yeah, but I mean you, too.” He dropped her arm. “You and Bing. I’ve seen you together.”

  Guilt pinched. Like CeeCee, she knew Nico was thinking of that kiss during the happy hour. The little show they’d put on. But there was nothing more to that than Bing’s skill with his mouth, his hands, his body. There was a live-wire attraction between them, too, true, but it was on its way to being burned out.

  She hoped.

  “Lex, I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

  Her head jerked up and she stared at Nico. What way is that? she wanted to demand. What do you mean? What does it mean when I look at him the way I do?

  But afraid of the answer, she hurried away from her ex-fiancé. She’d get Bing to take her home now, she decided. Make a strategic retreat from perplexing questions and uncomfortable comments. She searched the crowd, looking for him, and spied his long legs first, stretching from that same poolside seat. Though the rest of him was obscured by a laughing knot of people, she headed in that direction.

  Then the group surrounding him shifted. Two people parted, her cousins CeeCee and Kyle, and she saw all of Bing.

  Bing draped in Drea, who was now wearing a paper party hat that sat drunkenly on her head. In a tight, white dress, she was perched on Alexa’s wedding-events escort’s lap, smiling. As she watched, Drea leaned forward, bringing her face close to his.

  Snap! In the time it took to strike a match, Alexa’s self-control detonated. The explosion ripped through her and then the flames came, leaping from her feet to surround her heart, to fill her head with nothing but a white-hot, unstoppable wrath. People made way for her as she rushed forward with such speed she could feel her hair flying behind her. Her gaze never left Drea.

  Of the girl cousins, they were the nearest in age and they’d always been the closest. Since birth, two peas in a pod. Best friends. Until Alexa had returned from a weekend away and her best friend had confessed to stealing her fiancé.

  She’d taken it with good grace. Bucked up. Not shed a single tear in her cousin’s presence. But Alexa wasn’t going to take it anymore. Not this.

  All sound was muffled by the roar of her inner rage. Her fingers closed around Drea’s upper arm and she saw her cousin’s startled expression but couldn’t make out the words formed by her moving lips. Alexa hauled the other w
oman off Bing, stepping back to put more distance between the thief and the man she’d brought to the party.

  Emotion she’d always leashed was no longer tethered. Whirling, she spun her cousin toward the pool and didn’t hesitate to shove her over the edge. Drea’s arms flailed and one hand caught the skirt of Alexa’s dress. But it didn’t save Drea from a dunking, it only meant that two Alessio women hit the brightly back-lit turquoise water.

  It seemed an endlessly slow tumble into the wet. Legs, torso, chin. And when the water closed over Alexa’s head, her fury sizzled and died. But what was left behind was not ashes, but passion. Anger was drowned, to reveal the true emotion that had been hiding in her heart.

  All the questions were answered. And no strategy would save her.

  Because what had finally goaded her to lose her dignity was Drea flirting with Bing. Was Drea paying too much attention to the man who fascinated Alexa.

  The man with whom she’d fallen in love.

  That’s what people saw on her face when they saw her watching him.

  She was in love with Bing.

  Blowing out all her air, she let her body sink through the bubbles to the distant bottom.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Damned if he hadn’t dived in after her, Bing thought, shaking his head as he drove them back to their neighborhood. He had no idea what had gotten into him. One minute she’d been bearing down on him, as alive as he’d ever seen her, with an unholy light in her eyes and a flush on her beautiful face…

  And then she’d thrown her cousin in the pool and was falling after her. His heart had kicked like a donkey against his ribs and he’d been up and moving, afraid…afraid she’d come up limp and cold.

  He’d looked upon a dead body before and it had changed the entire trajectory of his life.

  “I don’t have a death wish,” Alexa said, as if she could read his mind. “I was just taking a minute.”

  He glanced at her face, but her expression was unreadable in the glow from the dash. “It’s too bad. Means you missed the applause that broke out.” It had rung in his ears as he’d gone over the side.

  “Don’t forget they went for a second round, then, when you came up the steps like Rhett Butler, carrying me in our arms.” She blew out a breath that sounded annoyed and fiddled with the zipper of the sweatshirt she wore with the hotel logo. They both had on Hotel Fitzgerald-wear, their sodden party clothes stowed in plastic bags in the trunk. “The whole thing is embarrassing.”

  “No big deal,” Bing assured her. “They think we have a romance, just as intended. To them, you were protecting your new turf. Nothing to do with Nico or the impending marriage per se.”

  When she stayed silent, he stole another look at her. “Lex?”

  “I’m an awesome actress.” She turned her head to stare out the side window. “I don’t know what’s gotten into Drea.”

  “Maybe she finds it hard to live up to the smart Alessio.”

  “Huh?”

  “Your cousin Kyle told me Drea’s the manipulator. I know you’re the smart one.”

  “Huh?” she repeated.

  “What does she do at the salon? Wait on customers? Swipe the credit cards?”

  “Making a bridal party happy takes a lot more skill than you’re insinuating,” she said, her tone defensive.

  “I’m sure you’re right. But it’s not like coming up with a new twist on the wedding business. Finding a way to bring a technological side to the salon.”

  “You think she stole my fiancé because I can build a website?”

  “For her sake, I hope not.”

  Alexa went back to fiddling with her zipper. “She was more than a cousin. She was like a sister and a best friend rolled together. I used to tell her everything and I’ve lost that now.”

  “I’m sorry, doll. I didn’t know that.” He thought of his twin. They didn’t talk a whole hell of a lot, talk talk—they avoided that—but he was always there. “Don’t forget you have your BFF Brody, now.”

  “I can’t tell him everything,” she mumbled.

  “Then me.” Though she couldn’t see it, he wiggled his eyebrows, trying to lighten the heavy mood in the car. “I can’t wait to hear your deepest secrets and darkest fantasies.”

  Instead of sassing him like he’d expected, she went quiet for so long, he expected she’d fallen asleep. Ah, well, they were almost home. He put on his clicker in preparation for turning the final corner when she spoke in a nearly inaudible voice. “I think we should quit this whole thing.”

  Call their deal over? Another donkey kick to his ribs.

  He told himself it was simple sexual disappointment. If he wasn’t her wedding events-escort then he supposed their bed play was over too. One was the quid, the other the quo. They’d never get to experiment with the toys he’d bought tonight, also in the trunk of the car. “I’m losing my job, doll?” he asked, his voice light. “Reason?”

  Instead of answering, she shot straight in her seat. “What’s that?”

  “What’s what?”

  She pointed out the windshield toward his front lawn. “What’s that thing on your grass?”

  Bing narrowed his eyes, then took a wide turn into his driveway so the beam from his headlights swung over a figure sprawled facedown, unmoving. “Brody!”

  Rushing toward his brother, Bing stumbled and landed on his knees beside him. He put two fingers to his neck, the racing speed of his own pulse backing off a little when he found his twin’s beating there, steady and strong. “Idiot,” he said, through his tight throat.

  But he was speaking to himself. His brother was out cold and Bing had seen this coming for months and done nothing about it, let alone insist the goddamn benders had to stop. “Jesus, Brody. This has gotta be the last time.”

  Alexa kneeled on the other side. “Is he okay?” Her voice quaked a little. “Should I call 911?”

  “He’s all right. Drunk.” He smelled like tequila and beer. “I just hope to hell he didn’t drive home.”

  “Taxi.” Brody’s eyes half-opened. “Did I puke yet?”

  Bing wanted to cuff him upside the head. “Not that I can see. You’d feel better for it, though.”

  His brother grunted.

  “Shall we get him up?”

  “Lex?” His brother moved like an earthworm trying to escape a rain puddle. “What…you?”

  She put her hand on his back. “Relax.” Her eyes met Bing’s. “Can we get him inside with one of us on either side of him?”

  “Don’ deserve her,” Brody said. “Neither one o’ us.”

  Oh, hell. “Shut up, Bro. You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “Flu.”

  Bing rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it. The Jose Cuervo influenza.”

  “Drinkin’ Padron.”

  “Whatever.” He glanced over at Alexa. “Let me walk you to your place, get you settled. I’ll come back for him in a few minutes. He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Don’ deserve her.” Brody mumbled again.

  Bing didn’t trust his twin in this mood. He stood. “Let’s go, doll.”

  Ignoring him, she put her hand on his brother’s forehead. “He’s burning up.”

  “Flu,” Brody said. “An’ booze.”

  Crap. “Okay.” Bending over, he grasped the back of his brother’s collar and his belt. On a grunt, he managed to dead lift nearly two-hundred pounds. Brody swayed on his feet, almost went down again, but Bing caught him under the arms.

  “What should I do?” Alexa asked, eyes big in her face.

  “Take my keys.” He’d left them in the Triumph. “Get my front door open.”

  She rushed to follow his directions as he attempted frog-marching his brother toward the entry. It was slow going, but by the time he got there, Alexa had the door swung wide and was turning on lights as she headed for the back of the house. “Bedroom?” she called over her shoulder.

  Brody roused at that. “Don’ make me lie down. I’ll puke on the
pillows.”

  “Lovely,” Bing muttered. Then he raised his voice. “We’re going to stuff him in a kitchen chair. Get some water and pain relievers in him before beddy-bye.”

  His brother collapsed on the seat he pushed him into, and his head and shoulders hit the table. “Be careful with him,” Alexa warned, giving Bing a sharp look. “He’s sick.”

  “He’s mostly smashed.” Though the fever had been evident, seeping through his clothes. “You ready for me to walk you home now, Lex?”

  “Clearly I’m a better nursemaid than you,” she said, beginning to bustle around his kitchen. Looking at his brother, she cocked her head. “Hot tea, I think.”

  There was an answering sound from Brody that was somewhere between a groan and a snore. “I don’t think he likes that idea.”

  “He doesn’t get to choose.” She was already rummaging in his cupboards. Lucky for Brody, he couldn’t imagine he had anything close to a teabag. “What’s this all about, Bing?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It’s all clicking for me now. The disappearances. The pain he seems to be in some mornings.”

  “Sheez no dummy.”

  Bing glanced at his brother who’d roused himself to speak again. “Great. Let’s pause for a word from the Padron galley. Go back to sleep, Bro.”

  Alexa turned her head to pin Bing with those big brown eyes. “And you said ‘This has gotta be the last time’.”

  “I sounded much manlier when I spoke the words.”

  Her expression communicated volumes. Stop bullshitting me. I’m worried. Tell me the truth. “Bing.”

  He shook his head. “Just junk from our past at the compound, okay? All the ugly junk that came between our sweet sing-alongs and those s’mores parties that you’ve imagined.”

  “I don’t deserve that,” she said, her voice quiet.

  “You’re right.” Regret was something you’d think he’d be accustomed to. “You don’t.” In three strides he reached her and took a small cardboard box from her hand, studied it. “Huh. I’ve never seen this before.”