by C. J. Anaya
“Good point.”
“If she’s going on the show, then so am I. She can hardly avoid me then, can she?”
Her mother gave him a warning look.
“Call me when this plan comes falling down around your head, will you dear?”
“I appreciate your vote of confidence.”
“It’s a mother’s job to tell it like she sees it.” She gave his hand a squeeze and then continued, “In any case, I honestly do think that young girl could use your help tonight. Otherwise, I never would have supported your suggestion to tear her away from her date.” She reached for her purse. “I’ll hail a cab to take me home while you wait to see just how inebriated that Alexander gets.”
Brody took his mother’s work calloused hand in his own and kissed it gently. “Thank you. Even now, you still take care of me.”
“A mother’s work is never done. Her children will always need taking care of.” She stood and moved around the table, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I must ask you one thing before you continue with your pursuit of that adorable young lady.”
“Yes?”
“Are you interested in her because she presents a refreshing challenge or do you genuinely like her? Most women are all too eager to be readily available to you. The glamour and glitz of your billionaire status has done little to impress Ms. Madelyn Knightly.”
Brody carefully considered his words for a moment, knowing full well that his mother would accept nothing but the candid truth from him.
“I can honestly say that her initial disdain was more than a little intriguing, but there’s substance there, and definite chemistry between us. If there’s any chance that she could be interested in me and not my billions, I’ll move Heaven and Earth just to be close to her.” He let out a tired sigh and leaned back against his chair. “This is no game of cat and mouse for me, though I suspect with her reticence it might turn into one.”
“Well, I hope the cat catches the mouse in the end.”
“I intend to, mother.”
“I didn’t mean you, dear boy. I was talking about Madelyn.”
Midge’s heart sank to the bottom of her black high heels after reading a text message from Lisa. Apparently, she and Danny had decided to leave without them. Since the group had arrived in separate vehicles she could hardly fault her friend’s logic, but Alexander was in no condition to drive, and Midge was in no mood to drive him home. She’d be stranded at his place after that.
Not an ideal situation.
Why couldn’t Alexander have behaved like any normal billionaire and used his own chauffeur?
For one brief, desperate moment she considered taking Brody Prescott up on his offer, but discarded the thought almost immediately. She could honestly admit to herself that asking anything of him at this point was the kind of hardship her pride couldn’t handle. Not after such a disastrous date, with Brody Prescott witness to Alexander’s drunken behavior.
She wondered what his motivation behind the extended invitation had been. She suspected he simply enjoyed pushing her buttons, giving her a hard time in return for her rude yet honest assessment of his taste in women.
Still, his offer, whether given in earnest or not, was terribly tempting, all things considered. She rubbed her arm along the spot where Brody’s hand had held her. Her traitorous body tingled at the thought of his warm touch and easy smile.
What was the matter with her? Brody Prescott was a playboy, a fickle hearted man with no intention of ever committing himself to one woman, and yet his touch and teasing manner earlier had awakened her senses.
Thank Heavens she’d had enough sense to walk away from him before she confirmed to him and herself that he had somehow affected her. Alone time with him might be the catalyst for that very situation.
She looked at her drunken companion as he continued his monologuing about summers in Italy and how the women there tended to be much more affectionate than women in the United States, a factoid she barely believed. With the amount of money this man possessed, she doubted the type of women he generally associated with—no matter their nationality—would withhold their affections from him.
She felt one of his hands dodge past her defenses and land with a possessive smack upon her knee.
“Shall we call it an evening and head over to my place for some quiet conversation?”
Midge abruptly stood, shoving his hand aside and squaring her shoulders. There was simply no help for it. Whether she could afford the cab fare or not, there was no way she was allowing this man to drive her home.
“I think I’ve had quite a night, Alexander, and you seem a bit indisposed at the moment. I’ll have the waiter call you a cab and grab one for myself. Good night.”
Midge dashed out of the booth and headed to her left in order to avoid Brody’s table. She wound around the balcony, arriving at the stairs in record time and flew down them, hoping to dissuade Alexander from chasing after her in case, for some inexplicable reason, he’d managed to pull himself out of his inebriated fog.
On the last step her shoe slipped from her foot and remained on the staircase, impeding her progress. She let out a frustrated sigh and turned around only to discover Brody Prescott just three steps above her, looking for all the world like some fairy tale fantasy come to life. Electricity jump started her heart, creating an awareness within her, a certain longing and possible wish she hadn’t known she possessed.
What were the words to that song from Cinderella?
A dream is a wish your heart makes…
She felt as if her heart had managed to communicate its wishes to a mind finally conscious and capable of recognizing their depth.
It hardly prepared her to accept it.
Brody pointedly glanced to her shoe and then to her bare foot resting lightly against the hardwood floor.
He took the last few steps with all the grace and dignity of a man who felt comfortable in his own skin, gallantly retrieving her shoe in the process. Soon he stood before her on the dance floor, and his manner as he bent low on one knee could only be described as princely. He held her shoe out before him like he was gifting her the most magnificent engagement ring and humbly begging her acceptance.
“May I?”
Too dumbfounded by her epiphany and the sudden emotions he’d managed to draw from her soul, she barely achieved a swallow and a stiff nod, giving him permission to proceed. He gently placed a warm hand upon the back of her ankle, lifting and then guiding her foot into her shoe.
And there she remained, gazing at his exquisite face with one foot grounded and the other resting upon his knee while he gave her a smoldering look.
The start of a sweet waltz from the orchestra merely enhanced the bewitching spell fate had expertly woven around the couple. Brody lifted a hand to her and she took it, replacing her high heeled foot upon the floor with the other. She watched as if in some kind of foggy dream while Brody rose to his full height with her hand in his, never once breaking eye contact with her.
“We should dance, you and I.”
The rich baritone of his voice floated over her senses. She could hardly resist when he placed a hand at her waist and drew her into position, leading her across the dance floor to the hypnotic lift and swell of the one-two-three rhythm created to unify and ignite a certain kind of beautiful recognition and remembrance for those hearts truly meant for one another.
She followed him easily, and felt that for the first time in her life she had finally encountered someone who operated within the same sphere of existence she did. Her own world within a world where no one, up until now, had ever been granted access. Her heart and soul had never been willing to open that door for anyone.
His arm around her waist tightened, bringing her flush against his chest and mere centimeters from his lips. They whispered something soft and sweet, taking her a few moments to register.
“Why did you tell me your name was Midge? Is that a nickname or something?”
“Or something,” s
he responded, feeling a little lightheaded with his nearness.
She noted his dissatisfaction with her response and felt a weird compulsion to tell him the truth.
“Madelyn, what’s your full name?” his eager eyes entreated her with sincerity. The warmth radiating from his touch shared a promise of comfort, safety, and peace.
“My…name…I…” Midge fought the passionate current keeping her mind from logical thought and reason. She did her best to focus on his question and the answer she must give as she continued to gaze into his gentle eyes. He wanted to know her name. She needed to tell him who she was.
Madelyn Knightly. Madelyn…Knightly!
“No…no, I can’t.” Sharp fear sliced through her. It was an uncommon emotion that jarred violently with her previously serene demeanor, causing her to wrench herself from Brody’s arms.
Sudden thoughts of how he might look at her if he knew who she truly was pierced the sweetness she experienced within his arms. Flashes of a different kind of interest from other men with far different goals and agendas pummeled her in a relentless onslaught of one failed dating attempt after another. Men interested in her father, her connections and her trust fund. Men interested in fame and what her father might do for them if they managed to get in good with his daughter. She may have possessed a tiny fraction of hope that Brody’s billions would negate possible interest in her father and her Hollywood connections, but her recent experience with Alexander Montgomery strangled that hope and squashed it out of existence. Alexander was also an established billionaire. He’d looked at her with nothing but lust and calculating greed. What kind of look would radiate from Brody’s eyes the minute he found out who she was? She could more than guess the outcome of such a revelation. Her predictions never failed her where most men had.
He reached for her then, the determined glint in his movements giving her the impetus needed for physical flight. She turned on her heel and immediately jostled her way through other couples on the dance floor. She didn’t pause once she reached the front doors, hardly believing he might pursue her after her stunning behavior. She made it out the exit, rushed to the curb in a panic, and hailed a cab while ignoring the questioning look of the valet attendant.
She never wanted to see him again. Never wanted to feel the heat of his eyes lingering upon her or the warmth of his hand guiding and supporting her as if she belonged there when so many other women had most assuredly felt or thought along the same vein. Brody Prescott was dangerous, not because of what little he was capable of feeling for her, but because of her capacity to care for him. Nothing placed Midge in a more vulnerable position than recognition of affection most certainly unrequited. Having never been so emotionally exposed in all her life, the only response she could now muster was one of instinctive flight. Nothing but escape mattered.
She barely registered the pummeling rain as she jerked the cab door open and made to enter. She was roughly pulled backward and then spun to face the very threat she’d been running from. Brody’s eyes hungrily raked her face as he pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her struggling frame.
“Don’t run from me, Madelyn. You can no more outrun me than you can outrun fate.”
She opened her mouth to form some sort of protest, but Brody seemed to take that as an invitation. He crushed his lips to hers in the most wonderful melding she had ever experienced. Her first instinct was to fight the currents of passion and bolts of electricity that surged between them, but her muscles and tendons refused to acquiesce to her desperate wishes.
Brody’s kiss completely unraveled her, shooting a direct hit to her heart where she knew it would never recover. She was never going to get over this man, and he didn’t even belong to her. With just one kiss, Brody Prescott had managed to claim her heart as his, and she would now have to deal with the aching hunger of his absence for the rest of her existence. Ignorance would have been preferable to this crushing awareness. It angered her enough to give her the fortitude to push away from him, pull her arm back, and deliver a resounding smack across his cheek.
Her breath came in heavy gulps as Brody stood with glittering eyes full of passion and hunger as if he’d hardly registered the punishment she’d firmly dealt. She had nothing to say; no witty retort or snappy reparté to throw back at him. The only thing she felt capable of doing after sharing such an earth-shattering exchange with a man she felt certain she could never possess was to turn around, step into her cab, and pull the door shut with a finality that nearly tore her heart in two.
She sucked in deep breaths, fearing she might never be capable of taking in enough oxygen. Her desperate gasps of air turned into quiet sobbing which shook her entire frame as her cab carried her far away from the restaurant and the man who remained standing in the rain.
The rain pummeled Brody’s broad figure, a definite punishment for manhandling the only girl he’d ever taken a true interest in. He hardly felt the wet shards as they sliced at his skin and clothing; too distracted by his tumultuous emotions and the way Madelyn’s kiss, though stolen from her soft lips, had shaken him to his core.
What in the world had possessed him to chase after her and force himself upon her like that? Panic? A foreboding sense of loss? He’d managed to make progress with her upon the dance floor, catching her by surprise in a weak and vulnerable moment where she actually allowed him to look at her, speak to her…touch her.
He wasn’t one to believe in magic, supernatural occurrences, or fairy tales, but he could have sworn he’d stepped right into one the minute Madelyn had turned around and spied him on the staircase. And then he’d bungled the entire thing by pushing her for a name he knew all too well. He never should have asked, but he desperately desired her trust. He never should have ruined the moment by asking her to reveal a part of herself she was so obviously trying to hide from. She was skittish and resistant to his advances, and not just because of his rocky first impression, but because of some nameless fear rooted within her.
The instant she agreed to dance with him, the rightness of her slight figure within his arms, the way she looked into his eyes and displayed her every emotion like a beautiful projection visible for his eyes only, gave him reason to believe she was just as enamored with him as he was with her.
Then his stupidly timed question had brought the shields up, the distance between them expanding as a sharp slice of fear crossed her features and sent her running as if she thought she might catch fire and melt in the process.
Tracking her down offered no problems. He had the connections and the resources to find Madelyn no matter where she might live, and he thought, with a grimace, where she might flee to. No, that wasn’t the way he wished to go about this. There were things he had to prove, obvious dragons he needed to slay, and having her father throw them together made it easy for him to escape blame while doing everything within his power to bring back the Madelyn he’d discovered on the dance floor.
He’d do the show, but he’d be damned if she only stayed on it for one day. Brody had a plan, and it did not include eliminating Madelyn Knightly.
Bent over her father’s desk with a pen in hand, Midge let her flowery penmanship flow across the contract her father’s lawyers had written up. She noted her hand shaking the minute she finished. Mentally cursing the traitorous appendage, she placed the pen upon the desk before her shaking caused it to involuntarily jump from her hand.
Her father’s grin was filled with genuine happiness. Though she hated the circumstances she found herself in, she suddenly felt enormously happy to have his approval. She was never going to stop wanting or needing it.
I am so pathetic.
“We start shooting two months from now,” he said with some excitement. “Did my intern email you your itinerary for the first day’s schedule?”
“She did.”
Apparently, the first week of shooting had been planned in Hawaii on some island owned by a celebrity so rich he hadn’t even bothered to name it. An enormous mans
ion on the property had been rented for the occasion. Twenty girls in a mansion. Fortunately for Midge, they would each receive their own suite. She had no idea where the billionaire in question was residing and she didn’t care so long as it was far away from her room.
“How exactly are we getting to the island from Honolulu?” she wondered.
Her father’s features took on an air of mystery. “That, my dear girl, is a surprise. I have no intention of spoiling it for you.”
“I hate surprises.”
“I know.” His gleeful expression irked her.
“All right, now that I’ve signed a day’s worth of my life into your hands, I guess there’s nothing left to do, but go home, finish up the rest of this semester, and possibly make out a will in case the plane crashes on the way over there and all twenty contestants perish in one grand explosion.”
Her father chuckled at that.
“You’ve always been so dramatic. I certainly hope you’ll employ that while you’re on camera.”
“If you’re looking for someone to start a cat fight, create harmful gossip, or fake a panic attack and begin hyperventilating you’ve coerced the wrong girl. I don’t even plan on getting drunk while I’m there.”
“Ah yes, you and your strange aversion to alcohol. Too bad, really. I’ve always thought you were more fit for appearing on the screen than typing in front of one.”
“One day my novels will be New York Times best sellers, and when you come with an apology, begging to turn my books into movies, I plan on laughing in your face and giving the movie rights to Steven Spielberg.”
His wry look was annoyingly absent of outrage. “I doubt anything you write will fit what he produces.”
“I stand by my threat.” She grabbed her small purse and pulled the strap across her shoulder. “See you in two months.”