She's So Over Him (Mills & Boon Modern Tempted)

by Wood, Joss

  That relief and his subsequent disappearing act hurt far more than it should. Which made her feel used, sad and more than a little angry.

  Why was he allowed to delve into her head, and make comments about her parents and her work, but she wasn’t allowed to make any observations about his state of mind? She knew—God, she knew—that Cale didn’t want anything more than what they had, but weren’t they allowed to be friends?

  Friends shared stuff, helped each other through the bad stuff, sorted out the muddle in each other’s heads… Oh, wait… that was girlfriends.

  Anyway, thinking about Cale just annoyed her. She should think about work—another contentious subject.

  So far today she’d dealt with a beyond picky bride and her pickier mother and, because Thandi had hidden in the staff bathroom, soothed the irate owners of the Piano Festival because some of their performers had eaten a bad batch of sausage rolls. She had only completed two of the three reports she’d promised Harriet, still hadn’t managed to track down a creative caterer to fill in for a product launch the following week, and there wasn’t a yellow rose to be found in the city.

  ‘I’m sorry, I really am,’ Thandi told her again.

  Maddie looked up from a report and frowned at Thandi, who was sitting at her desk, filing her nails. Fighting her temper, Maddie ignored her and scowled at her computer.

  ‘It’s just that you are so much better at conflict than I am. They would’ve started shouting, and I would’ve shouted back, then I’d have been reported to Harriet and she’d have blamed you for my lack of training—so I saved your hide, really.’

  Maddie’s mouth fell open at Thandi’s convoluted reasoning as to why she’d had to deal with her upset clients. ‘You don’t actually believe the nonsense that’s falling from your lips, do you?’

  The corners of Thandi’s mouth twitched. ‘No, but you’re talking to me again.’

  ‘You are such a brat.’ Maddie stood up, and in her attempt to toss a file onto her desk banged her knee on the underside.

  She danced around on one foot, swearing as stars burst, clutching her knee in agony. Thandi hurried over to her and gently helped her into her chair.

  The husky sound of a clearing throat caught them both off-guard, and Maddie whirled around to see Cale standing at Thandi’s desk. Lifting annoyed eyebrows at Thandi, she threw up her hands in despair.

  ‘Maddie—Cale’s here,’ Thandi sing-songed, straightening her back and shoving her chest out when Cale smiled down at her.

  Maddie considered pulling her long braided hair out through her nose. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I thought I’d attend the meeting to persuade that farmer to allow us access to his land for the race.’

  ‘I could’ve handled it on my own,’ Maddie told him.

  Cale ignored her as he crouched in front of her and pushed her black pants up her leg to probe her knee.

  ‘You okay? You banged your knee pretty hard.’

  Maddie winced as his hands hit the point of impact.

  ‘Madison!’ Harriet’s strident voice had Maddie’s head snapping up and Cale turning to look at her.

  Harriet, hands on her adolescent-size hips, looked down her nose at them. ‘The racer. In my offices. Again. It seems that every time I turn around you’re here. And more often than not with your hands on my employee.’

  Cale stood up and folded his arms, his eyes turning lighter with irritation.

  Maddie, not wanting to see blood on the floor, stood up too, winced, and tried to take control of the situation. ‘How can I help you, Harriet?’

  ‘You can tell me why I have a very irate mother of Tasmin McGee on the telephone, complaining about your lack of support, your lack of creative ideas and your unprofessional attitude.’

  Maddie looked at Thandi, whose mouth had fallen open.

  ‘Hold on a sec!’ Thandi said, when Maddie refused to defend herself. ‘I was in that meeting and Maddie was brilliant. She handled those revolting, snotty woman with remarkable calm.’

  ‘Those “snotty women” are the wife and daughter of the CEO of one of our biggest corporate clients,’ Harriet said in a clipped tone. ‘I’m giving the wedding to Jake to organise since you, Madison, can’t seem to be trusted to handle any important projects at the moment.’ She sent Cale a pointed look. ‘The sooner this wretched stupid race is over, the happier I’ll be.’

  Maddie flew out of her chair but Cale’s hand whipped out to grab her arm. Maddie felt his silent warning, dropped her head and sucked in some deep breaths in an attempt to get her temper under control. She wanted to rage and tear Harriet stick-thin limb from limb. She stepped forward. How dared she say the race was stupid and wretched?

  ‘Breathe,’ Cale said in her ear, and she did. And as oxygen filled her lungs her temper retreated.

  When Maddie thought she could walk and talk without fire coming out of her ears, she reached across her desk for the pile of documents she’d need to work on at home. When she looked up Harriet had left the room to go back to her cave.

  She glanced over her shoulder and caught Thandi’s eye. ‘We’re going to a meeting with one of the landowners whose property we need to use for the race. You. So. Owe. Me.’

  She handed Cale her laptop and stormed out of the communal office.

  In the lift she turned to Cale and dropped the side of her head against the lift panel. With her eyes closed, she spoke, bitterness in her voice. ‘I’m in a foul mood, Cale, and if you want an organiser for your race I suggest you don’t speak to me for the next fifteen minutes. You’ve managed to do that for over a week, so I don’t imagine it’ll be a feat too hard for you to accomplish.’

  Cale sighed at Maddie’s taut face as he opened the door of his Range Rover for her. After getting in, he tucked her laptop case behind her seat and looked at her, head back, eyes closed. His eyes slid over her classy black slimline trousers and tangerine coat. She looked too interesting to be truly beautiful, with her dark winged eyebrows and wide mouth, and was normally animated, vibrant and vivacious. Now, after an unsuccessful afternoon, she looked like a leaky balloon.

  During the meeting Cale had wondered if the farmer, his son and his farm manager could see the slow trickle of energy seeping from Maddie. She’d been jaunty but firm, her words carefully chosen but resolute. Maddie had been relentless in her quest to get the runners access to a hilly area on the north side of their property, and the son and the farm manager had been prepared to give Maddie whatever she wanted—permission for the race, their firstborn child, access to their bank accounts. But the old man had been a lot cannier. Since Cale had caught a glimpse of his wife as they’d entered his house, he figured that the old man had had plenty of practice dealing with a pair of stupendous brown eyes in an animated face.

  He’d held firm and they’d left disappointed. Maddie was not a happy camper.

  She didn’t like hearing the word no.

  He ignored her crackling silence on the hour-long trip back to her office to collect her car, and when he pulled into a parking space he reached over and briefly touched the back of her hand with his index finger.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  Maddie rolled her head along the headrest to look at him. The blue shadows beneath her eyes were back, and the tiny furrow between her eyebrows suggested a headache. ‘Not a happy result.’

  ‘We have an alternative; it’s not a train crash.’

  ‘I wanted that route,’ Maddie muttered as she stepped out of the car and slammed her door shut.

  Cale frowned and walked around the car to where she was yanking her rolled-up plans and laptop case off his back seat.

  He could see the storm racing across her eyes. ‘Maddie, calm down.’

  ‘Don’t tell me to calm down.’ Maddie enunciated every word through gritted teeth as she stalked to her car and tossed her belongings in the boot. She slapped her hands on her waist and narrowed her eyes. ‘He was just being difficult for the sake of being
difficult.’

  ‘It was way within his rights to refuse us access. He didn’t want all our runners on his land with their accompanying mess.’

  ‘I told him we’d restore it to pristine condition!’

  Cale wondered if it was even worth trying to reason with her. She was in a stew and she needed to vent and he was in the splash zone. The trick was to keep his temper when she lost hers. And she was going to. She’d been brewing up a head of steam all day. Probably all week.

  ‘So? He said no. Move on. We have signed permission to use the other route, so we take that.’

  ‘It’s not as good a route. You said so!’

  ‘It’s good enough, Madison, and sometimes we have to settle for that!’

  Maddie scrubbed her hands over her face. ‘I am not arguing with you any more. I am going home, ordering a very large pizza and catching up on everything I didn’t get done today.’

  Typical Maddie. Her answer to a pissy day was to grab her laptop and retreat into work. ‘For God’s sake, Madison, go take a walk, have a glass of wine, a bubble bath. Switch off for two seconds!’

  Maddie tossed her hair and narrowed her eyes at his suggestions. ‘Cale, you are my friend and the man that I am currently sleeping with. You are neither my father, my brother nor my husband. You do not get to tell me what to do!’

  He’d had more than enough of being her verbal punch bag. ‘Listen, you stuck up, patronising little witch. You’ve had a bad day and things didn’t go your way. Suck it up and be an adult about it.’

  ‘What did you just call me?’

  ‘You heard. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill.’

  Maddie’s eyes threw fire at him. ‘How dare you? I lost a client, had to deal with Thandi’s disaster, banged my knee and didn’t get the farmer to allow us to use his land. Today has been an unmitigated disaster! And I haven’t even touched half of what I needed to get through today.’

  ‘So you had a bad day? People do.’

  ‘I had a catastrophic day!’

  That pushed Cale over the edge. ‘Catastrophic? You have no freaking idea of the meaning of the word! Catastrophic is the tsunami in Japan, a ferry overturning, the melting ice caps! It’s cancer and death and loss and pain. It is not you having a tough day and someone saying no to you!’

  Cale saw remorse flash in her eyes and the embarrassment behind it. He ignored her hand outstretched in apology and spun on his heel and stormed over to his car, firing it up and backing out of his parking space more by instinct than with care. The last thing he saw before he turned into the road was Maddie’s miserable, pinched, cold face.

  Back at his house, Cale swiftly changed into his running gear and, conscious of a headache brewing, tossed two painkillers down his throat, chasing them down with a long stream of water from the bottle he held in his hand. No woman had ever managed to push his buttons like Maddie did. What was it about her? She was deeply annoying and a relentless perfectionist. She exhausted him…

  Cale lifted the bottle again and cocked his head at the sound of a car roaring up his drive. He cursed. Maddie. He didn’t know if he had any energy left to go another round with her. He was played out.

  He leaned against his granite counter and crossed his legs at the ankles, waiting for her to find him. When she burst into the room her eyes were glinting dangerously. Her temper hadn’t subsided. If anything it burnt hotter and brighter.

  Oh, yay.

  ‘Don’t you ever walk away from me when we’re having an argument!’ she told him in a voice sizzling with molten lava as she drilled her finger into his chest.

  Cale grabbed her finger and squeezed it before flinging it away. ‘Don’t pull your princess act on me. I’m not your husband or your father or your brother.’ Cale threw her words back at her as he rested his bottle against his forehead. ‘Go away, Mad, before I do or say something I really regret.’

  Maddie cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. ‘Like what?’ she challenged.

  ‘I might say that you’re a spoilt brat with a wicked temper. That right now I really don’t like you. That I’m battling with deciding whether I want to haul you over my knee or haul you to bed. Since I don’t hit women…’

  ‘Well, I really don’t like you either right now,’ Maddie informed him as she tossed her keys on the kitchen table. ‘You’re judgmental and arrogant.’

  She unbuttoned her coat and flung it over the nearest chair. ‘You’re emotionally stunted and wrapped up in the past.’

  ‘You’re high-maintenance and would try the patience of a saint,’ Cale whipped back.

  ‘Do you have an inkling of the amount of time and effort I’m putting into this race for you? A race to honour your brother—somebody I’m not even sure that you liked!’

  Cale’s breath caught in his throat as anger roiled and churned. ‘Be careful, Madison.’

  ‘Or what? You’re not going to talk to me for another week? Guess what? I can handle it!’

  ‘You’re treading on dangerous ground.’

  ‘Yeah, your precious emotions,’ Maddie shouted. ‘How dare you make love to me, kiss me on the cheek and then not call me for a week? The least you could’ve done was send me an e-mail or a message saying that you needed some space!’

  Cale felt the red dragon of his temper snap the ropes keeping it under control. ‘How dare you walk into my house with your filthy mood and think it’s a safe place for you to vent?’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ Maddie demanded.

  ‘It’s mine! My house, my kitchen, my life, Madison! For the first time in over thirty years I haven’t had to share my life, my toys, my clothes, my house, the money I earned and, Goddammit, my time with anyone else. I’m not responsible for anyone but me and I love it!’ he roared and, because it was there, he picked up an empty coffee cup and propelled it through the nearest window.

  The shattering of the glass was echoed by something breaking in his heart, and it felt amazing. While a tiny voice of reason insisted that he’d regret this later, he picked up another cup and threw it against the remaining jagged glass.

  ‘So if I don’t want to call you for a week, I don’t have to!’

  Maddie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Nice throw.’

  ‘Don’t you stand there and smirk at me!’ he bellowed. ‘You have no idea of the price I’ve paid for having this life, Madison! Oliver had to die for me to have all this!’

  ‘What absolute rubbish,’ Maddie replied calmly. ‘You only had to set some boundaries with him.’

  ‘What was I supposed to do when he lost yet another job and couldn’t pay the rent? Not find him somewhere to live?’

  ‘Maybe?’

  ‘And when he couldn’t pay maintenance for his boys? Was I supposed to let them struggle? Was I not supposed to help him when he found himself in a bar fight, six against one? Not bail him out of jail or feed him?’

  ‘What choices did he make to land himself in those situations? Did he start the fight? Why was he in jail?’

  ‘I can’t talk to you when you’re being all calm and reasonable!’

  ‘You’re not talking, you’re shouting,’ Maddie pointed out.

  Cale considered shaking her. Why wasn’t she scared of him? And where the hell had all her anger gone?

  He had to get out… had to get away from her and her sympathetic eyes and her cool, sensible, rational attitude. How had an argument about her snotty temper turned into him ranting about Oliver?

  Cale shoved his hands into his hair. ‘I’ve got to get out of here. I need to run.’

  Maddie bit her lip. ‘Okay.’

  In the doorway Cale stopped, lifting his hands to grip the wooden doorframe and dropping his head to stare at the floor.

  ‘Will you be here when I get back?

  He heard her move in his direction and hoped she wasn’t going to try and hug him. His temper was still roiling beneath the surface and he wasn’t ready to make nice yet.

  But Maddie, being Maddie, just lightly placed her hands b
eneath his shoulderblades and touched her forehead to his spine.

  ‘Do you want me to be?’

  Of course he didn’t want her there—but need was a different matter. He needed her tonight. ‘Yes,’ he ground out.

  ‘Then I’ll be here. Go run it off, Cale.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ON THE following rainy Sunday afternoon, on one of his long leather couches in front of the fire, Cale was paying particular attention to Maddie’s pink and green bra, marvelling at how something so sexy could be so incredibly soft. However, the skin below the fascinating fabric was even softer, still lightly tanned and scattered with freckles.

  Her navy shirt was unbuttoned and so were her jeans, hinting at matching panties, and Cale took a long, lazy time studying every inch of her partially clothed, amazing body.

  Maddie had her fingers in his hair, idly playing with the strands, half moaning as he dropped kisses on her fragrant flesh.

  ‘Did you hear a car?’ Maddie lifted her head. ‘I thought I heard a car.’

  ‘Nah. Shut up. I’m trying to concentrate here.’

  Maddie lifted herself up on her elbows. ‘Seriously, Cale. I heard the slam of a car door.’

  Cale sighed and cocked his head. He could hear his dogs yelp in greeting and he frowned. When his heavy front door creaked open and he heard discordant female voices he leapt to his feet and looked at Maddie with wild eyes.

  ‘Hell! Maddie, you’d better get dressed!’

  Maddie sat up and swung her legs to the floor.

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘Cale? Darling?’

  ‘My mother.’ Cale swore. He yanked Maddie up and started fiddling with her shirt.

  ‘Maybe we should have called first.’ Another voice, deeper and older, drifted into the room.

  His grandmother. What had he done to deserve having the two bossiest women in the world interrupt his lazy Sunday afternoon?