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I nearly lost my breath and my balance. My legs were suddenly unsteady.
It was her.
The woman who had been tied and bent over his desk only two nights ago. I yanked my hand free of Madden’s grip and stormed out of the restaurant. I wasn’t going to sit and eat dinner with the woman that he had sex with.
A shadow moved in front of me and when I looked up, Madden stood there. “Where the hell are you going?” he said, his commanding voice stopping me in my tracks.
“I can’t believe that you brought her here. I know who she is,” I spat. “Even though she had on a blindfold, I’m not blind.”
His eyes narrowed and he wrapped his fingers around my arm, pulling me to the side. “First, I don’t owe you an explanation. We have an arrangement and I expect you to honor it. That includes eating dinner with me and whomever I invite. If you don’t come back inside with me, you lose the ten thousand dollars. What you need to do is ask yourself if it’s worth it.”
“Why? I wasn’t enough so you had to bring in your go-to-girl as well?” As soon as I said that, I realized what problem actually was. I wasn’t good enough, after everything that happened between us.
I took a step closer to him. “I would have let you tie me up and blindfold me you know. I expected it after what I saw, but instead, you bring her here.”
My body vibrated with anger. I wanted to walk away, wished that I could, but I needed the damned money.
Madden leaned in close and I could see the dark flashes of anger in his eyes. “What is your choice?”
He had me over a barrel. “Fine. I’ll go back inside with you, but I draw the line at threesomes, for the record.”
“I don’t share...with anyone,” he growled before guiding me back into the dining room.
Madden had regained his cool, unaffected demeanor by the time we arrived back at the table.
“This is Ms Kinsey,” he said, introducing me to the man and woman seated at the table. “This is Jenna my Public Relations Liaison, and her fiancé Anderson.” I reached out and shook the offered hands, ignoring the look Jenna shot between me and Madden. She had some nerve, sitting there beside her fiancé while the man she was screwing on the side sat across from him.
“Do we know anything new?” Madden asked.
“It’s a small newspaper out of Rochester, circulation about 5000, but the problem is that the Times caught wind of it and their people called me for an official statement. I of course said it was all slanderous hearsay, that your old roommate was jealous of your success and was spreading lies about plagiarism in order to get money, but they smell a story.”
I glanced at Madden to try and see his reaction to what she was saying.
An old roommate spreading lies about plagiarism?
Madden was annoyed and dismissive. “He was a punk even back then. What do we do?” Madden threw back this bourbon on the rocks and signaled the waiter for another. Anger radiated from him in waves.
Jenna tried to sound confident, but it was clear that Madden’s displeasure had put her on the defensive. “Well, my suggestion is to put something else out there, something juicier that the major newspapers can run with. If we come out with a better story, they’ll forget about the roommate and his accusations. We just need a story.”
Madden scowled. “We need a story?” he scoffed. “No, Jenna. We don’t need anything. It’s your job to diffuse these things. That’s what I pay you for.”
Madden stood and held out his hand. We hadn’t even ordered our food yet but his eyes dared me to argue. I pushed back my chair. Jenna’s stare was focused on where Madden had his hand resting on my hip.
“Call me with a solution,” Madden barked, then he guided me from the dining room.
Once again, we were in the elevator surrounded by angry silence.
“So your lover is also your PR person. That’s convenient.” I stared straight ahead and refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing how much it bothered me. As soon as the elevator dinged, I stepped out and walked to our door. He swiped his keycard before I could get mine out of my purse.
As soon as the door clicked shut, Madden took my arm and stormed over to the small dining table. “Take off your clothes,” he growled.
“You’re kidding me. After all that you expect me to just lie down and roll over?”
“What I expect,” he said through tight lips, “is for you to do what I tell you to. That was the agreement was it not?”
I really did not like him at this moment.
And yet another part of me wanted to be closer to him more than ever—to cross the enormous gulf that seemed to have opened between us these last few hours.
