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He hadn’t stopped looking at me since we sat down. A permanent blush had taken up residence on my face.
“The dress is beautiful,” I told him. It had been one of the ones that he bought me at the resort and I didn’t have a chance to wear it. It was pale yellow with lace covering the chest and two layers of the softest cotton made up the knee length skirt. I’d tied a light silk scarf around my neck to hide the bruises and had pulled my hair back in a loose, messy ponytail that hung over one shoulder.
I felt like a princess in a twisted fairy tale. One who had no idea what was going on between her and her “Prince Charming.”
“I think we put on a good show, don’t you?” he said.
The flash of cameras as we stepped out of the limo had taken me by surprise. Madden swooped in and wrapped his arm around my waist and had kept his body between me and them as we went inside.
Without the threat of Jacob looming over me, though, it wasn’t so bad being in the spotlight. In fact, spending time with Madden was turning out to be amazing. And tonight, he’d told me that we were going back to his house. I wasn’t sure if this was part of our “engagement” story that was still all over the papers or not, but it felt so incredibly real.
This was only temporary, I kept telling myself. But lately, I was beginning to wonder if something that felt this incredible was meant to be only temporary.
We were soon seated at an elegant table away from everything else.
I glanced at Madden from under my eyelashes. I knew this couldn’t be anything permanent. He was Madden Cross. I was...nobody.
“Where did you go?” he asked, taking my hand and running his thumb over the outside of it.
A gave him a smile. “Just trying to process everything. The last four days have been sort of surreal. I’m not really sure if I’m sitting here with you or if it’s all in my imagination.”
“Judging by the noises you were making last night and again this morning, I’d say this is very real.” Something burned behind his eyes, something that made my pulse leap with a tiny bit of hope. Was it possible that he felt more than just an obligation based on a fake engagement?
“So what’s good to eat?” I asked, forcing air back into my lungs.
Madden’s gaze dropped to where my dress dipped down, revealing the tops of my bre**asts. When he looked back up, the hunger in his eyes sucked all the air from the room.
“You,” he said.
Desire coiled in my stomach. Eating dinner was pretty overrated. I pulled my hand free and picked the napkin off my lap.
“But the lobster crepes with lightly fried new potatoes is pretty good.” A smile lifted the corner of his lip up and I blinked. Was he teasing me? Okay then.
“Sounds perfect.” The waiter came and Madden ordered our meal. When he was gone, I picked up my mimosa. Apparently drinking in the daytime was acceptable if you had the money to excuse it. Growing up when my mother did it, everyone called her a drunk.
“So, real estate. Is that something your family does?” I realized that I knew nothing about Madden, aside from the fact that he owned a resort and an impressive building downtown. If we were going to be fake engaged, I should probably know a few things about him just in case.
His demeanor changed in an instant. Tension gripped his shoulders and his movements were stiff. All signs of the playful man from a minute ago disappeared. “It’s not important.”
“But what if a reporter asks? I know nothing about you.” I set my glass down and folded my hands on my lap. “I told you things about my past that no one else knows. I thought that’s what people do when they’re together. They share things about themselves.” My brow creased.
The temperature had dropped twenty degrees it seemed.
“You don’t need to know about my real estate business or my family.” Madden stared through me and then away from me.
“Okay. But I guess I’m just confused. Why do you need this elaborate scheme to overshadow some cheating rumor? College was years ago. Surely it’s not important now? You’re the Madden Cross. The one and only.”
Maybe I was poking at him a little, trying to get beneath the veneer, trying to pry beneath the shiny immaculate surface that was Madden Cross.
But I didn’t want to infuriate him.
“Don’t try and play games,” he warned, and the coldness in his voice told me I’d gone too far.
I held up my hands. Fine, if he didn’t want to talk, I wasn’t going to push. “Sorry. I was just trying to get to know you a little better.”
“You don’t need to know me,” he said matter-of-factly. “All you need to remember is that I’m paying you good money to do a job. Forty-eight extra hours is what I asked you for. That’s all.”
