CHAPTER
SIX
Sultry rhumba music filtered through the front door as Madison let herself inside the house. It surprised her, but not as much as the hundreds of lit votive candles lining the stairs.
She closed the door and fell back against it. The scene screamed Hollywood movie.
Madison looked down at her scuffed high-tops. She wasn’t dressed for this scene…and wasn’t Kyle worried about a fire hazard? They didn’t have smoke alarms in the house—this was Paris.
“Hey!” Kyle said, emerging from the salon. “You’re back. Hungry?”
He was wearing some kind of blue suit that wasn’t navy or light blue. Even from where she stood, his blue eyes seemed to pop. No accident, she imagined. His baby blues were one of his best features, the kind that made her mind pause like a video when he looked at her. His white shirt was whiter than any freshly laundered white tablecloth at a fancy restaurant.
And he was freshy shaved…
God, he looked so damn good. She could only stare at him for a moment, her mind locked in some kind of romance-induced shock. Then heat shot through her, like she’d opened the stove. She wanted to cross the room, grab him by that damn perfect suit, and feast on his mouth.
She started walking toward him, but the ear-grating sound of her high-tops rubbing on the marble stopped her short. “I should…change.”
Rushing to the stairs, she watched the hundreds of candle lights flicker as she made her way to her room. His sanctuary was down the hall—the proximity of which had been driving her slowly crazy since they’d moved into this place. His door was open, and she tiptoed over to it to see if he had more candles lit in there.
Were they getting freaky tonight? Technically it was almost Sunday…
His room wasn’t a red room fantasy or anything, but another buttload of candles had the place glowing like the holiday lights in the center of town. The bed had new linens—yeah, she’d looked into his digs before. Instead of the usual blues, the duvet and pillows were a plain white that looked as plush as if they were stuffed with the feathers of a hundred geese.
“You want a drink while you change?”
She screamed and swung around, her pulse revving to flight or fight in her chest. “Jesus, Kyle! You about gave me a heart attack.”
He was biting his lip to keep from laughing, the idiot. “Sorry. I thought you heard me stomping up the stairs after you.”
The fact that she hadn’t alarmed her. Usually, she knew where everyone was in proximity to her. Old habit. “I didn’t, and now you caught me snooping. Like a total moron. But I have to ask. Did you get new sheets and stuff for your bed because of me?”
Walking toward her, he lifted the hand she had clenchedat her side and fitted a drink into it. Mezcal, she sniffed. “I got them forus.You like white in your decorating?—”
“Decorating?” She snickered. “I do white because it’s easy and simple and clean. I honestly don’t know how you made it look romantic. You’ve got skills. So apparently we’re starting tonight, huh?”
She gulped her drink as he leaned against the wall, his hard body on display like a Louvre sculpture, studying her with one of those indulgent Golden Boy smiles. Those destroyed her.
“You know me. I’m always prepared for all eventualities. Tonight was about me welcoming you home and showing you how I’d like to treat you and take care of you.”
Her brain might as well have been tossed into a searing sauté pan.“What?”
“Change and then come down. You’ll see what I mean.”
Then he turned around and left her standing like a Peeping Tom in his doorway. She gulped a splash of her drink and nearly moaned at how good it tasted. The smoke in mezcal always cleared her head. She rushed to her room, throwing open her closet to look for a change of clothes.
God, she could really use Brooke right about now.
Madison had no idea what to wear. She didn’t have thethis is the perfect outfitgene some women had. Her entire wardrobe looked like it came from a funeral parlor sale or a vampire’s closet. She grabbed the black dress she’d worn to Thea’s wedding since Kyle had made a move on her that night, asking her to dance after requesting one of her favorite Marc Anthony songs. She’d been stiff as a board then, trying not to touch him because her skin couldn’t handle the sensation.
She gulped down more of her drink, changed, and then looked at herself in her bathroom mirror. Her hair had never been a priority. First, she was a chef, and hair and food didn’t mix. Second, she worked in a hot kitchen whereher head sweated, meaning her hair got damp too. So not sexy.
Thank God the cold air from her walk home had dried most of it. She took a towel and rubbed her head to dry the rest. Sure, she looked like she’d just finished being tumbled in the spin cycle, but a little finger combing would make her less insane.
The perfume Nanine had bought her ten years ago for Christmas seemed to be chanting her name.Madison, spritz me.
She was one step away from a straitjacket.
