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“You didn’t tell us you had an overnight guest,” the other man said, his voice reserved as he took in the large T-shirt she still wore, which obviously belonged to Maddux. “Maybe Tempest and I should come back later to hear the details on Theodore?”
Maddux shook his head. “She isn’t the kind of guest you’re insinuating,” he corrected his sibling, who’d pegged her as a one-night stand or something similar. Her captor exhaled a deep breath before saying, “This is Arabella Cole.”
Maddux didn’t beat around the bush, and that announcement changed everything. Tempest gasped in shock, and Hunter’s entire body stiffened as he now glared at Arabella as if she were persona non grata, which she supposed she was. Jesus, her father had clearly done such emotional damage to all of them.
Tempest glanced from Arabella to her brother, her gaze swirling with confusion. “Maddux . . . what’s going on?”
“Clearly, we need to talk,” Hunter snapped heatedly before Maddux could reply.
“Yes, we do,” Maddux agreed gruffly, and jerked his head toward the opposite side of the apartment. “In my office.”
Maddux started in that direction, and Hunter and Tempest followed, but not before his brother shot violent daggers at her with his rage-filled gaze, and though his sister’s disapproving frown wasn’t nearly as threatening, Arabella definitely felt their resentment.
She remained sitting on the barstool until she heard a door close. Maddux’s office must have been well insulated, because she couldn’t hear anything after that, not that she wanted to be privy to whatever heated conversation the trio were about to have about her.
Not sure what to do in the meantime, she cleared their breakfast plates, did all the dishes, and cleaned the kitchen stove and countertops. She went back to Maddux’s bedroom and made the bed, then picked her ball gown off the floor to hang it up. She was nothing if not neat and orderly, and that wouldn’t change just because she lived in someone else’s house.
Her cell phone fell out of the pocket and hit the ground with a dull thud, and she retrieved the device, which was her only lifeline to her father. After putting her dress in the closet, she unlocked her phone to find at least a dozen calls and texts from Gavin . . . and nothing from her dad, which worried her after last night’s stress and the fact that she’d had to give him one of his nitroglycerin pills to ease his chest pain.
She quickly scrolled through Gavin’s messages, most of which were belligerent threats and bluster toward her captor and swearing that Maddux was going to pay for abducting her. Arabella rolled her eyes at that. She hadn’t been taken hostage, not when she’d consciously offered herself to Maddux, so Gavin’s claims and intimidation tactics were pointless. He just didn’t like the fact that some other man had permission to touch what he’d perceived as his. He’d completely flip out if he knew just how much she wanted Maddux to do all sorts of deliciously sinful things to her.
Ignoring everything relating to Gavin, she instead called her father’s number. She just needed to hear his voice and know that he was okay.
“Arabella,” he answered, sounding more subdued than the self-assured parent she was used to or the spiteful man he’d been last night when confronted by Maddux. “Are you okay? Has he hurt you at all?”
“No. I’m fine, Father. I swear,” she quickly assured him as she sat down on the leather bench at the foot of the bed, where Maddux had left his tuxedo, pants, and shirt from the previous evening. She’d hang those up, too. “I’m more concerned about you and your heart.”
“I’m better.”
She couldn’t tell if he was just trying to appease her or was being truthful. “Promise me you’ll go to the hospital if the pain persists.” She couldn’t help but fret about him since she wasn’t at home to see him for herself.
“Don’t worry about me. Just . . . do whatever Wilder says until I figure out how to get you out of the situation.”
Sadly, she wanted to say that three million dollars was just about the only thing that would resolve the issue completely, but kept the comment to herself.
“Dad . . . how did you accumulate so much debt?” she asked, wanting to know the how and why of it all since it was such a massive amount. “Last night, there was mention that you had a gambling problem—”
“Arabella, this isn’t something I want to discuss right now,” he said, his voice abruptly becoming stern as he circumvented the question.
She hated that he was stonewalling her, but it didn’t stop her from asking a bolder question . . . the one that Maddux had evaded earlier. “Okay, then what did you do to Maddux and his family to make him hate you so much?” Considering what she’d given up for her father, knowing the truth would at least help her understand why Maddux and his siblings harbored so much rage against her parent.
“It doesn’t matter,” her father replied in a terse tone, devastating her with his emotionless brush-off when she was currently paying the price for his debt and whatever other misdeeds he’d possibly executed. “What’s done is done and you don’t need to know the details. It’s bad enough that Wilder has the one thing that means the most to me and will probably do everything in his power to turn you against me with false accusations and malicious lies.”
As she listened to her father rant without justifying his tirade against Maddux, it occurred to Arabella that if her father was so concerned about her captor filling her head with defamatory allegations, why wasn’t he providing the truth to give her some kind of discernable ammunition to confront Maddux with?
Because maybe her father was guilty of something really, really bad and he was attempting to twist things around to make Maddux appear the villain.
A knot of unease rose into her throat, and she swallowed hard, suddenly feeling as though her selfless actions last night had been nothing more than a reprieve for her dad that he’d taken advantage of.
So far, he’d offered no apology, no reassurances, and no explanations . . . and his disregard hurt when he should have been doing everything in his power to convince her of his innocence. It also left her feeling very disconnected from her father, and as though she was seeing a narcissistic, duplicitous side to him that she’d been blinded to before now.
Did she even know her father, and what his life entailed, at all?
It was a painful thought, and considering he’d managed to rack up millions in debt without her knowledge, the answer was a sobering one.
Suddenly, she had no desire to talk to him any longer, especially when she didn’t know what to believe. “I need to go, Dad. I love you and I’ll be in touch,” she said, and disconnected the call.
Needing to distract herself, she stood up and gathered the clothing Maddux had worn last night. She draped his tuxedo jacket and slacks over her arm, and as she picked up his white dress shirt, her senses were swamped with the warm, woodsy, male fragrance that was uniquely his. She brought the material up to her nose and inhaled deeply of the testosterone-infused scent and wasn’t surprised to feel desire swirl deep and low in her belly.
