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‘And she doesn’t appreciate being talked about as if she’s not.’
She poked a finger into Rye’s shoulder and enjoyed the flash of surprise as he stumbled back a step.
‘What do you think you’re playing at? Waltzing in here as if you own the place and telling me what to do.’ They’d had exactly one evening together. And he still hadn’t apologised for his insulting questions at the end of it.
She wasn’t Little Miss Pushover any more. The new Maddy didn’t take this crap. She stood up for herself. ‘You’re not my boss. Phil is. So you don’t get to decide when my shift ends.’
Phil tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Maddy.’
‘What?’ She spun round, not appreciating being halted in mid-rant. With a bit more practice, she could get good at this.
Phil cleared his throat. He looked like a boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. ‘He does own the place.’
‘He …? What?’ The blood leached out of Maddy’s face and pounded into her heart.
‘He’s my boss,’ Phil added, no longer meeting her eye. ‘Which also makes him yours.’
She turned to stare at Rye, her mouth opening and closing but no sound coming out.
Sordid memory assailed her. Her father, his face ruddy, his trousers and boxers round his ankles and his large hands fastened to the plump young secretary’s naked hips as he bounced his crotch against her bottom. The visceral horror replayed in her mind, accompanied by the sickening echo of her father’s animalistic grunts.
‘But I … I don’t. I couldn’t have.’ Her voice came out on a horrified whisper. ‘I have a rule.’
The sights, the sounds, even the smell—of furtive arousal, sordid sex—assaulted her senses as if she had walked into her father’s office ten minutes ago, instead of ten years. She clapped her hands over her mouth as the gorge churning in her stomach surged up her throat.
‘I’m going to puke.’
‘So you didn’t sleep with her, eh?’ Phil snarled. ‘You lying son of …’
Rye tuned out his friend’s observations about his parentage as he watched Maddy dash to the toilets as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her heels.
Okay. Maybe he’d underestimated the size of this particular hurdle.
CHAPTER TEN
MADDY held her aching stomach and blinked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror.
Hello, Bride of Frankenstein.
Luckily, she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast yet, so the dry heaves hadn’t produced much. But the sallow skin of her face and the dark circles under her eyes made her look an absolute fright. Her ribs protested as she bent down to splash water onto her cheeks.
She straightened at the sound of someone entering behind her.
‘I borrowed these from Phil.’ Rye stood inside the door, holding a toothbrush wrapped in cellophane and a new tube of toothpaste. ‘He keeps them for sleepover emergencies,’ he added wryly.
She snatched the offerings out of his hand, determined not to be touched by the thoughtful gesture. ‘You can’t come in here. This is the Ladies.’
His eyebrow lifted. ‘Yes, I can. I own the place, remember.’
‘Thanks for the reminder.’ She braced herself for the instinctive gagging reflex. Strangely, it didn’t come.
She ripped open the toothbrush and applied the toothpaste, ignoring his silent, watchful presence. But, as she brushed her teeth, she felt painfully self-conscious. Even after all they’d done together, the mundane ritual seemed too personal to perform in front of him.
She rinsed her mouth and retied her ponytail. Great, she still looked like the Bride of Frankenstein, just with fresher breath.
‘That was a very extreme reaction to the news that I own the café.’ He stood propped against the wall by the door, giving her a probing look. ‘What caused it?’
Maddy’s spine stiffened. No way. She wasn’t answering that. If brushing her teeth in front of him was too intimate, talking about her childhood was a definite no-go area.
