One Final Step

by Stephanie Doyle

  Of course. Michael said Charlene was staying in the same hotel. Naturally she’d have a suite, as well. What were the odds she’d be right next door? Apparently very good ones. The idea that she might actually have to go back to her room, knowing what Charlene and Michael were doing in the room next to hers, was unthinkable.

  Although, that she considered it unthinkable was probably not a good thing, either.

  Darn it! Madeleine began to consider her lifetime legacy of bad luck, when she heard a noise that was part moan and part sigh.

  Female sigh.

  “Michael, stop this silliness. Come inside with me.”

  “I promised I would walk you to your room and I have.”

  “Yes, and now that I have you here, I want a little more. I always want a little more when I’m with you. You tease me like no other man has ever teased me.”

  “I don’t mean to be a tease, but I can’t stay.”

  “You can if you want to,” the actress said in more of a song than a sentence. Madeleine grimaced. She was standing in the hall in a pair of yoga pants and an old T-shirt with fuzzy socks on her feet and her hair in a ponytail. All she had wanted was a little ice to add to what was left of her mineral water and now she was stuck in what might be the most humiliating situation of her life.

  Correction. Not the most humiliating situation. Getting caught in the Oval Office with her skirt hiked up around her hips by the First Lady while her husband shouted “oh, baby” at the top of his lungs—that was the most humiliating experience. This would be a very distant second.

  “Do you know how many men would kill to be in your position right now?”

  “I imagine a great many. You’re a very beautiful woman, Charlene. This has nothing to do with you. It’s poor scheduling.”

  “You could always sleep on the plane.”

  Madeleine had to admire the woman’s tenacity. The tone of her voice oozed sex. If she were a man she’d certainly be tempted by now.

  “Maybe I can convince you with a little…touch.”

  “Charlene, please.”

  “Huh. Well, that’s never happened to me before.”

  Resisting the urge to peek around the corner, Madeleine held still, careful not to move the bucket and rattle the melting ice.

  “You really don’t want me. I mean, wow. I figured you were playing hard to get, but you’re not…hard… anything.”

  Madeleine had a strong suspicion where Charlene’s touch had landed. Awfully bold considering they were in a hallway where anyone could come by with a bucket of ice in her hands.

  “Charlene, it’s been a long day. I have a longer day tomorrow. I don’t mean to be rude, but no, I’m simply not interested in what you’re offering.”

  “That’s a first.”

  “No man has ever told you no?”

  A harsh laugh echoed around the corridor. “I’ve never had to ask to be told no. I think it’s what made you so intriguing. You were the first man I ever dated who didn’t immediately try to get me into bed. Now I get it. You’re not into me. The question remains, why ask me out?”

  “I told you. I’m tired…”

  “Don’t give me tired. I can make a tired man sit back on his haunches and beg like a puppy if I want. You’re not gay, are you?”

  Madeleine had to choke back the abrupt “no” that wanted to shoot out of her mouth. Michael Langdon, for whatever reason, was not interested in Charlene Merritt but he was decidedly not gay. There was a way he watched her when they worked together. A way his eyes followed her movements, from picking up a pen she’d dropped to crossing her legs.

  No gay man would be as fascinated by the female body. Madeleine sensed it in her gut.

  “I’m not gay, Charlene. I am through with this conversation, though. I’ve enjoyed our time together and I appreciate you coming out here on such short notice. Some other time.”

  “Okay. Sorry. I had to ask. Some other time.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Right.”

  Charlene’s skepticism wasn’t misplaced. Madeleine didn’t think he had any intention of calling her, either. She heard a key card slide into the door and a second later she heard the door close.

  It would take him maybe two or three more seconds to turn and head back to the elevators around the corner and out of sight. She gave him an extra second beyond that, and then Madeleine turned the corner only to find him still standing outside Charlene’s door.

  Her faint gasp gave her away. He looked up and instantly frowned.

  “How long have you been standing there?”

  “I, uh, I went to get some ice. What are you doing here?”

  Michael walked to her and she didn’t have the sense to run. He glanced down into her bucket and saw the glimmering sheen of ice beginning to melt.

  “You heard everything.”

  “I…” Madeleine’s shoulders dropped. There really was no point in lying. “I was coming back and heard you two. I didn’t realize she was in the suite next to mine. I didn’t want to…interrupt.”

  “I didn’t realize she was in the suite next to yours, either. Is that your room…1022?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does it have a minibar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good thing you brought ice. Where is your key?”

  Madeleine handed it over without thinking. Michael took the key and efficiently swiped it through the holder. The green light appeared and he opened the door. Madeleine had no choice but to follow.

  He didn’t speak or offer any excuses for barging into her hotel room. Instead he tossed the tuxedo jacket he’d been holding over his shoulder onto the couch and crouched down in front of the minibar.

  He pulled out two bottles of Jack Daniel’s.

  “Want anything?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t drink?”

  “Don’t drink with clients.” Another of the many rules she’d constructed after her fall. Always be professional. Always maintain a certain level of distance. No drinking or socializing. No casual dress.

  Madeleine looked down at her fuzzy socks. So much for rules tonight.

  “I’ll have mineral water.”

  “Come on, Madeleine, don’t make me drink alone. I promise I’ll never tell.” He pulled out a mini Chardonnay and handed it to her.

  For a moment she hesitated. And part of her knew what the problem was. She wanted to take the damn wine. She wanted to sit with him and recap how the event went. She wanted to know what happened with Charlene and why he didn’t seem interested.

  She wanted to be with him for a time.

  For that reason alone she should refuse the wine and politely ask him to leave. But doing so might make her seem a little ridiculous in this situation. He was in her hotel room, she was wearing socks. One glass of wine wasn’t going to kill her. Surely a woman in full control of herself could break her own rules occasionally without there being consequences.

  She hoped so.

  “Okay.” She turned over two clean glasses and handed him one. He added ice to his drink and then sat on the couch. She chose the chair across from him.

  “Want to tell me what you’re doing here?” Madeleine asked.

  “Having a drink.”

  “I thought you were tired and worried about your early flight.”

  “Since our flight doesn’t leave until noon you know that’s a bald-faced lie.”

  Madeleine fidgeted a little as she sipped her wine. Unthinkingly she brought up her legs and tucked them under her butt. When she looked back to Michael she could see even that simple movement fascinated him.

  His eyes were also trying very hard not to look at her chest. She had a tank top on but she was most definitely braless.

  “Look, I’m sorry if I pushed you toward her. I thought you liked her.”

  “I did like her. I just didn’t want to have sex with her.”

  “Why?” The question popped out before she could stop it. It was far too persona
l. His eyebrows arched up as if to suggest he agreed. But for some reason she wanted an answer. “You heard her. She can make a tired man beg like a puppy.”

  “Maybe I have more discerning tastes.” He drank his whiskey in one gulp then opened the second bottle and splashed it over the ice.

  “A playboy with discerning tastes. Those two things usually don’t go together.” Like a lot of things about him, the pieces didn’t fit. Madeleine knew all about constructing an image and it was becoming evident that Michael’s playboy image was as real as his environmental-philanthropist cover.

  “What do you want? What answer are you looking for here? She didn’t do it for me. She didn’t make my dick hard. I can’t make it any plainer than that.”

  Madeleine winced. Not so much at his harsh language but at the anger she heard in his tone. She didn’t know who he was directing his anger toward and she really didn’t care. The last thing she wanted to be talking about was sex. Especially with him.

  “I didn’t mean anything. Truly. We shouldn’t be having this conversation, anyway. It’s way too personal.”

  “Eff that. What is it with you and the whole no crossing lines? We’re people. We’re talking. It’s personal. With you everything has a rule.”

  She snorted. “You really have to ask why?”

  “I get it, but it’s like you’re obsessed. Are you worried that if you let loose a little we’re going to pounce on each other? If I see you with your hair down or call you by your name, suddenly I’m going to want to get between your legs?”

  “Stop it. That’s enough.”

  He abruptly shut his mouth. He stood and carefully set the now-empty glass down on the table between them.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Madeleine stood, assuming she was going to show him to the door. She should have accepted his apology and said good-night. Instead she felt like she owed him an apology, too. “I know I have boundaries and rules. I put all of them there for a reason.”

  “But don’t you let anyone in? Ever?”

  No, she hadn’t. She had coworkers she considered friends. There was Ben and Anna, but no, there was really no one she’d let get past her guard in these past seven years. If he knew to what extent, he might think her a freak. But that was her business.

  “You have to understand, even before my fall I wasn’t the greatest at relationships.”

  “Why not? You’re smart and hot to boot. It should have all come so easy for you.”

  Easy. It was almost laughable. Nothing that wasn’t work related had ever come easy for her. Not relationships, not sex. Not ever.

  Madeleine shook off her thoughts. That was a place she didn’t want to go. Memories that were better left untouched. But he was still standing there looking at her like he needed an answer.

  “I was raised by my father. My mother died when I was young and he was very strict about certain things. Dating was not a priority in our house.”

  “Okay? What about in the last sixteen years since you left your house?”

  She’d grown cold. Cut off and unemotional. It hurt her to have to acknowledge it and she was angry at Michael for forcing her to do so. “Why do you care about this?”

  “Because I know you. I like you. I want to know you better but I keep running into this invisible wall and frankly, it’s giving me a headache. So you screwed the president? Now that has to mean everything? Get on with your life.”

  “Get on with my life?” she shrieked. “Because it was what? A few thousand articles written in papers and magazines and online. Three or four books written by people who didn’t even know me but who passed judgment on me. News stories and pictures and twenty-four-hour coverage for what…six months? Seven months. In America, in Europe. Hell, at one point the whole damn world was talking about it. People offered me thousands of dollars for the clothes I was wearing that night. A ten-thousand-dollar offer alone for my underwear, if you can believe it. But I mean, really, why dwell?”

  “Hey,” he said, softening his voice. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “No, Michael. You brought this up. You said it. You didn’t want to have sex with Charlene. She didn’t make your d-dick hard. You had that choice. You want to know why I haven’t had sex with anyone in seven years?”

  “Madeleine, don’t…”

  “Because I stopped having a choice. After it all came out…after the things the press said about me, men who knew me, who I thought knew me, suddenly believed me to be a very different type of woman. I couldn’t be in a room alone with a man for five seconds without having to explain that no, I don’t take my clothes off as soon as I say hello. Then came the men who didn’t know me but wanted to bag the president’s girl. Like I had some magic sexual powers that would turn them into world leaders. I had to back away from everyone because I couldn’t trust anyone.”

  He moved around the table and took her hand. He didn’t do anything with it, just held it and looked at her.

  “Did anyone hurt you?”

  “They all hurt me.”

  He shook his head. “Did any of them touch you?”

  She could see the fury in his eyes along with a harnessed violence that reminded her he came from a very different world than she did.

  “No, it wasn’t like that. No one forced me, but no one saw anything other than a woman who would freely lift her skirt. I wasn’t me anymore. I was this sexual prize. I hated it.”

  “I’m sorry those men did that to you.”

  Madeleine didn’t know what to say but she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. That he cared. This man who barely knew her when so many men who were close to her in her life didn’t.

  Like her father and her brother.

  “I’m not like them. In fact, I’m the opposite of them. I don’t want sex with you…instead I want to know you. I want to be something to you. Not your employer. Not your project of the hour.”

  “I can’t. I simply can’t ever do that again.”

  “Not even friends? Friends, Madeleine. Two grown-up people who can make that choice. This job is only going to last what…a couple of more weeks? Then you won’t be working for me. No rules would be broken. And if you wanted to we could maybe stay in touch. A call every once in a while. A visit here and there. Friends.”

  “Friends?” She couldn’t help herself. She was suspicious of his motives. Why did this man need her as a friend?

  “I’m lonely, Madeleine,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “I have my work and I love it but lately it feels like something is missing. Maybe I’m tired of the endless Charlenes. I think I would rather be able to sit down and have a drink and talk.”

  She was tempted. So tempted. Because she was lonely, too. This evening, as strange as it had been, had also been nice.

  “Think about it. We’re still working together so take that time to get to know me. The real me. And let me get to know you. The real you.”

  “This is the real me. Everything you see is everything I am.” Or at least all she would let herself be as far as he was concerned.

  He smiled a little sadly. “I don’t think so, Madeleine. I think you’re hiding behind your business suits. I’m only asking you to undo a couple of buttons.”

  The thought of him undressing her sent a little shiver through her body. This was why she’d fought so hard to keep him at arm’s length. The brutal truth was she was attracted to him. The first man in more than seven years to interest her and once again she was working for him.

  Life could seriously be unfair.

  “I can’t think about…anything between us. Not until the job is over. It has to be that way for me.”

  “Okay. Then work quick and turn me into someone respectable.”

  “How about we shoot for less unrespectable.” They both laughed and the tension between them dissipated.

  He dropped her hand and she realized he had been holding it all this time.

  “I’ll leave you tonight but can we do breakfast tomorrow morning? I�
��ll pick you up here.”

  “That’s fine. We’ll eat here in the room, though.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped.

  “Tomorrow,” he told her. “Thanks for the drink and the company.”

  “Your dime.”

  With that, Madeleine watched him leave and heard the door close behind him. Michael Langdon wanted to be her friend. Crazy enough, she wanted his friendship, too.

  * * *

  HE WAS SORRY he had lied to her. Deception in any form could kill a relationship, but Michael didn’t see any other way around it. She was too closed off. He needed some way to get over the walls she’d spent the past seven years shoring up.

  He hit the button between the elevators and waited for the ding to announce one had arrived. Stepping inside, he reassured himself that it would only be another ten hours until he saw her again. But that felt like too much time apart.

  Whatever this was, it was crazy. He’d never felt like this before. Never dreamed he would. Yet as he stepped off the elevator and headed for the lobby doors he knew that this thing between them was important. He had nothing to offer a woman like her except a whole lot of baggage, but stubbornly he couldn’t drag himself away from what he wanted.

  Michael handed the valet his stub and started pacing along the sidewalk as he waited for his car.

  Yeah, he probably shouldn’t have lied about the friends thing. Of course he wanted that but he also wanted something more. Maybe this was his chance to have a grown-up relationship with a woman. Something different. Something he’d never really had. He hadn’t lied when he’d said he was tired of Charlene and others like her. He also hadn’t lied when he’d said he didn’t want Madeleine for sex. She was more important than that.

  He didn’t have a word for what he and Madeleine were going to be to one another, but he knew he needed her.

  She was changing him. Not just his reputation, but changing him from the inside. He was starting to want things he’d never thought were important. Like companionship and having someone in the universe care how his day went. He had thought he didn’t need those things, but maybe he’d been wrong. His vision of the future was suddenly shifting—the life he had thought he was going to have and the life he just might have were different. As long as Madeleine was with him.