Madison returned the bag of coffee to the kitchen cabinet. “Hayden came into the bar and challenged Adam to a drinking contest. Adam got buzzed after three shots of tequila, then Hayden shoved him in a cab and insisted on taking me home.” She folded her arms and leaned back against the countertop. “Believe it or not, he says he never forgot about me after that first night together.”
Charlie clapped and yelled, “Hot damn!” She came around the bar and hugged Madison. “See? He wants you. This is so great.” She let Madison go. “You have got to bring him to the wedding.”
“He’s my boss. I need a job more than I need a boyfriend.”
“Who cares if he’s your boss? Nelson was my boss, but I’m going to be Mrs. Nelson Peevy in two weeks. You can have the same with your Mr. Parr.”
Madison shook her head. “I don’t think he wants another wife. The last one he had burned him on women.”
“So unburn him. Teach him what a good woman can do for him.”
“How do I do that?”
“There is no science to this, Mads. Every man wants someone who will listen to him, and be there for him. Just do that for your Mr. Parr and I know he will come around in time. Loving someone is easy; trusting them is hard.”
“What if it doesn’t work out and he wants to get rid of me? I need this job, Charlie.”
Charlie patted her arm. “But you want this man more, Mads. You’ve always wanted him, and if you don’t go for it, give him all of you, you will never be able to give yourself completely to anyone again. People are like chapters of a book. You have to close one in order to open another, and your chapter on Mr. Hayden Parr has remained open ever since that night.” She softened her voice and proposed, “Just trust what you’re feeling, Mads. Never listen to your head where men are concerned. The heart is the true gauge of our emotions, because it is the only place inside of us that always remains connected to our souls.”
Chapter 10
Entering the offices of Parr and Associates, Madison felt like a call girl heading to the home of a customer. Paranoid about the way the low-cut, red silk dress clung to her slim figure, she had tossed a casual black jacket over her shoulders before leaving the apartment, much to the ire of her roommate.
“You’re ruining the effect,” Charlie had griped.
“I can’t go to work like this,” Madison had balked, waving her hand down the tight dress.
“Honey, how many times did I look like a hotel-bound hooker when I left to go to work with Nelson? Part of the art of snagging a man is letting him know that if he doesn’t grab you, someone else will.”
“I’m not you, Charlie.”
“Mads, do you want this guy?”
Madison had hated to admit Charlie was right, but she also hated stooping to such tactics to keep Hayden interested. “If I bend over, you can see right down my dress.”
“That’s the idea,” Charlie had gleefully agreed.
Safely inside her office, she shut the door and went to her desk. While putting her black purse away in the bottom drawer, the jarring ringing of her office phone made her grab at her chest.
“Ah, this is Madison Barnett,” she answered, not sure who would be calling her.
“Good, you’re in.” His voice was low and intense. “I’m coming up to see you, so don’t wander off.”
“Yes, Mr. Parr.”
Tossing aside the jacket, she was instantly glad she had taken her roommate’s advice and donned the sexy dress. Hurrying back to her desk, she pulled up her design plans. Better to make it look like she was into her work when he walked in her office.
Minutes ticked by as she stared at the computer screen, anticipating his arrival. Flustered by the whirlwind of her emotions, Madison covered her face with her hands, but raised her head when she remembered the makeup she had taken extra time that morning to apply.
“Shit!” She reached for her purse, wanting to check her makeup.
The strap of her purse caught on the handle of the drawer. Just as she was tugging to set her purse free, the office door opened, scaring her and sending her purse flying across the room to land at Hayden’s feet.
Mortified that the contents of her purse, including her tampons, had spilled over the floor, Madison rushed toward the door. Hayden was already leaning over and picking up the contents as she knelt beside him.
“I’m so sorry, Mr. Parr.”
He handed her a pink and white wrapped tampon package along with her lipstick. “There’s no need to apologize, Madison…not to me.”
Beet red, Madison hastily stuffed her lipstick, tampons, and her wallet back into her small black purse.
Taking her elbow, Hayden helped her from the floor. “I came by to give you some more suggestions for your plans,” he explained while glancing back at the open office door.
“Ah, sure.” Madison went across the room to her desk.
When she heard her office door close, she turned back to him. The leering grin on his handsome face was cataclysmic. Her breath caught in her throat. Oh God help me!
“Why did you wear that dress?” His voice was dripping with irritation.
Dropping her purse on her desk, Madison waited as he came across the room to her side, his eyes burning into her. “I, ah,” she stumbled as she patted her hand down the front of her dress, “my roommate suggested it.”
“Don’t wear such provocative clothing. I don’t want men ogling you in the office. You need to dress more….” His eyes lingered over the red dress. “Conservatively.”
“Yes, Mr. Parr,” slipped out of her mouth before she could stop it.
He chuckled, filling her body with desire. It took everything Madison had not to rip the fitted dark blue suit from his body. Christ, she had never wanted a man like this before.
His lips were inches away, taunting her. “I have to go to a luncheon this morning and then I have meetings all afternoon, but I’ll be back here after five.” He waited a moment before adding, “Wait for me, after everyone else goes home, and then we can go to my place.”
“Your place?”
“Yes, so we won’t have any interruptions while we work on those plans of yours.” Hayden smiled, killing her. “I’ll cook us dinner.”
She cocked one dark eyebrow at him. “You can cook?”
His eyes slowly went over every inch of her body. “Among other things.” As he turned away, he added, “At least you will have peace to work alone in your office today. Adam called in sick this morning.”
“Is he all right?”
“Just a dented ego, I suspect. I’m sure he’ll be back tomorrow to drive us all mad.” When Hayden reached the door, he looked back over his shoulder at her. “And don’t go out anywhere today. Stay in your office. I don’t want anyone seeing you in that dress.”
Alone in her office, Madison leaned against her desk, taking in a deep, calming breaths. “Damn, I need to listen to Charlie more often.”
***
Madison spent the rest of the day at her desk, attempting to work on her plans. As she reconfigured roof angles and wall depths, her mind was constantly thinking about the night ahead. She knew what would happen when she went to his home, and she wanted to be with him just as much as he seemed to want it. The only question she had was, then what? After they had slept together, what would happen to their professional relationship? It was hard enough to call him Mr. Parr now, knowing of their past, but how would she feel being both his lover and his employee?
Staring at the house drawing on her computer screen, she tried to fathom when her life had taken a turn toward the difficult. Men had never been a big complication for Madison—having put as little energy into her love life as she had put into her exercise program—but what was budding with Hayden was different…and a lot more intense than anything she had ever known.
“Hey, Madison,” Emma said, knocking on her open door. “Mr. Parr wanted me to drop off these engineering scales to you.” She came in the door and approached Madison’s desk, c
arrying a manila folder in her hand.
Madison waited as the attractive blonde placed the folder on the edge of her desk. “Thanks, Emma.”
She motioned to Adam’s desk. “Enjoy your day off from the asshole.”
“Yeah,” Madison replied as she opened the folder. “Mr. Parr mentioned he was out sick today.”
“Sick my ass. I heard Mr. Parr telling Mr. Hughes about Adam’s confrontation with him yesterday evening outside of the building.”
Madison looked up from her folder. “What confrontation?”
“I thought you knew.” Emma’s face lit up, happy to spread more gossip. “Mr. Parr caught Adam drunk at Rory’s Bar down the street. Apparently, after they had words, Mr. Parr put him in a cab and sent him home.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that boy will be around much longer. When Mr. Parr sets his sights on you, you don’t last long in the firm.”
“Mr. Parr doesn’t strike me as the type to set his sights on employees,” Madison related. “He seems pretty fair with people.”
“Oh, Mr. Parr’s fair all right, until he’s ready to get rid of you. Then he can be real relentless.”
Madison sat back in her chair, digesting what Emma had just told her. “Have you seen him do that? Be relentless with an employee?”
Emma glanced back toward the open office door, and then slowly came toward Madison’s desk. “There was another architect that worked here right before you came. Her name was Doreen. She and Mr. Parr were very close. He really looked out for her. There were rumors that she and Mr. Parr were seeing each other after hours, and then one day I came in and she was gone. No notice, nothin’. Everyone suspected he got rid of her.”
A heavy knot formed in Madison’s chest. “You think he got rid of this Doreen because they were seeing each other?”
“No one knows for sure. All I can say is that Mr. Parr’s not a skirt chaser, like your cohort.” She nodded to Adam’s empty desk. “He has always been really professional with the staff here. I’ve heard him say he never gets involved with his employees.” Emma shrugged. “Maybe he only gets rid of the ones he gets involved with.”
With a shaking hand, Madison put the folder to the side of her desk. “Ah, thanks for these.”
“Sure thing,” Emma pronounced, heading toward the door.
After she had left, Madison began to reconsider her dinner with Hayden. Was he out to get rid of her? She shook her head, shooing away the negative thoughts. That was not the Hayden Parr she knew. After all, they had a history together. Or was that history the reason he had set his sights on her to begin with?
***
It was after five, and the activity inside the offices of Parr and Associates had grown faint as employees hurried home for the evening. With each sound of a door shutting, footsteps in the hallway, and mumblings of “good night,” Madison’s apprehension grew.
Emma’s words had haunted her all afternoon, and like a damning bit of evidence that sticks in the craw of a hung jury, Madison was teetering back and forth between what to do and what not to do with Hayden Parr. The plans on her computer screen had suffered for her preoccupation; having accomplished little after Emma’s visit, she was sure Hayden would be furious. Rubbing her hand behind her sore neck while visions of unemployment paraded across her mind, she wondered how in the hell it had come down to this.
Listening to the stillness around her, she debated if it might be better for her to go home and pass on Hayden’s invitation. She had switched off her computer and was reaching for her purse when she heard the faint sound of rustling outside her open office door.
Turning around, she saw him. There was a faint hint of a five o’clock shadow covering his chin and square jaw. He looked tired, his dark blue suit slightly rumpled, but to Madison he was like water to a parched soul.
“Are you ready?”
She stood from her chair. “I was about to go home; my home.”
“No, you’re coming home with me,” he argued, closing the door.
She twisted her hands together. “Maybe we should reconsider. It might be a—”
“Reconsider? I don’t think so.” His lips angrily mashed together as he came up to her. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts about me already.”
“I can’t afford…I mean, if I lose…I don’t want to be another Doreen,” she finally got out.
His dark eyebrows went up. “Doreen? Do you mean Doreen Irwin?”
She glared into his eyes, attempting to be assertive. “You fired her because she had an affair with you. Is that what you plan on doing with me?”
His burst of laughter was exuberant and completely unexpected. He clasped her wrist and pulled her to him. “Baby, where on earth did you get the idea I had an affair with Doreen?”
She did not know what took her off guard more: his question, or the fact that he had called her baby.
“I, ah, heard about her. Everyone thinks you fired her because she slept with you. I don’t want to end up like that, Hayden.”
He ran his thumb along her lower lip. “Madison, Doreen left because her husband, who was serving in Afghanistan, got injured. She went to Virginia to be with him in the hospital.”
Madison pulled away. “Why does everyone think you two were seeing each other?”
“Doreen and I were friends, nothing more, and if some people in this office thought we were more than that, then they didn’t know her. I respected the hell out of her. She was holding it together every day, waiting to hear if her husband was alive or dead. No one knew what she was going through except me and Garrett. She didn’t want anyone else to know and we respected her wishes.”
Relief washed through her. “So you didn’t fire her?”
“Or sleep with her.” His eyes swept down her red dress. “You, on the other hand…I have every intention of taking you to bed and keeping you there. So if you have any reservations about what is going to happen between us, tell me now.”
“What if we don’t work? Are you still going to keep me as an architect in your firm?”
He stood before her, seeming to gather his thoughts. “Madison, you’re a talented architect, and I’m always striving to keep talented people here. However, you also happen to be a woman I desperately want, and I never compromise when it comes to my desires. We’ll find a way to make this work.”
Did he say desperately want? Flustered, she reached for the back of her chair. “How…?” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “How do you plan to do that?”
“We’ll have to balance our work life and private life.”
Her brow crinkled with uncertainty. “Balance? That sounds complicated.”
“No, not complicated, just cautious.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Look, Madison, I’ve got one bad marriage under my belt to prove that I’m not very good at relationships. What I want is for you to agree to be my lover. I could go through the banalities of dating, but I can’t waste time with romantic nights out, weekend getaways, or emotional ties. What I said before is true; I don’t need a girlfriend. What I want is someone to share my bed.” He stepped closer to her. “I promise if you agree to this arrangement, you will enjoy it.”
With her hand still tightly gripping the back of the chair, Madison stood for several seconds, unsure of what to say.
He sighed, looking over her features. “Do we have a deal?”
His statement sank to the inner reaches of her heart, wiping away her fairy tale hopes. So this was just about sex, nothing else. Madison knew she should walk away, but her feet never moved from her spot on the floor. Could she live with this? For the first time in her life, here was a man she wanted, and if all she could be was his lover and little else, wasn’t that worth a chance?
Staring into his handsome face, she lingered over his thick brow, intense eyes, and carved cheekbones. Could she be that kind of woman where it was just sex? Summoning her courage, she swallowed back the thousand reservations cluttering her mind and nodded her head. “Al
l right, Mr. Parr. We have a deal.”
Taking her hand, he quickly pulled her to the door. “Good. Let’s get out of here.”
Letting him lead her away, Madison became acutely aware that this was one of those turning points in life that were often praised by poets and railed against in Sunday morning sermons; that instance where you handed yourself over to passion, and let the cards fall where they may.
***
As the red sun was setting over the rooftops of the premier neighborhood of Highland Park, Madison followed Hayden’s black Range Rover down a wide street with elegant estate-like homes on either side. When they came to a black gravel driveway, she peered through her windshield in amazement at the contemporary two-story home in front of her.
It felt nothing like Hayden, with sharp, oblong angles, pale cream-bricked walls, a slanted slate roof, and long glassed in corners along the first floor. To the side, a cream-bricked chimney rose up the exterior of the home, while long dark cement steps were carved into the tiered landscape leading to a recessed front door surrounded by glass. There was no grass or green gardens surrounding the home, just circular beds of dark gravel with a trimmed landscape of creeping periwinkle and Irish moss.
Turning off the engine of her Nissan Rogue, Madison decided that the house gave off a very strange vibe. It was as if the structure was trying to be something it was not; an architectural achievement that missed its emotional mark. An instructor from her freshman days had once told her that “a house needs heart to be a home. If you don’t put your heart into it, no one else will either.” For Madison, that was exactly what the house lacked, heart.
“I know it doesn’t seem like much,” Hayden conceded, coming up to her car, “but the house has got a lot more to offer on the inside.”
Madison gazed about the surrounding homes. “Which one is the Martins’ place?”
That Night with You Page 13
