by Judy Jarvie
Lyle’s jaw clenched. ‘Marco was the one who wanted complete discretion on this deal. He doesn’t want his competitors thinking Bonafonte’s is in trouble, Maddie. And he is in trouble, the place is running him into the ground.’
The words hit Maddie like a mugger’s blow. ‘Marco isn’t in trouble.’ The words didn’t add up to anything comprehensible.
Lyle’s nod filled her with anguish. ‘HisHe’s been worrying for a while. Marco’s retirement fund is dwindling. He wants a life after retirement, but times are hard and the restaurant is failing. He needed an opt-out.’ Lyle’s expression confirmed reality was way worse than the nightmare outcome she’d imagined. ‘I’m offended you seem to think I’m the one with an agenda here. Is your view of me so low?’
Maddie whispered because her voice was too unsteady to rely on. ‘I don’t believe you. Marco would have told me.’
Lyle went to reach out for her again but this time he flinched back, lowered his hand. That hurt her as much as the facts he’d just unravelled. ‘He knows how much the place matters to you. He’s a proud man, Maddie.’
How had all this chaos begun? One minute her life had been normal, even simple. The next moment, reality had become a fiction epic with an undesirable twist. One that tore out the happy ending and ripped it to pieces.
Lyle’s eyes pleaded reason. ‘I’m not out to fleece your uncle or ride roughshod over his company. I’m completely inspired by Bonafonte’s and if I can add it to my portfolio, I’m not out to asset strip or tear the place apart. I’d have thought you would support me, especially as you’ll have the home you’ve craved.’
‘You want me to support my uncle relying on a stranger to bail him out? Reward me with property deeds to make it okay?’ Maddie’s gaze accused him. In truth she did accuse and blame him. She accused him of being there for Marco – blocking her out of her rightful place.
‘Very well, if that’s what you want to think! The hostility in your voice makes me reconsider things now,’ Lyle replied tersely. ‘I’d had every intention of gifting you a home.’
Landlord and lover.
Clandestine courtesan.
Maddie’s voice was raised and raw. ‘I don’t want to be your mistress and nor do I need your charity.’
The anger in his face was forceful enough to make him appear almost menacing as he lashed back, ‘Clearly I was misguided to think I might be making a statement there, demonstrating how much I care about your security. I wasn’t planning to buy your affections. I was trying to show you how much you mean to me.’
‘By underwriting my failure, yes’ She glared. ‘I’d rather give up my dream than accept the only thing I’m good at is sleeping with a man in return for a roof over my head.’
‘That’s ridiculous, Maddie.’
She shook her head and stood her ground. ‘No, Lyle. What’s ridiculous is that I’m always the one who finds out last. You’re ripping up the home I’ve loved. Hushing it up like Tim and Nadia. You think you can reward me into compliance? Thanks, but no thanks.’
Lyle winced and shoved his hands through his hair. ‘I really have kidded myself, believing you loved me. Have you never kept a secret for the greater good?’
Secrets.
Like finding out your mother and father had adopted you when you were only weeks old. Not disclosing the truth until her mom was conflicted because she knew she was going to die.
They’d given her some vague background details: a teen mom waitress at Marco’s restaurant, terrified to return to her Italian home pregnant or with a newborn child. She hadn’t wanted or been ready for a baby.
Sketchy details, too many years too late.
Her parents had concealed that truth. Then scattered her past like dust in the chill Boston wind.
‘I don’t believe in secrecy.’
‘Then there’s nothing else to say.’
She swayed, almost ready to faint. But she’d die before she would fall at his feet. Maddie buttoned up her jacket and pulled her bag around her shoulder. ‘Treat this as my resignation. No notice offered.’
Lyle looked cool, hard, implacably distant. ‘We both need some time apart to cool down.’
Maddie walked away. Even though it hurt so badly to turn her back on him, like leaving a piece of herself behind.
‘Maddie,’ Lyle called after her. ‘Let’s talk this through. Aren’t you at least going to say goodbye to my son? You know Josh worships you.’
Maddie turned to glare. ‘You made this mess. You clear it up. You’re pretty good at finding solutions in private.’
With emotions swirling violently inside her, she kept walking. Tears ran as she upped her pace through the thrumming market with its cloying Christmas songs. She felt faint, but a sense of devastation spurred her body on.
She needed a man she could trust, one who offered love unfettered, faith unstinting.
Maddie Adams might be hasty at heart but she still loved Lyle Sutherland, even though he’d broken her heart. If she did find out she was having his baby, she’d just have to face that possibility alone.
Chapter Fifteen
Maddie really didn’t need her day to get any worse. Unfortunately, fate didn’t see it her way. She hailed a taxi cab to take her home, hoping to creep back to the apartment and hide. Her keys were in the door when the voice behind her made her start and falter.
‘Maddie? How are you?’ Clark Adams asked.
She whirled around, wishing she was anywhere else. Wishing some alien spacecraft would pick that moment to abduct her from the doorstep. Her father’s hair was greyer than she remembered. His outfit wasn’t Boston lawyer sharp cut either, just casual slacks worn with a sweater and jacket.
‘You look good. Healthy. All grown up.’ Clark still towered over her. Even in ordinary clothes Clark had the air of authority and judgement.
Except when it came to telling his daughter the truth when she’d needed it.
‘I matured a long time ago, Dad. Right after I left home. What do you want? Why are you here in Scotland?’
Clark merely watched her with dark, sombre eyes.
‘To talk,’ he explained. ‘I fly back to London tonight. I couldn’t come to Britain without at least trying to see you. Since you wouldn’t answer my letters, I decided to come anyway. I’ve already seen Marco; we had some meetings to go to together. I’ve been waiting in the car hoping to catch you. I saw you dash out earlier but you’d gone before I could get your attention.’
Maddie was cursing inside her head. Cursing her father. Cursing this poor timing of a reunion between them – when her heart was already breaking into a million shattered smithereens that had every inch of her screaming in pain.
‘Do I really have to invite you in?’
Clark’s hurt eyes left her face and looked away as if seeing her emotions and hearing her words were too hard. ‘Closure, Maddie. I have things to tell you. And I need to give you something.’
Maddie gave a tiny laugh that sounded cracked and hollow even to her own ears. ‘Esteemed attorney. Bored father. Spending time with your family was the hardest trial. Suddenly you find a spot to fit me in.’
‘We all make mistakes and sometimes realise our errors too late. My priorities were wrong,’ Clark said softly. ‘Please, can I come inside?’
She opened the door and held it wide for him, not meeting her father’s eyes as he crossed the threshold.
‘I just don’t get why everything needs to be about secrecy with you. All secrets, each one worse than the last.’
‘We didn’t want to hurt you. But I guess we ended up hurting you more.’ Clark remained standing in her tiny sitting room, as though facing the courtroom. Proud, upright. Maddie’s eye was drawn to the new gleaming varnished floor. Ironic that the apartment had never looked better – and now she was about to lose or leave it.
His gaze met hers and stayed there. She found herself eyeball to eyeball with the man who’d broken her heart. Set her hopes on fire and left them burning. Men
couldn’t be trusted – even your own esteemed daddy had dirty secrets under lock and key. Her mother had been an accomplice with a golden heart and fairy-tale intentions.
She longed to just break free and run but her pride wouldn’t let her. She stood her ground. The prosecutor, getting a chance to question the defendant.
‘You loved me but denied me basic facts about my birth history. You loved Mom but you needed someone else. I think the members of the jury would be hard pushed to be convinced by your case, however eloquently put.’
‘You were always as good as a birth daughter to me. You came to us as a tiny baby and were perhaps even more special because we’d longed for you so much. But as man and wife, we grew apart. Alicia got you, and I faded into the background. You were her world. I wondered if she always resented me for not having kids because we learned I had a low sperm count.’ He hesitated. ‘I’m not handling this very well or saying the right words. I just need you to know you’re my daughter, and always will be.’
Everything shaking, Maddie stared at her feet. It was easier than seeing the man who’d pretended to share her DNA for way too long. She couldn’t bear to stand here, not knowing what to say, him floundering for platitudes. Inside she was already succumbing to the maelstrom that was going on inside her, mostly instigated by Lyle’s deception and further underlined by meeting her father here now.
‘We talked about telling you. But we could never find the words. It was easier to deceive ourselves. Especially when our relationship dived. We should have told you everything,’ Clark concluded. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Too late. Still with Truda, Dad?’
Her father looked at her strangely. ‘That relationship ended years ago.’
‘I always assumed you and Truda would get together after I left. In fact I couldn’t bear to be around when you did. It’s why I left.’
‘I need to make reparations,’ he muttered, and fumbled inside his jacket pocket for his wallet.
She shook her head. ‘It’s too late. I don’t want anything from you other than an acknowledgement that turning eighteen ruined my life. A check won’t cut it.’
Clark nodded. A tiny movement of neck and head. Then he walked to the door.
Maddie struggled to keep her hurt hidden; she had no more tears left. She saw the clock on the wall and realised that Paula’s party, which she should have been attending with Lyle, had started over an hour ago. She wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Her father walked away towards the executive hire car parked on the sidewalk. And walking, though dignified and a profound statement, was the thing you did when there was nothing left to say.
Red mist and a dark haze of hurt threatened to engulf Lyle. Grievous emotional damage. Damned without due cause. He walked through the market, unaware of anything but the angry pounding of his heart. He vetoed the desire to run after Maddie. The rally driver in him wanted hot pursuit. But that would just mean more words, misconceptions and assumptions. More evidence of Maddie’s misguided blinkeredness.
A man knew when he’d already blown the race. All he’d ended up with was a thumping head and a desire to yell and kick at whatever he could find to obliterate – but that wouldn’t do any good.
Thoughts still in disarray, he went to the café, grabbed his keys and made excuses about a non-existent meeting. He needed an open road before him, anything to distract his mind through driving. He had to escape from the woman who’d wrecked his peace of mind – who couldn’t see the well-meant intentions behind his actions. The wheel leather might pacify itchy palms, but could it soothe his smarting conscience?
The road to the Borders beckoned with solitude, a promise of Scottish hills and space. But there was no comfort in driving today. Instead, the scudding anger and rejection tore circuits inside him.
Just like Becca, Maddie was unable to conform. Unwilling to oblige and too quick to damn him.
She had no faith in him, so couldn’t appreciate that he just wanted her safe, happy and secure in the place she loved. He’d resisted confiding in her because he’d thought she was a woman who needed her compass fixed and set. Yet he’d only succeeded in blasting ahead too early.
Becca’s words taunted him from the past: you don’t play life like me, I need to feel like I’m living. Not to be stifled and controlled.
Maddie similarly fought his actions. She doubted the well-intentioned gestures that underpinned his affections. She was blinkered while he was eager and naive.
She’d never change. He’d been a fool to think otherwise. And losing Maddie Adams still hurt him like hell.
‘But what’s happened? Tell me, cara mia.’
Maddie shook her head as she bit her lip to stem the flow of tears. Marco followed her to the sofa where she sank down. ‘I’ve had a row with Lyle. And I’m worried about you Uncle M – you’re selling the restaurant? Why didn’t you tell me?’
Marco closed his eyes and exhaled deeply. ‘Sometimes, you realise you need a little more than accounting ledgers and happy customers. You need time to let yourself breathe – to let the young panthers prowl and protect the pack. Lyle’s a good man. He will take this place to new heights.’
Fresh tears ran as Maddie stared at Marco. His responses were always so eloquently put, it was hard not to agree.
Her uncle looked devastated by her reaction. ‘Now I’ve upset you, and it was never my intention.’
Unable to find a tissue, Maddie dried her damp cheeks with the back of her hand. ‘I ought to have come to you first. I shouldn’t have let my imagination get carried away. It was just such a shock.’
A tiny part of Maddie wished she’d come and sought out her uncle before she’d gone around to The Ice Café, all guns blazing and ready for war with its owner. But it was too late for regrets.
‘So your restaurant days are over?’ Maddie asked.
Marco leant back against the sofa cushions. ‘A man like me never looks forward to retirement. The place has been my life and yet for a while I’ve dreamt of the sun on my back again, a visit to the old country.’
‘I wish I’d known how you felt.’
‘My beloved niece, you’re always the worrier, protecting me. Maybe sometimes I want more for you. You’ve been so intent on buying the apartment, carving out your niche. Did it never occur to you I might need to move on?’
‘But I can help with your finances. I have the deposit now. Maybe if I invest in the restaurant?’
Marco sighed deeply and pain was evidenced by the deep creases around his eyes. ‘I only ever owned half the restaurant. The other half was owned by your father.’
Maddie stared as the deepest slice of shock yet cut straight to her heart. ‘No!’
‘I’ve wanted to finish and move on,’ he continued. ‘To grasp some of my life back while I still have good legs and a working heart to enjoy it.’
Maddie watched her uncle. His was a face with such character she found herself longing for talents in portraiture. Sadly, she was neither a painter, nor gifted in perception. She hadn’t guessed Marco’s deepest desires at all. Nor ever guessed at her father’s part-ownership of the restaurant. She’d always assumed that Marco owned Bonafonte’s outright.
‘But why didn’t you tell me? I only wanted to secure the apartment to pay you back. Prove to you I could stand on my own two feet without accepting your support for so long.’
Marco knitted his brows and tutted at her. ‘And have I ever complained?’
‘You wouldn’t, you’re too kind and generous.’
Marco narrowed his eyes and stared hard at her. ‘Lyle struck me as a kindred spirit. A man with drive, passion – the kind of determination that can take the place I’ve loved and really add some flair to it.’ Marco looked wistful. ‘He’s a man who’s going places. I wanted this settlement to be more of a bequest than a straightforward fixtures and fittings sale. Your father agreed with my plans.’
Anger clawed inside her again at the mention of Lyle’s name. She clenched her fists tight.
Her uncle had good reasons for the restaurant sale. Lyle’s motivations, on the other hand, were a different story. She didn’t even want to start thinking about her father.
‘Lyle has too many fingers in too many business pies,’ she snapped. ‘He wants glory, success. He wants control, but that’s not enough for me. I want nothing from my father. Nothing!’
‘Lyle esteems you highly, and on that I back him to the hilt. He wants to secure your future – his need for the restaurant is fuelled by his interest in you.’
‘Profit and pound signs, I’d argue.’
Marco’s face was earnest. ‘There aren’t many people I’d rest so easy about selling up to.’
Maddie’s shoulders slumped. Was her uncle right – or blind? Was she prejudiced – or puffed up with hurt pride?
‘Lyle’s a business man through and through. I can’t help wondering if he used me to get to you and the restaurant.’
‘I’m selling to Lyle because I approached him.’ Marco smiled. ‘I’ve met a woman I adore. Her name is Angelina and she’s been coming to Bonafonte’s for many years. I can never forget when I first met her, looking so beautiful in a coral silk dress. Her husband passed away a little while ago, and our friendship grew. I never really believed she’d consider a future with me. Now I’m grabbing that chance. I won’t miss out by working every hour in this place! It’s time for me to move on. You understand, don’t you?’
Maddie wrapped her arms around her uncle’s neck. She still couldn’t stop crying. It was a sadness tinged with joy for her uncle. But it was a loss for herself. Because of her foolishness. Her own crazy predicament.
Marco looked at her. ‘Maybe there could be wedding bells soon if I play my cards right – I’m sure Lyle will give me a preferential hire rate for our reception party! Could you use your influence with him?’
She gulped out sobs. ‘No, Marco, Lyle and I are over.’
