“I will, sir.”
I almost wept when Simon left several hours later, leaving me alone in this monstrous home with a man I had far too many doubts about.
And continued to feel attracted to for no good reason. Well, not good enough reasons.
What was worse, I was losing my edge. My weapon of choice, sarcasm, was dulling as I allowed this man to see more and more of the real me. How could I defend myself if my walls were crumbling down around me, leaving me exposed?
Add being sequestered together to all that? I had reason to worry.
Maddox, his fingers linked together, stretched out his arms and hands so that a couple of his knuckles popped. “Shut it down, Bailey.”
“I’m not done yet.”
“The weekend begins now. Turn it off.”
I drew a deep breath in. I was grateful that he was the boss and didn’t care if I still had work left, but I’d wanted to stop at a natural breaking point. I knew, however, that arguing with this man wouldn’t get me very far. So I took off my wireless headset and powered down the laptop.
“If this keeps up much longer, I’ll consider having IT bring a desktop for you.”
“I’m okay with this.”
“I know you’re okay with it, but I want you to have the best. You’re spending long hours hunched over the desk here. You deserve something better.”
“It’s fine.” Twirling my chair around, I stood, marking the official beginning to the weekend.
“Are you ready to see your room?”
“Sure.” When Simon and I had returned from the store, I’d insisted on bringing my bags in the house while he brought the groceries inside—but, like a hotel bellhop, he refused to let me take my things to my room.
“You haven’t seen the whole house, have you?”
“No.” And I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d been so curious about it earlier in the week. Now that I was going to have free reign, I’d be able to sneak in more pictures for Elise. My poor friend. She’d managed to find a guy online she really liked, but they were practicing social distancing—although she’d confessed this morning that she was going to see if he’d want to come to her house for dinner. A “kind of” date, she’d called it. I’d have to call her tomorrow to see if she’d managed to talk him into it.
“Then that’s the first order of business.”
Inside, I felt a bit of a thrill. Having come from humble beginnings that hadn’t improved just because I’d become an adult, I loved getting a glimpse into a world I’d never belong to. I couldn’t dream about it, either, because I had some pretty strong negative feelings about the wealthy. Maddox had begun to feel like an exception—until his comment earlier today.
Plebian fricking S’mores.
But it didn’t stop me from wanting to take everything in, enjoying it while I was here.
“Let’s go this way,” he said, indicating the doorway to his office. I wasn’t going to tell him I’d figured out earlier in the week that his office connected to the room I considered the living room, but everything else after that would be new to me.
When we walked through that second doorway, he said, “The living room.” I was glad to know that, even though we were classes apart so far as money matters went, he still called it a name I was familiar with. “I think you’ve probably been in here to use the powder room.” I nodded. “The stairs in here go both up and down. The bedrooms are upstairs, but let’s go down first. That’s where a lot of the fun stuff is.”
This time, he led the way, flipping on a light switch at the top of the stairs. The carpeting was the same beige-brown I’d seen in other areas of the house, and I got excited as I wondered what fun stuff awaited. At the bottom, there was a hallway that darted off to both sides but, in front of us, the open doorway simply widened into a large space. “The game room,” he said, and I took it in. There was a bar to one side and, in front of it, a pool table and a foosball table. I wondered how often he played them if at all. There was also an old-fashioned pinball game over to the other side next to the fireplace—and there was a huge television hanging from the wall with a black shelving unit underneath it. I recognized a couple of the gaming systems, but I wondered how often Maddox ever actually played videogames. There were two doors to the right.
I followed him through the space, full of soft lighting. There were no windows down here but I imagined it would feel like a complete escape when he spent time downstairs. He opened one door. “Powder room.” I peeked inside, marveling at all the kitschy art on the walls. That room felt completely out of place in this entire house.
Opening the next door, he said, “Come in here, Bailey.” There were a couple of levels in the room, sinking like a pit, and there were panels on the wall directly in front of us. “I used to call this my TV room, but it’s like a mini theater.”
“That’s really cool.” I happened to notice a rolling popcorn cart in the corner, and I wondered if that was why Maddox wanted Simon to buy some at the supermarket. On the wall were movie posters for films I’d never even heard of. Suddenly, I was eager about spending my weekend here after feeling a little dubious earlier. “What else?”
“Follow me.” We walked back through the game room to where the hallway split off at the stairs. Turning to the left first, Maddox opened a door. “Boring. Laundry room.”
But holy crap. It was nice. Again, that room was almost as big as my apartment, but I wasn’t going to mention it.
“The next room is one of my favorites.” Opening the next door, he grinned, and he didn’t need to tell me it was a wine cellar. There were racks full of beautiful bottles and a small table in the middle of the room. Walking inside, he stood in front of one of the racks, and, at first, I thought he was going to take a bottle. Instead, he pushed on the wall between two shelves of the rack, causing it to push out like a door.
Because, apparently, it was.
“Panic room.”
Oh, I’d heard of those before. We might both call a huge comfy room with sofas and chairs a living room, but a panic room emphasized the divide between us. “Do you really think you need something like that?”
He shook his head. “I suppose you never know, but that was a room that came with the house. I’ve only been in there once but I guess it’s not a bad idea, a man in my position. Do you want to see inside?”
I shook my head, trying to hide the grimace on my face. “Maybe if I’m bored by Sunday.”
“Deal.” He pushed on the wall between two shelves once more, moving it all back into place, perfectly disguised.
I tried to figure out exactly where we were in relation to the game room, and I imagined the panic room was either by the restroom or the mini theater. I considered asking if he’d ever considered hiring a security guard, but I thought that might be overstepping. As it was, he had what appeared to be a state-of-the-art security system.
“But there’s more.” He indicated I should go first, but he shut off the light and then walked next to me again as we moved down the other half of the corridor going the other way. “Suffice it to say, feel free to roam around and use whatever you like.”
“Oh—including a…” I grasped around my head, trying to find something adequate, and didn’t know if I’d failed. “Pinot noir?”
“Ah. If you do, you need to share. No drinking alone in this house. It’s unhealthy. And, speaking of health,” he said, opening a door, “here’s the gym.”
It was like a mini-version of something you’d see in a hotel. There was a stationary bike, a treadmill, an elliptical, and a Bowflex. But there was also a rack of weights tucked against one wall, and another wall was nothing but a solid mirror. There were a couple of yoga mats and a shelf with miscellaneous equipment, like bands, kettlebells, and towels.
Maddox pointed to a door on the wall next to the mirrors. “And that’s a sauna in there.”
Holy crap. Holy crap.
“I’m starting to wonder why you ever leave your house.”
A slight chu
ckle issued from his lips, but he didn’t sound amused. “You can’t appreciate what you have if you don’t experience other things.” He waved me through the door back into the hallway. “Do you like taking baths?”
I could take them or leave them, but I bit. “What girl doesn’t?”
“Right. But would you like them if that was all you did with your life? If all you did was bathe all the time—”
“That’s a bit extreme.”
“Yes, agreed. But I’m a firm believer that you appreciate the things you love more if you don’t overindulge.” He led me to the end of the hall and opened the door of the largest man cave I’d ever seen. Another room that didn’t match any of the other décor in the house.
There was a lot of Harley-Davidson memorabilia throughout the room. The color scheme was mostly hunter green and deep, rich browns—not the shade used in the remainder of Maddox’s home, but something I supposed evoked a more masculine feel. There was a mini-fridge tucked in a corner and several overstuffed chairs. The lighting was soft, but I couldn’t miss the dartboard on one wall that I doubted had ever actually been used. Another wall had a bookshelf, and, as I got closer, I saw modern stories by John Grisham and James Patterson, along with older authors, like Agatha Christie, A.A. Fair, Rex Stout, and Arthur Conan Doyle. “You like mysteries?”
“Sometimes. That kind of reading can sharpen your mind. Can you figure out what’s going on before the detective? And, then, can you apply those reasoning skills to everyday life?”
Walking closer to the bookshelf, I felt like I was seeing inside Maddox’s soul. “Which book is your favorite?”
I felt the heat from his body as he got close behind me. “I’m not sure. I don’t know that I have a favorite. I’ve enjoyed them all.”
My eyes scanned seven or eight shelves on this rack, and, while the books were artfully displayed, I couldn’t count how many were there. “You’ve read all of these books?”
“Yes. Is that so strange?”
“No, but—”
“I read at least two books a week. I try to read one fiction and one nonfiction, but it doesn’t always work out that way.”
“Two books a week. Every week?”
“Most of the time. Why is that so hard to believe?”
“It’s not hard to believe,” I said, turning around. “But who has time?”
When the hell had he gotten so close to me? I felt my hands beginning to quiver as chemicals rushed through my veins. Why was this man so damned intoxicating?
“You have to make time for the things you love, Bailey.”
“Sure.” Why was my voice so soft? I knew he could hear it because his eyes were searching mine. “But what if you don’t love to read?”
His gaze shifted to my lips as if he couldn’t understand my words. Maybe I was speaking too softly. For a moment—a brief few seconds suspended in time—I thought he was going to kiss me. Thank heavens I didn’t close my eyes in anticipation, but my mouth began salivating when I saw his pupils dilate. Like a predator, he looked like he was moving in for the kill.
But then he spoke and broke the spell.
“Sometimes you need to do things you don’t like.”
I blinked a couple of times, feeling like I had to catch up. Involuntarily, my head moved up and down in a nod.
“Reading has helped me all through my life. When I didn’t know something, I’d look it up. Reading and learning gave me the edge over my competition.”
“But didn’t you go to college?”
“Of course. When I was a kid, I didn’t know the first thing about money or financial planning. But college involves reading.”
“True.” I knew that from personal experience.
“Want to see the rest of the house?”
“I’d love that.”
After climbing the stairs back to the living room, I was a little surprised to see fading daylight coming through the window. It would be so easy to lose track of time downstairs where there was no natural light.
“Have you seen the great room yet?”
I’d peeked but that didn’t count. “No.”
“Let’s go.” We walked through the living room and through the large arched doorway. It was beautiful. Pointing to a small door in the corner that almost blended in with the ivory wall, he said, “Another powder room there.” There was a table full of plants and a decorative dresser against one wall. The ceiling went to the top of the second floor, highlighting a beautiful staircase. On the wall of the hallway on the upper floor were beautiful paintings that I couldn’t wait to see up close. The floor in the great room as well as the stair treads were of white marble, and the double doors leading to the outside world were almost black—stark compared to the earthy hues in the rest of the house. “Ladies first,” Maddox said, holding out an arm.
“What makes you think I’m a lady?” I began walking up the steps, glad I wasn’t wearing clicky heels today, now that we were dressing more casually. In this cavernous space, that noise would have echoed in the most annoying way.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Bailey?”
Laughing, I tried to dismiss the strange electric charge between us, planning to keep up the silly banter. “I haven’t traced my genealogy, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t descended from royalty.”
As I got to the top of the stairs, I was keenly aware that he was, once more, right behind me. He flipped on a switch that bathed each painting under its own light. “That doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to be treated like a princess.”
I turned to look in his eyes, and he took my breath away. My voice sounded weak to my own ears. “No one’s ever said that to me before.”
Touching one of my cheeks with the back of his hand, Maddox drew a little closer to me. “That’s a damn shame. You deserve to be told that every damn day of your life.”
Once again, my breath hitched in my throat so that I had to force the air down to my lungs. I searched his eyes with mine as saliva once more pooled in my mouth in anticipation. But then he removed his hand as if nothing had happened and turned to the painting in front of us. “I saw you eyeing the art. Do you like this painting?”
“I love it.” It was a stunning rendering of fall colors and, as I examined it more closely, I realized it represented two people walking either through the forest or a park just as leaves were beginning to turn. But the colors and figures all blended together as if the art had been created with crayons and then set in the sun to melt.
“I’m in love with impressionist art.”
“I could stare at this for hours.”
“I have. And I think you should. But,” he continued, walking a few steps, “I feel that way about all the art I’ve acquired. I call this part of the hallway my gallery. Some of the most beautiful art I’ve ever seen I’ve purchased so that I could see it every single day.”
Walking toward him, I moved my eyes to another painting that might have been created by the same artist. The colors were similar, only this time it depicted a city street after a rainstorm. I most definitely planned to spend a lot of time in this hallway.
It felt like a museum.
As we turned the corner, I had an even bigger sense of a museum. A huge open space with only two walls held a grand piano, and the hallway was only designated now by different floor patterns.
“Over here,” Maddox said near a door, “is the second master bedroom suite. This is your room.”
I all but skipped over there, dying to know what a bedroom in this place looked like. He opened the door and flipped on a switch, stepping aside so I could walk through. There was one window with beautiful beige and white window coverings, and I could tell that when the sun was shining brightly, this room would be cheerful and light. The colors were light blue, beige, light brown, and white, perfect hues to reflecting sunrays. Stepping over to the window, I looked out. I had a great view of the lawn in front of the house. There was another window on the side, and I wondered how much early morning
sun would be blocked by the house next door. But the best part of the room was the fireplace close to the window. “Is it gas?”
Maddox nodded, picking up a remote control off the mantel. “You can either use this or the thermostat over here.” As chilly as it was today, I thought a fire would be cozy. Turning around, I saw my luggage against the other wall beside a dresser and full-length mirror. “Follow me.” He led me through a bathroom complete with a huge tub and, deeper inside, a large walk-in closet. “Do you think you’ll be comfortable here?”
I nearly giggled, but I fought the urge to gush. “How could I not be?”
“I’m glad you said that. But we’re not done yet.” We walked back through my temporary bedroom into the hall. Maddox pointed to another door. “This is my bedroom. It’s like yours—fireplace, master bath, walk-in closet.” But he didn’t open the door.
Hmm.
As we got near the end of the open area, I saw a door to the south, beside what would become a hallway behind the music space. I pointed to it, expecting Maddox to continue doing what he’d been doing—taking me inside, commenting on what was there.
Instead, he said, “That room is off limits. Sorry about that. I want to be open with you, but that’s one room that stays closed.”
“Okay. You don’t have to allow me complete access to everything.”
As he nodded, I thought I saw a shadow pass over his eyes. Whatever that room was, I suspected, was something even he didn’t want to see, much less talk about.
All that did was make me curious as hell. After all, I’d read the Fifty Shades trilogy. Did Maddox have his own Red Room? And, if so, why would he have such negative feelings about it?
I tried not to shudder as we continued down the hall, and he pointed out two other bedrooms and what he liked to call a powder room between the two. We turned the hall one last time, walking past another set of stairs. “Those lead to the living room.” This part of the corridor led back to the stairs and more art covered these walls—but there was one more room he wanted to show me.
Walking through the door, I immediately relaxed. There were beautiful plants all through the room, and it smelled fresh and clean, like a forest after a rain. Flowery on occasion. Earthy in a good way. It was a room dedicated to plants.
Quarantined with the Billionaire Page 8
