“What do you think, Bailey?” I noted he used my first name, so that was better, but I kept my eyes on my plate, busying myself with preparing my food so I wouldn’t have to experience the scrutiny of his eyes firsthand. “How would that work exactly? I’m the owner of the company. That means I have no business making friends with the people who work for me.”
The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “But sleeping with them is okay?”
I looked up then, spying the way he clenched his jaw. “That was a mistake. We all make them. Successful people learn from them.”
Oh, I’d overshot my mark. “Meaning?”
“Meaning if I had any brains at all, I’d send you home today. We’d work apart from here on out.”
His earlier words still stung and these cemented that feeling, so I fought back tears that I hadn’t expected. “Maybe we should do that.”
It was silent for a few moments. I saw steam rising off his waffles, but I suspected our food would be ice cold by the time we touched it—if we ever did. I no longer had any appetite.
“There’s nothing logical about it, Bailey,” he said, reaching his hand across the table to cup mine. “We cannot allow ourselves to sleep together again, but that doesn’t mean I can just kick you out of my home at a time like this.”
“Why not?” I continued struggling against the tears, because showing a man like Maddox any weakness wouldn’t help this situation. “I can’t just pretend that didn’t happen last night.”
“Nor can I.” With his other hand, he touched my chin, tilting my head so I had to look him in the eyes. “But there’s something about you, Bailey. You remind me of myself in a lot of ways. And I want—” He clenched his jaw again and stroked my cheek. “Anyway, just…stay. I will keep my hands to myself.”
“But you were going to say something else, Maddox. What was it? What do you want?”
His cool blue eyes assessed mine before he spoke. “Something deep inside me needs to protect you. I can’t explain it. But I need to protect you most of all from me.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t need to. You’ll just have to trust me.” Removing his hands from me, he began piling his waffles with the decadent condiments he’d put out earlier.
Of all things with this man—and even though he made me feel safer than I’d ever felt in my entire life—I didn’t know that trust, the way he demanded it, at any rate, was something I could do blindly. After we settled into eating our food, my mind went over every little detail from the past two days and settled on one tiny thing. “Who’s Kate?”
He’d just been guiding a bite of waffle toward his mouth, but he paused it in midair. “What do you know about Kate?”
“Nothing. I…” His eyes were boring into me, down to my soul, trying to access every secret I had. “I took your advice, deciding to read more. And I went into the den and—”
“The Girl on the Train, right? Kate wrote something in the book, didn’t she?”
Geez. Now I felt like a snoopy bitch. “It was signed by the author, but there was a card in there. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have looked at it, but I thought it might have something to do with being a signed copy and I was curious.”
He didn’t seem angry that I’d invaded his privacy, instead appearing weary and remorseful. I wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly. “She was my wife.”
Oh, yeah. His ex. He’d described their parting as brutal, if I recalled correctly. I didn’t even know what to say now, but I felt strangely better that I’d brought it up.
“I suppose I should just get rid of the damned book. I’d forgotten about it until you showed it to me yesterday.” Smiling then, he lifted the fork once more. “When you finish reading it, let me know what you think. Then I’ll decide if I want to keep it.”
What little I knew about the story, I suspected he wouldn’t like it—and wondered when Kate had given the book to Maddox. Had she already been unhappy in their relationship and was trying to send him a message?
Shivering at the thought, I grew quiet.
“Talk to me, Bailey. What’s on your mind?”
I was growing angry with him at the casual way he could just toss me aside. He had all the power here—as the owner of the company I worked for, as the man whose home I was now trapped in for all intents and purposes. As the one calling the shots in our relationship.
What relationship?
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
Tilting his head lower, he gazed in my eyes, much like a father might when trying to get his child to try a bite of something she didn’t want to taste.
It just made me angrier.
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’ll give you some time for now—but we will talk. Tomorrow morning, we resume working, and I can’t have you trying to hide your hostility when we have work to focus on. We need to be open, whether it’s comfortable or not.”
The way he was bossing me around just made me all the more irate. “Fine.” Standing up, I took my plate and mug and walked into the kitchen without another word. I scraped the rest of my food into the trash and put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher before turning to head back up to my room. Glancing back, I halfway expected him to pursue me, but he wasn’t even looking my way.
Damn, he was cold.
And I had to learn to play that game, too.
Chapter Fifteen
“So what has you so excited, Elise?”
Just hearing my friend’s voice over the phone put me at ease. I would never again underestimate the importance of seeing a friend on a regular basis. Maybe Elise was my rock. I felt more sane just hearing her lovely voice.
“Did I tell you about Jack?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
“Well…you know I’ve been trying to meet guys through a dating app.”
“Yeah.”
“And you knew about the guy I wanted to have dinner with.”
“Yes.”
“Well, Jack and I started talking over a week ago. Like two or three hours a day. Texting, talking, FaceTime, you name it. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more compatible with me. Other than you, of course, but—”
“I hear ya. But you know the true test will be meeting in person.”
“Um, yeah. About that.”
“So you did?”
“Yeah. In fact, he just went back to his apartment a while ago.”
“I thought you were just going to have dinner. Aren’t you afraid of exposure?”
“Come on, Bailey. I’m exposed to it every time I go to the store. And I can’t stand it anymore. Not seeing people was driving me crazy. But having Jack here—it helped somehow. Even not knowing each other as well.”
I could relate to being around a person and, in all fairness, I’d had lots more in person human contact over the past week than Elise had.
Not including last night.
“When I suggested dating in person, he loved the idea. He’s working from home, too. He does some kind of computer programming for a bank that’s completing some sort of merger. So he said he’s not in jeopardy of losing his job anytime soon.”
“That’s good.”
“That’s great, because I think he makes a lot of money. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s not like we’re planning a wedding or anything.”
Lowering my voice as if she and I were chatting in the breakroom back at work, I said, “So what’s he like in bed?”
“Bailey Bernard! We’ve only just had our first date.”
“And?”
“And I’m serious. He slept on the couch and I slept in my bedroom. That’s not to say we didn’t engage in a lot of kissing and stuff, but still...”
“Fair enough.”
“You know I still have the three-date rule.”
And I, of course, was a slut.
“So stop worrying. It makes you look older. Anyway…what’s up with you and the
big boss anyway? You said you’re staying there now? And how’s that working out?”
“It’s okay, I guess.”
“How come you haven’t sent more pictures?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.” Actually, now it felt like an invasion of his privacy. “I’ll snap some pics of my bedroom for you later.”
“So what’s it like?” I described the house to her in excruciating detail, helping to feed her imagination. Chances were when I sent her the pictures, she’d be disappointed after having built it all up in her mind. “You don’t sound very excited—I mean…living in the lap of luxury and all.”
“Elise, if I tell you something, do you promise not to freak out?”
“Uh, just asking me that has me freaking out. What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
I bit the side of my cheek, trying to keep myself calm. All I’d wanted to do over the past hour was cry—and I’d managed to stop myself. Now, though, talking to the woman who knew me better than anyone else on the planet, I found that dam trying to break. “I had sex with him last night.”
She coughed, sounding as if she’d choked on a beverage. “You what? And why doesn’t it sound romantic? A guy like that—”
“Romantic? No, not even close. It was…” My mind raced back to the night before, how Maddox had made my body feel, how easily I’d reached orgasm yet wanted more. And now all that was out of reach. “It was lustful.”
Elise started laughing, and it even made me giggle, despite the turmoil brewing inside me. “Lustful? Like a naughty novel?”
“Actually, yeah. Kind of.”
“So did he rip off your bodice? I want details, girl!”
“I don’t know, Elise. It was…so weird overall. I had a nightmare Friday night.”
“You haven’t had them in a long time, right?”
“Yeah. But I did—and I guess I woke him up. He rousted me from sleep and let me curl up in bed with him.”
“Holy shit.”
“But we didn’t do anything that night.”
“Now that’s weird.”
“Not really. I…uh. I’ve never felt that safe in my life, the way I felt in his arms that night. And then last night.”
“Yeah?”
“Last night, he kissed me right before bed. And I don’t know. There was something about it. I could feel it down to my toes. God, in my ovaries. And I was lying in bed, unable to get him out of my mind. That kiss felt like so much more, like he was communicating with me on the level of molecules.”
“Bailey, do you hear yourself?”
“What?”
“You sound like you’re in love.”
My laugh probably sounded too forced, but I had to try nonetheless. “Stop it.”
“So how did it happen?”
“I went to his room.”
“Like a siren call, that kiss of his.”
That time, I actually laughed genuinely. “Yeah, I guess so. I was out of my freaking mind. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I felt restless. I saw a light in his bedroom, so I knocked on the door and then after I was in there, I kind of froze. When he asked what I was doing, I told him I wanted him. And it went from there.”
“Oh. My. God. You are the bravest woman I know.”
I didn’t laugh. Because my mind was reliving every second from the night before—the way he’d touched me, not just physically but down to my soul. And then, when all was said and done, how he’d rejected me. It hurt more than I could even admit.
“What aren’t you telling me, Bailey?”
I drew in a deep breath. “As bad as my past has been, I think his has been so much worse.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He basically told me that everything I know about him is a lie. I might think I want him, but I really don’t.”
“Did he say that?”
“In so many words, yeah. So I told him that I do know him—I could feel who he was deep down. And then he compared himself to a rotten apple, ruining an entire bag. He said he’d ruin me the same way.”
“Jesus, girl. I hope you told him to ruin you!”
“I couldn’t get through to him—and I promise saying something like that wouldn’t have worked. And today he’s acting like nothing happened.”
“What a bastard. So what are you gonna do?”
A tear dropped from my eye, so I worked hard to steady my voice. “I don’t know. Today, he made it a thousand times harder to just leave.”
“Why? How?”
“Tod’s super sick. The way mom described it, I’m pretty sure he has COVID.”
“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Bailey.”
“I begged her to take him to the hospital and she said no, because they don’t have insurance. Maddox overheard me talking to her on the phone and said he’d pay whatever expenses they had—to just get him to the hospital and get him taken care of.”
“What? Please tell me you let him do it. Please tell me you weren’t too proud.”
“Of course not. If it were me, at this point? I’d tell him to kiss my ass. But for mom?”
“You’d do anything.”
“Yeah.” After all, I’d been with her through thick and thin. Why would I stop now?
* * *
My butt was planted firmly in an overstuffed chair in the sitting room, across from Maddox in the loveseat. I suspected he’d chosen this room for our chat because I had warm feelings about the space.
I tried to suppress the pout on my face but figured he’d be able to sense it anyway.
Why had I been so stupid, allowed myself to be so vulnerable with this man? I couldn’t rehide myself or take back what I’d already told him.
Taking in a deep breath, I reminded myself I didn’t have to talk now. This was his gig, not mine.
“Look, Bailey, I shouldn’t have allowed last night to happen. Not only was it unprofessional, but it was completely out of line.”
“The kiss or what happened later?” Because, after all, I’d instigated where we’d gone afterward.
“All of it. I’m not who you think I am, Bailey. I’m…not a good man.”
“A bad man doesn’t offer to pay for someone else’s hospital expenses. Someone he never met.”
“A bad man finds ways to do penance throughout life.”
“Stop it, Maddox. You’re not a bad man.”
“Those were your words. I told you I’m not a good man.”
“That’s a technicality.”
“I didn’t want us to come together to argue. Instead, I wanted to explain a couple of things to you. If you understand, it will make more sense—and then we can be allies, rather than enemies.”
“We’re not enemies.”
“Maybe not. But that’s where this was headed—and I’d like to prevent that. You have so much potential, Bailey. I am not going to be the man who snuffs out your fire.”
“You already did.”
Tilting his head, his eyes narrowed, and I knew I was pushing my luck. But I didn’t care. “I didn’t, and you know it. We’re stopping things right now so I don’t hurt you.”
“What if I told you you already had?”
“Maybe I have hurt you. For that, I apologize. But I’d rather prick your finger than cut out your heart.”
I clenched my teeth together to stop myself from screaming at him. He’d be able to read my emotions well enough through my eyes. There was no stopping them.
“I suspect you and I are a lot alike in a lot of ways, Bailey.”
I looked up at the ceiling, trying not to roll my eyes. Maddox and I might have been a lot of things, but we were not alike by any stretch of the imagination.
“You seem to doubt that. But hear me out. Tell me a little about your childhood.”
“What—are you my psychiatrist now?”
His eyes were smoldering, looking similar to the way they had last night. Only now, they weren’t blazing because of passion but out of anger with an impudent child who just c
ouldn’t hold her tongue. “Indulge me.”
“My mother and father divorced when I was pretty young. He worked under the table a lot so he didn’t have to pay child support. Mom scraped by as best she could—but it was a rough life.”
“Yet you earned a four-year degree?”
“Yeah. I didn’t want to struggle like mom did.”
“Did you ever know your father?”
“Define know. I mean yeah. I knew he was a real asshole. But did I have visitation? Did he call me on my birthday? No. I always got the feeling he wanted a boy, so I was a disappointment from the get-go.”
“I never knew my father,” Maddox said, his voice quiet. He was looking in the vicinity of my knees rather than in my eyes, but I sensed his sincerity. “Without going into a lot of detail, suffice it to say that I barely knew my mother, either. By seventeen, I was on my own—and after living on the streets for the better part of a year, I vowed to never have to scrimp for a piece of bread again. I was working in a deli downtown and this particular group of men came in once a week—designer suits, expensive watches, nice cars. When I found out they worked as investors, that became my sole goal.”
Finally, his eyes connected with mine again. How the hell could I stay mad at him when maybe, just maybe, his soul was empty in the middle like mine was?
And, while I hadn’t lived on the streets, I could top him with my childhood story—but I refused.
“I was ruthless, Bailey. Ruthless. In school, in business. Anyone presented a threat, I’d cut them down without hesitation. I would not allow myself to be that kid on the street anymore, the one working two shitty minimum wage jobs just to get by. That meant it was me or them, every single time.”
He looked at me pointedly.
“Which means I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of.”
“But you said that was in your past. I can’t blame you for things you did in your youth.”
Arching an eyebrow, he took my breath away. “Not just my youth. When you become accustomed to controlling your world, you can’t just stop.”
Quarantined with the Billionaire Page 13
