Madame X (Madame X #1) (13 page)

“To you, Madame X. And to being outside that condo.”

I blink at your unexpected toast. “Yes. As you say.” I clink my flute against yours.

“Don’t like my toast, X?” You sip, your eyes twinkling with humor.

“It was . . . not what I was expecting you to toast to.”

“What
were
you expecting, then?”

I take a demure sip. It is sweet, bubbly, with a crisp bite. I like it, but not as much as the wine I had with—I shake my head, refusing to let my mind wander from this experience. Refusing to let thoughts of Caleb Indigo sully my enjoyment. If it is enjoyment I’m feeling; it is a foreign emotion, a flutter in my belly, a quickening of the pulse, shortness of breath, anticipation of . . .
something
.

“X?”

I shake my head. “Yes?”

“You with me, babe? I asked you what you were expecting me to make a toast to.”

I blink. Breathe. Summon my wits. Smile up at you, feigning easy humor I don’t quite feel. “My dress?”

You laugh. “Ah. Your dress. Yes, well . . . that’s worth a toast, too, I’d say.”

Your eyes are warm, friendly. I sometimes do not recognize you as the arrogant, idle, oafish brat you once were, only a few weeks ago. Even from the last time I saw you, you’ve gained bearing, confidence. You’ve found yourself, I think. I set you in motion, but you did the rest.

You lift your flute to mine. “To the sexiest dress in the room.”

I smile, toast, drink.

We are still only a few steps into the ballroom.

“Jonathan. Who is your ravishing guest?” An older man, silver hair with a bit of black at the temples. Your eyes, a different nose and chin. “Introduce me, son.”

“Dad . . . Jonathan Edward Cartwright the Second, I mean—may I introduce to you Madame X.”

In the confines of my home, where I conduct business, with the painting on the wall to lend credence, my name is apropos, a thing of mystery and power. Here . . . it just seems awkward.

I shove down all thoughts, summon my cloak of indifference, my armor of cool dignity. “Mr. Cartwright. Well met.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Madame X.” Your father’s eyes do not communicate pleasure, however. There is hostility. An air of ruthless calculation. “You’ve done a wonderful job with my son. I must admit, I was skeptical of the program, even though I signed him up for it. But you’ve done wonders. More than I expected, that’s for damn sure. “

You shift from foot to foot, uncomfortable. “Dad, I don’t think this is the time or place to—”

“Shut up, Jonathan—your betters are speaking.” Your father dismisses you, brusquely, casually, brutally.

You do your best not to flinch, but your expression, which perhaps only I can read so easily, communicates a deep, familiar pain. I see where you learned your mannerisms, and what long-ingrained habits you daily fight to become the man you are becoming.

I feel my claws extend. “I must agree with Jonathan, Mr. Cartwright. This is very much not the time or place to discuss such things. This is a social event, after all, and there are . . . shall I say . . . certain clauses dictating knowledge of who I am and what I do. Clauses that by their nature preclude open discussion in a public setting such as this.”

“I see. Well.” Eyes narrow in open hostility now. “I suppose I have you to thank for my son’s abrupt desire to strike out on his own?”

“You do.” I smile and keep my tone friendly, sugar sweet as I pour poison. “He was suffering. His natural talents and skills were being wasted.
You
were wasting your own son’s potential. Intentionally, it seems to me. Any chance at real happiness or success for your son was being throttled by your obvious disdain. I did not intentionally guide him away from you or your company, nor did I advise him on any business matters in any way. That’s not my job. My job was to show him how to be his own person, and that, now that I’ve met you, clearly meant helping him overcome the massive handicap of being
your
son. Jonathan will do amazing things, now that he’s out from under your thumb, Mr. Cartwright. Much to your loss, as well, I should think.”

You choke on champagne. “X, I see some friends of mine over there. Let’s go say hi, huh?”

I allow you to pull me away from your father, who is fuming, red in the face, forehead vein throbbing dangerously. Perhaps the senior Cartwright will suffer a heart attack. I find myself not entirely displeased by the prospect.

You haul me across the room toward a small knot of younger men, all about your age, each one with a woman clinging to a tuxedoed arm, glamorous-looking models dripping in diamonds, all shallow smiles and fake breasts. Before we reach the cluster of your friends, however, you pull me to the side, to the bar along one wall. You order two beers, tossing back your champagne as you wait. I sip mine, and wait.

You have something to say, and so I allow you time to formulate your words. That you’re thinking before you speak is encouraging.

“No one has ever stood up for me before, X. No one. Not ever, not in anything. And
no one
talks to Dad that way.”

“About time, then.”

You muster a weak smile, then accept the glass of pilsner, downing half of it before turning back to me. “Yeah, I guess so. The point I’m trying to make here is . . . thanks. I’ve never mattered to that bastard. I never will.”

“You only have to matter to yourself.”

“Yeah, I get that. But I think it’s just basic human nature to want to matter to your own fucking father.”

“I suppose so,” I say. “But self-preservation is also an essential factor of human nature.”

“Aren’t you worried you made an enemy of him?”

I shake my head. “Not at all. There’s nothing he can do to harm me. If it made trouble for Caleb, then so be it. Trouble for Caleb is Caleb’s business, not mine.” I wrap my fingers around your arm. “Let’s go say hi to your friends.”

You snort. “Those assholes? They aren’t my friends. They’re just some dickheads I know. Guys like I used to be. Rich, self-centered, conceited, and totally useless. Not one of them has ever done a real day’s work in their entire lives. And those bitches on their arms? Just like them. Rich bitches who do nothing but shop on Fifth Avenue and get Botoxed and snort coke and go on never-ending vacations to the Hamptons or fucking Turks and Caicos, all of it on their parents’ dime. Not one of them has ever done a single thing for themselves. And I was just like them.”

“And now?”

“I always wanted to take over for Dad. I wanted
in
. I wanted to . . . to be a part of what he was doing. He’s a horrible person and shitty
father, but he’s a
hell
of a businessman. So I was never like those guys in that from the time I was a sophomore in high school I was working in the mail room or in the copy room, working my ass off nights and weekends, paying my dues. Dad never gave me a single break for being his son. He ordered everyone to treat me exactly like any other candidate for every position I angled for. And some people,
because
I was a Cartwright, treated me even worse. But I played the game. I sucked it up and did my best. I’ve worked every single day of my life since tenth grade. I’ve got my own money. I bought my Maserati with my own cash. I bought my condo with my own cash. I got a business loan on my own and raised start-up capital for my business, all without using a single one of Dad’s connections. But none of that matters.” You finish one beer and start on the next. I’m on my fourth sip of champagne. “I was supposed to keep working for him, keep being pushed aside and passed over and treated like shit. And now that I’m in business for myself, he hates me even more.”

“So it sounds as if you were never actually like them?”

“I acted like them, though. Like an asshole. Entitled. Spoiled. I’ve never been anything but rich. I do what I want, when I want. Yeah, I earn my own income, but I still ran through women like they were nothing. One after another, just for the hell of it. Treated everyone around me like shit.”

“What changed?” I am very curious.

“You.” You don’t look at me as you say this.

My heart sinks. Twists. “Me? Jonathan, I did nothing but what I was paid to do.”

“I
want
you, X. But I can’t have you, and I know that. It burns my ass, you know that? We’re not even friends. I don’t even get that much. But you . . . you’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. You . . .
matter
. You need no one, you need nothing. You don’t take shit, not from anyone. I don’t know what it was . . . what it is about you that
made me see everything differently. I honestly don’t know. I just . . . since meeting you, I guess I just want to be someone that matters.”

“You matter, Jonathan.” I dare another sip, a longer one, a mouthful of tart, crisp bubbles washing over my tongue, rushing through my brain. “And . . . we
are
friends.”

“But only friends.” It isn’t a question, but there is a faint, vague, boyish note of hope.

It hurts to crush it.

“Yes, Jonathan. Only friends. It is all that is possible.”

“Why?” You turn, pivot to rest a hip against the bar, face me.

I stand with my back to the bar’s edge, flute held in both hands, watching the crowd flux and shift. “I cannot answer that, Jonathan. It just . . .
is
.”

“Can’t you change it?”

I let out a breath. “No. I cannot.”

“Do you want to?” Your breath is on my ear. You are too close. Too close. I hate it when you do this. You are my friend, Jonathan. And that is something monumental to me, but you cannot see it.

I wish I could make you see what your friendship means to me. But I do not know how.

“It wouldn’t matter if I did.” I whisper this, because it’s something I should not say. But I do, recklessly.

Thomas is far enough away that he cannot overhear our conversation. I don’t think. But he still makes me nervous. He’s there to keep me safe, and to keep me close. I cannot help wondering what he would do if I were to try to leave, here and now. Bring me back, probably. But . . . where would I go? The world is an expensive place.

A dangerous one, too.

“Why not, X? Why wouldn’t it matter?” Your voice is so close I can feel the vibrations.

Something snaps inside me. “
Damn
it, Jonathan! Stop asking
questions I can’t answer!” I toss back the rest of the champagne, half a flute’s worth, swallow it, feel it rush through me, burn my throat on the way down, hit heavy in my stomach.

I flee. Through the crowd, head ducked, angling for the small discreet doorway hiding the restrooms. Thomas is behind me, following silently at a distance.

I push open the nearest restroom door, lungs seized, eyes burning, chest aching, heart thumping heavily, seeing through a blur. Stall door, slammed open, slammed closed. Lean back against the cold metal door, fight for calmness. Fight for breath.

I do not desire you, not physically. But there is something there, some spark of need. You incite doubt in me. Make me wonder at my own life, at my ordered existence. Make me question who I am.

And those questions bring on panic attacks.

I sniffle. Blink hard.

NO.

I cannot let loose this flood of emotion. I am in control. I am in control—breathe, breathe—I can’t do this, not here, not now. Not because of Jonathan Cartwright the Third. You know nothing of me. You want me because you can’t have me, and that is all it is. And whatever kinship I may feel for you in return is based on less than that. You represent my most obvious success. That’s all it is.

I like my life.

I am content.

I do not need more.

I do not want to know what else may exist, out there, for me.

I am safe under Caleb Indigo’s protection.

So why am I fighting tears?

I hear the door open, close. A faucet runs.

Silence, but the knowledge that someone else is out there, fixing her makeup, probably, steels me. I cannot be weak. Will not be. I
viciously push down my emotions. Shut them off. Bury them. Hold my head high, and exit the stall.

Freeze.

I am in the men’s room.

When I exit the stall, look up, see the man, I am struck dumb. A man stands facing me, a cell phone in his hands.

I am left breathless.

There is beauty, and then there is perfection. I have known many beautiful men. Some rugged, some pretty. Some merely handsome. None of them have ever compared to Caleb Indigo, however, in terms of sheer masculine appeal.

Until now.

This man?

He is the splendor of heaven made flesh.

H
ey there. Looks like one of us has the wrong bathroom, I think.” His voice is low and warm and amused and kind, bathing me in sensation.

I cannot move, cannot breathe. He is looking at me, seeing me with eyes so blue they make my heart stutter in my chest, eyes that defy description.

There are countless shades of blue:

Azure. Periwinkle. Baby blue. Navy blue. Ultramarine. Celestial. Sky. Sapphire. Electric. So many others in variation.

And then there is indigo.

Oh, how ironic.

His eyes, they are indigo.

I try to speak, but my mouth only opens and closes without producing sound. Something in me is broken, off-kilter.

“You okay? You look upset.” A quick step, and I am assaulted by the scent of cinnamon gum, laced with hints of alcohol and cigarettes. But the cinnamon, it is in me, in my nose, on my taste buds.

His hand touches my elbow; another brushes past my cheek, not quite touching my skin, sweeping errant hair away from my eyes.

“I’m fine.” I manage a cracked whisper.

He laughs. “I wasn’t born yesterday, honey. Try again.”

My eyes prick. “I’m sorry to disturb you.” I force my body into motion, push past him.

He grabs me by the bicep, spins me back around, and I’m pulled up against his hard warm broad chest. “You haven’t disturbed me. The opposite, if anything. Take a minute. No need to rush off.”

“I have to go.”

“All the better reason to stay, then.” Holy gods above, that voice.

Warmth, like afternoon sunlight through a window on closed eyelids, warming skin. The warmth of early morning, before true consciousness has taken over, when all of existence is narrowed down to the cocoon of blankets.

I don’t understand what he means, but his hands are gently, politely, firmly on my shoulders, my cheek is against his chest—not at all politely, not at all appropriately. And I do not want to move. Not ever. I am at a height that my ear is over his heart, and I hear it . . .

Bumpbump—bumpbump—bumpbump.

Slow and steady and reassuring.

“What’s your name?” he asks, a single fingertip tracing an intimate line from my temple around the curve of my ear, down to the base of my jaw.

A simple thing, asking one’s name. So easy for everyone else. Something I never considered until today—how impossible a normal interaction such as this could be, away from what I know.

I panic. Push away. Stumble. I am caught, held up. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. I’m sorry, it’s okay.”

I shake my head. “I have to go.”

“Just tell me your name.”

I won’t lie. “I can’t.”

A snort of amused disbelief. “What, it’s a secret?”

“I shouldn’t be here.” I manage another step away.

“No kidding. It’s a men’s bathroom, and you are most definitely
not
a man.” His hand wraps around my wrist, easily engulfing it and keeping me in place.

A tug, and I’m back up against the tectonic wall of his chest. His fingertip, the one that traced behind my ear, across the delicate drum of my temple, it touches my chin. I must look, though I know I should not—I must look into his eyes, so nearly purple, so arresting in their strange shade of blue. So knowing, so warm, seeing me somehow as if the book of my soul is bare to him, laid open.

“Listen, Cinderella. All I want is your name. Tell me that much, and I can do the rest.”

“The rest?” I know—intellectually, cerebrally—that I should pull away, leave, get out of here before anything compromising happens. But I can’t. I am a creature in the deep, deep sea, hooked on a line, drawn up to the light. “The rest of what?”

I swallow hard. Everything in me is in a boil, weltering and coruscating and dizzied and mixed up and lost and wild.

“The rest of you and me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do, Cinderella. You feel it. I know you do.” He frowns, and even this expression is dizzyingly gorgeous. “I shouldn’t be here either. Not at this party, not in this bathroom, and certainly not with someone like you. I don’t belong here. And neither do you. But here I am, and here you are, and there’s . . .
something
. Fuck if I have a word for it, but there’s something going on between us.”

“You’re crazy. I have to go.” I back away.

My hands shake. Something in the deepest shadows of my being
rages against each inch of space I put between us, between him and me. Something in the fabric of my being demands that I stay, that I tell him who I am, that I give him what he demands of me.

But that’s impossible.

“Yeah, I am crazy. Not gonna argue with you there. But that has nothing to do with you and me, honey.”

“There is no you and me, and stop calling me ‘honey.’” I don’t dare turn around, don’t dare show him my back. I shuffle backward to the door, reach behind me for the handle.

“Then tell me your name, Cinderella.”

My hand shakes on the door handle. I push the lever down. Pull the spring-loaded weight of the door toward me, never taking my eyes off his. I need to look away, but I cannot. Cannot. I am trapped by his gaze. Ensnared by his warmth, not just physical heat, but some welcoming, enveloping, cocooning, all-consuming warmth in his soul. It heats the ice in me, spreads through the gaping lonely chasms of my being echoing with cold and absence.

“No.” It is a whisper, inaudible over the hammering of my heart. If I give him my name, I will give him all of me.

A name is a thing of power.

“Why not?” Long easy strides carry him to me.

His hands curl around the base of my spine and pull me forward, and the door
clicks
closed, and I’m up against his chest, breathing in cinnamon and cigarettes. “I’ll tell you mine, then, how about that? My name is Logan Ryder.”

“Logan Ryder . . .” I’m blinking up at him, trying to breathe, my hands flat on his chest, feeling his breath, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat under my right palm. “Hi.”

“And your name is . . . ?” He’s so close, all I can feel and all I can smell and all I can taste, his scent is all-consuming and his heat is
all-enveloping, and I cannot give him my name, because it’s all I have to give, currency I dare not spend.

I just shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t.” I back away from him, forcing my legs to obey the prudence of my mind rather than the lust of my heart and body.

“Can I tell you a secret, Cinderella?”

“If you wish.” I’m still struggling to make my lungs operate, and it comes out breathy.

“I have no idea what I’m doing right now.” His fingers dig into the flesh just above my backside, holding me firmly against him.

As if I could move; I’m paralyzed by this sensation. “Me either,” I admit.

He smirks, and one of his hands rises to my face. Cups my cheek. His thumb brushes my cheekbone.

I feel absurdly close to tears, for some inexplicable reason.

“Maybe so, but I’m the one doing this . . .” he breathes,

and kisses me,

and kisses me,

and kisses me.

Or . . . he would have, but I stumble backward in the fragment of a second before his lips touch mine, put just enough distance between us that the kiss is stopped before it can ruin me.

He sighs, a short, small breath of wonder and frustration and desire.

•   •   •

B
AM!—BAM!
A heavy fist pounds twice on the door, and I jump, stumble backward and away until my spine flattens against the door. I stare at Logan, eyes stinging and lungs aching for air, hands trembling.

I jerk the door open and slip out of it, slam hard against Thomas’s chest.

“Where did you go?” His heavily accented voice is thick as oil, deeper than canyons.

His hands grip my shoulders, set me several feet backward, away from him, turn me around.

“I went into the wrong bathroom by mistake.”

A paw bigger than a bear’s wraps around my upper arm, gently but implacably, and compels me away from the bathroom. “Next time, I go in with you.”

Away, back to the ballroom. Len is there, arms crossed, eyes unhappy. And you, at the bar a few feet away, drinking.

Something is ended, something else begun.

“Madame X. You should pay more attention to which bathroom you go into.” Len’s voice is sharp, light faux-friendliness. “You wouldn’t want me to worry about where you’d gone, now would you?”

“No, my apologies.” I hunt for a suitable explanation. “It was—a female thing. Unexpected. I’m sure you understand.”

Thomas’s hand still around my upper arm, Len in front of me, I fight for breath, for calmness. Pretend the flavor of an almost-kiss does not still linger on my lips. Hope my frantic pulse cannot be heard over the band. I am dizzy.

The milling and talking has ended, and everyone has paired off into couples to dance, a few people along the edges of the crowd, watching, waiting, drinking.

You sweep me away, onto the dance floor, where couples waltz and spin and sway. Your hands are politely placed on my waist and your hand is in mine, warm and dry and loose. You lead with practiced ease, guiding me through one dance, and then another. We pause when the band takes a break, and we sip at wine that I find
too light, too fruity, too sweet. And then the band strikes up again, and you lead me back out, fit your hand to my waist, where your touch cannot be misconstrued as anything but platonic. You make small talk, but I let it wash over me without responding, and you seem to expect this, to understand it, carrying on a one-way conversation about—I don’t even know what.

I am not thinking of you.

“Can I cut in?” Oh, his voice. Now sharp and expectant, leaving no room for disobedience.

You do not stand a chance, sweet Jonathan.

Big hard warm strong hands take me, spin me away, and his steps are not as practiced, not as smooth, but powerful and implacable and confident. His hand is not on my waist, not polite, not platonic. His hand is on my hip, cupping me intimately. Not quite inappropriate, but very nearly. Fingers are tangled in mine, rather than clasping like friends.

“Hi,” he says, and indigo eyes find mine.

“Hi,” I breathe back.

And we dance. We sway and sweep in graceful circles, and time is like water, one song passing, and then two, and I cannot look away. Don’t wish to. His eyes search me, and seem to see me. Read me, as if I am a familiar and beloved book, long lost and just now found once again.

“What’s your name, Cinderella?” His forehead touches mine, and I fear the intimacy of the scene, his hand on my hip, his fingers twined with mine, our bodies too close.

I must end this dance.

I pull away.

“Wait!” He catches my hand and pulls me back against him.

We are lost in the crowd of dancers, but I know Len is watching and so is Thomas, and so is Jonathan, and this cannot happen,
should not be happening. He is too close. He touches me as if we are framed and fitted and formed to belong one to the other, as if he knows me, as if my body is his for the touching.

“Why won’t you just tell me your fucking name?” He sounds very nearly desperate.

“I can’t.” I know not how else to explain it.

“It’s just a name, sweetheart.”

“It’s not. It’s more than that. It’s who I am.” I want to smile, want to throw myself at him, to taste his lips, to feel the hard heat of his chest and the warmth of his arms. I want to say a million traitorous things.

“Exactly.” His fingers leave my hand and slip and slide up my forearm, and
God
, his fingertips on the tender underside of my forearm is so intimate and so soft that I can’t breathe and I am aroused by that innocent intimacy, my thighs clenching together as I stare up at him, just his fingertips on my forearm, dragging from wrist up and up to elbow, back down, tracing and tickling. “I want to know who you are.”

My fingers go to my lips, touch them where his lips nearly touched mine. I shake my head. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible.”

I have no response for that. I can only tug my arm free, and he cannot do anything but allow it. I walk away, and it hurts, it aches, the pull to look back. The pull to return to him and finish the almost-kiss is like a taut wire speared through my heart, plucked to hum like a harp string. Each step away from Logan makes my whole being sing the song of that plucked string.

I find you on the far side of the ballroom, leaning against the wall with a glass of wine in one hand, engaging Len in conversation.
I hear words bandied back and forth that I believe are car terms, the kind of thing I imagine men discuss between themselves in a strange language all their own: horsepower and torque and cylinders.

Thomas, however, is on the edge of the dancing crowd, and those wide black eyes see me, and I wonder how much else they saw.

“Madame X?” You say my name, as if you suspect something.

“I’m fine, Jonathan.” I refuse to look anywhere but at the dark red rose in your lapel. I hadn’t noticed that before. It matches the shade of my dress exactly.

“They’re seating us for dinner.” You escort me—guide me—through the crowd, through a set of guarded doors, to an enormous room filled with large round tables with six place settings each.

There is a stage at the front of the room. A lectern, a microphone.

Dinner is a long, quiet, formal affair. Outside fork, inside fork, outside spoon, inside spoon. Ice water. Sip at white wine. Nibble at salad greens, a sliver of bread, then a dinner of shredded quail and spicy brown rice and pea pods cooked in oil. As the dinner ends and a delicate dark chocolate mousse is brought out, a stout, middle-aged man takes the stage, adjusts the mic, taps it. Speaks in slow, precise, measured tones of the items to be auctioned this evening. A priceless original painting. A one-of-a-kind, two-hundred-year-old sapphire necklace. A chair that once belonged to King Louis XVI. An ancient Roman Gladius Hispaniensis.

You bid on the necklace. A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand. Two hundred fifty thousand. You are reckless with your money, I think. You win the bid.

The sword captures my attention. The scabbard is bronze, the hilt of polished bone, the blade so ancient and pitted and rusted that its shape is nearly lost. This is the crown jewel of the auction, a museum-quality piece of history. Bidding starts at a mind-boggling number. Three men bid: an old man with four wisps of white hair
draped across his bald pate, a ridiculously beautiful man whom I assume is a movie star, and—