Thomas followed her out, tucking the towel around his waist. “Wait twenty seconds, and I’ll drive you.”
“Can’t. I’m late already.” Madison flowed down the stairs, grabbing her purse from a table at the bottom. She blew him a kiss. “Thanks for the lovely weekend. Really, Tommy, it was fantastic, something to remember for always.” She smiled again, and his heart heated and turned over. She was beautiful, sensual. And leaving.
Madison stopped at the front door and called back to him, “Please don’t let my neighbors see you go, if you can help it. They’ll tell everyone in town that Thomas Dupree spent the weekend here.”
The warmth in Thomas’s chest turned to a burn.
Sneak out the back way; don’t let anyone know you were here making love to me.
Madison was going back to her everyday life, which didn’t include her weekend lover.
“Sure thing,” he made himself say.
Madison gave him one last smile, opened the door, and waltzed out.
Thomas sat down on the stairs, the towel cushioning his butt as the door swung shut. He opened his hand, looking down at the ID bracelet he’d brought with him, the one Madison had given him nine years ago. Sunlight from the windows above him winked on it, touching the fine grooves that formed his name. He’d planned to pull it out, wrap it around her wrist, and let her laugh at him for keeping it all this time.
Fuck.
Waking in her bed the last two mornings had been the closest thing to heaven. Madison had finally been his.
Illusion. She’d been in charge the entire weekend, allowing him to assume the dominant role and show her what he liked. Because she asked it, because she wanted it. He would have backed off if she’d been truly afraid or upset. He also wouldn’t have let Alexi touch her if Madison hadn’t wished it.
His brother Marc had long held the theory that the subs were truly in control, because they knew that a good Dom would never hurt them. Thomas had thought Marc’s theory crazy, but now he agreed that Marc was probably right.
Madison wasn’t about to give Thomas control over her life or whatever relationship this was. She wasn’t the surrendering kind.
And damn, didn’t Thomas love her for that?
Thomas climbed to his feet, went back upstairs, dressed, and left the house. He’d parked his black BMW convertible at the end of the alley, out of sight behind her garage. He started it up and drove away, making damn sure none of the neighbors saw him.
Two
weeks later, as Thomas walked into his office, Marc and Angela abruptly ceased their conversation and stared at him.
“What?” he growled.
“Touchy,” Marc said. “You have been, bro, since you spent that weekend with Madison Rainey.”
“You want to drop it?” Thomas sat down in his leather office chair. “It was a weekend. It’s done.”
Thomas had called Madison once, the Monday night after he’d left. She’d sounded surprised to hear from him. She’d told him that her appointment had been so successful that she was going to Houston for a week to meet with a new couture house. She promised to call Thomas again when she got back.
She never had.
Thomas had met Alexi once at the Les Bon Temps bar for an after-work drink. When Thomas had told Alexi that Madison hadn’t called him, Alexi had smiled wisely and told him to give her time. He’d been quietly confident that Thomas and Madison would end up as a couple.
Dream on, Greek boy.
“You’d better tell him,” Angela said, breaking Thomas’s thoughts.
Marc shot her a look, one that said he’d been shoved toward a place he didn’t want to go.
“Tell me what?” Thomas logged on to his computer and started going through his e-mails. He tried not to be annoyed that none were from Madison.
Marc heaved a sigh as he got to his feet and came to Thomas’s desk. “You’d hear it sooner or later, I guess. Madison’s getting married.”
Thomas’s fingers froze on the keyboard. He felt his heart turn to ice and glacial blood sweep through his veins.
“What?”
“Yep. Mom told me.”
“
Mom
told you?” Thomas sprang to his feet.
Marc nodded, unhappy. “Mom brought Val to New Orleans to shop, and they ran into Madison. Madison showed them her engagement ring. She, um ... She looked happy, Mom said.”
Thomas sank to his chair again, so dizzy he thought he’d be sick. Madison? Marrying? What the fuck?
“Who? Who is the dickhead she’s going to marry? The dead dickhead.”
Marc hesitated, glancing around the room as though making certain no lethal weapons were in reach.
Angela broke in while Marc was still dithering. “It’s Keith Girard, Thomas,” she said.
Thomas stood, very slowly this time, like a lion rising from the veldt to make a kill. “That can’t be right. Madison hates the asshole.”
“I don’t know the details,” Marc said. “Something must have happened to make her desperate enough to marry him.”
What?
“Then why the hell didn’t she ask me for help?”
Angela gave him a pitying look. “She’s a proud woman, Thomas. I understand—I wouldn’t want to turn to my friends and beg them for a loan, probably a huge one.”
“But you’d marry Keith Girard to get it?” Thomas glared at them both. “This is bullshit.” He grabbed his keys and made for the door.
“Where are you going?” Marc asked in alarm. As though he couldn’t guess.
“To spank Madison’s sweet little ass.”
He sensed Angela and Marc exchange helpless glances as Thomas slammed out of the office.
He drove in rage to Madison’s house and parked right in front of her gate, damn what her neighbors thought. His rage increased when, in answer to his hard jabs at the bell, the model-handsome Alexi opened the door.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Thomas demanded.
“I invited him.” Madison’s cool tones floated from the house, and she stepped out onto the porch. “This is my house. I can invite whomever I wish.”
Thomas glared at Alexi. “Did you know?”
Alexi gave him a brief, silent nod.
“And you didn’t tell me. Neither of you told me?” He switched his hard stare to Madison. “I had to find out that Girard bagged you from my
mother
?”
Madison fixed him with an irritated look. Oh, God, she was going to send him off in front of the gossip-loving neighbors she’d warned him about. All of New Orleans would talk about how Thomas Dupree had slunk away from the Lefevre heiress with his tail between his legs. How Madison Rainey had put him in his place.
His anger took over. He grasped Madison’s elbow and steered her into the house.
Madison glared at him, but she didn’t fight him. As Alexi shut the heavy front door, Madison shook off Thomas’s grip and went to the back of the house and the kitchen. There, Madison busied herself pouring a glass of tea, making a show of dropping four perfect ice cubes into it. She put the pitcher back into the refrigerator and took a sip, pointedly not offering any to Thomas.
Rage curled inside him, the predator in him wanting to break free.
I want to take care of you, Madison. Let me.
“Well?” Madison asked. “Did you come over here just to yell at me? Or were you hoping for another easy fuck?”
Thomas burned at the anger in her eyes, and his own rage tangled in his throat. Damn Girard to hell. “Is that what you think I want?”
She shrugged, her body tight. “It’s what you wanted two weekends ago. I didn’t see you for nine years, and suddenly you’re here, screwing my brains out. What am I supposed to think?”
“I came here to ask you why the
hell
you’re marrying Girard.”
“That’s my business.”
“Shit, Madison, you hate him. He tried to blackmail you, you said. Marc and I are having him watched—if he puts another foot wrong, our cop friends have him.” Thomas sucked in a breath. “I can’t believe you’d do this. Without telling me.”
Madison slammed down her glass, and tea sloshed to the counter. “I didn’t hear you proposing any solutions, Thomas. You never once offered to help or at least help me figure out what I could do. With Keith, I’ll be able to stay here, in my family home, the only place I’ve ever been happy.”
“Did you give me a chance? You ran off to Houston, in a hurry to go. You promised to call me when you came home, and you didn’t. So I convinced myself to give you space, to not push myself on you. But that was sure stupid. How long did it take Girard to snatch you up?”
“Thomas.” Madison’s face softened, and now she looked almost worried. “I didn’t call you when I got back, because...” She wet her lips. “Because Alexi told me not to.”
Thomas froze, disbelief breaking through his anger. He slowly turned to Alexi, who was leaning against the doorframe, hands in pockets. “Alexi told you not to?”
Alexi didn’t even look ashamed. “I thought it best.”
“What the fuck?” Thomas asked him, his voice deadly quiet.
“I had my reasons.”
Thomas’s rage blazed again. “You’re an asshole, Alexi. ‘Trust me,’ you said. Well, fuck you. Like hell I’m going to let Madison marry Keith Girard.”
“It’s my life, Thomas,” Madison said coolly. “I get to marry whomever I want.”
Thomas swung back to her. “Not
him,
for God’s sake. Marry me instead.”
The words echoed around the kitchen, bounced off the glass walls of the eating area. Madison blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, marry me.”
The words came out of Thomas’s mouth before he could stop them, but he knew he didn’t want to stop them. He needed to say this to her, needed to pour out his heart. “I love you, Madison Rainey. I’ve always loved you. Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve become in the last nine years has been for you. All for you.”
Madison’s eyes widened. “What do you mean, ‘all for me’?”
“Everything I tried to be—successful businessman, bad-ass adventurer, skilled lover—was so I’d be worthy of you. Look, I even kept that damned ID bracelet you gave me, to remind me what I was living for.”
He lifted it out of his pocket. A beam of sunlight caught the gold, the chain throwing spangles against the walls and Madison’s face.
“Thomas,” she whispered.
Thomas’s throat ached. “For God’s sake, Madison, throw away that damned ring and marry me, not that waste of space.”
Her breath catching on a sob, Madison pulled off the ring and flung it to the floor. It rang on the tiles until Alexi picked it up.
Madison ran at Thomas and threw her arms around his neck. “I’ll marry you, Tommy.” Her voice was beautiful in his ear. “Of course, I’ll marry you. I love you. I always have.”
Thomas closed his arms around her, holding her against his body, where she belonged. “Madison Rainey, I love you so much.”
She drew back, and he cupped her face. As he bent to kiss her lips, he caught sight of Alexi out of the corner of his eye. The man gave Thomas a broad smile, shook his head, and walked away, leaving them alone.
Alexi
just happened to have brought champagne. After Thomas had kissed Madison until their lips were swollen, they broke apart to find Alexi pouring out three glasses of frothing champagne. Madison caught up her glass, clinking it against Thomas’s and Alexi’s.
“There’s so many people we have to tell,” she gushed. “Your mother, first—your whole family. My girlfriends in Fontaine...”
“What about Girard?” Thomas broke in. “You should tell him first. Can I watch? Please?”
“Girard?” Madison looked puzzled, then she laughed. “Oh, I was never engaged to Keith, Tommy. I made that up.”
“
What?
” Thomas choked on his champagne. He coughed and wiped his mouth. “Then why the hell did you tell my mom you were? Where did you get the ring?”
“It’s my grandmother’s. Your mom was in on this, too. It was all Alexi’s idea.”
Thomas swung on Alexi, who was holding the ring in question between his thumb and forefinger. Thomas realized then that of course, Madison couldn’t have really been engaged to Girard. Gossip would have spread like wildfire if she had—Girard would have made sure everyone in town knew he’d landed the last Lefevre. The fact that Thomas hadn’t heard a thing gave it the lie.
“Alexi, man, you have a lot of explaining to do,” he said.
Again, Alexi didn’t look ashamed. He lounged against the counter, holding his champagne negligently. But he looked different somehow, as though a glow of pure light shone beneath his skin.
“You still needed a little push,” he said. “Telling you she was marrying Girard was just the right catalyst.”
“Catalyst?” Thomas walked the edge of dangerous anger. “You were goading me to confront Madison? What if it hadn’t worked?”
Alexi took a sip of champagne. “But I knew it would.”
“You
used
her. And me.”
Alexi didn’t look worried. In fact, he looked triumphant.
“I shouldn’t have told you that,” Madison said. “I had serious doubts, but for some reason, I wanted to believe Alexi.” She turned her brilliant smile on Thomas. “And I wanted you to get your ass over here and ask me.”
Thomas thunked down his glass. “You devious, naughty little...” His voice went low as his fantasies stirred. “I should punish you for that,
cher
.”
“That sounds like fun.” Madison’s smile suddenly faded. “But make sure, Thomas. You’d be marrying a woman in a hell of a lot of financial straits. That won’t be fair to you.”
“You let me worry about that.”
“Neither of you has to worry about it,” Alexi said. “Your grandmother did have Jean Lafitte’s treasure, Madison. She kept it for you, so that you would reap the benefit of it when you needed it most.”
Madison looked at him in disbelief. “I told you, I searched all over this house. It’s not here.”
“She used her magic to hide it. She was a pretty good witch, your grandmother.”