Page 25 of Spilling the Tea

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“For crying out loud, Ravena, will you undress and come to bed?”

Ravena gazed across the hotel room to the naked man in bed as she angrily paced the floor. She and Ken Cox, whose family owned several jewelry stores in Texas, considered themselves sex buddies and nothing more.

She’d known winning Chance over might not be easy, but she never thought it would be impossible. “Will you believe he called me pathetic?”

“Although I don’t think you’re pathetic, I think you have a lot of nerve to assume you could return to town and expect Chance Madaris to take back up with you after the way you dumped him when he was in that wheelchair.”

That’s not what she wanted to hear. “He still loves me.”

“After what you told me he said tonight, he undoubtedly does not.”

Ravena placed her hands on her hips. “What other reason could there be for him not having a life? He’s miserable.”

Ken laughed. “Looks to me like he’s living a damn good life. He has his pick of women for a night whenever he wants one. He owns a nice spread. He has the Madaris name, money, notoriety, and respect. If that’s being miserable, then I’ll take misery. You should have held on to a good thing when you had it.”

“Dammit, Ken, he was in a wheelchair. A cripple. How was I to know he would one day walk again?”

“Well, Ravena, there is that part of the wedding vows that says, ‘in sickness and in health.’ You failed that part before you could get to the altar.”

She glared at him. “I want him back.”

“Good luck with that happening. I understand Ms. Felicia Laverne rules that family with an iron fist. She might have accepted you being part of it years ago, but she won’t now.”

“In that case, I think it’s time for me to get on Ms. Felicia Laverne’s good side,” Ravena said, moving toward the bed.

“You think that’s possible?” Ken asked, throwing the covers back for her.

“She’s ninety-something, old, senile, and probably easy to manipulate. I have to convince her that I regret what I did in the past, and that I’m the only one capable of getting Chance out of the funk he’s been in for the past five years.”

“Regardless of the old lady, you must win Chance over. It sounds like he’s immune to you,” Ken stated.

“I know just the way for him to get un-immune. He could never resist me,” Ravena said with much self-assurance.

“I hate to remind you, but he did so tonight.”

She stared at Ken, and her confidence dropped a notch. Could he be right about Chance not desiring her anymore? She refused to believe that. Like she’d told him, she was in hisblood. Granted, she hadn’t expected him to welcome her with open arms when he saw her, but she hadn’t expected such bitterness and anger toward her either.

Damn him. Five years had been good to him. He was more handsome and had more muscles on his body than before. But his attitude was atrocious. For him to feel so much hostility toward her meant the hurt she’d caused went deep. For it to have gotten to that depth meant he’d love her with the kind of love that couldn’t die, regardless of what he’d said. He might have resisted her tonight but he wouldn’t do so for long. She had to believe that.

“Chance is the man I want, and the man I intend to get, Ken. No one will stand in my way of getting him back. Not that old lady or any other member of his family,” Ravena said with her complete confidence returning. “And until then…”

She removed her clothes when she reached the bed.

Chapter Eight

“Good morning, Mama.”

Felicia Laverne looked up to find her sixth-born son standing in the patio’s doorway. A happy expression spread across her features. “Jonathan. Good seeing you. Is Marilyn with you? How’s the family?”

Jonathan Madaris crossed the room to give his mother a kiss on the cheek and an affectionate hug. That was the way with all her sons. They’d had a close relationship from the time all seven of them were born. She was proud of every one of them.

“No, Marilyn isn’t with me. She and Diana left early to go shopping,” he said, easing into the chair across from where she sat on the screened-in patio. “Knowing those two, it will be an all-day thing.”

Diana was her daughter-in-law who had been married to Robert. It didn’t matter that she was no longer a Madaris since she’d remarried a retired senator a few years ago. Diana, who’d given her a granddaughter named after her, would forever be a part of the Madaris family and a member of the Madaris Wives Club.

“And the family is doing fine, Mama,” Jonathan replied.

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