Page 32 of Wretched Heart
“Are you sure about–”
A red mist has descended, catapulting me across the room. I grab Maddie’s hand, snatching it away from Mace’s belt. “Enough of the fucking games!” I bark. “Mace, you’ve made your point, now get the fuck out!”
My brother holds his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, Hunter,” he says, heading for the exit. “I just wanted you to see what I’m seeing. Get a handle on things before you fuck us all over.”
When he closes the door behind him, I spin Maddie to face me. Her eyes are blazing and she speaks before I get a chance.
“Don’t you dare get angry with me,” she hisses. “I heard your little matchmaking conversation, and in case it escaped your attention, my days of being treated like chattel are over. I didn’t exactly have a choice when it came to accepting Barrett’s proposal, but I chose you, Hunter. Not your fucking weirdo brother!”
“I’m not a weirdo!” Mace shouts from the other side of the door.
“I think you’ve just proven my point, asshole!” she yells back, her face crimson and her body thrumming with fury.
“Mace, go find somewhere else to lurk,” I call out, my eyes never leaving Maddie.
She’s changed into a soft jersey dress with long sleeves and a high neck, but the way it hugs her body is far from modest. But if anything is going to knock me into submission, it’s her scent. I’d listened to her shower running earlier, which I’m now going to be subjected to because she switched rooms and our bathrooms share a wall.
I bring her wrist to my nose, and savor the next breath.Maddie’s damp skin smells of wild mint and lemon. She brought her own bath products from home. My tension begins to ease as I kiss her pulse point, but I’m not letting her off the hook completely. “Let me make one thing clear, Maddie. I may have to accept that another man will take you as his prize one day, but until then, you belong to me. And if you go near another man’s dick again, you will face consequences.”
Maddie’s eyes dilate. “You mean you’ll punish me like you did this morning?”
I was thinking more like bending her over my desk and turning her beautiful ass pink, but given Maddie’s history with violence, I can’t do that, nor can I do what else I’d like to do with her bent over my desk. I focus instead on the lesson Mace has just delivered in his usual crass way. I release my grip and step away.
If I’m going to convince Ash that marrying Maddie is simply a means to an end, I have to stop all our conversations turning into a sexual sparring match. I just wish my cock would deflate as quickly as my body when I sigh.
“Just don’t test me. OK?” I ask. It’s sounds too much like a plea, but it’s all I’ve got. “Maddie, we need to talk.”
She notices the shift in tension and steps away. “I’m listening.”
“I can get our lawyers to work overtime on a prenup, but you’ll need representation too. I can arrange that. Unless you have someone else in mind?”
“Not someone who could act independently from Hugo,” she says as she begins to circle the room. “But I can read a contract, Hunter.” Her hand trails across the empty bookcases that line two walls. “Which is more than I can say for you and your brothers. Please tell me there are boxes of books hidden away somewhere. Do any of you read?”
“Not your kind of books, no,” I answer. We’re moving off the subject, but I can’t help myself. “Those shelves are never going to be filled with stories about… What was it? A brother’s best friend?”
Maddie scowls over her shoulder. “You really shouldn’t have been listening in on a private conversation.”
“Firstly, you let a random guy listen in on your little chat with your server friend for the price of a whiskey, so it was hardly private,” I remind her. “And secondly, you’ve just been listening in on one of my conversations, so I’d say we’re even.”
Maddie goes back to pacing. “Speaking of which, there’s something I want as part of our divorce settlement.”
I lean back against my desk, arms folded as I watch her. “And what would that be?”
“If you’re putting in new management once the mill is viable, I want to be a part of it,” she says as she reaches the end of the bookshelves. She turns to look at me. “A big part.”
“Exactly how involved have you been in running the company?”
She gives me a look that does something to my insides. “You mean, am I qualified to run the mill given the dire state it’s in now?”
I treat it as a rhetorical question because I’m not stupid enough to let her put those words in my mouth.
“For the last five years,” she continues, “I’ve been in charge of putting out the fires my brother created. If it wasn’t for me, the mill would have folded long ago. I know where the investment’s needed, I know the contracts we should have been pursuing, and the ones that we desperately need to offload. I could reel off all the opportunities we missed because no one listened to me, and I know what’scoming down the road, and what our research and development program should be focused on.”
Maddie turns again. She’s prowling like a caged animal – one who hasn’t realized the bars aren’t there anymore.
“You know the business inside and out?”
“I do.” She stops to face me. “And I might be the one who can help you figure out why Barrett wanted to destroy it.”
