3. Chapter Three #2
"Eight years," I answer. "I used to work at Mermaid's Heart in New York City in the ICU, but I quit when Mom got sick. Time to get back in the saddle now that she's better."
Agatha nods again, her gaze sharp as she watches me.
"You are very good at it."
"Thank you, Agatha."
She holds my hand again. Her thumb runs along the back of my knuckles. We talk. Light, easy talk between two people who share a distant past and are glad for the opportunity to catch up. She asks about my mom and dad, about my life in Saltford Bay and my plans for the future.
I'm in the middle of a story about that Christmas Lenny decided to cut a tree himself and picked one so huge it wouldn't fit through the front door when the door opens and something imposing walks in.
The figure stops two steps into the room.
I stare at it, unblinking. I'm not even sure my heart is beating. I try to shake it off, but it's like someone threw a wrench in the gears of my brain and everything came to a sudden stop.
It takes me a beat to recover. Two beats, actually.
The first beat, my brain says: tall, well-dressed, expensive.
The second beat, my brain says: oh.
Yeah. Oh is the understatement of the century. Or the millennia.
Demetrius Thornwood stands six feet inside the door with one hand still on the frame, as if he had been about to push it closed and stopped halfway. He wears a wool coat over a charcoal suit, all looking so perfect that they have to be tailored specifically for his imposing frame.
Which, of course it was. I haven't lived under a rock for the past fifteen years. Everyone knows how rich the CEO of Thornwood Industries is.
But I don't care about Demetrius Thornwood the billionaire, Demetrius Thornwood the power player or Demetrius Thornwood the playboy, going out with the hottest supermodels to every red carpet in the world.
I don't know that new Demetrius Thornwood. I'm not sure I ever knew the old one, either. The one who broke my heart in pieces and then walked away, never to look back.
He looks different and the same, all at once. His jet-black fur is still glossy and well groomed. His horns are still long, jet black and polished, if a tad longer. Broader.
Pretty much like the rest of him. Broader, stronger, radiating some kind of masculine aura like a shaving cream commercial.
His dark brown eyes land on me, different from anything I remember. That gaze belongs to a man accustomed to power, to making other people cower before him.
Fuck that. Fuck him.
"Madison?" He cocks his head to the side and blinks, like he doesn't really trust his own eyes.
It's just my name. But it sounds wrong in his mouth. Just Madison.
He never calls me Madison. Well, that was before. Now? He doesn't call me anything.
He doesn't call me at all.
I stand up, legs steady, which is more than I expected.
"S'up?" is all my stupid brain pushes out and if I wasn't scared that my knees might give way, I would run out of the room like the coward I am.
But I'm pretty sure I'd land flat on my face, so I don't. I just stand there, like an idiot, while a playboy-handsome billionaire stares me down like a piece of gum stuck on the soles of his thousand-dollar shoes.
"Demetrius, dear. What wonderful timing!"
Agatha's voice jolts my brain back into place and I shake my head like a puppy with a bug up its ear canal. This earns me a weirded out side-glance from Demetrius, but I ignore it.
Let him think I'm bat-shit crazy if it pleases him.
"Madison is here for a job interview." Agatha pushes on, either oblivious to the tension filling the air or ignoring it. I'd bet on ignoring it. "At this very hospital. You're a major donor, aren't you, dear? You should put in a good word for her."
The floor doesn't move under me, but it feels like it has.
Demetrius turns from his grandmother to me. Slowly.
"Do you need help, Madison?" He does not say it warmly. "The Madison Berwick I remember didn't need anyone to care for her."
My cheeks burn with a sudden influx of anger and I narrow my eyes at him.
How dare he be this arrogant after what he did to me? Or more like, after what he didn't do to me?
I don't answer him, turning to Agatha instead.
"That's so kind," I tell her. "But I really do have it handled."
I bend down and hug her, careful not to move her, tell her I'll be thinking of her, then straighten up, grab my bag, and cross to the door.
To get there I have to pass within two feet of him.
I don't look at him.
But I do the next best thing.
Just as I pass by him, I shoulder-bump him right in his massive, well-muscled chest.
It is petty. It is deliberate. I should be ashamed of myself.
But it is the most satisfying thing I have done in approximately fifteen years. For one half of one second.
He doesn't even move. It's like I have walked into a load-bearing wall in a wool coat, and a load-bearing wall does not budge for a tiny human nurse. The impact runs the length of my deltoid and into my shoulder socket.
I don't break stride and I keep walking. I don't exhale until my feet touch the pavement in the sun-baked parking lot. I find my car. I sit down in it and stare at the steering wheel.
Verdict: Demetrius Thornwood is a jerk.
He was a jerk fifteen years ago and he's still a jerk now.
Just a richer, handsomer jerk.
But still a jerk.