Chapter 29
A Few Weeks Later
Nate
“Good morning, Linc. I hope you had a nice weekend.” Maddie smiles as we walk into the office, hand in hand.
To anyone who knows her well, she’s being fake as hell, but she’ll never show him her real hand.
Linc’s eyes roam over her leather skirt and knee-high boots until he sees me glaring at him and snaps his eyes away.
I know she looks good, asshole, but she’s mine.
That damn skirt is the reason we’re late this morning. When she walked downstairs, all I could see was the tight maroon leather hugging all her curves.
In ten seconds flat, her legs were around her ears.
It was the first time since owning M-Squared that I wanted to instill a suit-only dress code.
“Hello,” Linc grumbles.
Every part of me wanted his background check to come back with something incriminating, but it was clean as a whistle.
He does some weird fucking shit on the weekends, but other than sitting around circle jerking his roommates, he’s got nothing on him.
“Is he still giving you trouble?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if he were. I can handle myself, Nathaniel.”
“Yes, but—”
Maddie puts her finger over my lips. “Maybe if you had consulted with me before sending out a company-wide email announcing our relationship, I wouldn’t have more issues than I already had with him.”
“We’ve discussed this. I had no other choice.”
I was in the doghouse for days after that; however, once the article about our family in the Hamptons came out, I knew every employee at work would see it.
I know more than most how important it is to get in front of the story and quickly.
Maddie was at an off-site meeting with Leo all day, with no service. I couldn’t take a chance of it blowing up in our faces.
“Just give me those. I’m too tired to talk about Linc. And you’ve made me late enough.” She takes the blueprint tubes out of my arms that she needs for an afternoon meeting and heads in the direction of her desk.
“Um, excuse me?” I call after her.
She turns back, stifling her smirk, then kisses me quickly on the lips. “Oh, I forgot to tell you…” She takes out her phone and hands it to me. “I didn’t want you to think I’m hiding anything.”
I unlock her phone, and in an instant, my jaw tightens.
“What the fuck, Madeline?”
She looks around the office, mortified by my outburst. “Will you keep your voice down?”
My eyes snap back down to where her ex has been texting her, demanding to speak to her.
“It’s my fucking company, I can yell if I want to. Has he called you?” My anger begins to simmer dangerously close to the surface.
“I haven’t picked up. It’s why he’s texting.”
I roll my neck to release some tension. “I want to speak to him next time he calls you. You’re with me now and forever until literal death. I told you before he can fuck off.”
Her eyes close, seeming just as frustrated as I am. “How many times can you say fuck?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. Out of all days in the week, today is not the day I want to be dealing with all this shit.
I’ve just gotten word that someone is contesting the new build that Amara and I have been working on in London, and I need to fly there on Saturday night.
On top of that, Enrique Calderón, a Spanish builder we’ve worked with many times before with our Building Unity charity, rejected our proposed plans early this morning.
It’s a project that my team has worked tirelessly on, and for the life of me, I don’t know why.
I hand her phone back just as it rings again, but she has a better grip and pulls it back behind her.
“For the love of God, Maddie Grace Cunningham, if you don’t let me put a stop to this, I’m going to fly down to Georgia and strangle him myself.”
“The two of you need to get out of the hall,” Lizzy whisper-shouts. “I can hear every word you’re saying.”
My hand wraps around Maddie’s elbow to lead us in the opposite direction to my office, her heels clicking quickly against the floor.
“I have too much work to deal with this right now,” she hisses, trying to keep up. “He’s calling for the ring back.”
I almost trip over my feet, not sure I’ve heard her right. “You kept the ring?” My voice rises.
She shakes her head vehemently. “Of course, not. I gave him back the engagement ring, but I have his grandmother’s cocktail ring. I can’t exactly mail it back, and if I pick up the phone, I’ll have to have a conversation.”
Speeding up my pace, I almost smash my glass door when I slam it open, and stalk into my office, right to the bar, and pour myself a scotch.
“What is wrong with you? It’s ten in the morning.”
I frost my glass walls so nosy workers won’t watch us. Luckily, it’s soundproof, so they will have no clue what we’re talking about.
“There is no conversation needed. I’ve told you twenty times I will handle it from here on out. He wants the damn ring back? I’ll have Lizzy fly out there and hand it to him. I want to move on with our lives and not have anything lingering over us.” I chug back my drink.
She walks over and massages my shoulders. “You need to take a breath. You’re going to give yourself a heart attack.” She takes my drink and pushes it aside.
“Aw, Mom and Dad are fighting.” Leo steps into my office, frowning at my scotch.
“We’re not fighting,” we answer in unison.
“Nate’s stressed,” Maddie informs him. “He ran into Caroline last night on his run.”
I glare at her. I wasn’t planning on sharing that information with anyone.
“He needed to know if you’re working together all day. You’re like a ticking bomb ready to explode.”
She’s right, and I know it.
After all these years, I hate that the woman who gave birth to me still affects me this way.
Why the fuck does it bother me that she didn’t even recognize me until one of her little minions called out my name as I turned to run in the other direction?
And what the hell was she even doing in the West Village?
Caroline Davenport has almost never ventured below 42nd Street, and even that’s a stretch.
Galas at Cipriani’s is the only reason she even goes that low, so you can imagine my shock when I crossed paths with her on Christopher Street.
Of course, I didn’t stop or say one word to her.
I know better than to waste my breath, but when I got home and my mind quieted, it really fucked with me.
Since exposing my truths to Maddie, I opened an old wound, and my childhood has been on my mind constantly. Maddie doesn’t know it, but last night, I fell asleep to the thoughts of my past until I was woken up from a nightmare.
It wasn’t me trapped. It was Claudina in my bedroom, screaming for help.
I woke up hot, sweating, and near having a panic attack.
To say I’m on edge would be an understatement.
Leo’s phone rings, so he steps out, reminding Maddie that she’s running a meeting for him today. Maddie uses this chance to turn me around and push me against my desk.
“Anyone ever tell you you’re strong as hell?”
“Nate,” she sighs, ignoring me as she cups my cheeks.
My fingers run through her long, dark hair, twirling the ends, avoiding all eye contact.
“You have me now,” she whispers, lifting my head and tapping lightly against my forehead. “Whatever’s burning you from the inside out, you share with me. That’s how we work. No more hiding your pain. I’m not your young, na?ve girlfriend anymore. I’m an adult who wants to be an equal partner.”
I drop my head. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
She kisses my forehead. “I know you think your job is to take care of everyone, but let me be the one who takes care of you. Okay?” I nod, and she wraps her arms around me for a hug. “I’m going to make you spaghetti Bolognese tonight.”
I lean back, my lips stretching wide. “Really?” She nods, a soft, loving expression on her face. When we were in college, and I had a bad day, especially if we lost a match race, she would always make her famous Bolognese to cheer me up. “And chocolate cherry cake?”
“Anything you want. I have another surprise for you later, too.” She waggles her brows.
My cock twitches, acting without permission, too familiar with that look on Maddie’s face.
“Sorry to interrupt.” Lizzy pokes her head around the door. “Mr. Calderón is on line one.”
“Fuck. I have to get this quick.” I adjust myself, kiss her dimple, then pick up the phone. “Enrique. I would say it’s a pleasure, but after the news this morning, I’d be lying.”
Maddie gestures that she has to go, and I shake my head. One minute, I mouth.
She rolls her eyes, then taps her watch. “One minute.”
“Nathaniel.” His thick Spanish accent vibrates through the phone. “Amigo mío, lo siento. Ha habido un error. ?Podrías enviar los planos a mi oficina de Nueva York?”
My chest lightens slightly when he says there’s been a mistake and that he needs the blueprints in person.
“Por supuesto. ?Para cuándo los necesitas?”
I ask when he needs them by, and he answers that he needs them within the next hour.
Fuck.
“Okay.” I switch to English. “You’ll have them.”
“Gracias. We will talk again soon. Adiós.”
I hang up and blow out a breath.
I need to leave in ten minutes to be in front of a zoning committee, and Lizzy needs to be there with me.
Maddie walks up to me and runs her hands over my shoulders, smirking. “It’s sexy when you speak Spanish.”
My brow lifts. “Whatever happened to your lessons?”
“Soon.” She frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to get the blueprints to Enrique within the hour, for what I guess is further consideration. But I need to leave with Lizzy in five, ten minutes max for my meeting. I don’t trust anyone else to do it.”
She glances down at her watch. “I’ll do it.”
“I thought you were busy.”
She shrugs. “If I can do one thing to help your stress today, I’ll do it. I can push my meeting, don’t worry. It’s internal anyway.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Maddie Grace Cunningham.” I grab her by the waist and kiss her with more meaning than is appropriate with my door open. “I love you.”
She smiles around my lips, mumbling, “I love you, too.”
“It’s going to be weird not to say that name anymore.”