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“Yes,” he agreed, as though she hadn’t just hurled an insult at him. “You should probably think twice before making an enemy of me. I’m much more fun to be friends with, you know…”
CHAPTER TWO
BE FRIENDS WITH HIM? YEAH right, she fumed, as she shoved her shirt off over her head and reached for the bathroom tap, turning it on and wetting her hands. She gingerly tapped at her chest—the cocktail had made her skin sticky. She looked longingly at the shower but the very idea of stripping naked in his palatial ensuite was anathema to Maddie. She wanted this to be a surgical operation—in and out of his penthouse suite in sixty seconds, if she could manage it. She dabbed at her chest, then reached for the shirt he’d handed her. Way too big, as he’d said, but with the buttons done up and the tails tucked into her jeans, it would at least do the job of getting her home without incident.
She took a few additional seconds to tame her wayward hair and out of nowhere, a childhood memory cut through her, so intense it took her breath away. Her mother, with her own riot of auburn curls, reaching out and running a hand over Maddie’s. “Like wildfire,” she’d smiled. “Wildfire and magic.” Maddie’s heart had lifted, because she loved her mom and when her mom said things like that, she felt as though she was the beginning and end of her mother’s whole existence. Wasn’t that the way it was meant to be? Maybe. Maybe, until it wasn’t.
Until you ceased to exist, even to your own mother.
She ground her teeth and backed out of the ensuite, striding through the large bedroom with the king-size bed and panoramic views of New York city, trying not to visualize Rocco in this space, and how he would inhabit it. The bed, the room, the splendour of it all. How at home he would be, somewhere like this, in contrast to how completely out of her depth Maddie felt.
Was it any wonder he couldn’t appreciate the charm and uniqueness of a row of old weatherboard two story homes with their tin roofs and peeling paint? Their wrap around decks with porch swings and ancient potted plants? Lawns that all ran together, because these houses had been built before neighbours decided they wanted to put fences up between themselves. These were houses from a bygone era, when the people you lived near were more than just friends—they were like family.
Her throat thickened but she refused to give into the sentimentality of those thoughts here. She’d entered the dragon’s lair; she had no intention of letting him see her without her shields raised.
“Better?”
He’d poured two glasses of wine, ice cold, buttery yellow, in elegant crystal glasses that had a fine bead of perspiration courtesy of the temperature of the drinks.
“Thank you,” she clipped out, though he was the last man on earth she felt like thanking. “I’ll send the shirt back to you in the morning.”
“Keep it,” he shrugged. Of course. Despite the fact it was a designer brand. What did Rocco Santoro care about a thousand-dollar piece of cotton? He probably had a hundred of the things.
“Whatever.” She couldn’t keep the disapproval from her tone. She hesitated though before leaving, because there seemed to be something more she should say. Some line she needed to draw to clarify her position. “So…we understand each other?”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Then allow me to clarify. I want you to stay away from us.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Of course you can,” she crossed her arms and when his eyes dropped lower it had nothing to do with the spilled drink and her body’s response couldn’t be even partially attributed to the coolness of the cocktail. Her breath was husky when she spoke. “It’s as simple as losing his number.”
“I’ve spent tens of millions of dollars on this venture already. I have no intention of walking away, no matter how many times you huff and puff at me.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you…laughing at me?”
“I’m being honest,” he said, but his lips quirked in a way that sparked fire in her bloodstream. “I want his house; I intend to get it.”
“You think it’s that simple?”
“Nothing worth having is ever really simple.”
“How erudite. Did you get that out of a fortune cookie?”
He laughed, a gruff, low rumble. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a condescending snob?”
“You’re calling me a snob?” she gestured around the penthouse.
“Sure. You act like you’re better than everyone, like working to make money is a sin.”
She gawped at him, shocked to her core. “I don’t act like I’m better than everyone,” she said after a pause that crackled with animosity. “I think I’m better than you, but that’s not saying much. I mean, the whole world knows that you put money above anyone and everyone and have done it all your life. You’re famous for it.”
“Yes, the internet is full of lovely facts about my life,” he muttered, dragging a hand through his hair.
“Whose fault is that?”
“Mine, I’m supposing?”
