Crazy Thing Called Love (11 page)

There was a scuffle off camera and then a beautiful blond woman leaned into the frame, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Tara!” Billy cried, clearly surprised.

“The fighting thing,” she said. “It’s a problem. You can tell he doesn’t love it like he pretends to.”

The blonde darted back off screen, revealing a wincing Luc.

“Sorry, Billy,” he muttered.

Back to Sandra, who was still ticking on her fingers. “Three: chews with his mouth open. Four: opens beers with his teeth if he has to. Five: he’s a full-grown man and all he knows how to cook is toast.”

“That’s not true,” Billy protested. “I make great pot roast.”

Maddy stared at him incredulously.

“What?” He shrugged as if it wasn’t the strangest thing. “My mom taught me.”

She knew firsthand that his mother’s pot roast was barely edible, but she turned back to the screen.

The clip went on for another forty seconds, players talking about how rude he was. The Mavericks’ manager told a story about Billy getting into a fight at a restaurant.

Jan just kept laughing.

Finally, the lights came up and Maddy could see that the people in the crowd were grinning at one another as if they were all in on the joke.

Gold. This was pure gold.

As good as she was at her job, this feeling, this moment, was rare. Rare because it was effortless. Over the
years, there had been some great segments, but they had required a lot of work. That was her job, making the difficult look easy. But this … this was simple.

This was fun.

Whatever was outside the studio was irrelevant. She needed none of it. All she needed was the audience, her staff and crew, and a story to tell.

Billy.

It was like she was thirteen all over again, and he was magnetic. So compelling she couldn’t look away. He was sweeping her back into his tide.

“Well,” Billy said, looking as abashed as a man with such a scar and such a twinkle in his eyes could, “I guess I need some help.”

“And we’re here to give it. Are you ready?”

“Will you be gentle with me?” he asked, taking her hand in his giant mitt.

Careful here, Madelyn
, she tried to warn herself, but instead she gripped his hand right back. Diving headlong into the contact. A firm shake. Partners, teammates, whatever. For the segment, she’d commit.

For this feeling she’d do anything.

“Sorry, buddy, there’s nothing gentle about it.” She turned to the studio audience and winked. “Makeovers are a brutal business, aren’t they?”

They roared and Billy hung his head.

“This is going to be bad,” he muttered.

“Join us next Friday,” she laughed and told the cameras. “For day one of the Billy Wilkins Project. We’re going to bring in a tailor and get this hockey player a new suit and some black socks.” Shaking her head she glanced over at Billy. “Really? Athletic socks with dress shoes?”

“At least the socks match.”

“Tim from the Man Room Spa and Salon will give
Billy an updated look. Tell me, Billy, have you ever heard of manscaping?”

Billy didn’t have to fake his fear. He shook his head. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” She rose from her chair, still holding Billy’s hand, and he stood up with her. The two of them facing a wall of excited women. “Join us on Friday, guys. This is going to be fun!”

The theme music swelled up around them and the red lights on the cameras went dark.

“We’re clear,” Peter called and the stage was swarmed.

She immediately dropped Billy’s hand, but he wouldn’t let go. As she pulled away, he yanked her toward him, holding her in his arms, surrounding her with his size and strength, the warmth and smell of him.

Her eyes closed and before she could stop herself, she squeezed him right back. Holding him hard against her body in sheer jubilation.

She could feel the sweat under his jacket, smell it on his neck. He’d been nervous, but he’d managed to keep his shit together.

“You did great,” she whispered.

“You are amazing.”

His breath teased her neck, setting off alarms in her body. The adrenaline of the show was a powerful aphrodisiac and she wanted—for one wild, breathless moment—to kiss him. Press herself full-tilt against him. Test her nails and her teeth and her sex against his strength.

Lust roared through her, opening up every nerve ending, every synapse, every pore. Her skin was a giant receptor and she twitched with sensation. Shook with it.

Sex. Oh God, suddenly she wanted to have sex. With Billy.

She tore herself away from him, pushing him back.

He gave her a confused look, his arms by his sides.

“Maddy?”

Without another word, she turned and left. Leaving all that victory, tainted now, colored by her foolish lust, on the set behind her.

Billy watched Maddy walk away, half aware that three people were surrounding him. Someone took off his mic. That Ruth woman was telling him what a great job he’d done. Phil shook his hand. And still Billy was barely paying attention.

If the last ten minutes had proven anything, it was that he’d been right to come here. He’d been right to think this show might be a second chance for them. She might not see it that way right now, but it was clear to him. Obvious. As obvious as the lust she’d been feeling just seconds ago.

Maddy was right, she was a different person than the girl she’d been. More exciting. More interesting. More realized. Like all the promise in that young girl had not only been fulfilled, but surpassed.

And they were still good together, better than good. They fit, when the whole rest of the world chafed, she fit him perfectly.

In the shadows past the set he could see the green of Maddy’s shirt as she made her way back to her office.

Where she was going to fix the cracks in her armor. She would convince herself that what just happened between them on the stage—the connection they’d felt—was nothing. A mistake.

“No,” he muttered.

“Sorry?” Phil asked.

Billy shook his head, “Sorry, man, give me a second, would you?”

Maddy could pretend all she wanted, but they were good together. There was magic between them. And he wanted her out of that armor. He wanted her naked and real and in his arms.

He took off after her.

He nearly threw
the door to her office off its hinges when he pushed it open.

“Whoa, what’s the rush, Billy?” Maddy asked from where she sat in front of her mirror. Her hair was pulled back, her face slick and free of makeup. Her eyes empty of all that fire … that excitement and lust she’d revealed just a few minutes ago.

Every ounce of anger he’d swallowed since agreeing to this ridiculous proposition roared through him.

Finally. Thank God. A fight. A fight he could win.

He kicked the door shut.

“Holy—”

“Maddy, you can’t pretend that wasn’t great.”

“I told you,”—her smile was bright, fake,—“you did a great job. The segment—”

“Fuck the segment, Maddy.”

Maddy stood, heading for her desk. “It’s Madelyn.”

“You are Maddy. You’ll always be Maddy. And what was great out there was us. We did a great job. We … Christ, Maddy, I know it’s scary.”

“Scary? It’s my job.”

Frustrated, sweaty, and miserable, he grabbed her. Her shoulders fit the curve of his hands so perfectly. Like always. Like a key he’d lost somewhere along the way.

Her gasp was kindling to what burned inside of him.
She didn’t fight him. Thank God—he didn’t know what he would have done if she had.

She put her hand against his chest and it burned right through his clothes, past his skin and muscle, down to his blood and bones. She was in him.

And then like some kind of miracle, like some kind of divine gift, she was kissing him.

After years of being out of his life, Maddy was kissing him again. Her lips were soft and full, lush against his. Her hands were urgent, but never cruel. Never rough. They threaded through his hair, holding him close. Closer.

His tongue touched hers, old friends finding each other after years apart. Her hips were so thin under his hands, but no less exciting. No less her. His Maddy.

Relaxing into the kiss, into her, the years fell away and it was better than everything that had happened on the ice in the last decade and a half.

It was perfect.

“Madelyn, I’ve got your water and some—” The door flew open and Madelyn shoved him away. He stumbled back into a chair and whirled toward the doorway.

“Sorry,” a startled brunette said, putting the water down and making a rapid retreat.

The door shut behind her and the silence was profound. Choking.

Billy didn’t have the words to convince Maddy not to freak out, that it was okay to trust him. That he wasn’t the boy he’d been. He was a man, and he could take care of her. He could honor her. The past was gone, burnt and buried, but right now, at this very moment, they could change their future.

Carefully, knowing how thin the ice was beneath his feet, he touched her shoulder, curled his hand there, a finger resting patiently against the pulse in her neck.

Please
, he thought,
have a little faith. A little faith in me
.

But then she shrugged him away, crossing to the other side of the room.

“Leave,” she whispered. “Please.”

“Maddy—”

She took a deep breath and looked at him dead center. Right into his black soul. “It’s Madelyn. Now get out of my office.”

It was the Snuggie that did it.

A six mile run. A long-distance phone conversation with her mother about the weather in Miami. An hour of yoga. None of it put a dent in her fever.

But the Snuggie was the tipping point.

As Madelyn waited to give her credit card number to the woman on the phone at three o’clock in the morning, she knew that the empty pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream on the floor and the Bumpits hair accessory she’d ordered twenty minutes ago were all flash. Distraction from the real problem.

Just watch some porn and be done with it
, she told herself.

Now that she was mentally and physically exhausted from trying to banish the desire still rumbling through her body, she could be honest.

She didn’t want porn.

She wanted Billy.

And she could order all the Kenny Rogers greatest hits CD sets in the world (CDs? Who bought CDs anymore? Besides … well, her, obviously), but it didn’t change the fact that she wanted to have sex with her ex-husband.

You’re better than this
, she said to herself, trying to start a rally, but her heart wasn’t interested in rallying. Her heart was interested in sex.

And since sex wasn’t available, she’d make do with more ice cream … and possibly a Magic Bullet food
processor, because she’d cook more if she had something that made fresh restaurant-style salsa in less than ten seconds.

That was how these infomercials got her, they found the cracks in her perfect life and turned them into chasms.

And kissing Billy Wilkins and getting caught by her segment producer? Oh, the cracks in her life were deep and plentiful.

Thank God Sabine would keep her mouth shut.

This—this kissing, this teenage mooning, this fever in her blood and ache between her legs—it was the first step in a terrible pattern.

It started off with kissing. And he was so utterly irresistible, so totally exciting, that the kissing would lead to sex. And the sex … the sex would be epic. Addictive. And he would look at her like she was the only person in the world that mattered. And she would slowly, a piece at a time, start giving herself away to him. Bits of her time and her energy, things she’d convince herself she didn’t need. And from there it would grow. Until suddenly Maddy would find herself all alone, a stranger to herself.

Again.

But God, she wanted to have sex with him.

Shifting on the couch, her foot kicked over the ice cream container. She glanced down at the congealed green fat in the bottom of the pint and felt her stomach turn. She’d eaten herself sick.

Gina was going to have a conniption.

“This is your idea of professionalism?” she muttered.

You need a new plan
.

Tilting her head, she looked at the green ice cream in a new light.

Okay, so she wanted to have sex with Billy. Badly. Every woman who had sustained a diet for as long as
she had knew that sometimes you had to give in to the craving. You had to eat the ice cream until you didn’t want it anymore. You had to eat it until your tongue was coated with milk fat solids and artificial sweeteners. You had to eat until your teeth hurt and your stomach rolled and you were filled, utterly filled, with the disgust that came free with each pint.

The key was making sure it was only one pint of ice cream. Not a lifetime supply.

Excitement and confidence coiled and danced through her. She could do this.

He might have come back into her life under the delusion that there was a future for them, but she knew that was impossible.

And having sex with him was not the same as agreeing with him.