Immediately finding fault with her logic, Mitch shook his head. “Not necessarily. She has family. She could come to her senses and call them, and be gone by noon.” Just because she’d been adamant last night about not contacting them didn’t mean her justifications would hold true in the light of day.
“I don’t think so.” Gracie peered behind him, looking thoughtful.
“She told me she has no money.” Mitch pressed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. The more he thought about it, the more he saw it as the most likely outcome. He’d only been able to convince her to come back to his house last night because she’d been tired, scared, and drunk. “There’s no way she’ll take any from me. What other option is there?”
“One little hitch and you’re giving up?” Gracie’s gaze raked over him, her lip curled in disgust. She started to speak, but her expression cleared as he heard the door swing open behind him. “Hey, we were talking about your car.”
Maddie slid onto her chair, all her focus on the bakery box. “I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle that problem on an empty stomach.” Her tone was light, even breezy, but Mitch thought he detected the sounds of strain underneath.
“Let me get you a piece.” Gracie jumped from the table and moved to the drawer of kitchen knives.
Mitch studied Maddie, who fidgeted in her chair but refused to look at him. What was going on in that brain of hers? With Gracie here, making her presence known, he was unable to reestablish the connection they’d had last night. With every second, Maddie felt farther out of his grasp. He didn’t like it.
It surprised him to realize he gave a shit.
He didn’t know how, but in less than twelve hours Maddie had slipped past his defenses. He continued to watch her as Gracie moved around the kitchen doing God knew what.
Even if he managed to talk her into staying, then what? Her life was a mess. She was a mess. And what did he hope to gain?
Maybe it was best to let her go. It wasn’t giving up. It was being smart.
Maddie darted a nervous glance in his direction. Her green eyes were bright. Too bright. He frowned. She’d been crying. He leaned closer to her, reaching across the table to close the gap between them. His thumb stroking her hand, he asked, “Are you all right, Maddie?”
The muscles in her neck worked as she swallowed. “Sure, I’m great.”
Before he could press, Gracie butted in and plopped a plate down in front of Maddie with about half of the cake. She pulled her hand away from him and her fingers traced the faded, blue flowered porcelain edge. “Thank you, this looks delicious.”
Mitch glowered at Gracie, mentally listing the different ways he could wring her neck.
Maddie looked around the table, auburn brows drawing together. “Where can I find a fork?”
Gracie gasped, placing a hand dramatically over her ample chest. “You don’t eat Swedish flop with a fork. Silverware ruins the texture.”
“I see.” Amusement replaced the shadows in Maddie’s eyes, and as the smile tugged those strawberry-stained lips, Mitch’s irritation with Gracie evaporated. “Well, then, I guess I’ll eat it with my hands.”
Her small, delicate finger swiped at the pink-tinged cream spilling from the flaky crust. She raised it to her mouth. Licked.
Jesus. He raked a hand through his hair and tried to think about baseball as Maddie picked up the pastry and flicked her tongue over the frosting spilling from the sides.
He gritted his teeth, his cock hardening as though he were fucking sixteen.
Oblivious to his predicament, Maddie took a bite, moaning in pure pleasure. When she’d finished chewing, she looked adoringly at Gracie. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
Gracie beamed. “I knew I was going to like you.”
Mitch dragged his mind from the gutter and said the first thing that popped into his brain. “I had your car towed this morning.”
The slice of Swedish flop stalled halfway to Maddie’s mouth. She slowly lowered it to the plate. “Did you pay for it?”
He shook his head and lied through his teeth. “No. The guy who owns the garage is a friend—he owed me a favor. It was nothing.”
The corners of Maddie’s mouth tightened. Eyes narrowed, she met his gaze in a good old-fashioned stare-down. Leaning back in his chair, he gave her his best lazy grin. He’d played this game his whole life: she could scrutinize him all day and he’d never break.
“What kind of favor?” Maddie asked. Her tone was filled with doubt.
“I drew up a will for him and his wife,” Mitch said, coolly.
“I thought you were a bartender now?”
Mitch shrugged. “What’s a little legal work among friends?”
None of the distrust cleared from Maddie’s face. She opened her mouth, presumably to grill him some more, but before she could speak, Gracie cleared her throat. “I can vouch for him, I was the witness.”
It didn’t surprise him that Gracie had picked up his lie and run with it: that was how she was. He might not understand why she was invested in having Maddie stay, but he was grateful.
“So you didn’t pay for the tow?” Maddie asked.
“No.” He didn’t have the slightest compunction about lying. He’d learned enough about her last night to know that being taken care of rubbed her the wrong way, and paying the tow fee didn’t help his case. If she was determined to leave, he couldn’t stop her, but he sure as hell didn’t want her decision made because of money.
Maddie’s head tilted to the side, sending her long ponytail waving. With her hair pulled back and her face free of makeup, she looked about eighteen.
“How much did you charge an hour?” Maddie asked. “I’ll pay you back.”
“You will not,” he said, his tone taking on a decided edge. “I had no out-of-pocket expenses and you do not owe me one cent.”
“But your time—I insist.” Maddie’s expression took on a decidedly stubborn edge he’d already learned to recognize.
“No.” As if he had a right to the final say.
She strummed her manicured nails on the table, her wheels spinning as she stared off to a spot over his left shoulder.
Gracie nudged him under the table, then jutted her chin toward Maddie.
He shook his head.
She scowled and kicked him.
Ignoring her, he moved his calf out of the line of fire. Instinct told him that it was better to let Maddie think it through than talk her into his way.
Fifteen seconds passed before Maddie straightened in her chair and shifted her attention to him. “As you know,” she said, her tone taking on a professional quality as though she were about to give a presentation, “my funds are rather . . . limited at the moment.”
Mitch nodded seriously, pressing his lips together to repress his smile. Damn, she was cute.
“However,” Maddie continued, her chin tilting even higher, “I will write you a check for your time and trouble when I return home. How much did you charge an hour?”
Mitch scrubbed his jaw with his hand, contemplating. While he wanted to argue, he decided that letting her win this round helped his overall strategy. He’d never cash the check anyway, so there was no point in the debate. His lips quirked. “I charged four hundred dollars an hour.”
She blanched, her skin turning a shade whiter. “Oh, well, I can see why you’d leave that behind. It must have been horrible to make that kind of money.”
He laughed. If she only knew. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gracie looking at him with avid speculation. “You asked, Princess.”
“Yes, I did.” Maddie blew out a breath. “Let’s back up—how much does your friend charge to tow a car?”
“Only about a hundred bucks,” Gracie chirped helpfully.
One-fifty was more like it, but Mitch wasn’t about to volunteer the information.
Maddie’s gaze narrowed. “Okay, so that’s a hundred for the tow, and I’ll call and find out the going rate at the motel. There’s food.” She turned to Gracie. “Then there’s the stuff you gave me. I’d better get a pen and paper and start a tab.”
“You are not,” Mitch said with a low threat in his voice, “starting a fucking tab.”
Gracie sputtered. “I have to agree with Mitch here. I tossed in a bunch of stuff I had lying around my house. It was nothing.”
Her defiant little chin raised another notch. “I don’t know how yet, but I’m paying my own way and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
Chapter Six
“What’s next, Princess?” Mitch asked, as silence descended over the kitchen.
Tension coiled in Maddie’s belly. With Gracie gone, she didn’t have anything to distract her from the current situation.
She picked up a napkin and dropped it primly in her lap. The list of problems waiting to be tackled grew in her mind, threatening to overtake her. She twisted the thin white paper around her finger. She didn’t know “what’s next.”
What if she failed? Fell flat on her face? It would prove to everyone how incapable she was of taking care of herself.
No. Stop
.
She would not give up. She straightened her shoulders. “I don’t know, but I’m going to figure it out.”
Amber eyes darkened. “Let me guess, you don’t want any of my help.”
The “No” hovered on her lips, but she pushed it back. She peered over his broad shoulder to study the blue and rose flower-patterned wallpaper and white cabinets, so distressed from age that they were once again in style. “You’ve already helped me. More than I can ever repay.”
“Maddie,” he said, his tone taking on the decided cadence of an exasperated male. “I gave you a place to sleep. It was nothing.”
“Easy for you to say when you’re the one with food and shelter.”
“True,” he said, scrubbing his hand over his jaw. “But if the situation was reversed, wouldn’t you have done the same?”
She looked away from the cabinets at the man causing her distress on an entirely different level from her base survival. The black T-shirt stretched over his broad chest and muscled biceps. That tribal tattoo scrolled, curling down his arm like the snake in the Garden of Eden, tempting her with lust and danger. The image of him sitting around the kitchen table in the brick bungalow she shared with her mother was so preposterous that she laughed. “God no, I live with my mom.”
A slow grin slid over his lips and some of the tension filling the room eased. “Really, now?”
Most twenty-eight-year-olds in this day and age lived in their own condos in Chicago’s trendy neighborhoods. She would have, too—she’d saved every cent of the money she’d made as her brother’s office manager to do just that. She’d even found the perfect place, but then Steve proposed.
Desperate to live on her own, she’d insisted on still getting the place, but everyone kept telling her how impractical it was to buy. How much more sense it made to save for another year and buy a house when they were married. She’d listened to lectures on the state of Chicago real estate, mortgage rates, and how the condo was too small and the plumbing was subpar. Finally, sick of the whole ordeal, she’d ripped up the check for five percent of the down payment.
Why did she
always
give in? Her hand trembled and she clutched the napkin tighter. She knew why. Guilt, pure and simple.
She’d been living with it for so long that she didn’t know how to live without it. It sat like a lump of coal in her belly, making her shoulders ache and knotting the muscles in her back.
Realizing Mitch was watching her, she shrugged. “It’s not
that
uncommon in my neighborhood.”
“And where’s your neighborhood?” A small smile softened the hard line of his jaw. He held up a hand. “Wait. Let me guess. . . . You’re a South Sider, aren’t you?”
The dispute between Chicago’s working-class South Side and the more affluent North Side was notorious and passion-filled among locals. And Mitch Riley—tattoo and ramshackle dive bar excluded—had “North Sider” written all over him. She wrinkled her nose. “And you’re probably some frat-boy, white-bread, North Sider?”
A flash of that sinful, got-to-love-me grin. “Guilty.”
She rolled her eyes. “You probably grew up someplace really ostentatious and obnoxious.”
“Winnetka, if you must know,” he said, naming one of Chicago’s wealthiest suburbs.
“Ha!” She jabbed a finger at him, her stomach easing again. “I was right.”
His gaze glimmered with warmth and something else. Something that made her nervous. Excited. His attention shifted to her lips, and the mood shifted right along with it. Heat infused her cheeks as he studied her mouth as though he had wicked plans.
Plans that might include things a good Catholic girl wasn’t supposed to think about.
“Back to the situation at hand, South Side girl.” His low voice, laced with the rumble of seduction, raised the fine hairs along the nape of her neck.
“What’s that?” Her tone was breathless, filled with anticipation. She snapped straight in her chair. What was wrong with her? Sister Margaret would be so disappointed. She cleared her throat. “Oh right, my current predicament.”
“Yeah, that.” He stretched in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach, the picture of a man who thought he had a woman right where he wanted her. “I think you want my help, and I want to help you. Why deny us? Let me.” The gleam in his eyes bordered on smug.
He thought he was slick, didn’t he? She sat back in her own chair, mirroring his oh-so-relaxed posture.
It was true. If she didn’t want to crawl home with her tail between her legs, she needed his help. There’d be no way around that.
She weighed her options and pictured calling her oldest brother. Once Shane was involved, he’d take care of everything. As honorary head of household, he considered it his duty. She wouldn’t have to lift a finger. Her car would be towed, he’d pay for the repairs, and she’d be sitting in the kitchen surrounded by her family, trying to explain her actions, by dinnertime. Steve would probably be there, too. Her temples started to pound again as she thought of them talking her to death. It would be her engagement all over again.
Steve had known she wasn’t ready to get married. She’d told him. In fact, it had been one of the few discussions in which he hadn’t been able to bend her with logical arguments that made her feel like an idiot. In her mind, she’d had the best reason. She hadn’t been ready.
But that hadn’t mattered. He’d made sure she couldn’t say no.
He’d proposed in front of her entire family at her great aunt and uncle’s sixtieth wedding anniversary. In all of the chaos and congratulations, no one had noticed she hadn’t said yes. Then her mom had looked at her, tears of joy shining in her blue eyes, and Maddie hadn’t been able to break her heart. Not again.
She pulled her thoughts away from the past to find Mitch Riley watching her with an intense look of concentration at odds with the easy posture. She had no doubt that he was a man used to getting his way, especially where women were concerned. And for whatever reason, right now, he wanted her.
She tilted her head, and her ponytail swung, the heavy weight pulling at the last remnants of her hangover. “Why?” She didn’t elaborate, because she wasn’t really quite sure what she was asking.
Amber eyes flashed, but didn’t waver. “I don’t know why. All I know is when I look at you I don’t want you to go.”
It was the best answer, the safe answer.
What woman wouldn’t want to hear those words from a man like him? Two days ago, it would have satisfied her. But two days ago, she hadn’t climbed out the church window. “As soon as my car’s fixed, I’m going back to Chicago.” It was a statement. A promise.
The laziness slid off him as he sat forward and placed his elbows on the table, nodding slowly.
“It makes sense to leave now,” she said. Another statement of the obvious.
A razor-sharp cut of a glance. “Sometimes you just have to fuck common sense and go with your gut.”
Her heartbeat kicking up a notch, she shifted in her chair. “I shouldn’t.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” The low, heated rumble of his voice made her breathless. “But you’re going to anyway.”
The words were delivered as fact without even a hint of entreaty. So why didn’t she feel coerced? Spine straight, she stuck out her chin. “If I stay, I insist on doing things my way.”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw, studying her with a pensive look. Probably wondering what he could get away with. “I have some conditions.”
“You’re not in a place to negotiate,” she said, her tone taking on a slightly haughty edge that held no real ice.
“Neither are you, Princess,” he said, his voice laced with the first traces of genuine amusement.
The tension, coiled tight between them since Gracie had left, loosened, lightening both the air and their mood.
A hint of a smile teased her lips. “I have something you want.” As soon as the words were out, she caught the underlying implication. Cheeks heating, she pressed her lips together, refusing to snatch them back.
He laughed. The sinful, decadent sound had goose bumps breaking out along her skin. “And I’ve got something you need.”
Out of her depth with the game she was playing, she said lightly, “I guess we’re at each other’s mercy.”
“I guess so.” His attention once again drifted to her mouth. “What do you want to do first?”
The triumphant gleam in his golden gaze made nerves dance in her belly. What was she getting into? Something dangerous. Something exciting. Something that had been missing for a long time: mischief. He reminded her of the wild, reckless girl she use to be, and it was addictive.
He watched her expectantly, and she realized he was waiting for her to speak.
“I called my girlfriends,” she said mildly, watching his reaction closely. “I’ll owe you for long distance.”
His expression flickered, then shuttered closed. “Long distance is included in my package. What did they say?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “They offered to wire me money.”
“And?” The word held no inflection.
“I said no.”
His shoulders dropped a fraction of an inch. “Why?”
She bit the inside of her cheek, thinking carefully about her response and then opting for honesty. “I don’t want anyone to know where I am. And I’m tired of taking the easy way out.”
“Good.” That one single word was filled with a thousand currents of electricity. “What’s next?”
Her path finally becoming clear, she straightened. “You can start by taking me to my car.”
“Here’s another one!”
Mitch shook his head, grinning like a fool as Maddie held up another quarter from between the seats of her little red Honda.
Someone would think she’d found buried treasure with every discovery of spare change. He took the coin and dropped it into the plastic bag she’d brought along. So far, she’d unearthed a couple of dollars, some spare change, her favorite lip gloss, and a stainless-steel travel coffee mug as she rifled through the automobile with impressive thoroughness.
With her ass swaying high in the air, she climbed onto the driver’s seat and dove down to scour under the passenger’s side with a flashlight. He groaned as she wiggled, her heart-shaped rear taunting him. He’d been hard more in the past fifteen hours than he’d been in the past month, and she was driving him crazy.
With her innocence, those hints of sass, her flaming hair, and her flashing eyes, she was irresistible. The longer he stood in the parking lot of Tommy’s closed garage with the hot midmorning sun beating on his back and watched her contort her tiny body into all sorts of interesting positions, the more he wanted her. He had to force himself to not grab her, strip her naked, and have his way with her.
The thing that really killed him was that he could. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t touched her. Some things a man just knew. Attraction burned a hot, almost a palpable thing between them.
Time was limited, but still, he ignored temptation.
He wiped a bead of sweat from his temple, wondering if the change in his previous MO where women were concerned should worry him.
One smooth leg flexed as she stretched another inch and whooped excitedly. “I found a sawbuck!”
Fuck it. How much damage could a couple of days cause?
She whipped around, sending her ponytail flying as she waved the ten-dollar bill. Cheeks flushed with the thrill of discovery, eyes gleaming like sparkling emeralds, she giggled. “My dad used to call it that.”
One brow rising, he stared at the bill. A trickle of unease dimmed some of his enjoyment over watching her squirm. He mentally tallied her available funds before breathing a sigh of relief. Still not enough for even the cheapest, seediest hotel.
He peered in the car. It looked as though a tornado had blown through it. How much more money could she find? She’d already combed through the backseat, so he should be safe.
He had no idea why her staying under his roof had become vitally important, but it had. He wasn’t going to think about how much she made him sweat. He’d just enjoy how she made him laugh and how his pulse kicked up when he looked at her, and remember what it felt like to be alive instead of numb.
He plucked the bill from her fingers and dropped it into the bag. “Oh, what did your dad say looking at this mess of a car?”
Her expression clouded over with the suddenness of a summer storm. She blinked, hands clasping in her lap. “Nothing. He died.”
Ah, fuck. He took a step closer and kneeled down. He brushed a finger over her cheek. “I’m sorry, Maddie.”
More rapid blinking, as if she was suppressing unshed tears. “It’s okay. It was a long time ago.” She shrugged one small shoulder, her lower lip quivering the tiniest bit. “I keep thinking about him. This morning . . .” She paused, and the delicate muscles in her neck worked as she swallowed. “The Swedish flop reminded me of him. He used to get one every Sunday morning.”
That explained the trip to the bathroom. He stroked a thumb over her jaw, aching to kiss away her grief. “I’m sorry.”
Bright eyes, an impossible shade of green, met his. “It was an accident.”
At a loss for what to say, he curved his hand around her neck, working his fingers gently over the tight muscles there. “That must have been terrible for you.”