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Fury built to a raging inferno inside her. How dare he use her, play with her because he was bored and she was the only available female in the building? Sam Hudson was a playboy, a man who took women to his bed and discarded them, finding another plaything soon after he was done with the last one. Did the man have a conscience? Did he care about no one but himself?
Maddie wanted to curl up into a little ball to protect herself, shamed by the way she had responded to Sam even though he was a complete dog. What kind of a person did that make her?
She shrugged away from him, turning to sprint for the door.
“Maddie. Wait.” Sam’s voice was husky, pleading, demanding.
He grasped her arm, swinging her to face him before she was able to get to the door. Maddie glared at him, her fury and fear battling for dominance. “Don’t touch me again. Ever. I’m not the stupid, naïve woman you once knew. I trusted you once, and I forgave myself because I was young. I won’t do it again. I don’t have the excuse of youth to even justify being that stupid.”
“You still want me,” Sam answered vehemently, his eyes raking over her body, settling on her face.
Looking him straight in the eye, she answered angrily, “No, I don’t. My body might respond to a gorgeous man, but it’s just physiological, a sexual reaction. You,” she poked a hand to his chest as she spat out, “mean absolutely nothing to me anymore.”
“You want me to fuck you until you scream. I can still make you purr, Kitten,” he told her arrogantly, a satisfied smirk on his face.
She shrugged, trying to force down her violent desire to slap the conceited look from his handsome face. “I wouldn’t know. You’ve never fucked me. And you never will.”
Wrenching her arm from his hold, Maddie vaulted through the office door, scooping her jacket from the hook by the reception desk and bolting through the lobby and out the front door of the clinic. Maddie didn’t look back. She couldn’t. One of Hudson’s security officers escorted her to her car and Maddie drove away like she was a convicted criminal with the law on her tail, wanting nothing more than to get as far away from Sam as she could possibly get.
Maddie drove in a daze, two words playing through her hazy brain like a broken record.
Never again.
Never again.
Sam Hudson walked slowly through the reception area of the clinic, lost in his own thoughts. What the hell had just happened? He’d stopped to see if Maddie was okay, concerned that she was still at the clinic so late, a quick stop to make sure all was okay. Damn. Could he ever see the woman and not want to possess her, make her want him as much as he wanted her.
You’ve never gotten over her. You probably never will. She’s haunted you for years. She got under your skin like a sliver of wood that’s always a little bit raw and irritated, never working its way out again.
Stepping outside, Sam closed the outside door behind him. He glanced at one of his security officers. “Can you lock up?”
The man nodded. “Yes sir. Hope your meeting with Dr. Reynolds went okay.”
Sam barked a humorless, self-mocking laugh. “Yeah. It was very informative.” He lifted a hand to the other guards as he departed, making his way to his vehicle.
Yep. That meeting had gone really well, he thought darkly as he stepped into his Bugatti and started the engine.
You never even said you were sorry.
Her words tormented him, would probably always torture him now. “Fuck!” Sam slammed his fist against the steering wheel in frustration. Nope. He hadn’t ever said he was sorry. Then again, Maddie had never given him the chance. Still, he should have said it, found a way to apologize. He hadn’t had a chance back then, and he had just blown his second chance a few minutes ago.
What was it about Maddie that made him lose his reason?
You’re acting like an asshole because she doesn’t really care about you anymore and it’s eating you alive. You might be able to have her body if you seduce her…but never her heart. Never again.
Once, years ago, Maddie had looked at him with eyes that sparkled with admiration, adoration. One stupid action, one idiotic incident, and he had washed that look from her beautiful eyes forever.
Leaning his forehead against the steering wheel, he closed his eyes, still able to picture the Maddie who had looked at him with respect and affection even when he hadn’t had two pennies to rub together. It was ironic: now that he was one of the wealthiest men in the world, that she eyed him like a bug that needed to be squashed, a rodent that needed to be exterminated.
You’ll see her again. She’ll be forced to talk to you for Simon and Kara’s wedding.The wedding was being held in his home, so Maddie wouldn’t have a choice. He was the best man and she was the maid of honor. Maddie would have to at least be civil, and Sam knew she would. She was considerate and loyal to anyone she considered a friend. Her own feelings would take a back seat to making sure Kara had a happy wedding, one with no hassles or ugliness.
And no matter how Maddie treats me, no matter how she looks at me, I won’t be a dick to her.
Sam sat back in his seat with a heavy sigh and put his car in gear, wondering ifthatwere even possible anymore. Truth was, the years had changed him, made him into a man that he wasn’t at all certainheliked anymore.
Find a woman, someone to take your mind off Maddie.
Snapping his seatbelt on as he backed out of the parking space, Sam took a deep breath and ran through a mental list of willing females…until he caught a tantalizing smell, an elusive scent that clung tenaciously to his sweater.Herfragrance. A reminder of what had just occurred in her office.