Page 24

Mindy

“Mindy, it’s time to wake up.”

Maddox's sultry voice hums in my ear. “No. Don’t wanna wake up.” I reach out to pull him closer. This dream is too perfect. Dream Maddox is all mine. He’s a cuddler.

“You need to wake up and eat.”

Food. Dream Maddox and food. Perfect.

“I know you need more sleep. But why don’t you wake up and eat a little? Then you can go right back to sleep.”

Dream Maddox says all the right things. “Don’t wanna.”

Dream Maddox’s rough chuckle sends shivers through my body.

“Mindy, baby, it’s time to wake up.”

Baby? Dream Maddox would never call me that. My eyes pop open to find thick dark hair in my face.

It’s short. Too short to be my own. “Let me go!”

“Can’t do that. You’re the one holding on to me.”

That’s definitely Maddox’s voice, which means—I let go and the head pulls away.

No.

No.

No.

“How are you feeling?”

Mortified. Completely and thoroughly embarrassed. If my mother saw this, I would have been disowned. Or killed on the spot.

Maybe both.

Maddox smiles at me.

What does that mean?

Has he decided I’ve gone nuts?

What has my life come to that the scariest man I know is smiling at me like you do a wild dog that you’re trying to entice with treats? “I’m fine.” That’s a total lie. My body wants to go back to sleep for a week. “Where am I? How long have I been asleep?”

“You’re in my office. And you’ve been asleep for a little over eight hours.”

EIGHT HOURS! I sit up and try to orient myself. “Why did you let me sleep so long? I need to get to work. How am I going to catch up? No. No. No. This isn’t happening. I don’t have time for this. I need to work. Don’t worry. I’ll get the snakes all taken care of.” It’s going to take all night. How am I going to recover from this?

“No, you won’t.”

Maddox’s hard voice pulls me out of my panicked state.

“What you’re going to do is eat dinner and relax for a little bit. Then I’ll drive you home.”

Eat? Relax? There’s no time for that. “I can’t. There’s no way I can make up the hours. And the snakes need their cages cleaned.”

“All the cages are taken care of. And there’s no need to make up hours.”

But I need to get paid. I can’t afford to lose all that money.

“What I just said isn’t optional. It’s what you’re going to do.”

“And if I don’t?” Why did I say that? Every fiber of my being wants to eat whatever it is that’s sitting under those domes and sleep for another ten hours.

Maddox leans back, giving a clear view of all those luscious, rippling muscles under his henley.

A girl could catch herself drooling if she isn’t careful.

“If you try to work, I’ll toss you over my shoulder and bring you to Louisella’s house. After she’s fed you, put you to bed for a week, and told you what’s what, you’ll beg me to take you back.”

He wouldn’t. Would he?

Maddox looks dead serious. Like he’s just waiting to throw me over his shoulder.

Not going to lie, that part sounds kinda sexy, the rest, though, is completely terrifying. “I could eat.”

“Glad you saw it my way. Do you need me to carry you over to the table, or can you walk?”

Temptation sits in front of me, urging me to let the sexy man carry me. To revel in the feel of his arms around me. To pretend even for a moment that there’s a man that loves me. “I can walk.”

“Okay then.” He stands up and takes a single step back.

My body aches from lying in one spot for such a long time. It needs a long slow stretch, but that would be too awkward with him watching. I stand up and the blanket I forgot about falls to the ground. Maddox grabs it before my brain can even process that I need to pick it up.

“Are you cold? Would you like to use this while you eat?”

And get that incredibly soft blanket dirty. “No, thank you.”

He frowns and places it on the arm of the couch I was sleeping on.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Comfort food.” He lifts the lid on two massive bowls of potato soup, two chicken pot pies, and the biggest slice of apple pie I’ve ever seen.

There’s no way we should be able to even come close to finishing all that food. But I’m sure going to give it a try.

“What would you like to drink?”

Beer would go amazing with this meal, but I’m far too sleepy to drink. I’m liable to say something I’ll regret later. “Water would be great. Thank you.”

The creamy potato soup calls to me first. I give it a little stir and scoop up the perfect bite of potato, onion, and sausage. “Hmmm.”

“Good?” Maddox opens a glass bottle of water and sets it down in front of me before opening his own and sitting down.

It takes all my decades of ingrained manners to stop piling the food down my throat and answer him. “Delicious.”

We eat in companionable silence for a long time. It’s hard not to stare at Maddox.

Why did I have to end up with a boss who looks like him and, even worse, is kind and thoughtful? It would be so much easier to avoid staring at him if he was neither of those things.

“Maddox.” A teenage boy storms into his office.

Is that his brother?

They look nothing alike, but that doesn’t mean anything.

“I’m busy,” Maddox snaps out.

The boy actually looks where we’re sitting. “Oh.”

“Go away, Everett.”

It seems Everett doesn’t listen very well because he walks right over to our table, pulling up a chair as he does.

“Hi, I’m Everett Jaymes.” The boy holds out a hand like we’re being formally introduced.

“Nice to meet you, Everett. My name is Mindy Peters.”

He leans forward. “So are you dating Maddox?”

I laugh at the ridiculousness of that question. Like Maddox would date a woman like me. “No.”

“Are you one of the grown-up kids?”

Huh? That makes no sense.

“Everett.” Maddox’s tone is scary.

“I’m just being friendly. I’ve never met Mindy before and I’ve met everyone on The Street. What do you do around here, Mindy? You don’t look like you’re in security or business.”

The kid is precocious and not in the least bit scared of Maddox. They’ve got to be related. “I take care of the snakes.”

His eyes go wide. “She gets to play with the snakes.”

“Only the non-spicy ones,” I clarify.

“She’s trained to handle them,” Maddox adds.

“But she’s not a brother.”

“Everett, chill.”

I freeze for the boy.

Everett nods at Maddox. “Fine. Whatever.” He turns back to me. “Are you sure you two aren’t dating? You look perfect for each other.”

Looks can be deceiving.

“Why did you come to my office?” Maddox asks.

A switch flips in the kid’s head. “I need to talk to you about Levi.”

I can almost feel Maddox sigh and roll his eyes, but he holds on to his patience. “Levi is fine. I’m getting daily updates from the rehab center.”

Rehab? Who’s Levi and why is he in rehab?

“Levi might be doing fine, but Jordan is worried about his brother.”

Aww. That sounds hard. Ottilie worried the entire time her brother was there, too.

Those words transform Maddox’s face. He goes from irritated to concerned. “They don’t allow visitors for the first few weeks. I can get the therapist to see Jordan.”

“He doesn’t trust them. Jordan needs to talk to his brother to see with his own eyes that it’s helping.”

Does anyone? Winnie went to them all through school and hated it.

“I’ll contact the rehab center and arrange a call. Then, as soon as they allow visitors, I’ll arrange for the jet to take Jordan to see his brother.”

Maddox really cares about his family. He’d make a great father one day. Or are Everett, Levi, and Jordan his kids? That’s possible. Maddox would have had to have started pretty young. But Everett certainly acts like his kid, ignoring Maddox and doing whatever he wants.

Wouldn’t he want to see his child just as much?

“Can I go too? Just to support Jordan. All of this is really hard on him.”

Maddox stares at Everett for a long minute before asking, “Do you want to go to fly on the jet?”

Everett shakes his head. “Nah. I’ve been on a few of them, and don’t really like flying.”

“You can go.”

“Thanks.” Everett jumps up. “I’ll go tell Jordan. It was nice meeting you, Mindy. You should think about dating Maddox. He’s a really good guy.” The kid runs off just like he came in.

That was weird. I feel like I learned so much about Maddox, but have so many questions. The thing about asking questions is that it invites people to ask you questions, so I stay silent.

***

“The apple pie has caramel and chocolate in it.” It tastes so much like a warm caramel apple.

“Try it with the salted caramel ice cream.” Maddox opens a thermos I hadn’t noticed and scoops some ice cream onto my plate.

“Mmmmmm.” I let the flavors play in my mouth, creating the most delicious orchestra on my tongue. “You can feed me like this anytime.”

“Dinner tomorrow then.”

I can hardly say no after that. Not to mention, I really don’t want to. “Sounds good.”

“Maybe we can try another game tomorrow night.”

So you have a chance at winning? “Sounds good.” I lean back and push my plate away. Even though I want to clean off every speck of food from it and then lick it clean, I can’t fit another bite in my all-too-full belly. A yawn escapes.

“Time to take you home.”

“Are you sure? I can work for a few hours—”

“No more work for you today. And I’ll send a car for you tomorrow at ten in the morning to bring you to work.”

I open my mouth to respond.

“None of these are optional.”

Ten! I can sleep in until ten! Don’t think about the lost hours. “Okay.”

***

“Mindy. Time to wake up. You need to enter the codes to get into your apartment.”

Apartment! My eyes pop open. “I fell asleep again, didn’t I?”

“Sure did. Remind me to never let you drive. Cars seem to put you to sleep.” Maddox is squatting down next to the open door of his sports car.

Who drives a sports car in the city? Someone who owns a jet and could care less about how much it costs to park the things. “I’ll have you know I’m a great driver.” That might be a tiny exaggeration. I’m a fair to okay driver, but I haven’t managed to kill us on any of our road trips.

Maddox’s half smile, half smirk says he doesn’t believe a word of that nonsense. “You okay to walk, or do you need me to carry you up?”

That’s the second time today he’s offered to carry me. And each time I want to say yes even more. Does he have any idea what the thought of a man like him carrying a woman does to my system, to any woman’s?

Probably not. He’s just a nice guy… a scary, sexy, nice guy. With incredibly muscular thighs, that I’m probably failing to not stare at. “I can walk.”

Maddox stands up and holds out a hand to me.

He’s chivalrous too!

Why couldn’t he be my one divorce? Because men like him don’t date, let alone marry, the girl next door. They marry supermodels and produce supermodel kids for the next generation to be jealous of.

I take his hand and step out.

He shifts that hand to my side as we walk through the doors.

My brain imagines all sorts of impossible things for a man who just wanted to see me home safely. We stop outside the door to my new apartment, and I turn to face him, ending up way too close to his chest again. “Thank you for today. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all that you and Canyon did to help me.”

Maddox stands there, silently staring at me. What do I do? “Well, um, thanks again.” I unlock the door and open it to find Adonis sprawled across the couch in just his pajama bottoms.

Life hates me.