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“God damn it…Why are you so touchy around her? You’re not usually like this.”
Spike shifted his weight from foot to foot and then made himself take a deep breath. His temples were pounding even though he’d only had one glass of vodka the night before.
“Look, just leave it, okay? But tell her I’m sorry if she’s upset.”
“I want you to go with her.”
He shook his head. “Scuse me, Sean, but have we been having two different conversations here? I’ve said I won’t and I mean it.”
“But you’d be perfect, and no, not to drive her half brother around the bend. It’s just you don’t give a crap about all that social stuff and you won’t be offended by anything Richard says or does to you. And if you went, she wouldn’t be alone.”
“First of all, Madeline Maguire is not the kind of woman who needs support troops.”
“When it comes to her family, she does.”
“Secondly, why doesn’t she call on one of her real friends?”
“She doesn’t have any.”
Spike opened his mouth, prepared to go on to his third point, when he actually heard what Sean said. “What?”
Sean threw up his hands. “Mad’s…She keeps to herself and there are some damn good reasons why she doesn’t trust people. The only folks she’s at all close to are the members of the sailing crew she’s on—”
“So why doesn’t she ask one of them?”
“They’re stuck repairing a boat in the Bahamas. Look, there’s some bad stuff going on with her half brother that she’s going to have to deal with. You’d be a great buffer. And maybe something will…happen between you and her.”
“Whatever.”
“She likes you. She told me so.”
Spike looked at the sidewalk, unable to believe his friend. “Don’t—”
“Go. Please.”
“I can’t.”
“Yeah, you can.”
“No, I can’t.”
“If not for her, than as a favor to me? Come on, Spike, I’ve waited for years for that woman to notice a man. She sees you. Last night, she spent the whole party waiting for you to walk through the door. She’s really—”
“Stop.” God, something close to panic was fanning in his chest. He had to open his mouth to breathe. “Sean, I don’t—”
“I know you like her—”
“Just…stop it.” His voice sounded choked, even to him, and Sean obviously thought the same thing because the guy shut up.
Spike rubbed his hair. “Ah, hell, buddy…You’re right, I do like her. She is special. I would love to be with her. But even if she was attracted to me, and I don’t think she is in spite of what you say, I’m not the kind of man she’s going to want to be with or bring home.”
“What a load of horse—” Sean ended the statement with a four-letter word. “I haven’t known you very long, but you’re one of my best friends. And I’m a damn good judge of character. So is Mad, by the way.”
“Sean, listen to me. I’m not right for her.”
“Why? Give me one damn good reason. And it better not be the tats on your neck because I know for a fact they turn women on.”
Spike looked down at his combat boots. Took a deep breath. “You say you haven’t known me long? Well, you also don’t know a lot about me. I’ve got a heavy-duty past, O’Banyon.”
“Like what?”
Spike exhaled on a shudder. God, was he really going to do this?
He locked stares with Sean.
Yeah, he thought, he really was.
“Five and a half years at Comstock for manslaughter. That’s maximum-security prison, Sean, and I did the crime. I killed a man. I killed him with my bare hands and I went to prison for it.”
As his friend’s hazel eyes peeled wide open, Spike wanted to curse. Damn it, he didn’t want to lose Sean over this, he really didn’t. But it wasn’t like you could soft-pedal what he’d done. A human life taken was a shocking thing, as it should be.
“That’s some hard time,” Sean murmured. “How old were you?”
“Twenty-four when I did what I did. Twenty-five when I went in.”
“Would you do it again?”
“If the circumstances were the same? Yeah. I would.”
There was a long pause. “What happened?”
“Someone was beating my sister with a baseball bat. While screaming that he loved her. It was her life or her abuser’s. I picked her.”
Sean’s shoulders eased up. “I’m glad you told me. And not just because of Mad.”
“So do you understand why I can’t go with her? Why I couldn’t pursue her even if she’d have me?”
“No, actually, I don’t. I’m willing to bet that if you told—”
“Already tried that on a woman once. Most females don’t feel comfortable around a killer and I can’t blame them. What I did…it doesn’t sit well with me, either.”
“Mad’s not most women.”
Spike shrugged. “Maybe so. But I know for sure she could find someone better to help her out of this little family storm she’s heading into.”
“I think you underestimate her.” Sean shook his head. “Still, it’s your decision. And no, I won’t tell her anything.”
“Except that I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
There was another long silence between them. Spike could feel Sean searching his face and knew the guy was running through all the implications of what had been revealed. Someone like Sean O’Banyon, big, fancy, finance guru that he was, was not going to want to hang with a violent felon, not with the high profile the guy had.
“It’s okay, Sean,” Spike said softly. “I understand.”
“Understand what?”
“No prejudice, man. You and I can just go our separate ways. I’ll disappear quietly.”
Sean’s lips thinned as he glowered. “Let me get this straight. You think I’d dump your friendship because of this?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“You’re such a lunatic.”
Before Spike could say another word, two meaty arms shot out and pulled him into a fierce hug. Sean clapped him on the back hard enough to make his molars sing and then let go.
“Here’s the deal, Spike. I’ve got a juvenile record that has been thankfully buried somewhere in a courthouse back in South Boston. And I do business with white-collar thieves all the time. So no, I’m not punting on you because of this. Jeez, what kind of lightweight loser do you think I am?”
As Sean glared, Spike cleared his throat, choking down a wave of gratitude.
“We’re solid, Spike. You and me are cool. Got it? Got it?”
“Yeah, all right,” Spike said hoarsely. “Good deal.”
Up in the penthouse, Mad took care of the remaining dishes and washed the pans. Then she went into the guest room.
The bed Spike had slept in was made up perfectly. The pillows were all arranged neatly. The duvet was square on the mattress and smoothed out. The sheets had been tucked in.
It was as if he’d never lain there.
She went over and sat on the chaise. She couldn’t totally blame Spike for thinking what he had about the invitation. It had come from out of left field and they didn’t really know each other. She just wished she’d had enough time to explain herself before he left.
And it also would have been nice if he’d had a little more faith that she wouldn’t want to use him, or anybody else, like that.
God, what had made her think for even a second that he’d want to spend a long weekend with her?
Mad listened to the silence in the penthouse, hoping to hear a door open and shut. She really wished Sean wasn’t outside on the street yelling at Spike right now. She’d tried to keep her friend from going after the poor guy, but you couldn’t stop a freight train just by standing in front of it.
Suddenly tired, Mad glanced over at the bed she’d used. Maybe she should go back to sleep—
She frowned, noticing the strangest thing.
One of her pillows was at the foot of the mattress. As if someone had dropped it there.
It hadn’t been her. When she’d slipped out of bed, everything had been pretty much in place. But why would Spike have moved it?
She got up and walked over to the pillow. When she picked it up, she caught a whiff of aftershave. As if the thing had been held against a man’s cheek.
How odd.
She put it against the headboard and stretched out on the bed. As she smelled the masculine scent again, she took a deep breath.
And yearned for what she couldn’t have.
Chapter Four
A week later, Mad decided that one nice thing about the ocean was you never had to deal with traffic. Especially not the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, getting out of Manhattan, parking-lot-on-a-highway variety.
She turned the AC up a little higher and eyed the shoulder with evil in her heart. Her Dodge Viper was small enough to fit on the asphalt strip between the steaming cars on the road and the scratchy grass that ran up to the guardrail.
Too bad she was a lawful citizen.
With a curse, she glanced at her watch. Quarter after six.
Which meant, twenty miles away at the Maguire family estate, her half brother had just given the nod for the hors d’oeuvres to be passed. Cocktail hour would be over at precisely seven o’clock and the guests would sit down for dinner. Dessert would be cleared at eight. Coffee, brandy and cigars for the men would be offered on the terrace thereafter. Everyone would be out of the house at nine sharp.
It had been her father’s timetable and she knew without a doubt that Richard had adopted the same schedule now that he was in charge. Dinner parties weren’t so much thrown in the Maguire family as dealt like cards.
She thought about calling ahead and telling Richard that she’d be late, but she didn’t have a cell phone and she wouldn’t have dialed his number even if she’d had one.
It was time to approach the start line with him. So she needed to get her head together. The way she looked at it, this weekend at home was her crucible. A three-day event marked with obstacles.
It made no sense that someone with her athletic accomplishments found it so difficult to stand up to her family. And she was surprised by how stressed out she was, but then it had been a long time since she’d dealt with them. Her job on the ocean had allowed her to put old problems on the back burner, taking her far away from any contact with Richard or Amelia, lulling her into the false sense that everything was fine….
Allowing her to run away and keep running, which was her first instinct when it came to conflict.
So it was good that this issue with her trust had come up. Sometimes you needed to be forced to slay your dragons.
And she wasn’t really going in without back up, even if she was alone in the car. She had a great new lawyer, one she had absolute faith in. Mick Rhodes had been all business when she’d met him at his firm’s office. He’d reviewed the trust documents she’d brought with her, told her exactly how he was going to proceed, and warned her about what Richard was likely to do in response.
Which apparently wasn’t anything Rhodes was too worried about.
If she had any hesitation about her attorney at all, it was because clearly the only reason he was taking her on was that Sean had asked him to. Rhodes was a heavy hitter corporate litigator, not a private client T&E guy. And she knew this because while sitting in the man’s waiting room, she’d read all about him in the newest issue of Business Week. He’d been on the cover.
Anyway, with Rhodes in her hip pocket, she felt like she was going into battle with a Sherman tank. And didn’t that make her feel better about her odds.
Except…well, the trust was only part of it. She really did need to learn how to relate to Richard. They were tied together through her father, and though that man was dead, the web he’d spun remained in the business he’d started. As well as in the bad blood he’d left behind among his children.
Forty-five minutes later, she spotted the Greenwich exit on the highway. As she got off, she tried to remember when she’d last been to the family house. It hadn’t been since her father had died. So that was four years? Five?
Richard was the one who’d inherited the place and she was willing to bet everything was exactly the same now that he was living there. Say what you would about her half brother, he’d always been a loyal child. Loyal to the point of obsession. The son had not so much admired the father as he had aspired to be the father.
So yes, everything was going to be as it had been.
Mad drove through the town proper, smiling at the shops she recognized, assessing the new ones that had cropped up. She had memories of visits to the ice cream shop and the stationery store and the fruit market. The trips had always been chaperoned by different people. The nanny. The housekeeper. The cook. And she’d love the excursions not just for the excitement of it all but because she’d been with kind people whose company she’d felt comfortable in.
Beyond the town center, she came up to a pair of stone pillars that were marked with brass plaques engraved with the name Maguire in Old English text. As she eased into the driveway and proceeded down the alley of trees, her hands tightened on the Viper’s gearshift and steering wheel.
