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He couldn’t settle down to work after he ended the call. He walked to the windows and gazed down at the busy parade of people on Montgomery Street, the heart of the San Francisco financial district, several floors below. His father had preferred the office next door overlooking San Francisco Bay, but Jake had switched his office with the boardroom when he took over Carlyle's. The Bay was his father’s escape, an escape that eventually proved fatal and made Jake President and Chair of the Board before he was thirty.
The darkness of those days lingered. The tinge of Madison’s perfume that hung in the air was an aching reminder of how he’d longed to have her comfort and strength beside him through it all. But she’d made her choice. She’d chosen business school and left him at the altar.
Which is why Jake preferred Montgomery Street. It put the past behind him, where it belonged. The energy of the busy street below recharged him, motivated him, drove him. He needed all that and more after the scene with Madison.
When she first walked in – dark circles under her eyes expensive make-up couldn’t hide, pale-blonde hair twisted up on her head, wearing the same black suit she’d worn to her father’s funeral – he’d been stunned by the double whammy of tension in his gut and a pang in his heart. But before he could decide whether to take her in his arms or start raging about what she’d done to him, he realized how nervous she was. That one moment of sympathy had earned him twenty minutes of feigning the cold indifference toward her he wished he felt.
He’d avoided her for the last three years because he knew seeing her again would turn him inside out like this. A need that was far more than physical still gnawed at his gut.
Every time she’d traded verbal jabs with him the way she used to, his libido had jumped into overdrive. It had been all he could do not to grab her and take her in every way a man could.
Madison had always had that effect on him. Erotic memories flooded his mind, hardened his body, before he could stop them.
He banished them in an instant with the memory of standing at the church door, where her father had told him in a red-faced rage, “The little bitch isn’t coming. She says she’s sorry. Sorry! After all the money I threw away on this fiasco.”
Then her father had taken Jake’s arm, dragged him to the altar, and made him stand there while the preacher announced to the hundreds of people in attendance that the wedding was off.
Now Madison expected Jake to loan her mother money because he was “a fair man”. She’d been pushing the limits to expect him not to throw her bodily out of his office the minute she appeared in the door.
So why ask her out to dinner? He had no intention of loaning her, or her mother, a penny. And he certainly had no intention of letting her flaunt her plan – a product of the MBA, which had been so much more important to her than he was – over dinner.
She’d hurt him so badly the scars hadn’t completely healed three years later. The impulse to hurt her back pounded through his brain, but he wasn’t that kind of man.
No, he hadn’t asked her to dinner to get his revenge. He’d done it simply because the idea of not seeing her again was more than he could bear.
Madison’s hands were shaking so hard she could barely get the key into the ignition of the beloved vintage Ferrari that was the last remaining sign Jake Carlyle had once loved her.
If you could call it love when he couldn’t understand why she wanted to get the education she’d need to build a career at Dartmoor, the way he had at Carlyle & Sons.
In any case, love surely was not the reason behind his dinner invitation. A sincere concern for her mother’s welfare, if not her own, maybe.
Or simple lust. As if she’d hop back into his bed after everything that had happened.
She started to hand the parking attendant a credit card before she remembered her new rules and pulled a ten out of her wallet instead. The car behind her honked at the delay.
She took her time collecting her change before she drove on, then refocused on Jake’s dinner invitation. She didn’t know what he had in mind, but she did know how angry he’d been when she didn’t show up for the wedding. And how humiliated. Her father had described it all in great detail, along with his own disgust, before he’d cut her out of his life for good.
Jake was probably out for revenge, and yet she’d said yes. The remote possibility that he might loan them the money had only been part of it. An hour or two with the only man she’d ever loved, with or without the loan, had for one weak moment seemed worth whatever revenge he planned to take. Besides, what horrible things could he say to her that she hadn’t already said to herself a hundred times?
Maybe once she survived this dinner and he’d had his revenge, she could forgive herself and get on with her life. Still, the prospect of life without Jake had never looked more bleak.
Chapter Two (#ud9e85975-1b2a-50d9-82ff-4fbd9fc8c6a9)
“Ms. Ellsworth.” The maître d’ at the Yacht Club greeted Madison with genuine warmth. “It’s been quite a while since you graced us with your presence.”
Three years, to be precise. After the non-wedding, she’d stayed away for fear she might run into her father, until he’d given up his membership and sold the yacht. Then she hadn’t had any reason to come here at all.
“It’s nice to see you again, too, Marcel. I’m here to meet Jake Carlyle.”
Marcel was a true professional. The only sign of surprise was a momentary widening of his eyes. “Of course, Ms. Ellsworth. I’ll let him know you’re here.”
None of the people who passed through the lobby in a range of attire from swimsuits to thousand-dollar business suits gave her a second glance. Apparently she’d struck the right fashion note for dinner with her ex-fiancé – a navy-blue silk dress with pearls and dressy black sandals that matched the large purse holding her tablet computer. Business-like but feminine.
And this was just business, of course. Either the literal business of the loan Dartmoor so desperately needed or, more likely, the business of letting Jake have his moment of revenge.
The Yacht Club was the perfect place for it. Everyone they knew would either be in the building or hear about it the next day from someone who was. Strategic planning had always been Jake’s strong suit.
“Madi.”
Another clever strategy. He’d thrown her off-balance by appearing from the deck behind her rather than from the bar. She turned to face him.
Dear lord, the man was gorgeous. Shirt open at the neck, hair tousled by the wind, blue eyes crinkled against the brightly lit space – he was every woman’s dream. Her dream.
And her nightmare. Walking away from this man was the hardest thing she’d ever done. The hole it left inside her still bled at odd moments. Now, for instance. She could only stare at him while he waited for a simple greeting she couldn’t quite muster.
He smiled, but not the smug smile she half expected, one that showed he was well aware of the effect he had on her. No, he smiled at her as if seeing her made him happy, as if she brought the kind of joy into his life he used to bring into hers.
She might have stood there forever if Marcel hadn’t reappeared with a bow and led them to a secluded table in the dining room that overlooked the rippling waters of the bay.
She endured the stares and mutters of the people they passed, used to living with the scandal her father had created. Thankfully Jake didn't act as if he noticed any of it.
“Do you get out to sail often?” she asked, for lack of anything else to say once the server had taken their drink orders.
A potent mixture of grief and anger crossed his face. “I don't sail anymore at all.”
She’d forgotten. His father had died sailing alone on the bay.
“I’m sorry.”
“I won’t say it gets easier, but you do learn to live with the loss.”
“I'll take your word for it.”
She could imagine learning to live with her father’s death. It was what he’d done while he was alive that she found so hard to forget – or forgive. Probably because she was still living with the consequences, including this awkward dinner.
Jake reached across the table to take the hand she’d unconsciously extended toward him, as if to comfort him. His face took on the same look of intense interest as before, as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered. She wished.
He lifted her hand to his lips with the quirk of a smile.
“But let’s not dwell on the past. Any of it.”
She jerked free of the 110-volt charge that shot through her system, expecting to see scorch marks on her hand.
To hide the heat that colored her face, she picked up her purse from the floor by her side.
“Maybe we can discuss my plan for Dartmoor over drinks.”
His lips tightened before he smiled again. “I'd rather spend some time getting to know each other again first. How’s your mother doing?”
He kept up a steady flow of small talk masquerading as real conversation through their drinks, salad, and entrée. Every time she tried to shift the topic back to Dartmoor, he came up with some new question she couldn’t find a way to dodge.
After a while she stopped trying. Clearly the whole evening was a sham. He had no interest in her plan. He’d brought her here for revenge, pure and simple.
Which replaced nervousness about showing him her plan with a deeper anxiety about what he intended to do, and when.
The few bites of salad Niçoise she’d managed to eat were followed by even fewer bites of steamed mussels and garlic-mashed potatoes. The tension that left less and less room in her stomach for food also pushed all the air out of her lungs, so the polite chitchat became almost impossible.
“Dessert?”
She shook her head.
“Here, have some more wine.”
This was the third time he’d asked and she’d said no. Or was it the fourth? She put a hand over her glass. “I'm driving.”
His polite smile widened and something she didn’t trust twinkled in his eyes.
“I could give you a ride home.”
Anger restored the backbone that had been melting away all evening. She lifted her head to meet his vaguely mocking gaze.
“I'm not a member here anymore. If I leave my car in the lot overnight, they’ll have it towed in a nanosecond.”
He hesitated for a moment, as if he hadn’t quite decided whether to try to seduce her or not, then he set the wine bottle down and took the last bite of his steak.
She let out the breath she’d been holding, not a hundred percent certain she could resist a seduction, if he tried. Her defenses, never strong when it came to Jake, were way down after an evening spent watching his face, his sensual enjoyment of the food, the way his hands moved. An evening of remembering and storing up new memories for a future without him. Her whole body ached and burned with a desire that could only destroy her.
Maybe that was his revenge.
“So,” he asked casually as he finished his wine, “what poor fool did the Dartmoor Board convince to take over as their CEO?”
She swallowed a cry of pain as the blood drained from her face.
He couldn’t know, but this would be his true revenge. Not only had he refused to listen to her plan to save Dartmoor, now she’d have to reveal the one fact guaranteed to keep him from ever loaning them the money they needed. No reason to put off the inevitable.
“Me.”
He gave his head a little shake. “I beg your pardon?”
“They convinced me to take over as acting CEO.”
Jake understood the words one by one, but together they made no sense. He could imagine Madi as a management trainee, but CEO, even acting CEO of a multi-million-dollar corporation? No way. He decided to play along.
“You always said you wanted to be head of Dartmoor someday.”
She gave him a grim smile. “The operative word being someday. I fought them pretty hard, actually.”
Damn, it was true. A probably irrational anger burned through him.
“Why didn't you just go for it? I mean, you got your MBA a whole four months ago. What else would you need to run an operation the size of Dartmoor?”
Her posture stiffened as she lifted her head to match his gaze full on.
“I don’t run Dartmoor. I replaced my father, who hardly ever went into the office except to do the deed with his mistress. After he created the position of Chief Operating Officer, my father reduced the CEO’s role to vision, strategic planning, and hanging out at the club with the other old boys.”
He couldn’t suppress a grin at the image of her fulfilling that last role.
“So, your plan to fix Dartmoor is the official one?”
“It’s in the developmental stage. I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.” Her posture went more rigid. “Which is a good thing, since I can’t get the one person I was sure we could count on for a loan to even look at the plan.”
She’d counted on him? Jake didn’t know how to feel about that. More anger was safest.
“You gave up any right to guilt-trip me when you left me at the altar, Madi.”
Her body seemed to melt in front of him like a candle set too close to a fire.
“You’re right. I only…” She sniffed. “My mother…”
He missed the warrior woman, but had no clue how to get her back. “I'm sorry.”
No, that sounded like an apology for what he said, but he’d meant it.
“I'm sorry your father was a jerk. I’m sorry he died. But I can’t loan you money I don’t think you can repay. If Dartmoor’s in as serious trouble as you say it is, no matter how much money you make as acting CEO, you won’t be making it for long.”
She gave a low laugh. “Real-life business lesson number one – never make a deal without doing your due diligence. When I took the job, I agreed to greatly reduced compensation from Dartmoor as a signal to our employees that I was serious about straightening out our financial problems. Then I learned how bad they were. My salary doesn’t even pay the rent. What I told you this afternoon is true. Mother and I are living on the principal of my trust fund.”
He resisted the need to touch her hand. “I wish I knew a way…”
A tiny spark lit in her eyes. “There is a way.” She reached down for her purse.
“No, Madi. There isn’t. But I am sorry.”
He was definitely a sorry person tonight. But what else could he say?
She carefully set her napkin on the table and started to stand.
“In that case, maybe I should go.”
He reached out and took her wrist. “Don't leave.”
For one moment her face softened before it hardened again and she glared at his hand.
“Let me walk you to your car,” he said.
Slowly she nodded and he let go.
He kept one eye on her while he signed for dinner. Twice she made a move as if to walk away, but both times their eyes met and she stayed. At least some of the old magic still worked.
