Tempted by the Billionaire(28)

A hint of a smile kissed his handsome features. “Yeah.” He shrugged. “If you need help dancing on the old man’s grave, just let me know the time.”

This man had been her future, at one time. Were the theories of parallel universes true? Could she at least hope that there was another world out there? One in which her father hadn’t known what he did? Hadn’t used that information to end their relationship? Might she have been happily married to Harrison, after all, with their own little Ivy running around?

Who could say? Not Madeline. What she did know was that Harrison had moved on. Had married, and had a baby. A little girl with huge chocolate eyes, a winning smile and an inquisitive nature that was just like her father.

“Where’s your husband, Maddie?”

Oh, the pain those words inflicted to her battered heart. For Harrison to ask about Dean was almost impossible to bear. Now, Madeline did flicker her eyes to the horizon, in a telling sign of discomfort. Harrison noticed. Hell, he noticed everything about this woman anyway. Always had done. Since he had first seen her, he felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. But his job as the town’s Chief of Police meant he had particularly keen analytical skills.

“Still in D.C.” There could be no point going into her sad, inevitable marriage breakdown with the man she’d once loved.

Harrison’s lips compressed minutely. “Coming to the funeral?”

Out of misplaced loyalty, Madeline closed her eyes and whispered, “He’s not dead yet, Harrison.”

“A man can dream.”

Madeline looked at him with a sense of distant, gaping hurt. “Your little girl is lovely, Harrison.”

The mention of Ivy made his features relax. He tossed a rueful look over his shoulder, in the direction his daughter had walked moments earlier. “She’s part lovely, part troublemaker.”

“Takes after you then,” she murmured, allowing herself the brief indulgence of properly admiring his handsome face. Those eyes, so mysterious and filled with secrets, rimmed with dark lashes. They were the deepest blue, and they always betrayed his mood.

“Unfortunately, in most ways, yes. Wish she had a bit more of her mother in her.”

His reference to Sally, Ivy’s mother, made her blood fill with ice water. Unlike Madeline, Harrison had married for love. He’d truly moved his life forward. Though Harrison didn’t know it, Madeline had met Sally. Had liked her. The moment she’d realised who Harrison had chosen to live his life with, after her, Madeline had understood that she’d lost him for good. In the brief time she’d spent with Sally, Madeline had seen for herself the woman’s kind, generous heart, and sweet nature. He’d found someone far more capable of giving him happiness, and she’d given him a child too. Madeline squared her shoulders, as she might have done if she were going into a policy meeting with important lawmakers.

“I should go. I’m late.” What more was there to say? Where could they even begin?

She was so distant. This woman he’d once loved with all his heart. She might as well have been a stranger to him, for all the connection he felt with her. That coldness infuriated him. It offended him. Though he could usually be counted on to keep a firm grip on his temper, he felt it dropping out of his control now. His words came out as a condemning hiss. “Go. For God’s sake, go. Get out of Whitegate as soon as you can, Madeline. If I never see you again, it will be too soon.”

She turned and strode away before he could see the way his harsh words had affected her. The way his dismissal had dug a hole into her being.

She deserved it. She knew she’d broken his heart, when she had been forced to end their engagement. And if she’d had any other choice, she would have taken it. But, after her father’s ultimatum, there was no way she could go through with their marriage. No way on hell would she expose the guy she loved most in the world to the hurt and pain Kenneth Bartlett intended to inflict.

So Harrison had moved on.

Kenneth had forgotten, eventually.

And Madeline had existed in a frozen sort of state of hell, going through the motions of life whilst sometimes wishing she were no longer in it.

She unlocked her Mercedes with the same sense of purpose she was famous for; but her heart, her weak heart, was hammering against her slender chest like a butterfly trapped in a glass.

The drive to the ranch took less than ten minutes. It was just around the cape from the township, and Madeline hugged the coastline with her sports car. She let the top down, despite the inclement, moody day, so that the wind could rustle her perfect hair. She tilted her head upwards a little, enjoying the feeling of the precipitation on her face.

The ranch was a coastal mansion that had been in the Bartlett family for generations. Their proud lineage had its roots in cotton farming and then banking, and now, politics. Their dynastic presence on Capitol Hill belonged with all the other great political families.

The ranch reflected their esteemed place in American history. In the Dutch style of architecture, the house was made of timber and painted white, with two long wings joining in a central house. The roof was red brick, and each window had grey shutters. The grounds were expansive and immaculately kept, stretching to the rugged coastline of the North Atlantic. Ancient Oak trees lined the sweeping drive and, Madeline’s car made a crunching noise on the small gravel as she steered it towards the disused stables.

The house had been the scene of a suffocating childhood, but she couldn’t bring herself to hate it. It was a creation of great, great beauty. She grabbed her Wholefoods bag out of the boot and walked with her innate elegance towards the side entrance.

“Your father’s eaten already.” Arielle barely looked up when Madeline entered, her groceries hung over one shoulder.

“I got held up,” she murmured, placing the bag down on the marble bench top. Her cheeks had a very slight, betraying blush, after her quick run from the garages to the main house.

“No matter. It’s not like he can make it to the dining room now anyway.”

Madeline’s feelings were in a spin. Though she hated her father, and would never forgive him for how he’d hurt her, the responsibilities she’d been raised to respect reared their heads. “I’m sorry, mama. I meant to be back, only I met someone and…”

Arielle’s nod was tight. The toll of caring for an invalid Kenneth was showing. Madeline watched with the disinterested pain of an outsider. Eight years away had given her that vantage point.

“Have you eaten?”

Madeline looked at her bespoke Tiffany watch with a small shrug. She hadn’t eaten, but she rarely found the time for a meal in the daytime. It was her worst habit – forgetting to eat – and one she was trying hard to break. “I’ll make a coffee. Can I make one for you?”

Arielle shook her neat blonde head from side to side. “I have enough trouble sleeping as it is.”

“It’s still lunch time, mama.” Madeline retorted quietly, slipping a pod into the nespresso system. “I’m sure a small coffee won’t keep you up.”

Arielle, always eager to please, nodded. “A small one, then.”

Making coffee felt good to Madeline. She rarely got to do it anymore. Between Dean’s aides, her own very obliging personal assistant, not to mention their housekeeper, her domestic obligations were few and far between.

“How does he seem today?” Madeline had given Kenneth’s room a wide berth all day. Since the night before when he’d shown displeasure in her very existence. Without Dean there, she had little value, after all.

“The same,” Arielle shrugged. “Unable to believe that he’s actually going to die.” She rubbed her pale fingers with bright red tips over her eyes and dipped her head forwards. “He is really going to die. He is, isn’t he?”

Madeline nodded wearily. “Yes, mama. And soon.”

Arielle dipped her head lower, and when she was able to speak again, her voice was a slender husk. “Who did you meet in town?”

Madeline kept her expression neutral as she lifted the coffee cup to her lips and sipped it gratefully. “A little girl, by the beach.”

Arielle wasn’t really listening. She was staring at the tabletop, completely distraught. She had spent her life – since she’d turned sixteen – with a man who treated her like a possession. Madeline had never understood how her mother had put up with his domineering ways. But it was clear now that her love had not been out of duty. Arielle’s heart was genuinely breaking at the certainty that her husband was in his last days.

“Have you heard from KB?” Madeline asked, referring to her brother by the nickname he’d had since childhood. Being the fifth in a line of men to carry the same name had a tendency to cause confusion. The moniker KB neatly avoided that.

At the mention of her son, Arielle’s expression briefly lifted. In her firstborn, she saw the almost complete reflection of her husband. “He’s still in Hong Kong. You know how depended upon he is. It’s not like he can just up and leave the bank at a moment’s notice.”

Madeline sipped her coffee again. The implication was subtle, but obvious to Madeline, who’d spent a lifetime being unfavourably compared to her brother. She, Madeline, was less depended upon. She’d received the teary phone call from her mother and dropped everything to be back at the ranch. Never mind that she was a successful human rights lawyer in her own right. True, she kept a minimal caseload so that she could play the part of the congressman’s wife, but she was still busy and well regarded. Just the week earlier, she’d heard that she’d won a protection visa for a child who had fled her own war torn country to escape the abuse of her parents and uncle. The case had been all over the press, but it didn’t matter to anyone in Whitegate.