Owed: One Wedding Night

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

“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.

He escorted her out of the dining room, ignoring the stares of people who remembered, or had heard, about their past together.

When they stepped out into the foggy night, he didn’t ask where she was parked, but took the path that ran along the water. Again she moved to pull away, but when he took hold of the sleeve of her jacket, she fell into step with him.

Out of habit he led her to the empty slip he’d held onto in case someday he could bear to sail the Bay again. He stopped and rested his elbows on the weathered wooden gate, one foot raised to the bottom rail. Beside him, Madison stared over at the next dock, at her family’s old slip and the yacht that her Grandfather Moore had had built fifty years ago and named after her mother. The “Dana Marie” was now the “Blue Sky”.

The mist had curled the hair around Madison’s face. Her eyes were wide and wistful, like a poor kid peering into a toy-store window at Christmas. Not because she wanted the yacht back. She’d always been more interested in sunbathing on the deck than sailing. No, she had to want her old life back.

Something sharp wrapped itself around his heart, but he willed it away.

He hadn't taken that life away from her. Her father had.

Jake hadn’t taken anything away from her. She was the one who’d walked out on him, hurt him, humiliated him…

She must have felt him watching her, because she turned to look at him. But the wistful, wanting expression on her face didn’t go away. Instead it grew darker, hotter.

A foghorn sounded. Somewhere a buoy bell clanged on the waves. A car drove by, leaving a trail of loud music in its wake.

“What happened, Madi?”

The question seemed to surprise her as much as it surprised him. She didn’t answer, but stared past him toward the water.

“What happened to us?” he asked again.

“I couldn’t be your trophy wife.”

What the hell did that mean?

He kept his tone calm. “That's a pretty dated term. Aren't trophy wives young second wives for old guys?”

“Not necessarily. A lot of people would say, have said, our mothers were trophy wives, even though they were first wives and our fathers were only a few years older than they were.”

He didn’t try to deny it.

“Your father used his family’s wealth to win the model of the year as his wife,” she went on. “My father won Dartmoor by marrying my mother. I’m not sure which one was the trophy there, but you get the idea.”

The bitterness in her voice stunned him, but he knew her better than to comment on it.

“Even if that kind of marriage was good enough for our mothers, it would never have been enough for me, Jake. I wanted to do more with my life than have babies, hand them over to a nanny, and wait for you to come home at the end of the day.”

He swallowed the sucker punch she didn’t realize she’d so expertly delivered. He couldn’t count how many times he’d day-dreamed about exactly that.

“We could have worked it out.”

“I tried to talk with you about it. The only conversation we had about it ended with you forbidding…” She paused to underscore the word. “Forbidding me to get my MBA.”

He remembered that argument. He’d been so angry and hurt to learn that Madison didn’t wanted their marriage, their family, to be the center of her life that he hadn't known what else to say. He’d ended up silencing her outrage with a soul-searing kiss. They hadn’t come up for air until the next morning.

“Your father agreed with me.”

She winced.

“And you didn't bring it up again.” His tone was harsher, colder than he intended.

“The wedding was a run-away train. I didn’t know how to slow it down so we could talk. Our mothers had every minute scheduled for weeks. You and I were almost never alone together, and when we were we always ended up in bed. I didn’t want to fight with you in bed. I kept trying to find another chance to talk to you, to work it out, but that chance never came.”

Anger tightened his voice. “So you decided the best solution was to call your father from the limo on the way to the church and tell him the wedding was off.”

“That's not what happened.”

Madison took a deep, shuddering breath.

He was waiting for her to say more. The harsh parking lot lights transformed his handsome face into a demon’s mask of pale skin and dark shadows.

“I called my father to tell him we were caught in traffic and would be a few minutes late.”

Still no reaction from him, as if he didn’t care about what had happened. Maybe, after all this time, it no longer mattered to him. But it mattered to her. She needed to tell him for her own sake, if nothing else.

“When my father answered, I heard you in the background talking to someone. Your cousin Mark, probably. You were bragging to him that I was the ultimate trophy wife. I–I couldn’t go through with the wedding after that. I refused to stop being who I was, to give up my dreams to be your trophy wife, no matter how much I loved you.”

His face remained frozen.

“I didn't think of you as a trophy wife.”

“I heard you, Jake.”

“You didn’t hear the whole conversation.”

He put his hands on her shoulders, but she shook herself free, wishing there was some way to stop time right there.

For three years she’d told herself, if only in her weakest moments, that maybe she’d been wrong, maybe there’d been some other explanation for what Jake said. How could she live with the guilt if she had been wrong? And if she hadn't, how could she live without that one tiny hope? That was why she’d never had this conversation with him. Not that he’d ever given her the chance before.

She held her breath, dreading the inevitable pain, no matter which way he answered.

He gave her a grim smile. “Mark and I were joking with each other about our ‘trophy wives’. He was married to a hot young starlet at the time, remember?”

“You sounded plenty serious when you said it.”

He didn’t say anything right away, but jammed his hands in his pocket and turned half away from her. The hesitation, the way he couldn’t meet her eyes told her it would be worse than she’d feared. Whatever he said next would be a lie.

“I was serious. I didn’t want him to think I really felt that way about you. I told him you were the ultimate trophy wife because you were so smart as well as beautiful.”

She closed her eyes against the hurt that seemed to cut her open from neck to belly.

“Don’t lie to me, Jake. Not about this.”

She had to stop to breathe. She slowly counted to ten, waiting for him to say something.

He stood silent, the demon’s mask back in place.

So she turned and walked away.

A gust of wind stirred the fog. Jake saw Madison shiver and automatically took the two steps to catch up with her to put his arm around her shoulder. She froze for a moment, but let him walk beside her as she crossed the parking lot to her car.

When they reach the bright-red Ferrari she shook herself free and pulled the key from her purse without the usual female rummaging around. She unlocked the door and threw her over-sized purse across to the passenger seat before she straightened and faced him.

“Good-bye, Jake. Thank you for dinner.”

He couldn’t find words. She climbed into the car and he swung the door shut, then watched while she started the engine and drove off.

He still hadn’t moved when she pulled out of the parking lot and into the busy late-night traffic on Marina Boulevard.

Why hadn’t he told her the truth about what he’d said to Mark?

He sighed and headed for his car.

Because he refused to open old wounds, refused to be that guy again. The guy who’d loved Madison so completely she’d almost destroyed him.

A trophy wife! He shook his head and got into his car.

Sure, he hadn’t wanted her to get her MBA. He knew how much time and energy business school took. He’d wanted, needed, her at his side instead while he took over more and more of the day-to-day leadership at Carlyle & Sons to conceal his father’s deepening depression.

He’d had to keep his business problems secret from Madison back then, for fear she’d let something slip to her jerk of a father, who would gleefully spread the news in the business community. But Jake had planned to explain the situation on their honeymoon.

The honeymoon that never happened.

As he turned his car onto Marina Boulevard, the cell he’d left in its hands-free station buzzed. He flicked it on, not caring who was calling. Even a telemarketer would be better company than a mind full of memories and regrets.

“Ah, hello, Mother,” he said.

As soon as rush hour was over the next day Madison drove the Ferrari out to the newest Dartmoor store in Antioch. She needed the driving time to think about some changes in her plan, and fewer people would recognize her at this store than at those closer in, so she’d have a chance to pretend to be a shopper for a while.

Her first impression when she stepped into the store was sameness. Not sameness with the older Dartmoor stores, which varied in layout according to the age of the buildings, but sameness with every other store built the same decade in every other mall she’d ever been in. This was their most profitable store, but it lacked the distinctively Dartmoor flavor that would make shoppers look for their ads or lead them to their website.

She didn’t dare take photos, but she could make a few quick sketches of the possibilities taking shape in her mind when she got back to the car.

She started circling the first floor to get a customer’s-eye view, but she couldn’t see the merchandise first of all, the way a shopper would. She saw people. A seasoned professional behind the cosmetics counter giving advice to her college-age coworker. The woman ending her shift in handbags to be home to meet her kindergartner's school bus. The older woman in candy who’d worked for years at the flagship store before she moved out here to be near her grandkids. And, when she recognized Madison and called upstairs, the manager who’d built her career working for Dartmoor.

The manager greeted Madison with a smile, panic in her eyes, and an outstretched hand.

“What a pleasant surprise. We’re honored to have you here, Ms. Ellsworth.”

The words twisted in Madison’s heart. How much was honor that came from wealth and name alone worth? Especially when the next time Madison saw the woman it would most likely be to tell her this store, like all the others, was closing.

Madison forced the thought from her mind, afraid the other woman would see it on her face, and let the manager woman give her an official, and useless, tour of the store.

Madison nodded and smiled, and silently ground her teeth, until she could make the excuse of needing to get back to the office and escape.

Once in her car, she didn't even stop to do the sketches before she drove away.

Why bother? Without Jake’s help, Dartmoor was doomed. If only she’d paid more attention to what was going on these last few years. Her grandfather had left her ten percent of the company, but made her father trustee until she was twenty-two. Since her father had stopped speaking to her after she’d left Jake at the altar, to insist on voting her shares once she technically could would have been more of an emotional minefield than she’d been willing to risk.

She’d been sure that once she had her MBA, her father would do more than let her vote her own shares – he’d train her to take over Dartmoor someday.

She blinked away tears. That would never happen now. His death had robbed her of the future she’d wanted and left her nothing but anger with him over the past.