chest she’d so recently admired. “I know guys must come on to you all the time. You still haven’t explained why me.”
She sighed. “I’ll answer that as best I can, Luke, but I’m not sure I know myself. I was caught up in the magic of the wedding.” She smiled, and couldn’t help that it was sad around the edges. “It was wonderful to be a part of a big happy family again.”
“You’re still hung up on Nick?” His voice was just this side of a growl. “Did it bother you hearing their announcement about Abby’s pregnancy?”
“I was never hung up on Nick.” There was no point in elaborating. He didn’t need to know that guys figured out fast that she wasn’t lovable. “I realized that it wasn’t him as much as your family I missed. I never had that, a large, loving family,” she said wistfully.
Or one that loved her at all.
“I thought you had a brother.”
“I do. Older. But we’re not close. Not with my parents, either.”
“So you were raised by wolves?”
She laughed. “Just the thought would give my mother the vapors. No. Boarding schools, accelerated classes, a law degree. Oh, my,” she said, struggling for humor as a defense against the assault of lonely, painful childhood memories.
“I think there’s more to it than that.”
Uh-oh. This was exactly what she’d been trying to avoid. “Don’t, Luke.”
“Don’t what?”
“See things that aren’t there. I’m not looking to get involved.”
“With me?”
“With any man. But the last Marchetti bachelor tops the list.”
“I’m not looking to get involved, either.”
“Good,” she said, popping that tiny bubble of disappointment before it even got started. “Why not?” she asked before she could stop herself. Her penchant for blurting out questions was her greatest strength and weakness.
He lifted one muscular shoulder in a casual shrug. “I figure after all this time of it not happening, it’s just not in the cards for me. But there’s no reason why we can’t be friends.”
After what we did last night? she wanted to shout at him. But she kept her cool and said, “I don’t want to waste your time.”
“Shouldn’t I get to decide if it’s a waste? It’s my time.”
“Which would be squandered on me. I’m offering you a painless out.”
“You think love hurts?”
“Exactly,” she said. Mostly she meant loving and not having it returned.
He shook his head, and she hated the pitying look he leveled at her. “I’m not sure I buy your explanation.”
She shrugged. “Every crime has motive and opportunity.”
“And you think what we did was a crime?”
“Maybe more like a misdemeanor. But certainly not very smart. Don’t you agree?”
“Not by a long shot.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t buy this act of yours. You’re not a swinging-singles woman. In spite of your profession, you’re not a manipulator. You’re not a calculating person. I think for the first time maybe in a long time, you let yourself feel. We were good together, Maddie. We like each other. You got caught up in the moment. You already admitted it was good. From a woman’s first time, there’s nowhere to go but up.”
Oops. She had given him a weapon to use against her. “It can’t happen again, Luke.”
“It could,” he said. He raised one dark eyebrow in a suggestive expression that easily kicked up her heart rate. “If you’d let it.”
“I won’t. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t,” she hastily added, hoping he wouldn’t suspect that she’d just lied. “Your family is one of Addison, Abernathy and Cooke’s oldest and most influential clients.”
“But you dated Nick.”
“That was before I was handpicked to handle your company’s legal business. Now there’s a huge potential for conflict of interest.”
“There’s no conflict. I’m definitely interested.”
“Be serious, Luke.”
“I’ve never been more serious. I don’t see how us being friends would be a problem.”
“Because you’re not a lawyer. At the very least, a close personal association with a client suggests the appearance of impropriety. And even if I believed in love, it would be unprofessional of me to continue seeing you. I’m nothing if not professional.”
His gaze raked her from head to toe. “In jeans and T-shirt you look about eighteen. But denim on you in court would sway judge, jury and opposing male counsel to whatever you were selling.”
“You’re not helping,” she said, blushing furiously.
“Good. I hope I’m making it hard as hell for you to dismiss me.”
“I’m not dismissing you. But all we can achieve is a friendly working relationship.”
“We achieved way more than that. And we can’t go back, Maddie.”
Yes, she could. And there was no time like the present. “The name is Madison.”
“Since when?”
“Since we woke up in bed together.”
Four weeks after Maddie—correction Madison—had shut him down, Luke sat in his office trying to focus on the spreadsheet program staring at him from his computer screen.
It was almost quitting time, but his bachelor condo held little appeal. And his thoughts kept straying to a petite, green-eyed redhead, her shoulder-length hair curly and wild after he’d run his hands through it.
He leaned back in his leather chair, linking his fingers before resting his hands on his abdomen. He was CFO of Marchetti’s Incorporated. The family restaurant business was thriving, and he had a million things to do. But even the word spreadsheet brought visions of him and Maddie tangling her bedsheets into his mind, in direct competition with his concentration. Four weeks, for God’s sake. She’d made it clear that they had no chance. Why couldn’t he get her off his mind?
He was over thirty. He’d known lots of women. He’d done more than his share of dating and a good percentage of those dates had ended up with him spending the night. But he’d easily forgotten them. Why not Maddie? And, dammit, she would never be Madison to him. Frustration curled and knotted in his belly. Did a redhead’s legendary temper spill over into stubbornness? Because she’d picked a hell of a time to display it. What was wrong with having a friendship? He knew better than to ask for forever after.
