only child.” He smiled. “And my parents are both alive and live here in Seattle.” No need to tell her about Grace. Or Janice. Or the divorce. Theirs had been a fairy-tale wedding—without the fairy-tale ending.
Madeleine touched the picture frame again. Maybe it was just a nervous habit. Or a way to ease the discomfort of having him in her office.
But why would it make her uncomfortable?
She hadn’t completely gone back to the stiff demeanor she’d adopted every time he’d seen her in the past. She still seemed incredibly warm, including the deep red curls, which were now very much loose and free around her head and neck. He remembered twining one around his finger two nights ago in her kitchen, just as his eyes had dropped to her lips. Thank goodness she’d read her text or he would have kissed her right then and there. To hell with knowing who she was. She’d been affected as well. He’d seen it in the dilation of her pupils as he’d stepped closer. If not for her sister, the night might have ended very differently.
Thank goodness for small miracles. He took a bracing sip of his coffee, watching her. “Are you going to the staff meeting?”
She glanced at her watch and then blinked. “I didn’t realize it was almost that time. Yes, I’m going. They’re discussing budgets and I want to make sure my department is covered.” She took a drink of her own brew. He noticed she took it black. The coffee was dark and strong, just how he liked it.
“Mind if I go down with you? My budget doesn’t work quite the same way as the other departments, but I still like to make sure I know what’s going on.”
“That’s right. You do concierge medicine.”
Surely she already knew that. Because he sure as hell had already known what department she worked in the second that cat head had come off.
Why would he think she knew anything about him? Was it a hit to his ego that someone might not know who he was? Maybe he should find out.
“Did you know it was me in that hotel lobby, Madeleine?” He took another deep pull on his coffee.
“It’s Maddy.” Her glance flitted away, her cheeks turning pink. “And, yes, of course I recognized you.”
Maddy. It fit her. Then again, so did her full name. It was as if she had more than one personality wrapped up in that cute little body. He sat back and crossed his foot over his knee. He also liked that she wanted him to use the shortened version of her name, although he had no idea why.
And why had she blushed? Maybe she hadn’t liked being caught in a vulnerable moment, like during her asthma attack. Who could blame her? He wouldn’t have cared for being in that position either. “Does Roxy have asthma as well?”
“No. She’s as strong as an ox. Healthwise, anyway.” Madeleine said it with a twist to her mouth that made him wonder. Did she consider herself lacking in that area?
There were still things about her that intrigued him.
Just then there was some kind of commotion in the hallway. A patient emergency?
He set his coffee down and started to get up when something hit the door to Maddy’s office, causing it to shudder.
“Hey, wait! You can’t go in there.”
Kaleb was on his feet in an instant, heading to the door. Someone—a man—stood right outside, looking behind him at whoever had yelled. Kaleb flipped the lock, just as the doorknob twisted from the outside. His senses went on high alert.
“I said stop!”
“What is it?” Maddy stood, gripping the wooden surface of her desk with both hands.
“Call Security. Now.”
Her face turned white, but she picked up her cell phone and pressed the keys.
Kaleb turned back to the door, just as the man planted a hand on either side of the small rectangular window. Something glinted in one of those hands.
Things moved in slow motion. Maddy’s voice asking someone to send help. The man staring into the office. Crazed eyes zeroing in on Kaleb and then something behind him. Kaleb’s head swiveled to look and found Maddy. The phone fell from her fingers onto the desk, her face filled with fear.
And recognition.
* * *
“Oh, my God! Matthew!”
Maddy couldn’t believe what she was seeing, even as her ex-husband’s mouth tightened into a straight line.
“Open this goddamn door, Madeleine!” The rage in his voice made her take a quick step back. Her calf caught the chair behind her and she stumbled, falling into the seat.
Matthew raised his hand, pointing something—oh, God, a gun!—and then she was hit with a force that felt like a truck, knocking her sideways out of the chair. Every bit of breath left her body as she slammed to the ground. The glass in Chloe’s picture frame shattered into a thousand pieces as it landed beside her.
Pressure against her chest made it hard to breathe and impossible to move. It took her a second to realize it wasn’t from taking a hit from a bullet, but from the man who was on top of her, his body over hers as he kept her pinned down behind her desk.
Matthew was here. In the hospital. And he had a gun.
Chloe! Where was Chloe?
She struggled against Kaleb’s weight, needing to get up.
Her phone! It was about ten feet away from the desk. She scrabbled for it, trying to turn sideways so she could drag herself toward it.
“Kaleb, oh, God, please, get off me!” The need to get to her daughter and make sure her ex-husband hadn’t somehow found her gave her almost superhuman strength.
“Wait. Just wait.” He pinned her wrists and held her down, even as she wrenched against him with all her strength.
A loud bang sounded and the glass in her office door sprayed everywhere, stinging her cheek, the noise a thousand times louder than the glass in the picture frame had been.
The muted shouts she’d heard earlier amplified, becoming horrifyingly real.
Matthew was trying to get into her office. Screaming obscenities, demanding she open the door.
A second or two later, a sharp report reverberated the air around her, the echo seeming to go on forever.
Kaleb stiffened.
Had he been hit?
Then it stopped. All of it. Matthew’s voice was silent, although she heard screaming and crying in the distance. She lay there, still struggling to breathe, a familiar band tightening across her lungs. She tried to say something to Kaleb, to ask him if he was okay, but the words came out as a strangled cough.
She tried again. Another hoarse cough.
Not now. Oh, please, not now.
Kaleb lifted off her—very
