The Rogue (The Moorehouse Legacy #4)(40)

He glanced over at Mad. Oh, man, she was white as a sheet.

Richard peered around his paper and smiled. “There you are, Amelia.”

The blonde nodded in his direction in a vague way, seeming to see only Mad. In a quiet voice, she said, “Hello, Madeline. I…didn’t know you were here.”

Mad barely nodded, having evidently gone rigid in her chair. “Amelia.”

There was a long pause.

Richard broke the silence by tossing his section of newspaper aside. “Perhaps I’ll introduce our guest, as Madeline doesn’t seem to want to. This is her friend, Spike.”

The guy enunciated his words hard, like he was punching the air.

Amelia’s gaze shifted over. Her eyes were pale gray and lovely, but curiously flat. Kind of like fake pearls, Spike thought.

“Hello,” she said.

Spike lifted a hand, but didn’t much care about the introduction. His only concern was how bad Mad looked. And how long it was going to take him to get her out of the room. Because sure as hell, this arrival was an ambush of some kind.

As Amelia sat down, Richard smiled, picked up another section of the Times and started leafing through it. “So good to have the family back together again, isn’t it?”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mad said, getting to her feet, “I’m finished.”

Spike stood up even though he’d only made it through half the food on his plate.

“Running away, Madeline?” Richard flipped to another page and snapped the section back into shape. “Not exactly a good quality to offer a corporate board.”

Spike leaned forward, put his index finger on the top of the Times and dragged the thing down. The sound of the paper giving way was loud and crispy in the tense room.

“Apologize for that cheap shot,” he said softly to Richard.

The other man’s eyes went wide. “I beg your pardon.”

“Take that crack back. Now.”

“What are you, her thug?”

“If that’s the way you want to see it, yeah, I am. But it would nice if you could man up and not be such a bastard to your half sister.”

Mad took Spike’s arm. “It’s okay. Really.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Spike. Drop it.”

The only reason he broke the eye contact with Richard was that he didn’t want to cause Mad any more stress. But easing off was damn hard.

Especially when Richard looked at Mad and said, “And you can’t stand up for yourself, either. Just what do you think you have to offer Value Shop Supermarkets, anyway?”

Spike was about to take that paper and do something socially unacceptable with it when Mad threw her shoulders back and said calmly, “I’m going to surprise you, Richard.”

“Indeed. And I’m sure Amelia would like to be surprised, too, wouldn’t you? She and I just love surprises.”

The blonde was sitting stock still in her chair, looking like some kind of impressionist oil painting in the sunlight and her pale clothes. “Actually, I think Madeline should be on the board,” she said quietly.

Mad’s head whipped around.

And so did Richard’s.

The man’s eyes narrowed on Amelia. “Do you.” When she nodded, he said dryly, “And this is because you know so much about governing boards, of course.”

“I’m on the Met’s.”

Richard lifted his paper up again, clearly bored. Or more likely pretending to be. “That’s nonprofit. Publicly held corporations are different.”

Enough of this, Spike thought. He was in a table-flipping rage on Mad’s behalf and the only cure was to get away from this circus. Otherwise, he was liable to put Richard head-first into the ground.

Mad seemed to have come to the same conclusion he did because she turned and walked out of the room. He followed, and when they got to the foyer, he pulled her to a stop.

“We should just leave. Right now. This is whacked. You don’t need this.”

She pulled away from him, crossing her arms over her chest. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than get away.”

“So let’s go.”

“Except Richard has a point. I run. That’s what I do. I’ve always run away from them and that stops right now. I’m staying until the end of the weekend.” Abruptly, she tilted her head and looked at him as if he were a complete stranger. “A word about my half sister. She prefers men who are polished, but she’ll take anyone who catches my eye. So if you’re into her, all you have to do is ask and she’ll be happy to oblige, I’m sure.”

Spike recoiled as if she’d slapped him.

As Mad turned her back on him, he grabbed her arm. “Oh, no you don’t. You do not drop a nasty like that and get to twirl away from me.”

Mad’s eyes were angry, unseeing. “Let go of my arm.”

He pulled her forward until she was against his body. “Is that all you have to say to me?”

They squared off nose to nose, a hostile, heated spark flaring between them.

“Maybe Richard was right,” she said softly. “Maybe you are a thug. Maybe that’s why you and Sean get along so well. Two street fighters who pretend to be civilized.”

“How those Nikes feel on your feet right now, Madeline? Guess I’m not on that short list of people you won’t run from.”