The Rogue (The Moorehouse Legacy #4)(43)

“How have you been?” the woman asked.

Good Lord, Mad thought. Probably the first time her half sister had ever asked her that question.

“Ah…I’m the same.” She shook her head as she realized that wasn’t true. “No, I mean, I’m well.”

More silence.

“And you?” Mad asked.

Amelia smiled vacantly. “Very fine, thank you.”

Mad was not surprised by the social answer.

Feeling fidgety, she tucked her shirt into her skirt and pushed her feet into the only pair of flats she owned. As she looked down, she had a passing thought that Amelia probably didn’t have any shoes like this, and if she did, they were not five years old and scuffed.

Mad glanced up. Amelia was staring out of the windows at the garden, completely still. The sight of her absorbed by some distant point was eerie. She was always a whirling dervish of activity, a constant social barometer taking a read on everything around her, assessing, measuring herself, moving on as soon as her conclusion had been reached: always a consumer of the world, though somehow not a participant in life.

Now, though, she looked unplugged, her drive not in neutral, but extinguished.

Okay, enough with the psychobabble. This visit was something from the twilight zone and Mad was beginning to seriously freak out.

“We’re going to be late for dinner,” she said. “You know how Richard is.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Those gray eyes shifted over. “Madeline, I—”

“You ready to go downstairs?” Spike’s voice came through the open door before he did.

He stopped short as soon as he got into the room.

Mad flushed. “Hi…Ah, yes. I am.”

Spike glanced at Amelia. “Evening.”

From out in the hall, the grandfather clock started to strike. Amelia stared at Mad for a moment and then said, “I’ll see you both downstairs.”

Mad watched the woman go and was glad when she left.

“Mad?” Spike asked.

She looked at him. Tonight he had on a black silk shirt and dress slacks. With his jagged hair and his thick silver earring and the tattoos on either side of his neck, he looked dangerously male. Stunningly attractive. She eyed his heavy shoulders and remembered hanging on to them.

“Mad?”

She shook herself. “I’m ready to go.”

*

Over dinner, Spike decided that the Maguire family was a freaking train wreck of dysfunction. Which just proved you could live in the most beautiful house on the planet and your life could still be a mess.

Man, if it weren’t for the five other couples in the room, the air would have been so oppressive the stuff would have qualified as a solid. Mad hadn’t said more than two words and had barely touched her food. Amelia, who was on Spike’s right, looked like she was going to splinter apart. And meanwhile Richard sat at the head of the table, all simmering satisfaction as he manipulated the conversation.

Spike had a feeling that if he’d run the scene back about twenty years, this was exactly the way things had been during Mad’s younger years: father figure enjoying his top of the food chain status while everyone else was carefully kept off balance. Richard’s act was obviously a mixture of nature and nurture.

And all this for what? The money in those supermarkets around the Northeast? It seemed ironic that an investment in bringing sustenance to millions of people had contributed to such an emotional famine in this household.

He glanced at Mad then shifted his eyes to his water glass.

All afternoon, he’d thought about leaving. He’d even packed up his clothes. Clearly, things were worse for Mad because he was here, not better. And the awful part was that he was finding it harder and harder not to complicate her situation even more. He’d almost told her about himself when they’d been in the garden. Had been so close. But laying down the details of his past seemed unfair. Like she needed to deal with that crap on top of the compost heap she was already having to shovel herself out from under?

As he shifted in his chair, Amelia said quietly, “You hate this, don’t you?”

He glanced at his plate. “Well, the trout could have been better.”

She smiled a little. “I’m talking about the party, not the protein.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly a tie-and-cuff kind of guy. So formal’s not my bag.”

“And yet Richard said you’re a French chef.” Her tone was friendly, that smile of hers soft. “Cooking in that manner is very formal.”

“You ever seen a restaurant kitchen in action? Trust me, even La Nuit became a pit during the dinner service crush.”

The woman’s head snapped toward him. “La Nuit? You were a chef there?”

“Yup. My partner, Nate Walker, and I both were.”

“When?”

“For me, up until about a year ago.” He frowned, then rubbed his jaw, considering Amelia’s face. “You know, I thought you looked familiar. You used to go there, didn’t you? With Stefan Reichter’s crowd.”

“Not often.” She looked away and played with her trout.

“Man, Stefan was wild, wasn’t he? I never expected him to settle down.”

Her head yanked back in his direction. “Excuse me?”

“Stefan just got married. Like a week ago. I understand Estella’s pregnant, although the word is he wanted to be her husband anyway.” As Amelia went white as the damask tablecloth, Spike said, “Hey, are you okay?”