The Rogue (The Moorehouse Legacy #4)(57)

She put the plate aside and got to her feet. “I just cannot believe this. Why are you so ticked off?”

He wheeled around and faced her. “You don’t think it would be just slightly offensive to be accused of sleeping with your half sister?”

“But you did, didn’t you? So why—”

“No. I. Did. Not.” His eyes were blazing. “I have no idea what you saw—”

“The two of you were in the doorway to your bedroom and you were half naked! She was in a robe!” Mad dropped her voice and tried to stop her body from trembling. “Do you honestly expect me to believe you didn’t want her—”

“She’s nothing like you,” he hissed.

“I realize that. And you told her she was the one.”

Spike opened his mouth. Then shut it so hard his teeth clapped together.

Mad pushed her hair out of her way and dug her hands into the robe’s pockets so he wouldn’t notice how badly they were shaking.

“Look—” she cleared her throat “—I…Boy, there’s really nothing more to say, is there?”

He stared at her for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was eerie. Flat. Deflated. “You are very right about that.”

And then he left quietly.

After the door shut, Mad told herself he had a hell of nerve acting like the one who’d been injured.

She fumed for a while, then went back to the bed and looked at the plate he’d brought her. She had no interest in food.

But she cursed and picked up the damn fork, remembering the vow she’d made to herself: No more running on caffeine. No more not eating, no matter how much weight she put on. She had promised herself the moment she’d landed in the Bahamas that she would stop the excessive dieting and let her body get back to normal.

So Mad ate because it was the right thing to do, not because the stuff tasted like anything. And as she chewed and swallowed like a robot, she thought about the argument just now with Spike.

He’d looked so…defeated as he’d left. And why had he asked if Richard had spoken to her about him? Why would that matter?

And why had he said he hadn’t slept with Amelia?

Spike had never struck her as a liar, but was he just a really good con man? Or was there something totally off about this whole situation?

Mad tried to go back to reading the board meeting materials, but couldn’t concentrate. She felt as though she were on a boat in high seas: tossed, turned, thrown around. And the real-life storm outside didn’t help. All the lightning and thunder just kept the frantic pace of her heart going.

Not long thereafter, she gave up. She just couldn’t shake that defeated expression on Spike’s face. And though she was worried about her sanity, she shifted off the bed and went out into the hall to the guest room across from hers. The door was ajar and she heard running water.

“Spike?”

“You just missed him if you mean Mr. Moriarty.” The woman from the front desk poked her head out of the bathroom with a smile. “He’s left.”

Mad’s rib cage tightened up. “I…Ah, where did Spike, I mean Michael, go?”

“Said he had to head back home.” The woman shrugged. “Was very nice about it. I was going to give him some of his money back but he wouldn’t take it.”

A gust of wind pushed up against the house and rattled the shutters. Then a rush of rain hit the windows in a splatter pattern, hard as buck shot.

Oh, God. Spike on that Harley. Going back to the Adirondacks in the dark. In the storm.

The woman reached behind herself and cut the water off. “Say, I noticed you missed the buffet. Would you like me to bring you up something?”

“Thank you, but…no. Someone already has.”

Mad returned to her room. Closed the door. Climbed back up on the bed.

She told herself it was good that he’d left. She wanted him so badly she was liable to get seduced into thinking what she’d seen with her own two eyes wasn’t true. Hell, maybe the seduction had already happened…. Maybe he was just a really convincing actor and that’s why she was so conflicted now. Because after all, how well did she really know him?

Mad rubbed her eyes until they burned and thought of the other two times she’d been in this nightmare. Both of the other men Amelia had taken from her had come back with apologies—after they’d been summarily dumped. So the fact that Spike had returned and tried to explain himself followed the pattern.

She’d done this all before.

Without warning, a bolt of lightning flashed right outside the B and B, bright as a bomb detonation. The cracking sound of a tree trunk being split was instantaneous and she jumped, clutching the lapels of the robe to her throat.

Damn it, were these storms going to last forever?

A half hour later, Mad was pacing. And not just because of the argument with Spike. The furious weather was unrelenting, obviously a chain of T-cells linked together, flowing up the coast.

She stopped next to the bed and looked at her cell phone. When she picked the thing up, she dialed Sean’s cell number.

“O’Banyon,” he said when he answered. In the background she could hear voices as if he were at a party.

“Sean?”

“Mad! Is that you? Hey, you’ll never believe who I’m here with.”