Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 107115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107115 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
“Because you’re pussy whipped?”
“Because I’m not a sellout, and I don’t like pencil-dicked pricks like you thinking that you can buy me.”
“She’s not worth giving up millions.”
“Yet here you are, offering to give me millions so you can keep her.” Matt frowned as if it were the most puzzling mystery in the universe.
“You fucking asshole. My family needs her for this election.”
“And she’s agreed to play your pampered, privileged wife until after the midterms. Remember our lovely little negotiation in the swamp?”
“The one where I could smell you all over my half-naked wife?”
Well, Deke called it. Todd didn’t want Madison, but his pride couldn’t handle losing her to another man.
“The one where she agreed to come back here, despite how much she hates your cheating, overprivileged ass, and stay until your grandfather is reelected in exchange for a divorce. She’s complied with your demands. You’re the one trying to fuck with her by buying me off. Let me clue you in, sport. It’s not going to happen. So walk your happy ass to your bedroom, sleep off your”—he sniffed at Todd—“expensive gin, and leave Madison alone.”
“Fuck you. You don’t belong in my house, and my wife doesn’t need you here.”
“She doesn’t feel safe around you. I understand why after she watched you commit murder. Then you chased her down the stairwell, bloody knife in hand.”
“She can’t prove that I had any intention of hurting her.”
No, but she could prove Brent Westbrook’s murder. Todd stupidly believed he’d had all her copies destroyed. Then again, did it matter if the crooked press wouldn’t show the public?
Matt shrugged. “She doesn’t have to. I believe her.”
“This is bullshit. I’m calling the cops to have you and that other tatted-up asshole thrown out.”
“Try it. I’ll take Madison with me.”
“Then she’ll never get that divorce,” Todd said smugly, as if he’d spewed the own of the century.
Matt sent him a shark’s smile. “That’s okay. I have other ways of making sure she’s free of you permanently.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you threatening me?”
I have wet dreams about killing you with my bare hands. “Take it however you want.”
“You’re all talk,” he hissed.
“If you think that, you didn’t pay attention to my background.”
Todd snorted in fury. “Three million. It’s more money than you’ll ever see in your lifetime.”
“Fuck off,” Matt quipped less than a heartbeat later.
“Five.”
“Fuck off.”
“Eight. That’s my best and final.”
“And my answer is still the same. Fuck off.” He would never leave Madison alone in this den of vipers.
Todd lunged in his face. “I will smear your daddy’s name all over that piss-ass town he lives in. No one will speak to him again.”
Matt laughed. “My father managed that all by himself. The whole damn city has always thought he was a horrible human being. Nothing improved a few years back when his girlfriend blew her brains out all over his kitchen floor. You might have read about it in whatever investigator’s report you paid for?”
“You’re a fucking asshole!”
“Sticks and stones…”
“This isn’t over. Mark my words.” Todd bared his teeth. “You will be leaving her behind.”
“No. I won’t. Ever.”
After her mind-blowing orgasm on the sofa, Madison did exactly as Matt demanded—went to her suite, showered, and climbed under the covers. But after weeks of sleeping beside him, wrapped in his arms, her bed felt cold and empty. Her pillow didn’t breathe like Matt. Her sheets didn’t caress her through the night. Her mattress didn’t kiss her and manipulate her clit during the wee hours until she woke throbbing and begging for him.
Hours passed before she dozed in her solitary bed—only to wake to Todd’s angry tirade. She couldn’t hear the actual words he exchanged with Matt, but their raised voices and furious tones were unmistakable. Why was Todd even at her door? He didn’t want her, and she damn sure couldn’t stomach his touch. Even the thought of him near her made Madison queasy.
She barely restrained the urge to toss her common sense in the dumpster, wrench open her bedroom door, and demand her husband go to hell. She didn’t. She couldn’t. If she hurled her fuel onto the fire, the blazing argument would burn out of control. Todd was the kind of asswipe who would not only relish hurting Matt, but his enormous ego would get off on the power trip of quashing someone bigger and badder. Bonus points if that crushed her, too. And it would. Matt getting hurt was Madison’s biggest fear.
Half an eternity passed before her bedroom walls reverberated with the slam of Todd’s door. She raced to her own and cracked it, nearly sagging with relief when she found Matt in one piece.
“Are you all right?” She didn’t dare touch him, no matter how badly she ached to.
“Of course. Go back to sleep.”
She’d cast a nervous glance at her husband’s bedroom door. “But Todd—”