“Everything’s okay.”
“Is this real?” she whimpers, finally sitting up and looking at me.
Is that why she’s crying? Because she thinks this is a trick?
I stare down at her, even now fighting the desire to reach down and kiss her. That’s how crazy my woman makes me, how primal and combustible our attraction is, making me feel like I’m always on the verge of tackling her and taking her.
Pushing past the feral lust, I nod firmly. “Yes, it’s real. It’s the realest thing I’ve ever felt.”
“You can tell me if it’s a joke,” she says. “Just tell me sooner rather than later. I need to know.”
I kneel down, imagining what it’s going to be like when I kneel down for real, an engagement ring in my hand, ready to make this official.
Forever.
Careful, I warn myself. One step at a time.
“I’d never joke about this,” I say with conviction, smoothing the hair from her face and then wiping away her tears with my thumb, warm against my skin. “I want you. I need you. I can’t imagine a world without you. That’s why I was so disappointed when…”
“When what?” she says sharply, darting her hand up and grabbing onto mine, squeezing with the force of my revelation surging through her young gorgeous body.
“When I came to your apartment,” I tell her.
Lying to my woman isn’t an option.
“I saw a woman leave, thin with black hair. I thought she was you. And I felt nothing. I thought I was going insane, Maddie. I thought something had broken inside of me.”
“You came to my apartment.”
I look at her steadily, nodding.
“To see me?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, a smile spreads across her face. “This is the part where I should be freaked out and offended, right? But I’m not. I’m not even close to feeling that way. Does that make me crazy?”
“I think you can feel any way about it you want,” I tell her.
“So when you saw me…”
“When I saw the real you, it hit me all over again, this need, this primal fucking possessive need. I don’t know what to call it. All I know is, if I ignore it, I’ll hate myself for the rest of my life.”
She turns to the city, much the same way I did before, as though she’s suffering from the same inability to look me directly in the eye.
I lean in close when she mutters something under her breath, trying to catch the words, but they float away and are lost.
“What?” I prompt.
“I’ve dreamed of this so many times,” she whispers. “Not this, exactly. But I’ve dreamed of you, of Madden freaking Mitchell, wanting me. I’ve had a crush on you for so long and I want this so badly but come on, Madden. Come on.”
“Come on?” I say quietly, confusion rising in my voice.
Suddenly she stands up, Boxcar still in her arms. She places him down, giving him a soft stroke on the top of the head, before glaring at me. Her eyes are wide, filled with fire. Her tears have stopped and there’s a vicious twist to her lips.
“What the fuck is this?” she hisses. “Because you’re right. It does sound crazy. It sounds unbelievable. In fact, it sounds like something some bored rich man would do to get his kicks. It sounds like a horrible trick. That’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“I already told you I wouldn’t joke about this,” I snarl. “I’d never joke about my feelings for you.”
My mind ruminates over the fact she’s had a crush on me for so long. She’s wanted me for so long.
I wonder if it’s making this difficult for her to believe, as though fate is playing a trick on us.
But fate is playing with us.
It doesn’t mean I’m lying.
She shakes her head, making for the door.
“I need time to think. I can’t do this. I can’t…”
“Maddie, wait,” I call out.
But she’s already gone, rushing through the balcony door, and the apartment.
A trick…
I’m too stunned to move.
Does she really think this could be a trick?
Some twisted game a rich bastard would play on a woman?
My fists clench as the door slams, seeming impossibly far away, just like my woman is.
No, unfairly far away.
She should be in my arms, always. She should never be apart from me.
But a fucking trick?
I glance down at Boxcar, as he tilts his head up at me, a question in his eyes.
“What the hell do I do now, boy?”
My gaze moves to the table, to her laptop. She’s left it behind.
Maybe that’s the silver lining.
At least I have an excuse to see her again.
Not that I need one.
Chapter Seventeen
Maddison
“Whoah, Maddie, what’s wrong?” Kelly says when I barge into the apartment, my arms folded across my middle as I make a beeline for my bedroom door.
I’ve been going over and over the scene in Madden’s apartment ever since I stupidly stormed out, ever since I ran into the street with no freaking clue how to get home. But then the driver approached me, the same one who’d brought me there, and told me Madden had just texted him to make sure I got home safe.