That Night with You (19 page)

She motioned to Adam’s desk. “Enjoy
your day off from the asshole.”

“
Yeah,” Madison replied as
she opened the folder. “Mr. Parr mentioned he was out sick
today.”

“
Sick my ass. I heard Mr.
Parr telling Mr. Hughes about Adam’s confrontation with him
yesterday evening outside of the building.”

Madison looked up from her folder.
“What confrontation?”

“
I thought you knew.”
Emma’s face lit up, happy to spread more gossip. “Mr. Parr caught
Adam drunk at Rory’s Bar down the street. Apparently, after they
had words, Mr. Parr put him in a cab and sent him home.” Emma
rolled her eyes. “I don’t think that boy will be around much
longer. When Mr. Parr sets his sights on you, you don’t last long
in the firm.”

“
Mr. Parr doesn’t strike me
as the type to set his sights on employees,” Madison related. “He
seems pretty fair with people.”

“
Oh, Mr. Parr’s fair all
right, until he’s ready to get rid of you. Then he can be real
relentless.”

Madison sat back in her chair,
digesting what Emma had just told her. “Have you seen him do that?
Be relentless with an employee?”

Emma glanced back toward the open
office door, and then slowly came toward Madison’s desk. “There was
another architect that worked here right before you came. Her name
was Doreen. She and Mr. Parr were very close. He really looked out
for her. There were rumors that she and Mr. Parr were seeing each
other after hours, and then one day I came in and she was gone. No
notice, nothin’. Everyone suspected he got rid of her.”

A heavy knot formed in Madison’s
chest. “You think he got rid of this Doreen because they were
seeing each other?”

“
No one knows for sure. All
I can say is that Mr. Parr’s not a skirt chaser, like your cohort.”
She nodded to Adam’s empty desk. “He has always been really
professional with the staff here. I’ve heard him say he never gets
involved with his employees.” Emma shrugged. “Maybe he only gets
rid of the ones he gets involved with.”

With a shaking hand, Madison put the
folder to the side of her desk. “Ah, thanks for these.”

“
Sure thing,” Emma
pronounced, heading toward the door.

After she had left, Madison began to
reconsider her dinner with Hayden. Was he out to get rid of her?
She shook her head, shooing away the negative thoughts. That was
not the Hayden Parr she knew. After all, they had a history
together. Or was that history the reason he had set his sights on
her to begin with?

***

It was after five, and the activity
inside the offices of Parr and Associates had grown faint as
employees hurried home for the evening. With each sound of a door
shutting, footsteps in the hallway, and mumblings of “good night,”
Madison’s apprehension grew.

Emma’s words had haunted her all
afternoon, and like a damning bit of evidence that sticks in the
craw of a hung jury, Madison was teetering back and forth between
what to do and what not to do with Hayden Parr. The plans on her
computer screen had suffered for her preoccupation; having
accomplished little after Emma’s visit, she was sure Hayden would
be furious. Rubbing her hand behind her sore neck while visions of
unemployment paraded across her mind, she wondered how in the hell
it had come down to this.

Listening to the stillness around her,
she debated if it might be better for her to go home and pass on
Hayden’s invitation. She had switched off her computer and was
reaching for her purse when she heard the faint sound of rustling
outside her open office door.

Turning around, she saw him. There was
a faint hint of a five o’clock shadow covering his chin and square
jaw. He looked tired, his dark blue suit slightly rumpled, but to
Madison he was like water to a parched soul.

“
Are you ready?”

She stood from her chair. “I was about
to go home; my home.”

“
No, you’re coming home
with me,” he argued, closing the door.

She twisted her hands together. “Maybe
we should reconsider. It might be a—”

“
Reconsider? I don’t think
so.” His lips angrily mashed together as he came up to her. “Don’t
tell me you’re having second thoughts about me already.”

“
I can’t afford…I mean, if
I lose…I don’t want to be another Doreen,” she finally got
out.

His dark eyebrows went up. “Doreen? Do
you mean Doreen Irwin?”

She glared into his eyes, attempting
to be assertive. “You fired her because she had an affair with you.
Is that what you plan on doing with me?”

His burst of laughter was exuberant
and completely unexpected. He clasped her wrist and pulled her to
him. “Baby, where on earth did you get the idea I had an affair
with Doreen?”

She did not know what took her off
guard more: his question, or the fact that he had called her
baby.

“
I, ah, heard about her.
Everyone thinks you fired her because she slept with you. I don’t
want to end up like that, Hayden.”

He ran his thumb along her lower lip.
“Madison, Doreen left because her husband, who was serving in
Afghanistan, got injured. She went to Virginia to be with him in
the hospital.”

Madison pulled away. “Why does
everyone think you two were seeing each other?”

“
Doreen and I were friends,
nothing more, and if some people in this office thought we were
more than that, then they didn’t know her. I respected the hell out
of her. She was holding it together every day, waiting to hear if
her husband was alive or dead. No one knew what she was going
through except me and Garrett. She didn’t want anyone else to know
and we respected her wishes.”

Relief washed through her. “So you
didn’t fire her?”

“
Or sleep with her.” His
eyes swept down her red dress. “You, on the other hand…I have every
intention of taking you to bed and keeping you there. So if you
have any reservations about what is going to happen between us,
tell me now.”

“
What if we don’t work? Are
you still going to keep me as an architect in your
firm?”

He stood before her, seeming to gather
his thoughts. “Madison, you’re a talented architect, and I’m always
striving to keep talented people here. However, you also happen to
be a woman I desperately want, and I never compromise when it comes
to my desires. We’ll find a way to make this work.”

Did he say desperately
want?
Flustered, she reached for the back
of her chair. “How…?” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat.
“How do you plan to do that?”

“
We’ll have to balance our
work life and private life.”

Her brow crinkled with uncertainty.
“Balance? That sounds complicated.”

“
No, not complicated, just
cautious.” He ran his hand through his hair. “Look, Madison, I’ve
got one bad marriage under my belt to prove that I’m not very good
at relationships. What I want is for you to agree to be my lover. I
could go through the banalities of dating, but I can’t waste time
with romantic nights out, weekend getaways, or emotional ties. What
I said before is true; I don’t need a girlfriend. What I want is
someone to share my bed.” He stepped closer to her. “I promise if
you agree to this arrangement, you will enjoy it.”

With her hand still tightly gripping
the back of the chair, Madison stood for several seconds, unsure of
what to say.

He sighed, looking over her features.
“Do we have a deal?”

His statement sank to the inner
reaches of her heart, wiping away her fairy tale hopes. So this was
just about sex, nothing else. Madison knew she should walk away,
but her feet never moved from her spot on the floor. Could she live
with this? For the first time in her life, here was a man she
wanted, and if all she could be was his lover and little else,
wasn’t that worth a chance?

Staring into his handsome face, she
lingered over his thick brow, intense eyes, and carved cheekbones.
Could she be that kind of woman where it was just sex? Summoning
her courage, she swallowed back the thousand reservations
cluttering her mind and nodded her head. “All right, Mr. Parr. We
have a deal.”

Taking her hand, he quickly pulled her
to the door. “Good. Let’s get out of here.”

Letting him lead her away, Madison
became acutely aware that this was one of those turning points in
life that were often praised by poets and railed against in Sunday
morning sermons; that instance where you handed yourself over to
passion, and let the cards fall where they may.

***

As the red sun was setting over the
rooftops of the premier neighborhood of Highland Park, Madison
followed Hayden’s black Range Rover down a wide street with elegant
estate-like homes on either side. When they came to a black gravel
driveway, she peered through her windshield in amazement at the
contemporary two-story home in front of her.

It felt nothing like Hayden, with
sharp, oblong angles, pale cream-bricked walls, a slanted slate
roof, and long glassed in corners along the first floor. To the
side, a cream-bricked chimney rose up the exterior of the home,
while long dark cement steps were carved into the tiered landscape
leading to a recessed front door surrounded by glass. There was no
grass or green gardens surrounding the home, just circular beds of
dark gravel with a trimmed landscape of creeping periwinkle and
Irish moss.

Turning off the engine of her Nissan
Rogue, Madison decided that the house gave off a very strange vibe.
It was as if the structure was trying to be something it was not;
an architectural achievement that missed its emotional mark. An
instructor from her freshman days had once told her that “a house
needs heart to be a home. If you don’t put your heart into it, no
one else will either.” For Madison, that was exactly what the house
lacked, heart.

“
I know it doesn’t seem
like much,” Hayden conceded, coming up to her car, “but the house
has got a lot more to offer on the inside.”

Madison gazed about the surrounding
homes. “Which one is the Martins’ place?”

He pointed to a two-story home
directly across the street that looked to be an awkward blend of
traditional and modern styling. Built of natural stone, the drab,
square home had four narrow arches along the façade that encased
windows, and a wider arch that surrounded the modest front door,
with dark windows and a jutting balcony on the second floor. The
property was heavily wooded with thick oaks, crape myrtle trees,
and weeping willows.

“
Why would you want to tear
down the house?” She sized up the home with a skeptical eye. “You
could always renovate it.”

“
No.” He directed his scowl
to the homes along the street. “Better to tear it down and start
fresh.”

“
Could be expensive,” she
remarked, turning to him.

“
But worth it.” He came up
to her. “That way I could build something huge to piss off my ex,
while she lives in this house.”

“
Are you sure you want to
live across the street from your ex?”

“
No, but I want to keep an
eye on the house I designed. If a judge makes me give it to Ellen,
I plan on at least being close by to make sure she doesn’t burn it
to the ground.”

“
You think she would do
that?”

He gazed upward to the second story of
his home. “Yes. She would do anything to spite me.”

They made their way up the wide cement
steps to his recessed glass front door. He punched several numbers
into a keypad to the right and the house lit up. Then, the front
glass door popped open.

“
The house is electronic,
with an advanced security system, and sensory lighting to follow
you from room to room.” He pushed the glass door open and waved her
inside.

“
Is the security something
you added before or after the divorce?”

His dark eyebrows went up in
amusement. “You’re funny.”

The quarter sawn oak floors shined
beneath the recessed lights, while a straight white iron railing
and oak staircase was the centerpiece of the foyer. A row of white
pillars encased the staircase, and looking up Madison could see an
open second story with skylights framed in white beams that looked
out into the night sky, covering the central atrium. The aesthetic
of the design was clean, modern, and simple. A sunken living room
off to the side of the entrance was decorated with classic modern
furniture in black and beige, with a wheat Berber rug and prints of
painted leaves done in black frames hanging in a row along the
wall. An unadorned fireplace was set into the plain wall without a
mantle or screen.

Hayden shut the front door and punched
in some more numbers on the keypad to the left.

“
Does that mean I’m trapped
here for the night?” Her voice echoed in the open
entrance.

Hayden came up to her and removed her
black purse from her shoulder. “It’s the only way I can guarantee
you won’t run out on me again.”

“
I didn’t think you would
want to wake up and see me last time. Isn’t that what one-night
stands are supposed to do?” Crossing in front of the stairs, she
spotted an arched entranceway to the left.