Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,374

waiter came and Madden ordered our meal. When he was gone, I picked up my mimosa. Apparently drinking in the daytime was acceptable if you had the money to excuse it. Growing up when my mother did it, everyone called her a drunk.

“So, real estate. Is that something your family does?” I realized that I knew nothing about Madden, aside from the fact that he owned a resort and an impressive building downtown. If we were going to be fake engaged, I should probably know a few things about him just in case.

His demeanor changed in an instant. Tension gripped his shoulders and his movements were stiff. All signs of the playful man from a minute ago disappeared. “It’s not important.”

“But what if a reporter asks? I know nothing about you.” I set my glass down and folded my hands on my lap. “I told you things about my past that no one else knows. I thought that’s what people do when they’re together. They share things about themselves.” My brow creased.

The temperature had dropped twenty degrees it seemed.

“You don’t need to know about my real estate business or my family.” Madden stared through me and then away from me.

“Okay. But I guess I’m just confused. Why do you need this elaborate scheme to overshadow some cheating rumor? College was years ago. Surely it’s not important now? You’re the Madden Cross. The one and only.”

Maybe I was poking at him a little, trying to get beneath the veneer, trying to pry beneath the shiny immaculate surface that was Madden Cross.

But I didn’t want to infuriate him.

“Don’t try and play games,” he warned, and the coldness in his voice told me I’d gone too far.

I held up my hands. Fine, if he didn’t want to talk, I wasn’t going to push. “Sorry. I was just trying to get to know you a little better.”

“You don’t need to know me,” he said matter-of-factly. “All you need to remember is that I’m paying you good money to do a job. Forty-eight extra hours is what I asked you for. That’s all.”

I couldn’t believe he’d so quickly turned on me.

I wanted to ask him about his promises to protect me, to make sure that Jacob would never hurt me again. If this was just a job and I was nothing but his employee, why did he promise me those things? Why did he toy with me?

The waiter arrived with our food and I kept my gaze on the table. I clenched my hands into fists to stop the shaking. Everything I thought was happening between us was not. It had been the thinking of a very naive and very stupid woman.

I was nothing more than a high-class hooker as far as he was concerned, even now. Even after everything that had gone on between us.

The waiter slipped away silently and I sat without moving. Madden picked up his fork and took a bite of his eggs benedict as if nothing were wrong. After his third bite he finally noticed I wasn’t eating.

“I thought you were hungry.”

Red-hot anger burst apart inside me. More at myself for thinking such foolish thoughts, but at Madden too, who made it seem like her really cared about me.

“You’re paying me for my presence, not to eat. Tomorrow I want my money first thing and then I never want to see you again.”

He sighed and set his fork down. “It’s ridiculous not to eat when there is food right in front of you, Skylar.”

He sounded like he was chastising a child and I wanted to grab my crepes and throw them at his head.

“It’s equally ridiculous to treat someone like they’re disposable trash,” I snapped back. How had I ever thought that he was a caring human being?

A deep growl of dissatisfaction came from him and he narrowed his eyes on me. “I have never treated you like garbage. Didn’t I buy you expensive clothes…didn’t I make sure that every need of yours was taken care of before you even asked?” he said through a clenched jaw.

I lifted one eyebrow. Fury boiled in my veins at how dismissive he was being. “You had to create a fake engagement because you are so afraid that some stupid rumor is somehow going to tarnish your sterling image. God, are you really that arrogant to think anyone cares if you copied some paper in college? No one cares, Madden, so get over yourself.”

“Enough.” Steely undertones wrapped around Madden’s command and I hesitated. His