Heart and Sole (4 page)

She swallowed hard. Could he do either with just over a forty percent stake? She didn’t understand business that well, but Nick was a very powerful man. She was certain he could create a hell of a lot of havoc.

Was the old Nick in there somewhere? The one who snuck a red rose onto her pillow for her sixteenth birthday. Who got caught in a downpour walking home with her from the library, when they stopped in Crenshaw’s barn to get warm and ended up making out and late for dinner. All the sneaking around they’d done for most of senior year. All the pain of losing a love she once thought was perfect.

Before she could wax too sentimental, she made herself remember that Nick had broken up with her right after prom senior year. Told her he was moving on to other things. He’d never admit it, but she knew he’d overheard her grandmother calling him trailer trash. Maddie had pleaded and begged, told him it didn’t matter to her what anyone said, but he’d wasted no time dating her nemesis, a gorgeous bombshell who lived to make her miserable. Then he left the simple life they’d led in their hometown for everything bigger and better. And left her behind without a glance back.

The old Nick was gone.

“You’re right.” She stepped out of his reach and gave the boy she once loved a pensive look. “Visiting our company and eating cake with my gran and seeing everyone you left behind years ago is not going to change your mind. But it’s going to give me something you’ll never understand.”

“What’s that?”

“Closure. I want you to face my family and own up to your decisions.”

She saw the struggle in his eyes as they narrowed down on her. Concession was a real bitch. “All right. You win. But I have conditions.” He ticked them off on his elegant fingers. “I don’t stay at your house. I’ll tell your family about the deal on my own terms. I’m not going to endure interrogation and conviction all weekend. Lastly, I don’t tour the company. There’s no need. I’ll see it when it’s mine.”

Maddie tapped the tips of her nails against the glass surface of her desk and almost smiled. He’d always had a need for control, for order. As a child who lost his parents young and was raised by the grandfather who’d been ousted from the business, Nick had grown up with more than his share of disorder.

There was no point in arguing about details now. She’d have to work them out later, once she had him back in Buckleberry. “I’ll pick you up Wednesday at five p.m.” She straightened papers in hopes he would take the hint and leave.

“Wait. We’re not flying?”

“I usually drive.” In reality, she was broke. She’d be lucky to afford the gas.

“I’ll have my pilot fly us.”

She was not going to allow him to control this situation. First it would be his private plane, then it would be his entourage of minions to seal the deal. “I—I’m afraid to fly.” Maddie bit the insides of her cheeks to stop from saying more.

“You never used to be.” A suspicious frown creased his perfect forehead.

“It—um—happened recently. A near-death experience. Over the Atlantic.” She bit down hard, the metallic taste of blood bitter in her mouth.

A frown creased his perfect forehead. “I am
not
driving eight and a half hours with you.”

“That’s why we’re leaving Wednesday afternoon after work. So we still have plenty of time once we get home.”

“Wait a minute,” he said. “We agreed on four days. That would mean we leave Thursday.”

“Technically not, because you’ll be back by five on Sunday. Thus four days starts Wednesday afternoon.”

“Fine,” he growled, pulling a sticky note off a pad on her desk to scribble down his address.

“I remember where you live,” she whispered.

As he handed her the note, their fingers touched. Warm, solid. Their gazes locked, his as steely and uncompromising as their conversation. Maddie fought the impulse to grab his hands, shake them, pull him to her.
Stop this craziness
, every fiber in her wanted to cry out.
We can be bigger than this
.
Better
than this
.

“I know you do.” His voice was soft. For just a second, he sounded like the old Nick. They stood there, each holding on to the note, their hands still touching, the weight of many unsaid words cluttering the space between them.

What if they could put an end to this right now? Say the rift had to end. Work to mend instead of widen it. She opened her mouth to speak. All it would take was one of them to start.

Nick abruptly pulled his hand away. “Good-bye, Maddie. See you tomorrow.” Then he turned and walked his gorgeously tight butt out of her office, not bothering to glance back.

Who was she kidding? While she remembered a sweet, innocent Nick from long ago, he had morphed into a hard-chiseled shark who conducted his business without regard for hardship.

She thought she’d cracked through his hard outer shell a year ago, but she was wrong. It was impermeable to emotion.

He was going to be the same major pain in the ass as always. If she didn’t find some way to chip through, this trip wouldn’t change a thing. It would just make her more broke and more unable to help her family.

Maddie pulled out her buried sketchbook and thumbed through the pages of charcoaled drawings. She had so many ideas, but not a clue how to make an actual shoe. Nick was right. No one at Kingston Shoes would agree to try her out-of-the-box designs.

“By the way,” Nick said, suddenly appearing in the doorway. She startled and slammed the notebook closed. How long had he been standing there?

“Nice shoes, but not exactly consistent with the current Kingston inventory.”

Her face flooded with heat. Panic muted her voice as she struggled for a reply, not wanting to hand him a weapon to use against her. It took a second to realize he was not staring at her precious designs, but at her shoes.

Maddie contemplated tossing one at him to wipe the patronizing grin off his too-handsome face, but he’d vanished before she could pull it off her foot. It was going to be a very long weekend.

Chapter Four

Maddie exited the coffee shop they’d stopped at not even five minutes into their trip, which irked Nick to no end. He pulled up his black Lexus coupe so she wouldn’t get wet, watching the wipers glide efficiently back and forth in front of him. At least he’d insisted on taking his car instead of the old bucket of bolts she’d called Bessie, a pink PT Cruiser that had seen better days.

And he’d insisted on driving. Rain always made him edgy, reminded him of that stormy night long ago that had caused the accident that claimed his parents and baby sister and changed his life forever. It was better for him to stay in control rather than worry, and for him that meant taking the wheel.

His irritation drained as he saw her, armed with caffeine and full of eager anticipation. She wore a Phillies cap with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, yoga pants, and a T-shirt. How could she look so fresh and simple—nothing like the tempting seductress from the auction—yet still set his blood to boiling?

A surge of heat flared in his abdomen from viewing the fine curves of her nicely rounded derriere in those skin-tight pants, curves that turned his thoughts to cupping that sweet behind, running his hands along those smooth calves, and ending their road trip in the penthouse suite at a five-star downtown hotel.

But it was the memories of that same smiling, expectant girl that really pummeled him. She’d always approached any trip, no matter how small, as an adventure, and her enthusiasm had been contagious. He snorted.
Dumb kids.
He opened the passenger door and pushed those thoughts from his mind. All he wanted was to survive the next couple of days and forget about the Maddie chapter in his life.

“I got you a black coffee. Is that how you take it?”

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Plain. Black. Nothing added.” She peeked under his lid, and the rich, earthy smell of good strong coffee infiltrated the car.

He steered the car into the throng of late afternoon rush-hour traffic exiting the city. “What’s wrong with that? What’d you order, a non-fat-girlie-skim-no-whip-something or other?”

“Not even close.” She shook her drink and ice cubes rattled against the plastic cup. “This is an iced mocha with whip.
Lots
of whip.”

“My life is simpler.”

“Your life is black and white. Either, or.”

Traffic crawled. The wipers
chink-chinked.
The smell of summer rain was thick in the air. Nick needed to focus on getting them out of here, not on trading insults.

“Could we call a truce, please?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her wary look. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, but her skin was creamy smooth. She looked young and innocent, and it reminded him of wonderful days when he thought she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen.

She still was.

He had to remind himself that he was the one who’d ended it between them…twice. Left that small town behind so he could become something big. Something better. What could a poor kid from the rangy side of town offer the daughter of one of the most well-to-do families, anyway?

Nick tapped his fingers against the steering wheel. “Maybe we need rules,” he said.

She groaned. “What is it with you and your rules?”

“They keep me organized. On track.” And kept his mind off her.

“In Black and White World.”

“First rule, no insults.”

“That might be impossible.” Her lips closed carefully around the straw. Sweat broke out on his forehead. How could she make sipping on a straw erotic?

“Look, I agreed to this hokey trip. The least you could do is be decent about it.”

She folded her arms and set her chin to a defiant tilt. “Fine.”

“Rule two. We don’t discuss business. It’s a sore point, so we should avoid it. And three, let’s try to be pleasant.”

He saw her jaw twitch. He could tell she was gnawing the insides of her cheeks again. “Okay,” she said. Her straw made a noise as she hit the bottom of her drink, sucking up every last drop.

“That was fast.”

“It’s too good to drink it slow.”

“You’re not a savor-it-slowly type of person?”

“With coffee drinks, no. But with people and friends and fun activities, I would say I very much am. How about you?”

He didn’t know how to answer that. His life seemed to be a speeding train headed as fast as possible toward his goal of being successful. No, more than successful. The Best.

Maybe it had a lot to do with his grandfather who never achieved his dream of becoming a first-class shoe designer. Who’d given up going to New York City after Nick’s parents died and he’d taken on the responsibility of raising Nick.

At least Nick had made something of his life, far away from Buckleberry Bend. Gramps wouldn’t take the new BMW he’d sent and had made him retract the offer he’d made on a brand new luxury condo outside of town. But now Nick finally held the trump card that would pay back his grandfather for all the sacrifices he’d made.

He was going to give Gramps the chance he’d always wanted, his dream to get his shoe designs in front of big shots. And Nick was going to do it with the very company that had taken that dream away so long ago.

He didn’t want to hurt Madison or her family, but if he didn’t buy their company, someone else would. That was life. Sometimes you had to do painful things regardless of the consequences.

He felt her quietly assessing him, her gaze flicking disapprovingly from his high-end polo to his Italian leather shoes that to her surely bespoke luxury and money. To her, he was the epitome of a crass billionaire.

“Are you sure you want to waste your time and mine following through with this?” he asked.

She sat up straight. “I’ve been reading some of the company documents. You own forty-two percent of the company as of last month when my Uncle Al sold his shares. So you are
not
a majority owner.”

Actually, he was. One of his companies had bought up shares several years ago under the name Viper, Incorporated. A different public face than Holter Capital but the same person in charge.
Himself.

Maddie continued. “I have ideas to save the company. To turn it around, make it bigger and better than before.”

Startlingly blue eyes looked straight into him. She was so…hopeful. Even now, he still hated to burst the bubble of her undying optimism, even though he held no such naïve beliefs himself.

Tell her. Tell her now that you already own the majority of the company.
He could have said it from the get-go and made this entire trip unnecessary, but he didn’t need the backlash that would come his way in the press. Besides, it would be worth it to check out the company that would soon be his. Then he’d find a way to break it to her gently that Holter ownership of Kingston Family Shoes was already a done deal.

Somehow, the triumphant emotions he thought he’d feel over finally bringing justice to his grandfather didn’t feel so amazing with Maddie sitting right next to him. “There’s still time to go back. I’ll be honest with you. Success in this case is as rare as a sunny day in Cleveland.”

A spark of defiance lit up her eyes. “When a sunny day comes, I’m sure the people up there on Lake Erie really appreciate it.”

“I think you’re foolish, but—”

“You just broke rule one,” Maddie said. Actually, they were talking business
and
it was unpleasant. Strikes two and three.

“I did,” Nick said. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s all right.” She covered a sudden yawn with the back of her hand.

The rain finally began to slow, and the traffic pick up from its crawl as he headed west on I-76, the first of many highway miles that would eventually lead them to Buckleberry Bend.

Soon the soft sound of Maddie’s breathing assured him she was asleep, despite just sucking down a drink that contained two shots of espresso. Bantering back and forth with her had been strangely fun. She’d always had a wicked sense of humor whereas he’d tended to be overly serious. He was certain she had a gaggle of friends—always had.

A profound sense of sadness permeated deep inside of him like a chill on a bitter winter day. He had friends, all right—mostly hangers-on impressed by his wealth and the perks that offered them. Besides his long-time business partner, Preston Guthrie, who else did he really trust? Who did he hang out with to just…hang out? Flying to Vail to ski, to New York to catch a show, to Vegas to wine and dine his latest conquest—his life was filled with beautiful women, spontaneity, and lots of adventure. Yet as he drove along listening to the rhythm of the wipers and Maddie’s quiet breathing as she slept, none of it seemed genuine or real.

“Nick?” His traveling companion had nestled down in her seat, kicked off her tennis shoes and stuck her feet on the dashboard. Her toes were painted a deep, sparkly blue. Whimsical. Another stark contrast from the cool and collected businesswoman from the other day.

Her eyes were drifting closed again, so he spoke softly. “What is it?”

“Let me know when you want me to drive. I’m ready anytime.”

Right
.

“Oh, and Nick?”

“Yes, Madison.”

“Life might be more fun if you broke a couple rules along the way.”

He wouldn’t know. Rules had saved him. Given him order and purpose. He had played by them for so long, he had no clue what it was like not to.