Stripped (6 page)

And twice he guessed he’d reminded her that he really didn’t have a budget.

He hadn’t meant any offense in the gesture, but as she stared down at that ten dollar bill he’d realized something monumental about Madison Walker. The woman was full of pride and she didn’t like charity. And he respected that. If he were in her shoes, he’d be the same way.

As they reached the counter, Madison looked down at her kids. “We’re taking it to-go, got it?” Then she pinned him with her gaze, as if daring him to contradict her.

No way. He’d learned his lesson.

He held up his hands. “If that’s what momma wants, that’s what momma gets.”

Amusement twisted her lips. He was glad to see it. Things between him and Madison had been kind of roller coasterish today. He’d made some mistakes. Asking about her ex had been one. The dancing was another.

That one he really needed to let go. Every time he thought about it he saw her grinding her ass on that man’s lap again, and this ugly, dark jealous monster started to claw forward. Why, he didn’t know. He didn’t have any claim on her. Yes, he was attracted to her. Had been from the moment she’d walked into his office for an interview, but, for fuck’s sakes, jealousy was taking it to a whole new level he wasn’t comfortable with.

“Jaxon,” she said, thankfully saving him from his thoughts. “What kind of pizza do you eat?”

She propped her elbow on the counter, funneled her fingers through her hair and studied the menu then started gnawing on the corner of her thumbnail on her other hand. He found the entire thing fascinating and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“It’s pizza. I’ll eat anything.”

She sent him a ‘you’re not helping look’, then went back to the menu and chewing her thumb. It was ordering a pizza, but she made it out like it was some kind of huge undertaking.

She’d glance up for a minute, stare ahead at nothing, her head would bob from left to right for a second like she was thinking, then she’d go back to looking at the menu and gnawing on her thumb. What was she doing? Just pick a pizza and order it.

Then it hit him.

She was calculating. It wasn’t even her money. He was paying, and she was trying to figure out the best deal. It was also why she wanted to get it to-go. No tip, no drinks. Just the pizza. She was doing everything she could to save him money.

The oddest thing happened. His chest tightened with gratitude.

“Faith,” she said. “Pepperoni and mushroom?”

“I don’t like mushroom.”

Madison let out a breath and rubbed her forehead. “You can pick it off.”

Faith’s nose scrunched up. “I don’t want it on my pizza!” the girl said louder this time. “I want my
own
pizza.”

“Excuse me?” Her mother turned toward her, surprise evident on her face. “Well, that’s not happening.”

“Why not?”

“We’re getting one large.”

The little girl crossed her arms tight over her chest just like her brother had earlier. Did all kids do that? “I don’t want pizza.”

Madison made a
whatever
noise that clearly said that she didn’t give two shits if they got pizza or not. “No? You got it. Let’s go home.”

That’s when it happened. The little girl let out the biggest wail he’d ever heard. Jaxon could only stare. He didn’t spend any time around kids. None. Nada. He was a bachelor to the extreme. This was the craziest shit he’d ever seen.

She grabbed Faith and hoisted her up on her hip as if she weighed nothing and looked up at him. All Jaxon saw staring back at him in those blue-gray depths was utter exhaustion.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “She’s tired. We’re going to take a pass on the pizza, but thank you so much for the offer.”

Without another word, she took her son’s hand and tugged him along behind her. He could hear Faith’s muted howls even with them outside the restaurant.

A range of emotions hit him all at once. Embarrassment from being a public spectacle. Shock at the sudden turn of events. And sadness and awe.

For Madison.

In the few short hours he’d hung out with her today, he’d got a huge taste of what her everyday life was like. She always worried. Counted every penny. She was always on. Never got a break. She always had to be strong. Never had anyone to lean on.

And that seemed so fucking unfair for one person to have to handle. Was there anything he could do to lighten her load?

***

Trying to stave off the headache that was threatening, Madison rubbed her temple with two fingers as she closed the kids’ bedroom door and stepped back into the living room. Faith had pitched a fit the entire way home. Which was out of character for her daughter. Not that she was a perfect angel, but resorting back to two-year-old theatrics was something new. Even Noah had piped in with a, “Sissy, chill out,” after about ten minutes of it.

She’d given Jaxon the excuse that Faith was tired. That was a toddler’s excuse. It was barely six in the afternoon. Yeah, Faith got cranky and whiny but that usually happened around seven or eight at night. Something else was going on entirely.

Dropping down onto the couch, she propped her feet onto the scarred wood coffee table and scrubbed her face with her palms. She had both kids chilling out in their room, watching a DVD. She needed a moment of peace before she started dinner, because she was nigh close to having a meltdown of her own. A person could only take so much and she was at her threshold for the week.

Hot prickles stabbed at the back of her eyes.

She squeezed them shut. She needed a break. When was the last time she’d gone on a vacation? Hell, gone to a movie? Out to dinner? Dressed up in something other than exotic dancer clothes?

Too fucking long.

“Sissy stop!”

“Give it to me, Noah!”

Staring at the popcorn ceiling, she took a shaky breath as a tear slid from the corner of one eye into her hairline. She wiped the streak away.
Get it together, girl.

She pushed to her feet and walked back into the bedroom to see her two children wrestling over a pillow. Really?

“You two want to go to bed?” she asked, and even to her own ears she heard the defeat in her voice. Not really the front she needed to play in front of the kids, but she didn’t have any more fight in her today.

“No!” they said in unison.

“Then stop. Please.”

They dropped the pillow.

She closed the door, then dragged her ass into the kitchen. As the day had progressed, she had started to look forward to the pizza. Had started to look forward to not cooking for a change. She scowled at the stove. Oh well. At least her so-called famous chicken casserole was one of the quick ones.

As she pulled out a casserole dish, a knock sounded on her door. Frowning, she stared at it not sure if she’d actually heard it or not. Racheal was out of town. Another knock followed. She hurried over and peeked through the peep hole.

Jaxon. What was he doing here? After experiencing Faith’s hysterics, she expected him to give her and the kids a wide berth until he got to go back to his place. Not many confirmed bachelors wanted to deal with screaming children and she really couldn’t blame him.

“Hey,” she said as she opened the door. Her gaze instantly dropped to the Mario’s pizza box in his hand and DVD case lying on top of it.

“I said I’d pay for dinner, and I don’t go back on my word.”

Yes, he’d said he’d do that. But she’d let him off the hook. Her child had thrown a fit.

And he’d bought the pizza anyway.

Tears blurred her vision. A hiccupped sob sputtered out of her mouth. Horrified, she slapped her fingers to her lips then she spun around, leaving the front door wide open.

She raced through the living room, into the bathroom and slammed the door as the tears started to flow. She yanked a towel off a rack and stuffed it against her mouth then turned the faucet on high. She wailed like Faith had earlier today into the material. Days of stress, worry, and fear ripped out of her. Normally, she saved these moments for the shower. Damn Jaxon for his sweet gesture. He’d caught her in a weak moment. And she couldn’t have stopped this from happening even if she’d tried.

A light tap sounded on the door. “Madison?”

Her gaze flew to the door. She lowered the towel, swiped at her face with the back of her hand, then turned off the faucet. Swallowing, she took a second before saying, “Be right out,” feeling very thankful that her voice sounded normal and hadn’t quivered with all the emotions she’d just released.

Feeling slightly lighter than she had a few minutes before, she lowered the lid to the toilet and sat down, letting the towel hang between her knees. It’d been awhile since she’d had a good cry, but she hated it’d happened in front of Jaxon Sutherland.

What would he think? Hell, what did he think about what he’d seen all day?

She never cared about what people thought about her. But for some reason Jaxon’s opinion of her stung.

Rising to her feet, she looked at her reflection in the mirror over the sink and grimaced at the redness of her eyes. There was no way he wouldn’t be able to tell she’d been crying. She grabbed a wash rag out of the cabinet and wet it with cold water. After washing her face, she reapplied some make-up, trying to cover the splotchiness caused by her emotional moment.

She stood back. Better than before, but not perfect.

It’d have to do.

She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the large area that served as a kitchen, dining room and living room and froze. Jaxon had the kids sitting at the table, plates and drinks in front of them, and was serving them pizza.

For a moment, her eyes burned again as her heart stuttered. She placed a hand over her left breast. She’d been a mother for almost seven years, and a man had never helped take care of her children. It had always been on her.

Jaxon hadn’t been asked. He’d just done it.

Seeing him standing over them, smiling and laughing as he slipped a slice of pizza on Noah’s plate, was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. The fact that it was Jaxon Sutherland, a man that she believed incapable of such a domestic quality, was stunning and a bit humbling.

Maybe they both had something to learn from each other.

He glanced up and their eyes met. In that instant, simmering heat hummed through her, priming her. Low, pulsing, unmistakable. She swallowed.

“Hey,” he simply said. There was a deep huskiness to his voice that made her believe that he hadn’t been unaffected by that moment either.

She was the one who broke eye contact first, reminding herself that this was her boss. She stepped toward the table. “Dinner smells wonderful. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m famished.”

“What does famished mean?” Faith asked.

“It means,” Jaxon said as he pulled out a chair for her at the end of the table, his eyes still on her. “Very, very hungry.”

“Oh. Then I’m famished too.” She took a big bite of her pizza. Madison noticed the pile of mushrooms on the child’s plate. So Jaxon had ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza. She’d give him points for that.

Madison reached for a plate, but stopped when Jaxon shook his head. He made her plate for her, then placed it in front of her. “What would you like to drink?”

Not used to being waited on, she blinked at him. “Uh. There’s tea in the fridge, but I can—” She started pushing back her chair.

“You stay there.”

He hurried into the kitchen and opened the fridge. She stared at him. This felt weird. Other than going to a sit down restaurant with a waiter, which wasn’t very often, she was always the last to sit down. Heck, most of the time, she ate standing up because the moment she sat down, she had to get right back up and get something else. She never got waited on. She felt like she should be doing something.

A few seconds later, he placed the iced tea in front of her.

“Thank you.”

He made his plate and then took the seat across the table. The four of them. Eating dinner. Like a family.
So
weird.

Not that it seemed to bother Jaxon if the relaxed way he was chowing down on his pizza was any indication. If anything, he seemed completely at ease with the fact that he was sitting at a table with a woman he’d all but called a prostitute less than forty-eight hours ago and the two kids he had no idea she had.

Maybe he was.

At this point, she needed to accept that Jaxon Sutherland wasn’t as one dimensional as she’d thought he was.

As dinner progressed, they chatted about this and that, laughing. Jaxon mentioned he rented the new PIXAR movie to watch after they finished eating, which the kids went ape-shit over. Madison couldn’t get over the man sitting in front of her and how different he was from the man she worked for.

As everyone finished their last piece of pizza, Madison folded her arms on the table and leaned forward, signaling it was time for the ritual she’d started with Faith as soon as her daughter had been old enough to comprehend the question. “Faith, what was your favorite part of the day?”