Page 78 of The Encounter
“Yeah. I appreciate you coming by. It was very sweet of you.”
“I know the tabloids can be hard. It takes some getting used to, but try to ignore them. Especially Samantha’s articles.”
“I know this is going to sound silly, but it makes me really mad that she’s calling me Madelyn. It almost feels like she’s tarnishing that name.” Her eyes flitted to his before she looked down at her hands.
He tightened his arm around her. “Does this have to do with your parents?”
She nodded against him and scooted closer to his side. “My parents always called me Madelyn. It was never Maddie. Always Madelyn. It wasn’t something I really thought about until after they passed away. I guess I just want to preserve the memory of them saying it, and every time someone else says it, it’s like their voice is what I hear rather than my parents’ voices.”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “That makes sense. I’ll make sure I always call you Maddie.”
A heat warmed her belly. She had never voiced that out loud before, and she knew her walls were crumbling. Jace wormed his way into her heart, and it didn’t terrify her as much as she thought it would.
“It’s okay if you call me Madelyn.”
He leaned back and tilted her face up to his. “Are you sure?”
“I kind of like it. It’s sexy coming from you.”
He grinned down at her. “Madelyn.”
Yes. Yes, it was definitely sexy coming from him.
She leaned back into him and took a deep breath, allowing his scent to relax her. She sighed.
“Why is she attacking me?”
He exhaled. “She acts like she has a claim on me. This is a game for her. She tries to run everyone off who gets close to me.”
“Why?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
“She told me you would get tired of me and go back to her like you have done with all the others.”
His body stiffened, and he shifted. His voice came out strangled. “She said what?”
Maddie leaned away from him to get a look at his face. His eyes appeared darker, angry. His body was rigid and his hands clenched into fists. Maddie put a hand on the couch and pushed herself back a few inches from him. She knew the anger wasn’t directed at her, but something about his posture told her she should give him some space.
“Have you been with her?” she asked quietly.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“More than once?”
His eyes turned to hers, burning into her. “Yes.”
Her heart ached despite her not having a reason to hurt. He didn’t cheat on her with Samantha. But somehow, Samantha’s attacks felt more personal than they had before. She had confirmed that he had been with her. Samantha somehow felt like she had a claim on Jace.
Jace’s hands wrapping around Maddie’s pulled her from her thoughts. “I haven’t been with Samantha in three years.”
“So why does she think she has a claim on you?”
Jace leaned closer to her. “Several years ago, before Samantha became a journalist, she and I slept together. We grew up together and used to be close friends. It just felt natural to be together, and we had agreed in our young stupid state to take each other’s virginities.”
“Oh,” was all Maddie could muster. She hadn’t expected them to have that long of a history together.
“I’m ashamed to say she was my fall-back. Whenever either of us had gotten into a relationship and it would end, we would end up back together. It was a toxic cycle—one that lasted for several years. Eventually I ended it. Samantha had been in a relationship and after it ended, she came to me. I was single, but I didn’t want to continue it. I kept her at a distance and she’s been sour over it since. That was three years ago.”
