Page 8 of Recipe for Love (The Andrades 0.5)
“He’s always used my phone signal to track me. I never minded before. It saved me from having to always tell him where I was going,” Maddy said, then realized how odd that might sound without further explanation. “He’s also my bodyguard.”
“Who are you?”
I’m going to die a virgin. “Madison Andrade.”
“Andrade? As in Andrade Global?”
It wasn’t a surprise that he knew the company—Stephan’s company was always in the news. “That’s my cousin’s company. Alessandro Andrade is my father. He built Andrade Technologies.”
He looked her over again and whistled in a less-than-complimentary way. “You’re the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in America?”
Worse than measles, I carry the dreaded wealth germ.
“You’re not scared and running from a bad situation. You’re Daddy’s little pissed off princess trying to teach him a lesson.”
She replied defensively, “That’s not true.”
“Really? This isn’t about getting back at your family by breaking their rules?”
“No.” Shit, what if he’s right? What if that’s all this is? “It isn’t like that,” she denied hotly, but even as she said it she wasn’t sure. “I—” She stopped there.
“Yes?”
Nothing. Nothing that makes sense. She closed her eyes for a painful moment and said, “Why can’t you be nice?”
“What’s the matter, Princess, not used to people being honest with you?”
“Don’t call me that.”
Leaning back against the driver’s door, he raised an eyebrow and asked, “Who do you live with?”
Between gritted teeth, Maddy admitted, “My parents.”
“Do you have a job?”
“No.”
“BMW or Mercedes for graduation?”
“A 1980 Boeing 747 jet. I like vintage.”
“Go home, Princess. I’m not interested.”
“Then stop kissing me,” she said angrily. “I’m getting pretty tired of you judging me. You don’t know me. And you don’t have to. Gino is probably on his way. You can go back to eating your way around France for all I care.”
He sat back and sighed. “Did that analogy sound as ridiculous when I used it last night?”
Maddy crossed her arms over her chest and said, “Worse.”
“I’m sorry.” Those dark eyes seared through her.
I did not see that coming. “It’s okay, you were being honest.”
He turned toward her. “No, I wasn’t. I was trying to keep you out of my bed.”
She lowered her arms, undid her seatbelt, turned to face him, and whispered, “Why?”
“Because of this.” He threaded his hand through her hair and pulled her into a savage kiss. There was no teasing, no tempting, just a bold claiming of her mouth. His tongue plunged and withdrew, leaving her feeling shaken and yearning to be filled again. She opened her mouth wider for him in an invitation he accepted greedily.
When he broke the kiss off and rested his forehead on hers, their heavy breathing blended. Eyes still closed, Maddy said shakily, “I’m no expert, but what’s wrong with it? It feels pretty damn good to me.”
Taking her face in both hands, he kissed her open lips hungrily, then said, “Too good. Being with you, taking you to my bed and tasting every inch of you, is all I can think about.”
Maddy opened her eyes and met his. “And that’s a problem because you’ll eventually want to eat at other restaurants?”
He shook his head and frowned with impatience. “Forget that stupid analogy.”
“I can’t promise that. I’m only human.” She shot him a cheeky smile.
“You drive me crazy, do you know that?” he growled and nipped softly at her neck. “I’ve been telling myself all day that if you weren’t at my house when I returned it would be for the best. Now that I know who you are, I’m even more convinced that you don’t belong here.”
“Because my family has money?”
“Because I had to fight for everything I have. I have no respect for those who take the easy road.”
Maddy pulled away from him and sat back. “What happened to make you so defensive? First you’re upset because you think I’m after money, now you’re upset because I have it. I don’t have a problem with money. You do.”
He closed his eyes for a moment. “You’re right.”
Maddy sat up straight in surprise. “Really? Which part? I mean, of course I am.”
In the silence that followed, the air was charged with the sizzle of their attraction, but also with a connection that defied explanation. It didn’t matter if it made sense or not. It simply was.
; “Money ruins more lives than it saves. I’m not interested in having more than I need to pay the bills. Until you, I didn’t realize how strongly I felt on the subject.”
In his eyes, she saw how an old pain still tormented him. “Why?”
He looked out the car window as if he were looking back in time. “My mother put money before the welfare of her children. Alyson and I were accessories she packed and moved into the mansion of each new husband she had. One fake family after the next. I learned not to care, not to get attached. I wanted a family, but what I got instead was a new car every year. I’m afraid her lifestyle left me with a disgust for the wealthy.”
Maddy thought of her family and knew, despite their present issues, that that wasn’t the life they’d given her. “She may have been trying to provide for her children the only way she knew how.”
His face twisted with disdain. “No, we were not her priority. Her third husband tried to force himself on Alyson when she was seventeen. She ran away to escape him. My mother took her husband’s side. I believe she wanted to wait out the time limit built into the prenuptial.”
With a gasp, Maddy covered her mouth and asked, “What did you do?”
Looking past her as he remembered, he said, “I nearly killed him when I found out. Then I followed Alyson. She’d come here, to Sablet, looking for our real father.”
“Did you find him?”
“No, but we found his old house. They say he died here, practically penniless after my mother left him. In a house that was mortgaged to the hilt. The locals say during their marriage he took out loans in an attempt to appease her, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more.”
“That’s so sad. And then you bought the house?”
“In the beginning, Alyson wanted to live here. Eventually, she made friends in town and moved out.”
“But you stayed.”
“Sablet was as good a place as any to open a restaurant.”
