Dare to Desire (Dare to Love 2)

“Having my say.”

He narrowed his gaze. He’d never seen this side of Madison before, and he had to admit it was hot. Still, there was a lot between them that needed stating out loud and fixing.

“Any chance I can go first? Explain what happened in New York?” he asked.

“Nope.” She straddled him and settled into his lap, facing him.

“How about the hearing? Can we talk about that?”

“Eventually.”

He blew out a long breath and eased back against the couch, settling in. He figured he’d be here a while. “Go.”

“Yeah.” She let out a nervous laugh. “I wish it were that easy or simple.” She ran a shaking hand through her hair. “I just went to visit Franny. I thought if Eric has his way, it might be the last time, so I wanted to make sure I said everything I could think of. Whether or not she could hear or understand.”

His heart twisted for her. And this time, he didn’t offer her platitudes, because as she’d learned today, it didn’t matter what should happen, a judge could rule any way he wanted. Fairness be damned.

“While I was talking to her, she thought I was her sister Gracie … and she was happy. She was in the past and reliving her life, and she laughed and smiled. I thought, I need to accept that at least she’s happy where she is at this moment. That has to be enough for me. It’s certainly enough for her right now.”

He smoothed his hand over her hair. “That’s huge for you. I’m glad you’re finding a way to come to terms with losing her.” Because loss was the one thing Madison feared.

“She’s not gone. The woman I knew is gone, but another one is here. And you know what? She taught me something today.”

Alex caught the twinkle in her eye, and he suddenly had more hope than he’d experienced since seeing her in Ian’s conference room that first day.

“What’s that?” he asked.

She met his gaze. “Living in the moment has to count. It has to be everything, or I’ll have nothing, like you said. It just took seeing Franny happy today to make me realize it.”

He waited, sensing she needed to keep going, and he remained silent.

“You’re right. I’ve had a lot of loss. Too much. But here you are, offering me everything in the moment, and I’m so busy worrying about the future that I’m pushing you away. When I could be happy now. We could be happy now.”

His head began to spin with the possibilities of what she was saying. “So—”

“So…” She drew a deep breath. “I’m here. I’m all in. And now I want to know what the hell you think you were doing with that blonde in New York.”

He couldn’t help it. He threw his head back and laughed.

She poked him in the stomach with her finger. “Cut that out.”

“I was set up.” He raised both hands in front of him before she could argue. “I kid you not. My bastard of an agent decided to ambush me with meeting after meeting. He told me this was a test for the job when, in reality, they just wanted to get good publicity shots for the show. He basically told them I’d take the job without my permission. And last night at the restaurant, Allison was in on it. The damned restaurant was loud, she moved in closer. She knew someone was snapping pictures. I didn’t.”

Madison eyed him, eyes narrowed.

“What? You don’t believe me?”

“Of course I believe you. I just can’t believe your agent would do something like that to you.”

That she trusted his word was huge, and hearing her say it, relief flooded him. “Ex-agent. I fired him as soon as I landed. And I couldn’t call you last night or this morning because it was after midnight when I got back to the hotel, and I was up at four for a six a.m. flight.”

She nodded. “I didn’t like it, but I didn’t jump to conclusions. But I was going to call it quits between us.”

His gut clenched, and this time, he narrowed his gaze.

“I didn’t think I could handle this kind of publicity and the women in your life, waiting for the other shoe to fall and you to decide you were finished with me again.”

“Madison,” he said on a low growl.