The Devil's Storm Page 23

  Adrian stood and sat on the edge of the coffee table with a sigh. “We now own Harrison Aerospace. We’ve got a two-year transition plan to turn it into its own independent innovative design company, so it can’t interfere with Atwood Technologies.”

  “Adrian, who’s we?”

  “As in you and me. Dad bought it, but it’s in my name.”

  “That means it belongs to you, not me.”

  “You’re my wife, or at least you will be, and that means it’s ours. It’s our children’s to do with as they please.”

  “That’s an awfully presumptive statement,” Madeleine returned coldly.

  Adrian felt his heart sink. He shook his head, already in denial. “Dont—don’t say that,” he stumbled.

  Madeleine leaned towards him, eyes ablaze with the intensity of a lightning strike. “Don’t think for a second I’m interested in another marriage where I can’t trust my husband. I won’t make the same mistake twice.”

  He reached out for her hand, but Madeleine drew her arms across her chest and sat back in the armchair, emanating a coldness he could practically feel. “So you’re a CEO again?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t want to be a CEO or even an executive. You wanted to be an engineer.”

  “This is different—”

  “Why? Because you needed a win with your father? It’s a smart move on your part. Money is the way to his heart.”

  “Because I still get to design, but I also get to run a company that can actually make a difference. The possibilities of what we can do are endless. That was too exciting of an opportunity to turn down. You know innovative design was my baby at Atwood Technologies. Lee said it a million times.”

  Finally, her countenance seemed to soften. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, Adrian. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is. I know, it’s different, but for once in my life, owning my own company isn’t some duty or chore. And I think Dad just wanted to ensure I had the same shot as Lee, or that our family wasn’t left to fend for ourselves—”

  Madeleine gave a short, dry laugh. “Yes, God forbid an Atwood not be handed everything on a silver platter.”

  His jaw clenched at that comment, but he had to keep in mind this would always be a point of contention in their lives. They had been raised in completely different environments, with completely different expectations in life. Madeleine’s parents had wasted every dime ever earned or given, and Adrian’s family had lectured endlessly about leaving a legacy for future generations. He agreed with their outlook, but he wasn’t going to argue with her further. They needed time to process, to stew. Adrian knew she was going to be angry, but he didn’t expect her to threaten their engagement over something that seemed so small at first...Now that he reflected on it, it would have been so much simpler if he’d just followed his father’s advice and told her everything days ago.

  “So just one last question, and I already know the truth, so you might as well just tell me,” she began. “What happened the day your parents confronted you about us?”

  Adrian swallowed hard. “What do you mean you already know the truth?”

  “I made Lee tell me.”

  He laughed. “And you believe him?”

  “Seeing as he’s the only one being honest with me right now, yes.”

  “That’s rich.”

  “Then give me your version of it. Let’s see if they’re the same,” Madeleine challenged.

  He started to speak, but he found he couldn’t. There was no sense in it if it was just going to hurt her twice. “Baby, if you know what happened, I can’t imagine having to put you through it twice.”

  Her jaw clenched. Wrong thing to say. “I don’t need your protection from everything. I can handle it.”

  Adrian shook his head. “You’ve been days without medication—"

  “I said I could handle it.”

  “Are you sure about that?” he questioned, feeling the weight of concern settling in.

  She hesitated for a moment, then straightened her posture and looked him in the eye. “I want to know what happened, and I want to hear it from you. Just to see if the man I’ve promised to marry will tell me the truth.”

  “Even if it hurts?”

  “Especially if it hurts,” she stated, tone steeled.

  Adrian pursed his lips, took a deep breath and let it out before he began. He recounted the story of being called over to his mother’s house, and his mother asking how long it had been going on. How they had wanted to know if he was sleeping with her, and the directive that their affair would end as soon as possible. “I told them there was no way in hell I was leaving you because we love each other.”

  He thought for a moment it would satisfy her. That it was enough

  to give her a glimpse into that day, without her knowing the sacrifice it took to have a life with her.

  “Then what happened?”

  “Maddie, please. You know the gist of it,” he begged.

  “I want every ugly detail.”

  Adrian clenched his hands together. “And if I tell you will you let it go? You can be angry all you want, but I need to know we’re going to pull through this.”

  “That depends on what’s about to come out of your mouth.”

  Anger rose, hot and tense. Not only at Madeleine, but the entire situation. For Lee telling her anything about Harrison Aerospace, when it had been his fault he couldn’t get a job in the first place. For his parents for being so damned determined that spring day last year to keep him from Madeleine.

  He looked up at her, mouth hardened, and he finally told her the truth. “My father told me to take a break from you. Three months, no contact. He also wanted to buy me out of my half of Atwood Technologies. Then, he wanted me to take a break and see what I really wanted in life. He wrote me a check. I handed it back to him and walked out the door. That’s everything, I swear.”

  “But you left for three months! I’m sorry, that’s just suspicious.”

  “Just long enough for your divorce to be final, like I said. I didn’t want to hurt my family any more than I already had, and God knows if I was around you, I wouldn’t have kept my hands off you.”

  Madeleine’s glare gradually faded. She took a deep breath, then continued. “One last question.”

  “It can’t get any worse than that. Shoot.”

  Her eyes darkened, and she leaned forward. “I want to know how much I’m worth to a man like Richard Atwood. How much was he willing to give you to stay away from me?”

  “I don’t remember.” Madeleine looked him straight in the eye, then stood, her eyes never leaving his.

  Madeleine grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase. “And I

  don’t believe you.”

  Adrian thought nothing had hurt so much since the day he’d found her at Tybee, on the cusp of a second suicide attempt and broken. He stood as she began to walk out of the room, prepared to chase her to the ends of the earth if needs be.

  “Two billion.”

  Madeleine stopped dead in her tracks. Adrian dared to hope

  some last-minute honesty had been enough. She would come back, he would hold her, tell her how much he loved her and wanted nothing more than to be her husband.

  He heard her try to muffle a cry, but as soon as Adrian went to take her in his arms, she pushed him away. “Maddie, come on. We can get over this. As soon as we get home, life will go back to normal. We don’t have to associate with my family anymore.”

  She turned towards him, tears already streaming. “Except you just went into business with your father. He was going to sneak you back into the fold one way or another. Besides that, you can’t handle a life without them, and I can’t bear to ask you to.”

  Adrian shook his head. “I’ll tell him I changed my mind. It’ll save him a ton of money. We don’t have to play by their rules.”

  “No, we don’t, but you do. You need your family, Adrian, and they’ve made it cle
ar they don’t want me to be a part of it.”

  Oh God, it hurt. If he’d had the option to feel it physically instead of experiencing every emotion that shredded through his heart like razor wire, he would have taken it.

  “I don’t need them. Not like I need you. I gave them up for you and I’d make the same decision again,” Adrian swore as she stepped through the door. He took three long strides to catch up to her. He wasn’t going to lose her without a fight. “Maddie, where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “It’s not safe yet. You’re not going back alone. Let me swing by Dad’s and get my stuff, and we can both go together.”

  Madeleine turned to him. “No,” she cried. “I need some space right now. I love you, but I’ve got a lot to think about.”

  Helplessness felt like being strangled. “I told you the truth about everything. Was Lee’s story not the same?”

  She pushed the button for the elevator then faced him. “You know, you Atwoods are pretty close-knit, even when you’re at odds.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The elevator opened with a ding. “I couldn’t get Lee to say a damned thing."

  Adrian stood frozen, feeling powerless to act as she boarded the elevator and left him there alone.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Madeleine breathed a sigh of relief as soon as she was behind the locked door of a Holiday Inn guest room.

  Then she struggled not to cry.

  It wasn’t that she wanted to be apart from Adrian, but she needed the space and time to think about everything. She questioned the entire fifteen-minute drive over if she wasn’t overreacting. She could get over the whole job debacle. While it still didn’t make a ton of sense to her, she understood it mattered to Adrian. In his mind, providing for a wife and future family was the right thing to do, and that’s what he intended to do. That was admirable enough.

  What Madeleine couldn’t stand for was the fact that he lied to her. She meant it when she told him she wouldn’t enter another marriage like her first one. Her relationship with Lee had nearly killed her. She wouldn’t go back to that. She had grown too much and now valued herself enough not to sacrifice her sanity for a man.

  But what hurt the most is the inevitable, obvious fact that marrying Adrian would never work. Why were they so naïve to think that it would?

  His parents hated her. Maybe they had every right. She and Lee could be on the best possible terms, but that didn’t mean that Lee and Adrian would forgive each other and forget the pain of the past. It didn’t mean that Richard and Maggie Beth would ever forgive her for separating their boys, for ruining their fragile state as a family in the first place.

  Madeleine squeezed her eyes shut and finally let the tears come. She left her suitcase at the door and curled into a tight ball on the double bed. Her engagement ring felt like a heavyweight on her hand. It didn’t belong there. It never had.

  She would have to tell Adrian she couldn’t marry him.

  It was the last thing she wanted, but taking Adrian away from his family was not an option. He would be much happier with someone they could all approve of. Maybe in time, if she were out of the picture, Adrian and Lee would make up.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you he’d be much happier without you,” Evelyn said as she settled next to her on the bed.

  A choking sensation seized her throat and released with more tears.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it really is for the best. He’ll be much happier, and you...well, you’ll probably always miss him and wonder how things could have been different, but Madeleine, you know you’ve always been more of the lone wolf type.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” Madeleine said through trembling lips. “I want Adrian. We—we can work this out, I think. Were the past fifteen months of our lives really nothing?”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. They weren’t,” Evelyn began, swiping some falling strands of Madeleine’s hair from across her forehead. “You both loved each other very much. Even I can admit that. But don’t start backtracking now. You already know that letting him go is the best thing for him. You know that expression. If you love someone, let them go.”

  Madeleine nodded. Evelyn was right.

  “Now, what are we going to do about the house? It’s completely impractical now.” Evelyn stopped to scoff. “I mean, what were you thinking of buying a six-bedroom house in the first place? It wasn’t as if you would ever use all that space. Even if you got lucky enough to have one child, which you wouldn’t have...”

  “I don’t think I could use the basement ever again, or look at all of Adrian’s things. And the house will be so quiet without him.”

  Evelyn smiled and caressed her cheek. A shiver passed throughout Madeleine’s body. She was freezing. As goosebumps raised on her skin, a sense of dread swirled in her abdomen and circulated throughout her body.

  “You know what we haven’t done in the past couple days?” Evelyn snapped up and grabbed the remote from the nightstand. “We haven’t watched the news to see how poor Savannah is faring. You’ve been too caught up in this ridiculous engagement to even care what’s going on.”

  Madeleine couldn’t bear to watch it, but she lay there anyway, listening to the reports of all the destruction and flooding, and how much worse Beatrice had been than expected. How true that comment rang with Madeleine. Before Beatrice, she was well on her way to having everything she’d ever wanted, living life on cloud nine

  with the love of her life.

  The storm had decimated everything, the winds and rains sweeping away the broken pieces.

  And then her phone rang. Her heart skipped a beat at the tune of Moonlight Serenade, the song she’d assigned just for Adrian. For a moment, she could picture being back in his arms, in the green dress he loved so much, dancing away while he put whispers of confidence back in her heart. Had she started falling in love with him then, when he started piecing her back together, shard by shard?

  She had just enough hope left to leap off the bed and dig through her suitcase and purse while the song stopped and started again with another call.

  Evelyn eyed her, jaw already clenching in anger as Madeleine grasped the phone in victory. “Don’t you dare answer that, Madeleine McCollum.”

  Madeleine shook her head. “He’s calling. He’s probably worried. I know he still loves me.”

  “And you know it will never work out. He needs his family. He can’t have both you and them. He picked them the minute he signed that contract to be the CEO of that company. Richard’s got him on a string, and he knows it. If he can convince Adrian to give up being an engineer, it’s only a matter of time before Richard convinces him to leave you, too.”

  Madeleine swallowed, but kept her eyes on the phone. Her thumb was so close to the ‘accept’ button. All she had to do was answer and let Adrian do what he did best—save the day. She’d be back in his arms in a matter of minutes. He just needed to know where she was.

  Evelyn made the decision easier though. She gently placed her hands on the phone. “Allow me,” she began, taking the phone from Madeleine’s hands. She hit the red ‘reject’ button, then cut off the phone altogether. “Now then. He can’t call anymore and risk damaging himself by being with you. I know it’s hard, but you’ve done the right thing letting me handle it.”

  The tears burst form from their dam. Madeleine collapsed to her

  knees right there in the floor, her eyes already trained on the television screen, unable to look away from all the destruction.

  Chapter Thirty Four

  Lee swallowed and hoped Emily was in the mood for surprises. He pressed down the door handle and pushed her front door open, thankful it was unlocked.

  “Honey, I’m home,” he called out.

  He nearly smacked himself in the face for making such a terrible joke. What if she took it wrong?

  Lucky for him, Emily didn’t seem to mind. She dashed through t
he kitchen doorway and through the foyer to jump into his arms. “You said you were going to be working all night,” she squealed, not giving him the least bit of time to explain before planting an all-consuming kiss to his lips. Lee relaxed and an instinctive groan escaped from his from his throat. She looked down at him, brown eyes glistening in the sunlight streaming through her front door window. “So how did you get out of working all night?”

  “I used some of that CEO privilege you were talking about. It’s...it’s been a day.”

  Her face fell into an empathetic expression. “What happened?”

  He took a sharp breath. He wasn’t sure how she was going to take the news that he’d gone to lunch with Madeleine. Lee had to remind himself that they were not in an official relationship... but he wanted to change that. Maybe he would mention it later.

  Lee shook his head. “Just some drama,” he began downplaying it all. “It would probably bore you to death.”

  “Well, you can bore me with it later. I wish I would have known you were coming. I made dinner plans with two very dashing gentlemen.”

  “Aaron and Mark?” Lee questioned as she turned, took his head and lead him into her kitchen.

  “How did you guess?”

  Lee laughed. “It wasn’t going to be a couple of eligible bachelors.”

  “They could have been!”

  “Oh, they could have been. But you love me, and I’m all the man

  you need.”

  She threw him an amused expression over her shoulder as she went back to her kitchen range and started “My, my, Lee Atwood. Aren’t we confident?”

  He felt his cheeks redden. “Especially for a guy who’s only been on a couple of dates with you.” Jesus, he’d gone overboard. She was making him crazy.

  “I like a confident man,” she said, biting her bottom lip before going back to the range to stir a pan full of seared vegetables. Lee wasn’t sure what she was cooking, but it filled her kitchen with a delicious aroma. It was too bad he was going to be too polite to stay and crash her dinner plans.

  “Hmmm. I’m sorry to disappoint you. You got stuck with cocky, not confident.”