If The Shoe Fits (35 page)

This was no tentative first kiss; they’d
dispensed with that days ago. This was a kiss of remembrance,
yearning for another chance.

Reese’s mouth slanted over hers. He nipped at
each of her lips before his tongue urgently traced the seam between
them. On Bella’s groan, he swept in.

He tasted far better than her memories. Better
than her dreams. Bella clenched his arms as her knees threatened to
buckle. His biceps tightened and one of his hands found her head,
caressing her scalp as his kisses claimed her mouth.

His other arm slid beneath her backside,
lifting her up to delve so he could kiss her more deeply, and Bella
wanted to crawl inside the haven his arms offered, wanted to blot
out everything else but what was happening right here and now
between them.

She threw her arms around his neck, plunging
her hands into the thick chestnut waves brushing his collar. She
returned his kisses, her tongue melding with his, and knew this was
a night she’d always remember.

The kiss went on and on. Time stopped and
Bella was aware of only Reese. He surrounded her. He filled
her.

He
ful
filled her.

She wanted it to go on forever.

“
Well isn’t
this
cozy?”

A tidal wave of cold water crashed over them.
Madeleine stood ten feet away, her hands clenching her bony
hips.

Bella stumbled away from Reese as if she’d
been shot. His arms tightened, but Bella squirmed, yanking herself
free.

She could only imagine the ramifications of
this nightmare. Madeleine’s eyes were
blazing
, her lips
clamped together so tightly it looked like she’d swallowed
them.

Bella cleared her throat, ran her fingers
shakily through her hair, though the effort was futile, she knew.
She smoothed her dress and tried to erase the passion from her
face.

From the look Madeleine gave her, Bella knew
she’d failed miserably.

“
Mad—” Bella started.

“
I believe we were having a
private meeting.” Reese sounded more composed than Bella
felt.

If she weren’t standing right next to him,
well, okay, practically on top of him, she wouldn’t have realized
the angry hold he had on his emotions. His muscles were
rigid.

Madeleine didn’t appreciate the rebuke. The
woman tossed her head, lifted her nose in the air, and turned on
her heel. “And I shall have my own private meeting with Mr.
Fiorello.” She glared back at Bella but kept on walking. “Right
now.”

Bella started after her, but Reese grabbed her
arm. “Let her go.”

Bella started to tremble and desire had
nothing to do with it. “Oh no oh no oh no.” She wrung her hands. “I
knew this would happen. I knew it. How could I have let it
happen?”

“
It’s okay, Bella, I can handle
Madeleine.”

“
You don’t understand, Reese. No
one can handle her. Not when she has the legal right—” Bella
pinched the bridge of her nose. “Oh, God. It’s all ruined. What
have I done?” Her head throbbed. She massaged her
temples.

Reese gripped her shoulders, his fingers
kneading the flesh above her collarbone. “Sssh, Bella. It’s all
right. Don’t worry.”

Her eyes flew open. “Don’t
worry
? Worry
is about the only thing I can do.” She pulled away from him again.
“I’ve got to talk to her. I can still fix it.” She looked around,
trying to get her bearings. Which way had Madeleine
gone?

There. Bella hiked up her long skirt to run
past Reese when he grabbed her arm. His voice was
urgent.

“
Bella, let me—”

Bella squirmed away. “Let you? I can’t
let
you. Letting you is why she’s so mad in the first
place.” She started to run. “Oh, God, please don’t let me be too
late.”

She stumbled as she ran over something small
and round and shiny on the floor, and tripped out of her shoe.
Reese was too close for her to stop and pick it up without having
to fight with him again. She had to get to Madeleine before the
woman did something irreversible.

Bella gave a last look at her pump lying on
its side, irony gnawing at her insides, but she still ran after
Madeleine.

Along the way, she pulled off the other shoe,
then flew up the gangplank and stairs, ignoring the calls from
Jolie, Staci, and Giac. She ran around the ship’s bridge to the
tables on the back deck.

And there, primly setting a pen down, her back
straight, sat Madeleine. She handed a stack of papers to Mr.
Fiorello and turned to Bella.

That feral grin was back in place.

Bella could only stare, horror-stricken. It
was gone. All of it.

Oh, God. Please, no.

Before she could stop herself, Bella strode up
to her stepmother. “Madeleine—”

“
Lucinda.” Madeleine’s tongue
slithered between her teeth. “Where are your manners? Surely you
want to congratulate your new boss on his very recent purchase of
our restaurant?” Her hand swept toward Mr. Fiorello.

Bella gritted her teeth and tried to smile
politely to the man.

“
And do be a dear and take
Gus’s...
thing
...home with you, won’t you?” Madeleine pushed
back in her chair and held the soufflé out to Bella.

Before Bella could reach it, a blur of
something small and bald with wire-rimmed spectacles lurched
forward. “Oh, my pardon. I must have had a bit too much of my
whiskey.” Mr. Griff bumped into Madeleine.

The soufflé teetered for a moment, then fell
back as if in slow motion, splattering against the woman’s chest,
orange and brown globs landing squarely in the middle of
Madeleine’s stark white sash, the only relief from the absolute
black of her dress. Large chunks of the soufflé wavered for a
moment from their precarious perch then plopped to the floor
beneath—and onto Madeleine’s brand new black suede
heels.

Madeleine shrieked into the stunned silence,
“You careless, little man! Look what you’ve done!”

Luckily, Mr. Griff moved away or Bella swore
Madeleine might have struck him. The woman brushed her sash, but
only succeeded in spreading the spongy orange mixture even more.
She threw down her hands in disgust. “That’s it! I have had it with
Gus and the restaurant, and this stupid thi... thing, whatever it
is.” She snarled at Bella. “I’m glad I sold it!”

That was it, then. Sobs threatened to
overwhelm Bella, but she refused to give Madeleine the
satisfaction. Or the opportunity to threaten Sophia. It galled
Bella that she had to bite back her bile over losing the
restaurant, but Sophia was more important. She couldn’t risk
Madeleine’s anger any more. That kiss had done enough
damage.

While Madeleine sputtered and cursed Mr.
Griff, Bella threw back her shoulders, spun on her shoeless heel
and regally walked back to the stairwell, past Reese, down the
stairs, took Bruno’s keys from him, promised Jolie more money to
see to the clean-up, and left just as the church clock chimed
midnight.

Chapter
Thirty-Eight

Reese punched Bella’s doorbell at an ungodly
early hour the next morning. Not that it mattered to him what time
it was because he had yet to even glance at a mattress. He’d been
up the rest of the night planning how to fix this. Selling the
restaurant had caught him completely unawares. God, the woman truly
was a monster, threatening Bella with both her sister
and
her legacy.

No wonder Bella had steered clear of him.
Well, no more. Madeleine had thought she was cashing in her trump
cards, but she hadn’t yet dealt with him. Or his parents. Mom,
especially. The woman would do anything when her children’s
happiness was threatened. Even loan him way too much
money.

He punched the bell again, not caring if he
woke the whole damn household. Someone needed to call the woman on
the carpet and he was so going to relish doing it.

He gave up on the bell and pounded the door.
The transom above it shook. Good. That’s how he felt after spending
the rest of the party and what was left of the night worrying about
Bella, wracking his brain, then calling his parents, his attorney,
and any favor he could think of.

Drew opened the door bleary-eyed. Well, that
couldn’t be helped.

“
Where’s Bella?”

The girl shook her head and
shrugged.

“
Then where’s Madeleine?” Reese
demanded.

Drew stepped aside and waved a hand somewhere
past the stairs. Reese took it as an invitation.

He strode into an empty kitchen and saw a set
of French doors opened to a patio.

Madeleine, sipping tea from a delicate cup as
if she were royalty, sat there on a wicker chair in an austere
white dressing gown that made her hair look as insidiously black as
her soul.

She sat back calmly, setting the cup in its
saucer, its slight rattle the only indication she was not as
composed as she affected. She offered him an inquiring
smile.

He wanted to slap it right off her face, but
as God was his witness, he’d never struck a woman in his life. If
Madeleine were a man, however, she’d be eating dirt right now
through gaping holes in her gum line.

She rose. “Why, Mr. Charmant, this is an
unexpected—”

“
Sit down.” Reese had no time—nor
inclination—for niceties.

She sat.

Good.
He grabbed one of the other
flimsy wicker chairs. It crackled when he half-crushed it beneath
his fingers. Again,
good
. He felt like breaking something.
He spun the chair around, straddling it.

Madeleine’s eyes flickered at the French
doors.
Ha. Flicker away, lady, because you’ve got to get past me
to get off this patio
. He wasn’t allowing her to go anywhere
until he had his say.

And his way.

Madeleine might think she knew what being in
control of a situation was, but now, he was in charge.

Because he held something he knew she
wanted.

“
I’m here for one reason
only.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, which simply
made her look more like the pointed weasel-faced wretch she
was.

“
My mother will decline the seat
on the Board and recommend you, but I want something in
return.”

He’d surprised her.
Good
.

“
Why?” Her eyes
narrowed.

“
Because you’re going to rescind
the sale of the restaurant you made last night.”

“
I can’t. I signed
papers.”

“
State law says that you have
three days to change your mind in a business deal. You just changed
your mind.”

Madeleine tapped her thin, shriveled lips.
“But with the restaurant gone, I have no reason to care about being
on the Board and since I sold it, I obviously don’t care to be on
the Board.”

Reese stood up and leaned on the table, his
face mere inches from hers. “Oh you care. You put this family
through hell because you care so much. Last night was just your
showboating. Rescind the damn sale.”

“
And if I refuse?”

Don’t tempt me, lady.
“I’ll use the
full force of my celebrity to blacken your name not only in town,
but across the entire state. Hell, I can call the media and make it
nationwide. Toss my mother’s cachet in there and this could go
worldwide. You won’t be able to show your face anywhere with any
semblance of dignity, let alone be on
any
Board whatsoever.
Everything you’ve worked for—threatened and blackmailed for—will be
gone.”

The color drained from her face—not a
particularly good look on her—but the woman had chutzpah that was
for sure, as she sucked in her panic, slid a calculating grin onto
her face, and strummed her claws on the tabletop.

“
So I keep the restaurant and
you’ll ensure me a seat on the Board?”

“
No.” He pulled an envelope from
his back pocket, set it on the table, and slid it across to her.
“You’ll sell
me
the restaurant and I’ll ensure you my
mother’s backing. I can’t speak for the entire Board.”

“
That’s not good
enough.”

“
That’s all I’ve got. Take it or
leave town because I guarantee after I get through spilling this
whole sordid tale to the media, you’re not going to want to be
here.”

He’d do it, too. It no longer mattered that he
was obliterating the line between his personal and professional
lives because Bella’s happiness was tantamount to
everything.

He realized that now. Come hell or high
water—or even Madeleine—Reese would use whatever talents,
strengths, know-how he had to make Bella happy.

Madeleine took a sip of her tea. Oh, she was
trying to be cool, calm, and collected, but Reese could see the
flutter at the base of her throat.

He could feel the pounding in his temple. He
didn’t need this.

“
All right. I’ll do
it.”