Watching the breeze lift her curls off her neck Marcus felt the urge to nibble there return again. ‘Penny for them,’ he said.
Madeline glances at him, her heart beating a mad tattoo in her chest. Strike while the iron was hot. ‘We’re not having rebound sex any more, are we?’
Marcus looked assessingly at her earnest face. No, they weren’t. It had been an easy thing to continue to believe they were. There had been no insistence from her, no suggestion that it was anything else. No hints they make it more permanent, buy a ring, move in together.
But deep in his heart he knew they’d moved into a relationship. ‘No,’ he confirmed.
She smiled. That was the first hurdle.
He cocked his head. ‘What brought this on?’
‘I’ve been thinking about Trent and Abby and how fragile life can be,’ she said quietly.
Marcus nodded. It was hard not to reassess the course of your own life when confronted with someone else’s mortality. Especially a six-year-old boy’s.
‘I think I’m falling for you.’ Madeline didn’t know where the words had come from and cursed herself for letting them out. It hadn’t been her plan.
At least her disobedient mouth had the good sense to not completely blow her cover.
Marcus blinked. He waited for the alarm bells to start ringing and the denial to spring to his lips. But there was nothing. Just the intriguing possibility that Maddy was actually serious.
‘Aren’t you going to say something?’ she asked after long, silent moments.
Marcus stood and leaned against the railing, facing her and, when she slid her foot onto his thigh, he absently rubbed at it because he liked touching her. ‘You know that’s not the idea of a rebound thing, right? You’re supposed to just use me for sex. And then have several other sexually based relationships until you fall for someone else. I’m rebound guy. You’re supposed to use me up and leave me. It’s not wise to fall for rebound guy.’
Hmm. So he hadn’t rejected her outright. Madeline felt amazingly heartened. ‘Sorry.’ She shrugged and then smiled, obviously not that sorry at all.
He smiled back. ‘Think about it, Maddy. You’ve been with one person for ten years. You should have a period where you date other men, sample what’s out there before you chose from the menu.’
His foot massage although unintentional, was sexy as hell, and Madeline was finding it difficult to concentrate on the conversation. She’d found her entrée, main and dessert in one. ‘Is that what you want?’ she asked. ‘You want me to go off and date other men?’
Marcus stopped rubbing her foot. Was it? The thought of another man touching her, being with her, made him want to break things. She was his. He did things to her, and she did things to him that he’d never experienced before. He had no idea why he was playing devil’s advocate. ‘No,’ he admitted. ‘No, I don’t.’
She smiled. ‘Good. That’s enough for now.’
She dropped her leg to the ground and walked into his arms. He opened his mouth to talk to her but she silenced him with a deep lingering kiss. ‘Don’t say anything, just take me inside and make love to me,’ she said softly.
Marcus swung her up wordlessly and strode into the lounge, and was making his way to the bedroom when there was a knock at the door. They both stopped and looked at each other, puzzled. It was eleven o’clock at night.
‘You expecting anyone?’ he asked.
Hardly. It was his place after all. She laughed. ‘No.’
He sighed and turned around, carrying her to the door.
She laughed some more and wiggled her legs. ‘Put me down.’
‘No way, he said. ‘I’m not ever letting you go.’
Madeline forgot her embarrassment and clung to him, buoyed by his statement.
‘Open the door,’ he told her. ‘My hands are full.’
She snort laughed as she reached for the door. It swung open and Madeline saw a pretty blonde woman standing there, a suitcase at her feet.
‘Who the hell is she?’ the woman asked Marcus, glaring at Madeline.
Madeline didn’t know who the woman was but she saw the possessive gleam in her eyes and wanted to roar, back off bitch, in her most demonic voice as Marcus put her on her feet.
‘Who the hell are you?’ she demanded in return, not caring that her shirt barely covered the tops of her thighs and the button holding the two sides together didn’t cover very much either.
‘I’m Marcus’s wife.’
‘Ex-wife,’ Marcus said firmly.
So, this was Tabitha? She was pretty with a killer body. Madeline felt ill.
‘What do you want, Tab?’ Marcus asked, not quite able to believe that she had followed him all the way to Queensland and had chosen this particular moment to announce herself.
‘I’m pregnant,’ she said, placing her hand protectively on her flat stomach. ‘It’s yours.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘THIS mobile is switched off or not in a service area.’
Marcus left another message and pushed the end button on his phone in frustration. He lay on the couch, staring at the darkened ceiling. A baby? His baby? Jesus! He felt an awful sense of déjà vu and quelled his rising panic.
The scene from earlier tonight played over and over in his head. Tabitha dropping her bombshell. Him standing there completely speechless. Maddy looking at him for clarity.
For denial.
And when he continued to look like a stunned mullet, gathering her stuff and leaving with dignity and grace. And him realising in that moment, as she’d walked out of his door, the awful truth.
He loved Madeline Harrington. Had it only been hours ago that she had told him she was falling for him? It seemed like a year. And it seemed like he had gone one better. He wasn’t just falling, he had fallen — all the way.
Hard.
Why had it taken Tabitha walking into his apartment and Maddy walking out of it to finally get it? He loved her. In seven weeks he had gone from being hopelessly
