Page 119 of A Dangerous Proposal

Selena’s icy blue eyes locked onto Madison’s, and she could see the rage simmering there. “My son is an important man. The son of an even more important man. You may have gotten your claws into him, but I promise you I will rip them out.”

“I know exactly who Alex is.” Madison smiled sweetly, hiding her own anger. “He’s my husband.”

Selena sucked in a breath through her nose. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done to him? For a man like him to take on a nobody and another man’s son.” She glanced back toward Jax with something approaching disgust. “It makes him look weak.”

From the corner of her eye, Madison saw Angela hustling up the stairs with Jax, wisely fleeing from what was promising to develop into a nasty confrontation.

Madison’s nails dug into her palms as she struggled to hold on to her temper. “Anyone who makes the mistake of thinking Alex is weak is a fool.”

Selena’s lips twitched, as if she found that amusing. “You think you know my son better than I do?”

“Yes,” Madison snapped.

“Do you think you’re the first pretty woman to trap a man?” She tilted her head, eyeing Madison with cool calculation. “It won’t last, you know. He’ll grow bored with you soon enough, and, hopefully, there will be time to repair the damage to his standing.”

Madison kept her expression impassive, but her blood was boiling.

You can’t punch his mother.

Selena took a slow, deliberate step closer, voice lowering. “I can see you don’t believe me. “Does he tell you he loves you?” Her smile was cruel when she added, “I believed those lies once, too.”

Madison wanted to scream.

No. Because you broke him.

Instead, she lifted her hand, flashing the giant sapphire ring and diamond wedding band in the woman’s face. “I don’t know. I think he’s planning on keeping us.”

Selena’s eyes darkened, lips pressing into a thin line, but before she could say anything else, the door opened.

“Madison, go upstairs,” Alex ordered, his voice lethally cold. She spun to look at him, and her breath caught. He was almost unrecognizable in his fury, his eyes like chips of ice. “Now,” he barked, not looking at her.

Without a word, Madison climbed to the top of the stairs and turned down the hallway so that she was hidden just out of sight.

“What are you doing here?”

Madison didn’t think she’d ever heard him use that tone of voice before, and it sent a shiver through her body.

“I heard you are ruining your life and your relationship with your brother.”

“You still bother to follow the gossip even from an ocean away? I thought there wasn’t anything left to interest you here.”

Madison’s heart stuttered, recognizing the words as the ones he’d used to explain that his mother had moved away after his father died.

Leaving him behind.

“How can you eventhinkof defying Mikhail? You need to remember your position.”

“Did you speak with Mikhail?” Alex’s tone was ice cold.

Selena scoffed waving a dismissive hand. “Not in person, but I hear he is unhappy with the situation you’ve created. A public argument with one of his allies? That was stupid. All this because you’re blinded by some woman. Don’t you even care how this affects me?”

“She isn’t ‘some woman.’ She’s my wife.”

“You’d choose her over me?”

“She. Is. My. Wife,” he roared, and both Selena and Madison jumped.

Alex’s mother pressed her hand to her chest. “Are you serious? You’d defy your brother for her? After everything I did to put you in your position. Where you are today is due to me. And you’re going to throw it away for her and her brat.”

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