Page 13 of Trouble
“Is that what you think happened?” Maddox shook his head. “No. You didn’t seduce me, Lyla. Get it right. I’m the one who dragged you up the stairs. I saw an opportunity and I took it. Just like you did when you showed up dressed like that.” He screwed his eyes up and I would bet anything he was imagining me in last night’s outfit, rather than the more subdued one of today. “We knew what we were doing. You knew it was hopeless to want more. Nothing has changed.”
His words should have hurt me, should have taken the wind out of my sails, but they didn’t.
He could protest all he wanted.
Things had changed.
The genie was out of the bottle and I wasn’t going to let it get put back easily.
I knew how to get what I wanted, last night had confirmed it only too well.
He wouldn’t be sitting in the Jeep right now if he didn’t think things had changed.
A car was nothing but metal, but I was flesh and blood.
And tonight, when we were in a hotel room alone without any distractions, I’d show him exactly what he would be missing out on.
Maddox insisted we take turns driving. It was a five-hour trip and he was concerned I’d get tired, particularly since we were driving at night. I agreed, because if nothing else it gave me the chance to stare at him while he concentrated on the road ahead. His jaw remained firmly set and a muscle twitched every so often.
We had the radio on, tuned to some random station as we drove, singing along when we could. John Legend’s ‘All of Me’ came on and I glanced over at him. The song always reminded me of Maddox, the summer it came out I’d played it incessantly. He turned his head at the same time and our eyes met. I bit my bottom lip as I held his gaze.
All of a sudden, a horn beeped. We swerved back onto our side of the road. Maddox snapped his head back front and center, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.
“Time for a break, yeah?” His voice came out strangled and I didn’t know whether it was from our near miss or our other near miss.
A couple of minutes later, he pulled into a gas station with a diner attached. “Go inside and grab us a table. I’ll fill up with gas.”
I slid out of the Jeep and did as I was told. He didn’t have to pay for gas and I was definitely paying for dinner. The waitress showed me to a booth. While I waited for Maddox, I checked my phone.
Ianthe: How’s it going? Have you managed to seduce him yet?
She followed it up with the laughing and winking emojis.
Oh, Ianthe, if only you knew…
Mom: Are you at Kayla’s yet? How’s the traffic? Did you take a break and eat dinner? Call me when you get there.
I rolled my eyes. I had no intention of calling my mother when we arrived. There were other things I’d rather be doing.
“Hey, did you order?” Maddox slid into the booth opposite me, his green eyes fixed on me.
“Haven’t even looked at the menu.” I passed him one and our fingers brushed, electricity zapping. He pulled back, too quick.
Things haven’t changed, huh, Maddox Riley?
The waitress was extremely attentive, even though it would appear to the casual onlooker that Maddox and I were together. She kept coming over and checking everything was okay with our food, something she didn’t do with the other tables. For a moment, I wondered whether my mother had gotten the spies out and was checking up on me.
“Are you ready to go?” Maddox asked the moment I’d cleared my plate and put my knife and fork together. “We should make a move if we want to get there sometime before midnight.”
“Can I at least use the restroom?” I huffed. Admittedly, the thought of getting back on the road and getting closer to the hotel was attractive.
“Sure. I’ll wait here for you.”
I took my time in the ladies room. I replied to Ianthe with a vague comment of how well things were going, then gave my mother a straight and to the point response to all of her questions. I reapplied my lip gloss, something paler and pink tonight but still as appealing and retied my ponytail. Before I left, I adjusted my shirt to give Maddox another little hint of what he thought he should be missing out on.
I wasn’t prepared to give up now.
Maddox was waiting outside, impatiently tapping his fingers against his thigh. “What the hell took you so long?”
