She's So Over Him

Maddie turned around and leaned her bottom against the railing, crossed her legs at the ankles and ignored the stabbing pain in her sternum. Ten years? Sometimes it still felt like ten days.

‘Red is—excuse the rhyme—dead. The day we broke up.’

‘The day we… What?’ Cale ran a hand over his shocked face and swore quietly. ‘Mad, I’m sorry. What happened? Why didn’t you let me know?’

Maddie walked away from him, boosted herself onto one of the wooden tables and placed her feet on the bench. ‘He fell down the steps in his house and broke his neck. And I did let you know… well, I tried to. I left messages,’ she stated, her voice devoid of inflection.

Cale frowned at her. ‘What do you mean?’

Maddie stared at the deck. ‘I found him that next morning. I called you… so many times. Asking you to help me. My mother was, as per usual, out of town, and my father hated Red. I never expected their help. But yours? Yes, I stupidly did. I didn’t need or want them. I wanted you. Not my lover but my friend, who I trusted would be there for me.’ Maddie’s voice wavered as emotion seeped through her flat tone. ‘But you kept dismissing my calls. I left messages asking you to come… There were so many questions. The paramedics and the police… the coroner. Where was I? Who was I with?’

Cale rubbed his face with his hands and swore. ‘I don’t believe this…’

Maddie shrugged. ‘It wasn’t a fun time.’

Cale closed his eyes. ‘God, Madison. I thought that you were…’

‘Begging you to reconsider?’ Maddie’s eyes flashed molten gold with anger. ‘That I was so desperate for your delicious body, to have you back in my life, that I would call you twenty times and leave as many messages? How could you not think that something drastic had happened?’

‘I—Yes.’ Cale lifted his hands in a self-deprecating gesture. ‘I’m sorry. I was stupid.’

‘Yes, you were. And cruel. You let me down.’

Cale nodded. ‘I can’t apologise enough.’

Maddie lifted her eyebrows in surprise at his confession. She’d expected him to justify his actions, to find an excuse. She’d never expected him so easily to admit to being in the wrong.

‘I made a lot of bad assumptions.’

‘Yes—like you’ve assumed that I’m a bartender.’ Maddie let out a small bitter laugh. ‘On that point: I got my honours degree in Marketing and Communication. I work as an event co-ordi-nator and PR specialist.’

Cale rubbed the back of his neck and Maddie could see him mentally flipping through her statements. She glanced at the empty restaurant through to the bar, where Jim and Ali sat nursing a coffee. They both kept looking at her, openly curious about Cale.

‘I can’t believe it was a decade ago. It feels like yesterday.’ Maddie rubbed her hands over her face. ‘I was young and stupendously stupid but, by God, you were the worst boyfriend in the world.’

Cale nodded his agreement. ‘I can’t argue with that. I was.’

‘You broke dates, rocked up late, didn’t call—’ Maddie was rattling on, but stopped when she registered his words.

‘I spent too much time with my friends and not enough time with you,’ Cale added. ‘Hell, Mad, I’m just surprised that you didn’t drop-kick me off a cliff sooner.’

Maddie shoved her tongue in her cheek. ‘Oh, I kept you around for entertainment value. You could always make me laugh. Your excuses and explanations were legendary.’

‘And here I thought you kept me around for my skill under the covers.’

‘Dream on, dude.’ Maddie slapped her hands on her thighs, looked at the empty wine bottle and then towards her dark flat. ‘Look, I’ve got to get some sleep. So, again—good to see you.’

Cale’s strong fingers on her arm halted her progress. ‘Maddie—’

Maddie stopped and hung her head, closing her eyes against the flickers of heat that radiated up her arm, the corresponding curl of attraction in her belly. She couldn’t believe, after all this time, that he still had the power to turn her anger to lust, her disappointment to attraction. His physical effect on her was instantaneous, dangerous.

‘Don’t, Cale.’

Cale moved closer and, ignoring her desperate plea, pulled her into his embrace. Strong arms bound her and she found herself breast to chest, her face tucked into the hollow beneath his shoulder, his bent head blowing warm air across her cheek.

So this was what being held by him again felt like. Maddie had to admit that reality kicked memory’s butt.

Maddie lifted her head to look into those fabulous eyes. Beneath the sadness and apology she caught a flicker of heat, and suddenly realised the attraction wasn’t one-sided. A muscle ticked in his jaw as his eyes darkened and the flame flickered brighter. Maddie could feel his body change, felt the switch from comfort to awareness. It was in the way his hand flexed on her back and ran down her spine.

And that was all the warning he gave before lowering his mouth onto hers. The world fell away as she welcomed his manly, exciting taste, his firm lips and clever tongue, his strong hand on her back pulling her closer.

One of her hands, operating independently from her protesting brain, crept up his hard chest and curled into the thick hair at the back of his neck. The other gripped his hip above the ridge of his belt. Solid, warm, masculine. Oh, she’d missed the feel of hard male flesh, the texture of sun-kissed skin, the demand of strong hands and a firm mouth urging her to take more, to own the moment.

‘I’m so, so sorry.’

He murmured the words against her neck and she heard the sincerity in them. It was the mental equivalent of a tidal wave dousing her back to reality. Whoah! She was not eighteen any more, at the mercy of her hormones and emotions. He didn’t get to step back into her life and pick up where they’d left off. She wouldn’t let that happen again.

She hadn’t raised herself to be a fool.

Stepping back abruptly, she sent him a cool look. ‘Okay, so that’s something that hasn’t changed. You always were a dynamite kisser.’

‘Um—thanks. Want to do it again?’

Maddie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll survive.’ Maddie held up her hand as he stepped forward. ‘No, stay where you are, Slick.’

Cale reached out to touch her and abruptly pulled his hand back. Good call, Maddie thought, or else I might just end up with splinters in my butt.

Maddie shook her curls. ‘We’re not doing this, Cale. It’s been a long time, and too much has happened for us to go back there.’

‘I am sorry,’ Cale said, and she could see the frustration on his face. Did he really expect that a couple of apologies would make it all better? That he could snap his fingers and have her in his arms and his bed again?

Not going to happen.

Maddie lifted her eyebrows. ‘Sorry for what? Letting me down? Disappointing me? Kissing me?’

‘One and two. Kissing you, it turns out, is still an absolute pleasure.’ Cale raked his hand through his hair. ‘So, where to now?’

What? Was he insane?

Maddie summoned up her frostiest voice. ‘Nowhere! Cale, this is it. You carry on your merry way and I do the same.’

Cale snorted. ‘You’re not that naïve, Maddie.’

Maddie forced herself to step forward, to give him a patronising pat on the cheek. ‘I was never naïve, and you don’t know anything about me any more.’

‘I know that something shifted in my world when I saw you behind that bar tonight.’

Maddie felt her heart stutter. She didn’t like her heart stuttering—wasn’t used to it behaving badly.