One Final Step. Stephanie Doyle

between your legs?”

      “Stop it. That’s enough.”

      He abruptly shut his mouth. He stood and carefully set the now-empty glass down on the table between them.

      “I’m sorry.”

      Madeleine stood, assuming she was going to show him to the door. She should have accepted his apology and said good-night. Instead she felt like she owed him an apology, too. “I know I have boundaries and rules. I put all of them there for a reason.”

      “But don’t you let anyone in? Ever?”

      No, she hadn’t. She had coworkers she considered friends. There was Ben and Anna, but no, there was really no one she’d let get past her guard in these past seven years. If he knew to what extent, he might think her a freak. But that was her business.

      “You have to understand, even before my fall I wasn’t the greatest at relationships.”

      “Why not? You’re smart and hot to boot. It should have all come so easy for you.”

      Easy. It was almost laughable. Nothing that wasn’t work related had ever come easy for her. Not relationships, not sex. Not ever.

      Madeleine shook off her thoughts. That was a place she didn’t want to go. Memories that were better left untouched. But he was still standing there looking at her like he needed an answer.

      “I was raised by my father. My mother died when I was young and he was very strict about certain things. Dating was not a priority in our house.”

      “Okay? What about in the last sixteen years since you left your house?”

      She’d grown cold. Cut off and unemotional. It hurt her to have to acknowledge it and she was angry at Michael for forcing her to do so. “Why do you care about this?”

      “Because I know you. I like you. I want to know you better but I keep running into this invisible wall and frankly, it’s giving me a headache. So you screwed the president? Now that has to mean everything? Get on with your life.”

      “Get on with my life?” she shrieked. “Because it was what? A few thousand articles written in papers and magazines and online. Three or four books written by people who didn’t even know me but who passed judgment on me. News stories and pictures and twenty-four-hour coverage for what…six months? Seven months. In America, in Europe. Hell, at one point the whole damn world was talking about it. People offered me thousands of dollars for the clothes I was wearing that night. A ten-thousand-dollar offer alone for my underwear, if you can believe it. But I mean, really, why dwell?”

      “Hey,” he said, softening his voice. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

      “No, Michael. You brought this up. You said it. You didn’t want to have sex with Charlene. She didn’t make your d-dick hard. You had that choice. You want to know why I haven’t had sex with anyone in seven years?”

      “Madeleine, don’t…”

      “Because I stopped having a choice. After it all came out…after the things the press said about me, men who knew me, who I thought knew me, suddenly believed me to be a very different type of woman. I couldn’t be in a room alone with a man for five seconds without having to explain that no, I don’t take my clothes off as soon as I say hello. Then came the men who didn’t know me but wanted to bag the president’s girl. Like I had some magic sexual powers that would turn them into world leaders. I had to back away from everyone because I couldn’t trust anyone.”

      He moved around the table and took her hand. He didn’t do anything with it, just held it and looked at her.

      “Did anyone hurt you?”

      “They all hurt me.”

      He shook his head. “Did any of them touch you?”

      She could see the fury in his eyes along with a harnessed violence that reminded her he came from a very different world than she did.

      “No, it wasn’t like that. No one forced me, but no one saw anything other than a woman who would freely lift her skirt. I wasn’t me anymore. I was this sexual prize. I hated it.”

      “I’m sorry those men did that to you.”

      Madeleine didn’t know what to say but she felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. That he cared. This man who barely knew her when so many men who were close to her in her life didn’t.

      Like her father and her brother.

      “I’m not like them. In fact, I’m the opposite of them. I don’t want sex with you…instead I want to know you. I want to be something to you. Not your employer. Not your project of the hour.”

      “I can’t. I simply can’t ever do that again.”

      “Not even friends? Friends, Madeleine. Two grown-up people who can make that choice. This job is only going to last what…a couple of more weeks? Then you won’t be working for me. No rules would be broken. And if you wanted to we could maybe stay in touch. A call every once in a while. A visit here and there. Friends.”

      “Friends?” She couldn’t help herself. She was suspicious of his motives. Why did this man need her as a friend?

      “I’m lonely, Madeleine,” he said as if he’d read her mind. “I have my work and I love it but lately it feels like something is missing. Maybe I’m tired of the endless Charlenes. I think I would rather be able to sit down and have a drink and talk.”

      She was tempted. So tempted. Because she was lonely, too. This evening, as strange as it had been, had also been nice.

      “Think about it. We’re still working together so take that time to get to know me. The real me. And let me get to know you. The real you.”

      “This is the real me. Everything you see is everything I am.” Or at least all she would let herself be as far as he was concerned.

      He smiled a little sadly. “I don’t think so, Madeleine. I think you’re hiding behind your business suits. I’m only asking you to undo a couple of buttons.”

      The thought of him undressing her sent a little shiver through her body. This was why she’d fought so hard to keep him at arm’s length. The brutal truth was she was attracted to him. The first man in more than seven years to interest her and once again she was working for him.

      Life could seriously be unfair.

      “I can’t think about…anything between us. Not until the job is over. It has to be that way for me.”

      “Okay. Then work quick and turn me into someone respectable.”

      “How about we shoot for less unrespectable.” They both laughed and the tension between them dissipated.

      He dropped her hand and she realized he had been holding it all this time.

      “I’ll leave you tonight but can we do breakfast tomorrow morning? I’ll pick you up here.”

      “That’s fine. We’ll eat here in the room, though.”

      He opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped.

      “Tomorrow,” he told her. “Thanks for the drink and the company.”

      “Your dime.”

      With that, Madeleine watched him leave and heard the door close behind him. Michael Langdon wanted to be her friend. Crazy enough, she wanted his friendship, too.

      * * *

      HEWASSORRYhe had lied to her. Deception in any form could kill a relationship, but Michael didn’t see any other way around it. She was too closed off. He needed some way to get over the walls she’d spent the past seven years shoring up.

      He hit the button between the elevators and waited for the ding to announce one had arrived. Stepping inside, he reassured himself that it would only be another ten hours until