“Brady . . .” She trailed off. She couldn’t believe that he was here right now. She couldn’t believe she was staring at this beautiful face and that she was talking to him. She couldn’t believe she’d had the guts to call him and that he was here. She just wanted to stare at him, but instead she said the only thing that she could muster enough courage to say: “I don’t think we should do this.”
“Get in the car.”
“Look, it’s not a good idea. I’m really messed up. Calling you was impulsive and thoughtless of me. I shouldn’t have freaked you out. But driving away with you right now would be even worse,” she told him, hugging herself tightly. All she wanted to do was say the exact opposite of what was coming out of her mouth. She wanted to drive off into the sunset with him and never look back. She always had.
“Get in the car, Liz.”
“I’m still dating him, Brady. Think about what you would feel if you were him. Think about how much it would hurt if he knew about this—about what I’m thinking of doing,” she said even softer than before, her whole body nearly trembling with the anxiety.
“Liz,” he growled. “Get. In. The. Car.”
“I can’t. I just can’t get in the car with you,” she said. She made the mistake then of lifting her eyes to meet his deep chocolate orbs. Fuck! His eyes were so intense and commanding. She just wanted to get lost in those eyes forever. She swallowed hard and licked her bottom lip. “It’s not a good idea.”
“Goddamn it, Liz. Get in the car!” he yelled. “I didn’t get out of my meetings for the night and drive thirty minutes out of the way for you to tell me to go home. Now get in the car.”
“Seriously, shut up,” she cried, pushing off of the car door. “I made a mistake. People make mistakes.” The car jerked into park and he popped the driver’s-side door open. “What are you doing?”
“I said get in the car, Liz, and you’re going to listen one way or another,” he said, walking around the front of the car.
“What the fuck does that mean?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you. I’m not in the right frame of mind tonight, and being around you is a bad idea.”
“I like bad ideas,” he said, standing before her.
“Well, I don’t!”
Brady shook his head, a gorgeous smile replacing the glare he had been shooting at her. Dear Lord, he was too attractive for his own good. She could hardly even concentrate when she looked up at that face. Liz tried to find her words again to tell him to leave, but in that moment, he moved forward and stood a mere inch away from her. She could feel his body heat radiating toward her. She stood ramrod still at his nearness. He moved forward as if he was going to touch her, and then at the last second he pivoted quickly and threw her easily over his shoulder.
She screamed in protest, completely caught off guard. “What are you doing? Brady Maxwell, put me down. Put me down now!”
“I told you to listen, and you didn’t.” His arm held the back of her legs easily in place to keep her from moving as he opened the back door of his Lexus.
“I didn’t think you were going to act like a caveman,” she said, muffled in the back of his suit coat.
“Well, now you know better, huh?” he asked, tossing her into the backseat and slamming the door shut in her face.
Liz reached for the door, yanking the handle back and forth uselessly. “You have fucking child locks on these doors?” she screamed into the empty car as he slowly strolled back to the driver’s side.
She shoved her entire body into the movement anyway, wrenching her shoulder with the extra effort. Releasing the handle, she fell backward, the cool leather cushioning her body upon impact. She quickly righted herself and climbed into the front just as Brady eased into his seat.
“I can’t believe you!” she yelled, sliding her body into the passenger seat and reaching for the door. Pulling the handle several times in frustration, she discovered it too was locked. She moved to grab the lock and pull it up, but Brady’s hand caught her wrist and put it back at her side. “Seriously?”
Brady smirked. “You should have gotten in the car from the beginning.”
“You’re kidnapping me,” she growled, glaring at him.
“Listen here,” he said, reaching across her body to grab her hands. She tried to pull away from him, but he held her hard and fast, pressing her back into the seat. “I want you to remember that you called me crying in the middle of the night,” he growled. “You were the one who used that line. You were the one who used that name. You were the one who fell back into old methods. So don’t you fucking pull this shit on me. Did you or did you not call as Sandy Carmichael?”
He waited.
“Yes,” she grumbled through gritted teeth.
“Did you or did you not typically call that line for me to fuck you?”
He waited again.
She tilted her head up and refused to look at him. She was not going to have this conversation right now.
“Liz,” he growled, tightening his grip on her hands.
“Yes,” she yelped. Well, sort of.
“Then stop acting crazy. I don’t have time for this. I’m going to let your hands go, and you are going to act like a normal person again. Are you ready?”
She nodded her head with as much dignity as she could manage as he let her hands go and put the car into drive. Liz didn’t say anything as he pulled away from the newspaper. She was fuming. First Hayden’s accusations, and then when Brady showed up he acted like a maniac. She really should have just gone home and cried into her pillow.
Except now that she was here . . . with him, she didn’t actually want to be anywhere else.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
His brown eyes cut over to her momentarily and she had to keep from sighing. Christ, the man did things to her body she didn’t understand.
“A condo.”
“You have a new condo?” she asked.
He smirked. “Something like that.”
“Sounds ominous.”
“You’ve always been safe with me.”
“Yeah. Who’s going to mess with a congressman, right?” she asked with a soft chuckle.
“Plenty of people, I’m sure, but I don’t think we’ll be bothered tonight.”
Tonight. That word. As if he didn’t intend for her to leave.
She didn’t even bother contradicting him. She didn’t trust herself alone with Brady for an entire night. Not in his condo, where there were probably beds and couches and doors . . . and other things they’d had sex on last summer. But clearly telling him to take her home was out of the question. He had thrown her over his shoulder earlier just because she wouldn’t get into his car. She had a feeling tonight was on his terms . . . as most things with Brady were.
Ten minutes later, he pulled into the winding entrance to a new complex on the outskirts of town. The buildings were in various stages of construction. Some were only partially built, others just had the frames, and some were complete but missing windows. Only one building had the entire brick framing with all the other fixtures and landscaping complete. Liz thought that was odd.
“Is this the right place? It doesn’t even look finished,” she said, peering out the windshield.
“It’s not. It’s still in development. But it’s owned by a division of Maxwell Industries, and so I have access to it.”
Huh. Liz knew how Brady’s family had earned their fortune over the generations. It started out with large tracts of land and had developed into an immense real estate venture coupled with the political side. She hadn’t known about this particular project, though. Granted, she hadn’t been following his career as closely as she had before.
Brady parked the car in front of the one building that looked finished and killed the engine. “We have a fully furnished open house for potential buyers,” he explained when she just stared at him quizzically. “There aren’t any cameras on the premises.”