Total Surrender Page 3

  Despite her petite size, she clearly had a backbone and wasn’t a shrinking violet. She did follow him to a group of guests where her father was conversing with a few of the men, but it didn’t take her long to slip away and blatantly defy Gavin a second time once he no longer paid attention to her.

  Knowing his security detail was focused on Theodore until Maddux summoned for him later this evening, Maddux switched his attention to Arabella as she explored the connecting areas downstairs, her delight and exhilaration restored now that she was alone again. Her gown billowed around her as she walked, giving the impression she was floating across the imported marble floor. She took in everything around her while enjoying first one, then a second glass of champagne.

  While he didn’t usually give women more than a passing glance unless he was looking for an easy lay, this one—his sworn enemy’s daughter—inexplicably intrigued him . . . more than he cared to admit, considering who her father was and what Theodore had done to Maddux’s parents.

  As he watched her stop at the stage where Raevynn Walsh, the evening’s entertainment, was singing, Maddux decided that he was going to do something that was completely unscripted. He was going to make a bold and very unforgettable statement to Theodore and Gavin that nothing was off-limits when it came to this new and menacing game they were about to play, where Maddux was now the one in control.

  He was going to put his hands on the sweet, beautiful, unassuming Arabella and leave his mark, even if only subtly, he decided as he headed down the private stairway to the lower level. He was going to prove to Theodore that he now had the ability to hurt the other man where he’d feel it the most—his daughter. It was only a matter of time before Gavin went searching for Arabella, and when he found her, Maddux had no doubt that the man would not be pleased with what he discovered.

  Maddux was fucking counting on it.

  Raevynn switched to a softer, slower melody as he came to a stop a few deliberate inches behind Arabella, who had her hands clasped beneath her chin and was swaying gently back and forth, oblivious to everything but the woman performing on the stage.

  He could hear Arabella softly singing the lyrics, her own voice surprisingly melodious. Boldly, he settled his hand on the curve of her waist, gleaning her attention, just as he’d intended. She gasped at the too intimate touch and spun around, eyes initially narrowed because she’d clearly expected to see someone else. With her petite height, her gaze was level with his broad chest, and she slowly, gradually, tipped her head back to look up at his face.

  The initial tension in her body eased, and she blinked at him in surprise, her features softening with unmistakable awareness. Shockingly, he felt the unwanted attraction, too.

  “I’m sorry to startle you,” he said with a deliberately charming grin meant to persuade her that he was a decent guy, even though his motives were less than pure. “But I thought maybe you’d like to dance?” He indicated the other couples gathering out on the nearby dance floor.

  Her wide blue eyes filled with delight at the request, and the guileless smile that curved her perfect lips made his mind travel down a very sinful path filled with an inappropriate amount of lust.

  She nodded, much more demurely than any woman he’d ever dealt with. “Yes, I’d love to dance with you,” she said, her voice sounding breathless, and even that eager response made his traitorous dick twitch.

  He held out his hand, and she immediately placed her soft, slender fingers against his palm, automatically trusting him when he was the last person she ought to put her faith in. He led her out to the designated area in front of the stage and pulled her into his arms. Tentatively, she placed one of her hands lightly on his shoulder, but he wasn’t so timid. Instead, he splayed a hand against her lower back and drew her flush against his body, much too aware of how small and delicate she was in comparison to his much larger, more muscular frame.

  He wasn’t much of a dancer, but he managed to sway in time to the slow song Raevynn Walsh was crooning.

  “What is your name?” he asked, absently skimming his thumb along the back of the hand he was holding in his free one. It was an unnecessary question since he knew everything about her, but she didn’t know that.

  “Arabella.”

  He raised a brow. “Bella for short?”

  “No.” She licked her bottom lip a bit shyly and shook her head. “Actually, some call me Ari for short.”

  He produced another lighthearted smile, which felt much too foreign on his lips. “Bella is much more befitting considering how beautiful you are.” It wasn’t a lie. Arabella’s features were stunning, her complexion like fine porcelain he wanted to touch and caress.

  He caught the faint blush coloring her cheeks right before she ducked her head. “Thank you.”

  Clearly, she wasn’t used to compliments from men and he found her modest reaction refreshing compared to the cunning women he normally dated. “Are you enjoying the ball?” he asked conversationally.

  Her head popped back up, her features lighting up with excitement. “I just arrived a little bit ago, but yes, I’m enjoying it very much. It’s my first time attending and it’s everything I thought it would be and more. I’m a bit of a romantic, so the whole fairy-tale theme is so much fun.”

  As he listened to her ramble on and watched her animated expression, he forgot for a moment that he was dancing with his enemy’s daughter. This was a woman he ought to feel nothing but disdain for, just due to her direct bloodline, but the shocking truth hit him hard.

  He wanted Arabella Cole. He wanted to kiss those lush pink lips and sink his tongue deep inside her mouth to see just how sweet she tasted. The creamy swells of her breasts tempted him to bend his head and lick and bite that soft, plump flesh, and Jesus fucking Christ, images of having her naked and spread out on his huge bed, moaning his name as he drove deep inside her tight body, were invading his mind at rapid speed.

  What the hell was the matter with him? He clenched his jaw, trying to steel himself from her irresistible allure . . . but she was looking up at him with those big blue eyes as though she was already halfway smitten with him. Fuck. All her seductive innocence was no match for the angry, jaded animosity he harbored deep in his soul for one man in particular . . . her father, who he had every intention of destroying.

  And once Arabella discovered who Maddux truly was, and what he’d done to tear her family apart, that desire in her gaze would quickly and undoubtedly turn to hatred.

  Chapter 4

  Arabella felt as though she was being swept off her feet by the handsome, enigmatic man who’d asked her to dance, and it was a unique sensation that made her feel wonderfully light-headed and as though a dozen butterflies were fluttering around in her stomach.

  After she’d gushed about attending the ball for the first time, an easy silence fell between them as Raevynn continued singing her ballad, and Arabella realized that while this man knew her name, she didn’t know his. And since she’d like to believe that maybe they’d spend more time together this evening beyond this one dance, she ventured to find out.

  She glanced up at his face—God, he was so big and tall she had to tip her head back to see that far up—and found him looking down at her with a heat and intensity in his amber eyes that made a shivery warmth trickle through her veins. She should have felt intimidated by his immense stature, by the slight tension in his jaw and the fact that his body was nearly twice as big as hers. His strong, muscled arms could effortlessly crush her if he so wished, but despite his commanding presence, she felt strangely safe and secure with him.

  There was a certain edge about him that fascinated her. Though he wore a fitted tuxedo that had to have been tailor-made for his size, he looked nothing like most of the clean-cut men in attendance. His shaggy brown hair was long enough to fall rebelliously past the collar of his suit jacket and was finger combed away from the sharp, attractive angles of his face and jaw. She caught sight of what appeared to be a puckered scar along the side of h
is neck that disappeared into the collar of his shirt just where her hand rested on his shoulder, and she had to fight the urge to skim her fingers over that disfigured flesh and ask him what had happened.

  “What is your name?” she asked when she could finally get her brain to engage properly without ogling him.

  He hesitated a few noticeable seconds before answering. “Maddux Wilder.”

  Her lips parted in surprise. “The Maddux Wilder?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked with what appeared to be amusement, and it was enough to soften the harsher lines of his face. “As far as I know.”

  Falling head over instant infatuation with the host of tonight’s ball was the last thing Arabella ever expected to happen when she’d arrived this evening. But she couldn’t deny her attraction to this man whose hand was pressed so intimately, possessively even, against the small of her back.

  He tipped his head to the side curiously, though his gaze was direct and back to being intense. “How do you know of me?”

  She flashed him a cheeky grin as he swept her in a slow circle in time to the music, causing his thigh to press ever so slightly between hers, yet firm enough to make her breath catch in her throat because of how arousing it felt. "Well, your name is directly connected to the charity ball, so there is that."

  He chuckled, the sound low and deep . . . and somehow oddly relieved. “Ahhh, that’s very true.”

  Seemingly catching something, or someone, in his peripheral vision, Maddux shifted his gaze from her face to over her shoulder. His entire body suddenly stiffened against hers, and a muscle in his cheek ticked as he clenched his jaw. His gaze flashed with animosity before he deliberately subdued the emotion, just as a hand clasped tight around Arabella’s arm from behind her and tried pulling her away from Maddux.

  Momentarily confused by what was happening, she clung tighter to Maddux, except the fingers around her upper arm held firm, pinching against her skin in a way that she immediately knew it was Gavin tugging at her, even before she turned her head to look at him.

  His expression was furious, his voice dripping with reproach as he berated her. “Didn’t I tell you to stay close and not to wander off?”

  She opened her mouth to issue the scathing response she’d been holding back since the limo ride, but Maddux spoke first.

  “I would advise you to take your hands off her, Gavin,” he said, his words a low, deliberate command and laced with unmistakable warning. “Now.”

  Gavin sneered at Maddux, making it clear that the two men knew one another on some level, and defiantly cinched his fingers tighter, causing a soft whimper of pain to escape Arabella’s lips.

  “I can put my hands anywhere I want on her,” Gavin shot back daringly, openly defying Maddux’s order. “This woman is my date for the evening.”

  A frightening rage flashed across Maddux’s expression, and lightning quick, his hand shot out and clamped around Gavin’s wrist. A battle of wills ensued as Maddux exerted enough pressure and strength that Gavin was forced to release her arm or risk his bones shattering under the increasing tenacity of Maddux’s unrelenting grip.

  As soon as Gavin finally, begrudgingly let her go, Maddux stepped back from Arabella but pinned Gavin with a hard, ruthless stare. “If this woman is your date for the evening, then maybe you ought to pay more attention to her or some other man is going to steal her right out from under you.”

  With Raevynn having finished her predinner set of songs, people had now started to glance their way, and much to Arabella’s relief, Gavin came to his senses and realized that they were close to making a scene at a private venue. Whatever nasty reply he’d wanted to issue in response he wisely held back, but there was no mistaking the resentment seething off of Gavin.

  Maddux turned back to her, the anger he’d just displayed with Gavin replaced by a surprising warmth and kindness as he picked up her hand, lifted it to his lips, and placed a gallant kiss on the backs of her fingers that made her heart flutter fancifully in her chest.

  “It was a pleasure meeting and dancing with you, Bella,” he said, his smooth, deep voice sounding genuinely gratified. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  With that, he turned around and walked away, blending into the crowd until Arabella could no longer see him.

  “Fucking asshole,” Gavin said, bitterness coating his derogatory words.

  “Don’t vilify him, Gavin,” Arabella said, giving the other man a look filled with nothing but scorn and contempt, which was exactly how she felt about him and the situation. “Maddux was a gentleman for defending me, while you’re the one who put a handprint on my arm that will most likely bruise by tomorrow because you felt you had the right to claim me like some caveman. But here’s a news flash for you. You don’t have any right to me at all.”

  Gavin’s lips thinned with spite. “You have no idea who or what you’re dealing with when it comes to Maddux Wilder. I’m warning you, Arabella. Stay away from him. He’s a dangerous, malicious man.”

  The only dangerous, malicious man Arabella could see at the moment was Gavin, though she couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation she’d overheard in the limousine on the ride over between him and her father, and the insinuation that something bad could possibly happen to her dad at tonight’s ball.

  Clearly, there was more between Maddux, her father, and Gavin than she knew about, but the man she’d just danced with had been nothing but respectful and considerate with her. More than Gavin had ever been. She wasn’t sure what to make of any of it.

  The serving of dinner was announced, and having remembered their assigned table from the invitation, Arabella started toward the dining area with Gavin beside her. As soon as she felt his attempt to touch her elbow to try and escort her, she wrenched her arm away, stopped in her tracks, and glared at him.

  “Under any circumstance, do not touch me.”

  Annoyance flashed across his features at her blunt order, and for a moment, she thought he was going to do it anyway. Instead, his gaze darted around the near vicinity, and as if fearing that Maddux might appear to rip his hands off her again, he instead balled his fingers into fists at his sides.

  “Stop being so childish,” he snapped.

  “I will when you stop being an overbearing jerk.” She continued on to their table, leaving him to follow her like a pet dog.

  Her father was already there, and when Gavin attempted to redeem himself by pulling out a chair for her, Arabella ignored the gesture and took the seat on the opposite side of her father, so that her dad was sitting between her and Gavin as a barrier.

  Her father glanced at each one of them and sighed. “Did the two of you have another tiff?”

  Arabella arranged the skirt of her dress beneath the table while smiling at her dad. “Yes, but I believe we’ve come to an understanding, and as long as Gavin keeps his hands off me for the foreseeable future, we’ll be just fine, Father.”

  Her dad frowned at that announcement, and when he glanced at Gavin, the annoyed-looking man sitting beside him just shook his head as if to say he didn’t want to talk about it, and Arabella was fine with that.

  As the table around them filled up, Arabella conversed with the younger woman sitting beside her who was there with her parents, while they were treated to a five-course meal that had been prepared by a world-renowned Michelin star chef. Everything was decadent and divine, and when the feast was over, she and her tablemate, Andrea, had become fast friends and decided to enjoy the rest of the evening in each other’s company, instead of hanging out with their parents . . . or Gavin.

  As they explored the ballroom and all it had to offer, they drank champagne, ate chocolate-covered strawberries, and danced to the songs Raevynn belted out. She returned to the silent auction, bummed to see that the bidding on the Jane Austen novels had reached over one hundred grand, but Andrea cheered her up by dragging her over to the photo op area, where they took fun pictures with dramatic backdrops and silly, life-size ca
rdboard cutouts of their favorite fairy-tale characters . . . and with Arabella’s earlier encounter with Maddux Wilder still on her mind, she chose the Beast image to pose with, since it reminded her so much of the rough-around-the-edges man who’d been surprisingly gentle with her yet tough enough to protect her from Gavin’s abuse.

  The next few hours passed quickly, and no matter where she and Andrea ended up, Arabella was on the constant lookout for Maddux, hoping to get another glimpse of him . . . or dance with him again. Much to her disappointment, the host of the ball was nowhere to be seen.

  After her fourth glass of champagne in as many hours, Arabella let Andrea know that she was headed to the ladies’ room while her new friend, who was flirting with a man she’d just met, stayed behind. Ten minutes later, as she exited the women’s lounge, she saw her father and Gavin walk by, being escorted toward the private stairs that led to the second-story balcony by a man she didn’t recognize. Her father looked annoyed and reluctant as he followed the gentleman, who appeared to be in his late thirties, her dad’s reddening face lined with enough anxiety to concern her.

  She fell into step behind the three men, keeping to the columns and outer areas as she followed . . . close enough to hear their conversation and keep an eye on her father, but managing to stay out of their line of sight at the same time.

  “Vincent, I don’t think this is the time or place to address this matter,” her dad said, his voice gruff with growing agitation.

  The man named Vincent stopped at the staircase and turned to face her father, his dark gaze as shrewd as his expression as he addressed her dad. “You’ve avoided me and the situation for the past month, which is far more time than I allow any of my other borrowers,” he said in a direct manner. “If this is my only way to get your attention and discuss repayment of your loan that is increasing by the day with interest fees, then so be it. You know exactly how this process works, so let’s avoid the inevitable, shall we?”