I had no idea how it would go down, but at least, it would show Madison I wasn’t hung up on her. I had plenty of women I could fuck and date, and eat out with, whenever I wanted. Hopefully it would be enough to discourage her for good. If she didn’t keep throwing herself at me and tempting me with her body all the time, I’d probably be in a different head space.

Soon enough, everything was set up for the evening. Madison played a good game. She even volunteered to go out and pick up the food for us. I looked at her with knowing expression and told her the food would be delivered.

“Oh, in that case, I should just go up and powder my nose then,” she said lightly, and ran up to her room. She was back in minutes. I don’t know about powdering her nose, but she had applied lipstick and put her hair up. The sight of her hair swept high on her head, revealing her white neck was enough to get me looking twice.

I told myself to stay focused on the plan.

Victoria. She had the right age, experience and temperament for me. Madison was just a spoilt kid. She should be with someone like Nathan. If it worked out right tonight I might even take Victoria up to my bedroom and fuck her there. I know she would be up for it and I could finally work out some of the frustration that had built up in my libido over the last few days. The bonus effect would be Madison would finally get the message loud and clear.

Victoria arrived bang on time. She swept into the place dressed in a casual, wraparound maroon dress that succeeded in being sexy as hell. I gave her an appreciative look as she came through the door, and she smiled happily, and did a twirl for me.

“I picked it out specially for you.” She flashed me a grin, but it faded swiftly as she spotted Madison dividing up the food across the room. She cocked her head at me curiously, and I understood this wasn’t the night she expected.

“She’s the friend’s daughter I told you about,” I explained. “He’s out of town and he wanted her to stay with someone he could rely on.”

“Oh, of course,” she said smoothly, but she looked a little put out that Madison had turned out to be so smoking hot. Still, she took it in her stride and that was good to know. I needed an adult like her in my life.

I brought her over to the table and introduced them. The tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Victoria turned toward me. Her face was artificially bright. “So, what food have you got for us?”

I grinned. “Italian.”

She grinned back. “My favorite.”

“I know,” I said softly. Then, I glanced at Madison and she looked away quickly. Good. I should have done this on day one. It would have cleared the air out for all of us. I had no business fantasizing about Madison, and she had no business coming on to me.

We took our seats around the dining table I had purchased years ago, but hadn’t had a lot of use. I wasn’t exactly a bring a girl back for dinner type of guy, at least not at my own place. I’d rather take a woman out. Having a woman around felt oddly intimate and made me feel uncomfortable. Come to think of it no woman had stayed in my house before Madison.

“Since we’re eating Italian food. Bon appetit, everyone,” Victoria cried gaily.

“That’s actually French,” Madison said sweetly.

“Madison is studying foreign languages,” I said quickly. “So she’s being a bit of a stickler.”

Madison eyed Victoria from across the table while she sucked up a strand of spaghetti in a deliberately childish way. My eyes were drawn to her mouth, and immediately my caveman brain thought of how they would look wrapped around my-

“So, what do you do in London, Madison?” Victoria smiled across at her benevolently. If she was pissed another woman had crashed what she had thought would be our romantic date, she was being as extremely polite and subtle about it.

“Not much,” Madison replied, her expression sullen.

I gave her a hard look. She acted like a complete brat. Her attitude sucked. I knew that Kevin would have been furious if he could see the way she was acting. Much more of this and I wouldn’t need Victoria to put me off her. She was going to do it all on her own. In fact, I might have trouble keeping my mouth shut for the rest of the evening.

“Well, I love London! I’m quite jealous.”

There was suddenly an awkward pause, and Madison slid her eyes over to me. Victoria could obviously see what she was looking at, and no matter how fast I tried to drag my eyes away, I knew that she’d seen the little moment between the two of us.

“What?” Victoria grinned slightly, as though looking forward to getting filled in on a joke that she was out of the loop of. “What are you guys looking at each other like that for?”

“Uh…” I trailed off.

Madison dragged her teeth over her bottom lip, in an almost comically sexual way, and I shifted in my seat, as I struggled to come up with some kind of explanation. I came up blank. What could I say? I wanted to fuck Madison and Madison wanted to be fucked. Victoria narrowed her eyes at us, glancing between Madison and me. Slowly, she put her fork down as though she was preparing for a showdown.

“What’s going on?” she asked in a deathly quiet tone. Any patience she had had for the situation swiftly leaked out of her as the two of us sat there silently as though we’d been caught out. “You invite me over at the last minute, and then she’s here-”

“The last minute?” Madison pounced immediately, her eyes flashing with triumph.

My jaw clenched. Damn, I shouldn’t have done this. I wasn’t smart enough to pull off a plan with this many moving female parts, and I should have known better than to imagine neither woman would think to question this bizarre set-up.

Victoria looked at Madison, and then back at me as she tried to figure out what the hell I was trying to pull off. She raised her eyebrows. “Why did you invite me here, Quinn?”

“He was trying to use you as a distraction,” Madison said, meeting Victoria’s gaze steadily. Both looked like they were ready to claw each other’s eyes out. “Because he wants me and he knows that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from fucking me if you weren’t here to play substitute.”

Victoria went white. Grabbing her napkin from her lap she dumped it on her plate of food. Then she looked at me, and spoke slowly and carefully, as though she was doing her best to keep herself in check. “Quinn,” she said, “what the fuck is she talking about?”

“I have no idea,” I said through tight jaws.

Victoria placed her hands down on the table like she was trying to hold herself back from landing me a hard slap across my face. I would have deserved it too. The whole thing had spiraled completely out of my control. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion.

“Are you fucking her?” Victoria demanded.

“No!” I protested. That much was true, at least, even though I could hear the complete lack of conviction in my tone as well as she could.

Her eyes widened. “Is that why you wouldn’t come back to my place the other night? “Because you’re fucking her?” Her voice was shrill with fury.

Before I could answer Madison spoke up. “No, he’s not fucking me.”

I shot her a look that told her to shut the fuck up right now before she said something she couldn’t take back, but she flicked her tongue across her lips playfully, and I could tell she was getting some sick, twisted pleasure out of this confrontation. “But he ate me out last night. And I think he wants to do more.”

“Quinn?” Victoria looked to me, eyes practically bugging out of her head. “This isn’t true, is it?”

“I…” I began to explain, but I stopped. I knew she wouldn’t believe me, no matter what I said. Besides Madison wasn’t lying. It was true. All of it. “I’m sorry, Victoria. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought. I don’t know what I thought.” I confessed. I had never done anything like this is my life, but ever since Madison came to live here I had been so tied up in knots with lust and desire I couldn’t even think straight anymore.

“You’re fucking sick,” Victoria snarled. She got to her feet, grabbed her coat from the rack, and made her way toward the door. She stopped and whirled around. “Is she even really your friend’s daughter?”

“Yes, she is,” I admitted. That at least was true.

Madison clasped her hands in her lap, not making eye contact with Victoria, but grinning away to herself as though this was the most amusing thing she’d ever seen.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Victoria groaned to herself. She went to the door and slammed it on her way out. As soon as it shut behind her, I got to my feet and began collecting the plates.

I couldn’t believe how stupid I’d been. I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had done anything so childish. I was so furious with myself I shook.