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but also a little paranoid.
    She figured that as long as she had control over what was written about her family, then there wouldn’t be a problem. There were skeletons she didn’t want brought out again, dusty, weathered bones covered in dried blood that needed to stay buried. One sniff of sensationalized journalism and she’d pull the plug and threaten the magazine with a lawsuit if they published it.
    Hopefully it wouldn’t have to come to that.
    She shut down her computer and massaged the back of her neck, feeling the pinch of stress there. She kneaded it with her fingertips and sighed, craving a hot bath and a glass of wine.
    “ Mr. McAllister is on line one. ” Carrie’s voice sang out of the intercom, bringing Madison back to reality.
    She picked up the phone and attempted a smile. “Hi, Reed.”
    “ It’s Daniel .” Annoyance darkened his tone, immediately souring her mood.
    “You’re not the McAllister I was expecting,” she replied curtly, ready to brush him off. “I was just leaving—”
    “ I know you’re busy. Running that company all by yourself must be tough. ”
    “My family runs the company, I just lead the way.”
    “ Right…look, I feel like we can work together. I think we’re more alike than you realize .”
    “How so?” She caught herself sneering, though he didn’t have the benefit of seeing it.
    “ You seem like a woman who knows what she wants and takes it, no questions asked. I like that. I tend to take the things I want, too. ”
    A warning signal flared off in her brain, red-hot and loud. She shoved it aside, not wanting to let him get to her. “I’m sure we got off on the wrong foot, Daniel. I’m happy to meet with you again and see if we can come to an agreement.”
    “ I look forward to it. ”
    She hung up on him, not even waiting to hear if he had more to say or to give him the courtesy of a goodbye. He’d wasted enough of her time already.
    “Creep,” she muttered, rising to her feet and gathering her purse and some files she wanted to review at home. As she left her office, she tried to shut all thoughts of Daniel out completely.
    It would have worked except his voice lingered, echoing hollowly in her mind. I tend to take the things I want, too.
     

     
    Though he’d seen her perform dozens of times, her beauty and grace never ceased to take his breath away. He loved to sit there and simply watch her, just as spellbound as all the ballet junkies and connoisseurs that lived and breathed the stuff. Maybe he wasn’t an expert, but he’d come to love the art for being what it was: pure, human elegance.
    While Lynette was whisked into a sweeping twirl by her partner on stage, Linc’s eye caught notice of the only other person he knew in the crowded theater. Simon Creswell, her ballet master.
    Simon watched the ballet intently, honed in on every plié and lift and twirl. Linc noticed that when Lynette spun into her final, graceful pose, Simon’s eyes widened with awe and a proud, adoring smile lit his face.
    Though he’d only met the guy a few times, Linc had always wondered if Simon held some kind of feelings for Lynette. It was probably just jealousy on his part, considering Simon was in his forties and as far as he knew was happily married. Despite that, though, he was a good-looking guy that Linc had seen other young ballet dancers fawn over, so it was only natural to assume that Lynette had as well at one point.
    He trusted Lynette enough to assume she wouldn’t leave him for a gray-haired Brit with a fetish for ballet shoes, but that didn’t mean he trusted the man to keep his hands to himself.
    As the dancers lined up on stage to bask in the applause, Linc rose to his feet and clapped. He whistled when Lynette took her bow, her smile brilliant as starlight.
    Wasting no time, he tucked his way through the people sitting next to him to head downstairs and backstage, wanting to meet her in the dressing room like he always did. He passed by countless