title: Lost and Found
author: Marchande, Melanie
description: When Maddy Thorne agreed to marry her billionaire boss in order to keep him in the country, she never would have guessed they'd actually stay together. But over a year later, she's still happily married to the slightly eccentric, maddeningly attractive Daniel. As he begins to come out of his shell and turn into the figurehead that his growing technology company needs, Maddy finds herself dealing with a whole new set of problems. And despite his newfound openness, he's still keeping secrets. Even from her. But despite her misgivings and the ever-present prattle of journalists, really, Maddy can't complain. Then, a frantic late-night phone call changes everything. Daniel has been accused of illegal insider trading. His assets frozen, he suddenly finds himself at the center of a media circus and a trial under a merciless judge with no way out. Maddy wants to support him, but it seems all Daniel wants to do is crawl back into his shell. In the midst of the chaos, Maddy receives an offer to display her drawings at one of the most influential galleries in the city. Pulled in two directions even as her life crashes down around her, will Maddy allow Daniel to keep pushing her away, or will she find a way to pull him back? - Excerpt - Before the entrees came, I actually tried to involve myself in the conversation. And they weren’t - excluding me, exactly, it was just that neither one of them looked at me very often, or responded directly to something I’d said. Mostly, it seemed like I was just talking to myself. So I finally gave up. I focused on my meal when it came, refusing to let myself get upset that the two of them seemed about ready to crawl under the table. After all, we were all responsible adults here. It wasn’t like anything was going to actually…happen. Because if it started to, I’d stab her with my fork. I had to snicker at the thought, covering my mouth with my napkin. As if anyone was going to notice. "What’s so funny?" said Daniel, as if on cue, looking at me for the first time in about twenty minutes. "Nothing," I said, because that seemed like a better answer than oh, just trying to figure out if you’d be horrified or aroused if me and Gen got into a massive, nail-breaking, hair-pulling fight over you across the table. Gen glanced at me briefly, then went back to her salad. I fumed. There was a tiny rational corner of my brain that told me I might just be imagining things, or at least exaggerating them. And even if I wasn’t, so what? Daniel wasn’t really the type to pursue a torrid affair as a married man. At least…I didn’t think so. But it was that sort of deep-seated, irrational jealousy that’s not necessarily the product of anything you might call "real." I knew nothing was going to happen between them, and I knew most of Gen’s reactions to him were probably subconscious. She wanted him. Who could blame her? But she wasn’t going to get him. He was mine. The thought hit me like a ton of bricks, and it left me feeling lightheaded and tingly, in a way that I was pretty sure had nothing to do with the wine I’d been drinking all night. This man, as utterly infuriating and downright heartbreaking as he could be sometimes - was…all mine. Nobody else’s. Nobody else had the right to touch him like I could, or crawl into bed with him at night, or see him the way I saw him. In spite of how well he might close himself off, and in spite of how distant he could be sometimes, I was still privy to a version of Daniel Thorne that no one else got to see. No one else could watch his face transform when he lost control - his pupils blown wide open, almost swallowing the irises in blackness - his lips parted - the way he’d almost bare his teeth, the little noises - and then afterwards, the smile. The way his whole body would sag, relaxed. That little performance was a privilege that I, and I alone, could enjoy.