Read Slow Burn (A Madaris Family Novel) for Free Online Page B

chest with that realization. He’d been told several times that men in the Madaris family knew the woman they wanted once they met her. Justin said it had been that way with Lorren the first time he’d seen her one night at a party. But then there were those, like Justin’s brother Dex and Slade’s uncle Jake, who’d recognized the women for them however, had tried like hell to fight it…only to eventually lose the battle.
    Slade knew that he was not a man to do things on a whim. He usually thought through any and every decision he made. Not every woman captured his eye. Nor did he make the time to wine and dine each and every one he was attracted to. In other words, he was what Blade and Luke had referred to as a slow burn, which was a complete opposite from Blade, who in essence was a lit torch. Blade thought there wasn’t a woman alive who could hold his interest for long, so it was Blade’s goal to date as many as he could and have the most fun while doing so.
    Slade saw himself as a man who’d rather take things slow. He wasn’t one to act impulsive or make hasty decisions, especially when it came to a woman. But in one day Skye Barclay had tilted his world, and he was determined to find out more about the woman who’d done such an impossible feat.
    “What type of work do your parents do?” he asked, getting in the truck and pulling the door shut behind him.
    Skye glanced at him, wondering where that question came from. “My mother never worked outside the home and my father is an accountant, and has been for years.”
    Slade nodded before turning on the ignition to the truck. “Is that why you became an accountant, because your father was one?”
    Skye shook her head. “No. I like working with numbers, and when I was growing up, Dad would take me to the office with him sometimes on the weekends while Mom spent her day at the hair and nail salon. I used to watch him work and eventually made the decision on my own.”
    She then asked Slade, “Did you always want to be an architect?”
    Slade smiled. “Just about. The construction company that my brother and I own was started by my grandfather after he gave up teaching. There were seven Madaris brothers, and Grampa Milton is the oldest. The majority of them were educators, because at the time that was the most profitable profession, but somewhere along the way, after teaching for over ten years, Grampa decided he preferred being outdoors and working with his hands. It was then that he started the Madaris Construction Company.”
    Slade stopped talking long enough to look around, then proceeded to back out of the parking spot before he continued. “After Grampa retired my father ran the company for a number of years, and then after Blade and I expressed an interest in taking the company to a whole other level with all of today’s advancements in computer technology, Dad decided to retire. He signed the entire business over to us.”
    “Boy, that was some kind of faith that he placed in you and your brother’s abilities.”
    Slade nodded. “Yes, it was, but it only made us determined to succeed. I design the places we build, and Blade, with his engineering degree, is the one who makes sure my design is what the customer gets. We work well together.”
    “Is it just the two of you?”
    “No, I have two younger brothers. Quantum is twenty-four and is in medical school at Howard University, and Jantzen, who is twenty-one, is a senior at Harvard and plans to stay there and work on his MBA for the next couple of years.”
    Skye found the information about Slade’s family interesting and could tell just from how he interacted with Justin and Lorren that the Madaris family was a close one. She wondered how it would be to belong to such a close-knit family. Vincent certainly had been blessed to have Justin and Lorren in his life. She could tell they were positive role models and wonderful parents.
    “So what do you think of Vincent?”
    Skye stopped staring