She needed to push Kade harder. She looked back at him and tilted her chin. ‘Prove it. Switch off your phone, turn off your computer and watch Tilly’s Sleeping Beauty DVD with her tonight. Prove that you don’t run away.’
What was it about Mia that made him accept every challenge she threw his way? She didn’t even need to wave a red flag in his direction before his testosterone short-circuited his common sense. He had nothing to prove. He worked hard and made money, lots of it. In anyone’s eyes he was a success.
Except Mia’s.
So here he sat in the drawing room sharing a sofa with Tilly and a family of teddy bears, determined to prove that he didn’t run away, that he could feel, even if he chose not to. For as long as he could remember he’d known emotions were synonymous with pain. So what if he did do what Mia accused him of, if he did emotionally numb himself. It was the only way he knew how to operate. And, until now, it’d worked perfectly fine. He’d survived losing the brother that he’d loved, not once, but twice and survived being abandoned by both his father and step-mother.
The safe distance he’d left between himself and Tilly vanished as she scooted over to his side, lifted his arm and placed it around her. He’d made sure he remained upright but after half an hour he’d given in to his muscle complaints and settled into the lounge. Tilly had nestled even closer to him and placed a teddy bear on his lap.
It wasn’t only his muscles that had relaxed. Tilly’s infectious giggles, her gasps of excitement and sometimes horror, had drawn him into the animated story that unfolded before him on the television screen. He’d forgotten about how many messages would be accumulating on his voicemail and in his inbox. He’d forgotten about the kiss debacle in the conservatory. Forgotten everything until now when the Prince was just about to kiss Sleeping Beauty.
Kade closed his eyes. He didn’t need any reminder about how close he’d come to kissing Mia. Seeing her vulnerable had stripped him of all power. It didn’t matter if he were Kade Reid, Matchtec CEO, he’d hadn’t been able to stop the coughs stealing her every breath. When she recovered, he should have too. He should have walked away. But he couldn’t. He’d stood there with his hands full of her apple-scented hair and her soft lips within kissing distance. If she hadn’t acted like the professional she was and reminded him of Tilly’s return, he would have kissed her. And he didn’t need the twist of his gut to know the risk in kissing the only woman who’d ever threatened his self-control.
His eyes opened to Sleeping Beauty awakening from her hundred-year sleep. The fairytale kiss was over. Tilly’s small body sighed with happiness. His arm tightened around the warm bundle snuggled beside him. Langford should be proud to call Mia his daughter. She’d achieved so much since her arrival. And it wasn’t only Tilly’s speech she’d helped. He’d have never thought he’d be able to sit next to Tilly, panic-free, and enjoy watching a child’s movie with her. Langford had no idea what he was missing not having Mia in his life.
An uncomfortable truth surfaced. Just the same way he’d miss out if he didn’t have Tilly in his life. There’d be no more messy popcorn. So more tight hugs. No more…love.
He dragged an unsteady hand around the base of his neck. Mia was right. He was like Langford. No matter how much he believed he wasn’t or that he was doing the best thing for Tilly by keeping their lives separate. The result would be the same. Tilly wouldn’t be a part of his world, just like Mia wasn’t a part of her father’s.
And he couldn’t allow that to happen. Tilly had filled a void in his soul he didn’t even know existed. He had to heed Mia’s words. He had to walk across the bridge between his and Tilly’s worlds and not look down, no matter what terrors lurked in the shadows. He had to allow himself to feel.
Before his nerve failed, he pressed a quick kiss on top of her blonde head.
‘Love you, Untle Kade.’
Tilly’s large grey eyes looked up at him. The words he’d only ever uttered to his brother and to his grandmother dusted themselves off in his head.
‘Love you too, Tilly.’
Her bright smile told him she hadn’t minded that his voice had been scratchy and stiff. His chest squeezed tight. Not with alarm, but with happiness and victory. Mia had asked him to prove that when it came to Tilly he wouldn’t run away, that he could admit to his feelings. And he had. But he hadn’t just proved it to Mia.
He’d proved it to himself.
Chapter Nine
THE FAMILIAR woody scent of Kade’s aftershave warned her of his approach even before he appeared through the open kitchen door. Mia glanced up and then wished she’d kept her attention on annihilating the lumps in the cake batter. Just like the cupcakes pictured on the glossy recipe pages beside her, Kade looked good enough to eat. After carrying a sleepy Tilly upstairs, he’d showered. His still-damp hair curled onto the collar of a red polo shirt. He flashed a smile in her direction, then busied himself filling the electric kettle with water.
Had more happened tonight than just a DVD being watched and her wasting time sneaking glances through the drawing room window? The peace relaxing Kade’s face while he’d watched the movie suggested that possibly something had.
Kade came to stand beside her. She stopped stirring and rested the spatula on the side of the bowl. ‘So how was Sleeping Beauty?’ she asked.
‘Enlightening. I learned a lot.’
‘Upper management or not, you need to get out more.’
He chuckled. ‘Maybe I do.’
‘You did a good thing tonight.’ Her eyes searched his. ‘For you and for Tilly.’
‘We’ll see. Time will tell.’
‘I shouldn’t have spoken to you how I did earlier. I’m sorry. You don’t have to prove anything to me.’
‘Apology accepted and if we’re making apologies, I’ve got one as well.’ He paused. ‘Shutting Tilly out of my life did make me like Langford. I’m sorry it took so long to see what you’ve been trying to tell me. From now on Tilly and I won’t be leading separate lives.’
She blinked away the mist blurring her vision and nodded. Something wonderful had indeed happened in the drawing room. The proof was written all over Kade’s earnest face. Her unofficial duty had been completed. Tilly, and Kade, were going to be okay. They now had each other.
Kade cleared his throat and nodded toward the array of bowls lined up before her. ‘What are you making?’
She knew a change of subject when she heard it. ‘I’m making cupcakes. Would you like a spatula?’
‘Spatula?’
‘Yes. Licking a spatula is a childhood rite of passage. What flavour would you like? ‘Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla or…this marble cake one which is a combination of all three?’
His attention stalled on the marble mixture. ‘Thanks to my Lolly Delight ice-cream experience I’m not sure I’m ready for something that has the word ‘marble’ in its name. I’m yet to be reassured you do know how to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre.’
She dipped a clean spatula into the marble cake batter and handed it to him. ‘Trust me. All will be well. After braving Tilly’s DVD, sampling marble cake mixture will be nothing.’
‘True.’ The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘If I can survive princesses, princes and prancing ponies, I can survive anything.’
Warmth crept into her cheeks. She picked up the closest bowl and again mixed the contents with swift strokes. She had to get the cakes they’d need for tomorrow in the oven and then clear out of the kitchen. Without Tilly to focus on, being alone with Kade tripped every alarm on the control board of her self-preservation. It wasn’t just how gorgeous he looked, or smelt. The softer, more human, he became the harder it was to resist the whispers urging her across the personal line. She didn’t know what it was, maybe the loneliness she’d glimpse in his eyes, or his quiet strength and integrity, but she was drawn to him like she’d never been drawn to anyone else. And she couldn’t give in to such a pull. The days of her trusting anyone with her heart were long gone.
‘Are you sure there are no marbles in it?’ He turned the spatula to examine the batter coating it.
She looked up. ‘Absolutely.’
The spatula hovered in front of his mouth. She turned away to place the mixing bowl on the bench. The heat in her face intensified. This was ridiculous. She’d never once found Jack’s mouth so mesmerising.
‘Mmmmm…’ His low, appreciative growl seduced her ears. ‘This is good. I can see why Tilly likes cooking so much.’
Mia swung around to see Kade eyeing off the bowl filled with the chocolate flavour. She moved it out of his reach. ‘I think I’d better get the cakes into the oven before there will be no mixture left.’
Kade pulled a pout that Tilly would be proud of. Mia’s laughter burst free.
‘What?’ He held up his hands, palms facing upward. ‘Pouting works for Tilly.’
The kettle whistled. ‘Like a coffee?’ he asked as he moved to flip off the switch. She shook her head. ‘I need to get these done.’ And to get away from you.
She focussed on spooning vanilla cake mixture into pretty, pink and white polka-dot paper cases that lined the cupcake tin.
‘You look like you’ve made a tray or two of cupcakes in your time?’ Kade said, his steaming coffee in his hand.
‘I have. Some of my happiest childhood memories took place in the kitchen.’
She winced. What was she doing? She needed to get out of the kitchen, not suddenly take a misguided stroll down memory lane.
‘With your mother?’
Mia took her time to answer. ‘Yes, I’d make cupcakes with her when she’d come home from hospital. It was our special time.’
‘Your mother must have really enjoyed making them with you too?’
‘Yes. She did. Even at the end when she wasn’t strong enough to help, I’d make cupcakes and everyday I’d sit one next to her bed. Even when they were never e–eaten…’ She spooned so much mixture into a paper case it overflowed. ‘Anyway, that was all a long time ago now.’ She half turned to look at the mug he held. ‘Your coffee will get cold. Don’t let me keep you. I’m sure you’ve got a call to make.’
‘I’m used to cold coffee and I’ve nothing on that can’t wait.’
He placed the coffee on the bench and picked up the cupcake recipe book.
Her grip tightened on the spoon. Why wouldn’t he go and leave her alone with her loss and her pain? He always had work to do.
He flicked through the recipe book. ‘So which cupcakes are you making?’ He held up a picture of cupcakes sporting pirate faces, complete with black eye patches. ‘These look good.’
She shook her head. ‘Flip three pages back.’
He did so and groaned. ‘Pink rosebuds and red hearts.’
She stepped away to collect a second cupcake tray and set about filling it with the paper cases. ‘Every four-year-old girl’s dream cupcakes.’
’And every guardian’s worst nightmare.’
Mia allowed herself a small smile. ‘They will still taste the same, despite the different icing and decorations.’
‘Do you make cupcakes for all your clients?’
‘Sometimes, it depends what we’re working on.’
‘What about non-clients?’
She stopped filling a paper case with strawberry cake mixture. ‘Non-clients? You mean friends?’
Kade nodded, an unspoken query in his eyes.
She kinked a brow. ‘If you’re asking if I cook cupcakes for a boyfriend, the answer is no.’
‘No?’
‘No boyfriend. And no cupcake cooking.’
‘Ever?’ Despite the teasing note in his voice, his intent gaze never left hers.
‘Once.’
‘Dare I ask? Did he choke?’
‘I’ll have you know you’re the only person my cooking doesn’t seem to agree with, so no, he didn’t choke.’ The personal line loomed closer but she knew the only way to end this conversation and retreat to safety would be to give Kade the brief version of her toxic relationship. ‘Let’s just say Jack assumed our engagement was a two-for-one deal. Not only would he gain a wife but also a powerful father-in-law. When he discovered the truth, that there was no chance of reconciliation between myself and Langford, he decided that I wasn’t the type of spouse an aspiring business-mogul needed.’
Anger hardened Kade’s mouth. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, your fiancé…’
‘Ex-fiancé.’
‘Your ex-fiancé was a fool.’
She went back to filling the cupcake papers. ‘That’s exactly what Dr. Sheldon said. He also said one day I’d look back and realise what a narrow escape I’d had.’
‘Dr. Sheldon’s a wise man.’
’Very much so. I left Jack’s Sydney speech pathology practice and came out here to start my own.’ She picked up the filled cupcake tray. ‘And just like Dr. Sheldon predicted, I know now Jack and I would never have worked. It was my surname he was in love with, not me.’ She spoke over her shoulder as she crossed to the oven. ‘I never asked how you know Dr. Sheldon. Nowadays he’s busy with his university research. He hasn’t practised speech pathology in quite a while.’
‘It’s a long story.’ Kade watched the cupcake tray as she slid it onto the oven shelf. ‘I can tell you over a coffee?’
Her hand stilled on the oven door handle as she pressed it shut. Self-preservation wailed like a banshee in her head. She shouldn’t prolong contact with Kade any longer than necessary. She had to keep things strictly professional between them. But maybe it wasn’t the cakes that had marbles in them, only her head, for she wanted to accept Kade’s offer. It’d been a long time since she’d talked, really talked, to a man who saw her simply as Mia Windsor, not as Langford Windsor’s daughter.
She turned on her heel. ‘Okay. I can spare ten minutes while the cakes cook.’
‘White, no sugar?’ Kade asked as he collected a mug from the kitchen hutch.
‘Yes, please.’
She placed more paper cases into a third tray. Kade set her coffee on the kitchen island bench and she drew up a stool.
‘Thanks,’ she said, sitting. She squinted against the bright, overhead light. At least there was no danger of intimate lighting torpedoing her self-control, unlike the last time she sat opposite Kade in the kitchen. ‘So, how does this long story go?’
Kade pulled the coffee he’d collected from the bench toward him. ‘Actually it’s not that long…more like…complicated. Dr. Sheldon is my mother’s cousin. My grandmother left me a copy of our family tree, along with every letter she’d ever written to me that my father had returned. I’d forgotten such a family tree existed, until Tilly arrived.’ Darkness rippled across his eyes like waves upon a still pond. ‘Sometimes it’s a bonus having a good memory.’
‘But not always.’
‘No. Not. Always.’ Even as she watched, the grooves beside his mouth deepened. ‘You were right. When I was a child, I did feel things deeply. Apart from various nannies, my father was the only person I had growing up. He was everything to me. Then I started noticing other fathers who picked their kids up from school, other fathers who came for Father’s Day lunch, other fathers who hugged their sons. That’s when I realised my father was different. And I was different too. When my father married Claudia, in my childish naivety, I’d thought things would change, I’d have a ‘real’ family.’
Mia merely nodded. She didn’t want to speak and break the moment.
‘But we didn’t. Then Brad was born and it was as though a light switched on in my life. He’d follow me around and smile whenever he saw me.’ Kade stared into his coffee. ‘But when I was ten, and Brad must have been about three, it’d been a hot day so we had a water fight with the garden hose. My father was furious because I was supposed to be inside studying and not outside playing and as for Claudia, well, she never believed I belonged in their precious family in the first place. So the next day my bags were packed and I was sent off to a new school as a boarder. I never had a ch
ance to say good-bye to Brad.’
No wonder Kade exerted so much control over his adult life, he’d exercised none as a child. ‘That must have been hard,’ she said quietly.
‘It was.’
Those two strained words were enough to tell her just how deep the grief had cut at being separated from his younger brother. And it wasn’t only Brad Kade had lost in his childhood, he’d also been kept from the grandmother who’d loved him. He’d learned to blank out his emotions to deal with his grief and now as an adult he continued to use the same coping strategy. Successful, powerful and attractive, he’d be every socialite’s, and every father-in-law’s, dream. The fact that Kade hadn’t provided Tilly with an instant mother confirmed that his emotions had never been allowed off their short leash.
‘Did you ever again spend time with Brad?’ She secured her fingers around her mug to stop them reaching across the bench and taking Kade’s tense hand in hers.
‘When Brad was a teenager he tried to stay in touch. But by then I’d left school and was establishing my first company. We’d catch up for a quick dinner every now and then.’ Kade’s fingers fidgeted with the handle of his mug. ‘The longest time we saw each other was after my grandmother’s funeral. He skipped school to catch a bus from Sydney to Whylandra where I collected him. My father was livid, but he and Claudia were overseas so couldn’t do much about it. Brad and I sorted through my grandmother’s things, swum at the waterhole, mustered cattle on motor-bikes and talked until late. Then…we returned to our normal lives.’
Mia breathed in the unmistakable smell of cooked cakes. She couldn’t risk checking them. Kade’s words would disappear as fast as raindrops in a dry creek-bed if she stood now. The gouges slashed beside his mouth told her his ‘complicated’ story still had a chapter to go.
‘After he finished school,’ Kade continued, ‘Brad rejected all that my father stood for. He threw on a backpack and vanished overseas. I did receive emails and postcards until about five years ago. In his last letter he’d mentioned a New Zealand girl called Sarah and I’m guessing the life he created with her took precedence over the one he’d left behind.’
What Love Sounds Like Page 10
