Corner-Office Courtship

by Victoria Pade

  His eyebrows arched high. “You mean you actually did all that? I thought you made it up.”

  “No, I actually did some of it and heard about the rest.”

  “The hot-air balloon?”

  “I didn’t do that one, no. I wasn’t that brave.”

  “Was this connected to a sorority or something?”

  “It wasn’t connected to the college at all. It was just the doings of one guy. And I was...his guest,” she said, settling on that definition of her relationship with Doug in college.

  “One guy?” Cade repeated. “The rich boy gone wild?”

  The last thing she wanted to talk about was Doug so she merely said, “No. That was—and is—just the way he lives. It was pretty amazing, though...”

  “And fun, it sounds like.”

  “Mmm...” Nati agreed. “It’s easy to get swept up in that lifestyle, that’s for sure.”

  “How far did he sweep you?”

  Nati laughed. “Far,” was all she said.

  Cade must have picked up on her reluctance to talk about her ex because he didn’t pursue it. Instead he said, “So how were your grades?”

  Nati laughed again, wishing he wasn’t so easy to talk to, that she didn’t feel as comfortable with him as she did, that she didn’t enjoy every minute with him so much.

  “My grades had to be good. I was at college on a scholarship that my grandfather’s lodge awarded me.”

  “Full ride?”

  “It had to be.”

  “Your family couldn’t afford to pay for college....” That sobered Cade.

  “I was proud of winning the scholarship and it paid for almost my whole degree. Keeping my grades up was a small price for that and I was an overachiever anyway, so I would have worked just as hard.”

  “You didn’t have to have a kick in the pants not to be a slacker like I did?” he joked.

  “Slacker,” Nati echoed to tease him and lighten the tone again.

  It elicited a smile from him but he still returned to the subject of her family’s humble finances.

  “Without the scholarship you wouldn’t have been able to go to college at all?”

  Nati shrugged. “It’s water under the bridge, but it was one of the times my grandfather said it would be better if we’d been back in Northbridge—apparently there’s a small college there that lets residents of the town attend for next to nothing. But the important thing is that you and I both got our degrees. And that you’ve come a long way, because this tiramisu is fabulous,” she joked.

  What remained of Cade’s somberness disappeared. “All I did was bring it home, I don’t think I can take any credit for the dessert itself.”

  Yes, she did like his humility, even when it was only in jest.

  In fact, she liked everything she’d seen of Cade so far. Which made it difficult to remember that she was supposed to be resisting his appeal.

  “I’m so full I’m going to explode,” she said, taking her last bite. “I have to stop.” And go home where it’s safe...

  “I’ll finish it,” he warned.

  “Go for it! This is two nights in a row of big dinners and dessert—are you trying to fatten me up or what?”

  His gaze settled on her with a warmth and appreciation she hadn’t expected. “I wouldn’t change a thing, so no, I’m not trying to fatten you up. But am I spoiling myself by taking advantage of the opportunities to have your company at dinner? For that I might not have much of a defense.”

  And she didn’t have any defense against his charm. For a moment she basked in the warmth of his eyes and his smile.

  But only for a moment before she took herself to task for it and began to gather take-out containers to clean up so she could get out of there.

  “I left the samples for the hope chest design on the dining room table,” she said, going back to business in an attempt to steer this evening away from feeling like a date. “If your grandmother likes one of them I can get started in the next couple of days. If she doesn’t I can tweak things however she wants. The light in my workshop is better than it was in the attic so I managed to make out just enough of the design around the clasp to bring back the original. I gave her a couple choices of colors. She can also decide how new or how weathered she wants it to look.”

  “Great. I’ll get them to her and let you know. Will you be here tomorrow?”

  Did he have another dinner up his sleeve? Because while one part of her would love it if he did, the smarter, saner part of her told her to avoid it.

  “I will be, but I’m not sure when.” That was a lie. She knew she was watching both shops in the morning and coming back to Cade’s house to work in the afternoon. But she decided on the spot that she would make sure she was gone long before he might come home with more delicious food. And avoid another chance to spend time with him...

  “You—or your grandmother—can call and let me know what she decides if we miss each other.” Which she was going to make sure they did. “Or you can leave the sample she chooses on the table and I’ll pick it up when I’m here tomorrow or the time after that, which is when I’ll be done with your wall.”

  “Already? Seems like you just got started,” he said, sounding disappointed. “Maybe I should look around and see if I need another wall done.”

  Instant hope sprang to life in Nati, serving to warn her even more that she was treading on dangerous ground. This was not a guy for her. Even if she had been ready for a new relationship, which she wasn’t.

  She didn’t say anything more as she loaded their empty containers back into the bag. Then, glancing around the expansive silver and black state-of-the-art kitchen, she said, “Trash?”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Cade assured, tossing the smaller container that had held the tiramisu into the bag, too. “How about after-dinner coffee or tea? Can I interest you in one of those?”

  “No, thanks,” she said, “I have to get going.”

  “I’ll help you carry stuff to your car,” he offered.

  “I already did that.” While he was showering.

  Nati flushed as her traitorous mind made her imagine the man stepping out from under the spray of water, glistening wet, probably all muscular and defined and perfectly proportioned with those wide shoulders and that narrow waist.

  “My jacket is still in the dining room, though,” she said.

  “I should probably get your samples out of there, too. If I don’t put them where I’ll see them when I go out I’ll never remember them.”

  They went to the dining room together. Once they were there, it seemed strange not to lay out the drawings and samples to show to Cade.

  “You do such nice work,” Cade said as he looked over them. “This is exactly the original design. I like this one with the brighter, more defined colors, but I can’t speak for GiGi. She may want this one that’s kind of antique-looking.”

  “I like the brighter one, too. But I’m fine doing any of them. Or something else—make sure you let her know if she doesn’t like any of these I’ll go a different route.”

  “I will,” he assured. “But GiGi isn’t hard to please.”

  “Just let me know.”

  Nati’s jacket was draped across the back of the chair they were both standing behind and when she reached for it Cade was quicker, grabbing it and saying, “You’re sure I can’t talk you into coffee or tea? Or an after-dinner brandy somebody gave me that I haven’t had the chance to taste...?”

  “I really have to get going,” Nati said, sticking to her guns.

  “Too bad,” he muttered. He held her plain cotton jacket open for her as if it were a fur coat.

  Nati turned her back to him and slipped her arms into the sleeves.

  Then she pivoted around to face Cade again. She nodded
toward the samples on the table. “Don’t forget those,” she advised.

  Cade merely nodded without taking his eyes off her. Rather than reaching for the sample sheets, he took hold of the stand collar of her jacket and yanked it more securely around her neck.

  “It’s colder out there now than it was earlier today,” he said, explaining the gesture.

  But he didn’t take his hands away once he’d adjusted the collar. He kept holding on to it. To Nati. Who tipped her head back to look up at him.

  The man had the bluest, bluest eyes.

  And such incredibly well-chiseled features.

  And he smelled like heaven.

  And the very faintest of smiles curled the corners of his mouth just before he took a little dip and kissed her.

  A fragment of a split second and it was over. A mere whisper of his lips to hers—that was all it was. The same kiss of the night before, only this time it was on her mouth.

  Every bit of starch went out of Nati’s legs.

  “Yeah. No. I probably shouldn’t have done that, huh?” he said in a ragged, husky voice.

  Nati shook her head. He shouldn’t have kissed her but she couldn’t bring herself to actually say it because all she really wanted was for him to do it again.

  Cade took a deep breath. He drew himself up straighter before he tugged just slightly on her coat collar once more, and then released it.

  “I told you that tiramisu was drenched in rum,” he joked then, as if that was his excuse.

  “Too good to pass up, though,” Nati said quietly.

  The chuckle that rumbled from Cade’s throat in response made her wonder if he was thinking that it wasn’t only the dessert that was too good to pass up. But it was dangerous for her to entertain the idea that he thought she was, too.

  When he went on standing there, looking at her, making her wonder if he was considering kissing her again despite knowing that he shouldn’t, Nati scooped up the sample pages and handed them to him.

  “Don’t forget these,” she said.

  He accepted them from her and that was when Nati decided she should make her escape.

  She turned and led the way out of the dining room to the front door where Cade set the sample pages on a table in his entry and maneuvered himself into a position to open the door for her.

  “Thanks for dinner—again.”

  “Thanks for having it with me,” he countered.

  Nati went out onto the front landing, glad to be in the chill of the evening air suddenly and hoping it would shock her to her senses since all she could think about was kissing Cade again.

  Especially when he stepped outside with her onto the small stoop that didn’t provide for much distance between them.

  He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, which put him more on her eye level.

  “If I don’t see you before I finish with your wall, I’ll just send you the final bill and you can mail me a check,” she said then.

  “Or you can hold off until you finish with the hope chest, too, and I’ll come pick it up and settle everything at once.”

  “Sure, that would work. I can send the bill, though, in case you get busy or something and would rather that I deliver the hope chest to your grandmother.”

  “Okay,” Cade said, a frown tugging at his forehead as if he didn’t like the possibility that they might not be seeing each other again.

  But it would be for the best if they didn’t, Nati thought.

  Or at least that was what the rational part of her thought.

  Then there was that other, not-so-rational part that was still thinking about the kiss that had happened just moments before. It had been so fleeting. And she wanted to repeat it right there and then....

  She leaned forward, tempted. Oh so tempted to kiss him this time. Longer and harder and deeper...

  And was he leaning slightly in her direction, too?

  It would have been so easy to kiss him. To have just one more that she could register in her memory.

  But she took a really deep breath, forced herself to step back, and said, “I’m just gonna go now....”

  Cade didn’t encourage or discourage her. He merely watched as she left the stoop and headed for her car in the driveway.

  She didn’t glance in the direction of the front door again until she’d slipped behind the steering wheel.

  And even though she was hoping that Cade might have gone back inside by then, he hadn’t. He was still standing outside, one broad shoulder against the jamb, his hands in his rear jean pockets, watching her.

  As she started her engine and put her car into reverse Cade took one hand out and waved. All Nati did to acknowledge the gesture was raise her chin before she backed out of his drive, knowing she had to get out of there. That she had to get home to the small, no-frills house in Arden where she’d grown up.

  And away from the man who was more temptation than she had the strength to resist.

  Chapter Six

  “I have time for one fast cup of coffee, and then I need to get to work,” Cade told his grandmother when he showed up at her house early the next morning. “I just wanted to bring you these samples Nati Morrison left for the design on the hope chest. As soon as she knows how you want it, she’ll get started.”

  GiGi poured him the coffee, and then sat with him in the breakfast nook with her own half-finished cup. “How are things going with her?”

  Last night’s kiss flashed through Cade’s mind the minute his grandmother asked that. Not even a sleepless night of telling himself that he’d taken a very wrong turn prevented him from wanting to kiss her again. And better the next time...

  “She’s great,” he heard himself say. “Not that it matters, but she seems like a nice person.”

  GiGi stared at him over her coffee cup, then took a sip without saying anything. She seemed a little suspicious.

  “When it comes to our real project with the Morrisons I’ve just barely skimmed the surface. I can’t really say yet whether or not what H.J. did back in Northbridge caused long-term damage. Or even if there’s resentment about it. Things changed for the Morrisons when they lost that farm, but so far I’m not sure their lives would have been remarkably better or worse if they’d stayed in Northbridge. Everything we’ve talked about so far has been kind of superficial.”

  “So you’ll keep trying,” GiGi said.

  “Yeah. I’m just not exactly sure how to ‘keep trying’ without it seeming like dating.” Which was what every minute with Nati so far had felt like. Very, very good dates. Dates he didn’t want to end. Dates that left him itching to see her again.

  “You don’t want to mislead her,” GiGi said, reading his thoughts, as if she knew that there were things simmering inside of him when it came to Nati.

  “No, I don’t want to mislead her. Of course not. That’s the problem.”

  “And you can’t just talk with her, get to know about her and her family in a friendly way?”

  Sure, he should be able to do that. It just wasn’t working out that way. Probably because being with Nati just didn’t feel like chatting with a stranger. He wasn’t exactly sure why that was, now that he thought about it. It just was. She was easy to be with, they had similar senses of humor, she was smart and quick-witted and interesting, she was warm and open. When he was with her there was just some kind of connection that seemed to override everything else—including his own good sense and better judgment.

  So much so that he kept losing sight of the fact that she could be harboring some deeply rooted animosity toward all Camdens. Animosity that she could take out on him in some way down the road. So much so that he kept letting down his guard and forgetting that she could start to see dollar signs every time she looked at him and that that could land him in the kind of mess he’d
found himself in twice before.

  “The problem is,” he said after a moment of reflection, “she’s going to finish with my wall and when she does there isn’t a reason to see her at all.”

  “Have her do another wall.”

  “I thought of that. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll figure something out,” he said. “For now, when you decide what you want her to do with the hope chest I can relay that information and that’ll give me another excuse to see her.”

  GiGi glanced at the samples and pointed to the one that looked more aged. “This,” she decreed.

  “Okay. I’ll tell her.”

  Cade finished his coffee and took his cup to the sink to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher, thinking as he did that the situation with Nati was just more complicated than he could convey to his grandmother.

  Nati was off-limits and that was all there was to it, but he was having so damn much trouble keeping that in mind when he was with her.

  Because as soon as he was, it started to seem like things could work out between them. And all of his resolve, all of his determination, all of his memories of courts and lawyers and false accusations and ugliness, all of his reasons to keep his distance, just flew out the window.

  But he had to quit letting that happen.

  Think paternity claim, he told himself. Think breach of promise...

  Because those were both situations he never—ever—wanted to get sucked into again. So he couldn’t take any risks.

  Which meant that no matter how good it felt to be with Nati, it couldn’t go anywhere.

  Not anywhere beyond this errand his grandmother had sent him on.

  And certainly not anywhere near where he kept wanting it to go.

  * * *

  “Oh, no,” Nati muttered to herself.

  She’d had such determination today. Such resolve.

  She’d fully intended to do the work she needed to do on Cade’s wall that Wednesday afternoon and get out of there long before there was any chance whatsoever of him coming home. Of her seeing him. Of getting drawn in by him. Of ending up kissing him again.

  She was also determined to make sure she didn’t see him on Friday, either—when she would complete her work in his house. Then she’d send him a bill and do everything she could to never set eyes on the man again.