Читать книгу Wedding Vows: I Thee Wed: Back to Mr & Mrs / Reunited: Marriage in a Million / Marrying Her Billionaire Boss - Shirley Jump - Страница 11

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN—a proposition?” she asked.

Cade rose, slipped over to her love seat and sat down beside her, not too close, but close enough that their conversation couldn’t be overheard by the snoring man or the woman still hemming and hawing about blueberry versus peach crumble.

He was also close enough to catch the vanilla scent on her skin, the same fragrance he always associated with Melanie. Like cookies, homemade bread…all the things he’d missed in his childhood and had found in his wife.

His wife.

Damn, he missed her. Missed coming home to her smile, missed holding her. Regardless of what that piece of paper on his desk said, he’d never stopped thinking of Melanie as his wife.

“If you stayed married to me…” Cade paused for a second, letting the last word linger in the air as the idea took root in his mind, “just for a while, you could get that funding a lot easier.”

She backed up against the arm of the sofa, warding off his idea. “No. I want to do this on my own, Cade. Without your help or your family money.”

He heard the seeds of the familiar argument taking hold in her tone. Eighteen months ago, they’d stood here in this very space, Cade glancing around at the dusty antiques, the cluttered room, seeing only years of books in the red, not potential. He’d offered to help, to give her the business guidance the place clearly needed, to invest some of the inheritance from his grandfather that had done nothing but sit in the bank, but she’d refused.

I want to do this on my own, Cade, she’d said then. I don’t need you to tell me what’s wrong. I just want you to say go for it and let me do it.

Instead he’d pulled out a thick stack of research he’d done on the antique industry, statistics proving what worked—and what didn’t. She’d shoved the papers back at him, and in doing so, shut the first door on their marriage.

He’d shut the second one himself.

He tossed her a grin. “Just think of it as a little payback for all the years you helped me.”

She rose, frustration running through every inch of her face. “Where is this new and improved Cade coming from? Since when did you want me to be all independent?”

He blinked. “I never said you had to be some Stepford wife, Mellie. I’ve always wanted you to have your own life.”

“As long as it wasn’t at the expense of yours.” Melanie took in a breath, erasing the quick flash of hurt in her eyes. “Cade, you just don’t understand how important it is for me to have something of my own. To do this myself.”

“I’m trying, Melanie.” He paused, waiting until she sank back onto the seat beside him. “I promise not to do anything more than let you have my credit score,” Cade continued. “We have a lot of assets together, Melanie, a financial record, a damned nice nest egg of Matthews money. The bank will look more favorably on your loan if—”

“If I pretend I’m still married to you.”

“It’s not pretending. We are married.”

“Only because you won’t sign the divorce papers.”

“I’ve been busy.”

She gave him the eye roll Emmie had inherited. She sighed, considering him for a long moment.

“I’m not agreeing to anything. Not until I know what you want in exchange.”

“Nothing.”

She shook her head. “I know you, Cade. You don’t make a deal without both sides gaining something. You help me get my loan, but what do you get?”

“Nothing, except—” he drew in a breath “—a date to the reunion.”

In her green eyes, the thoughts connected. “As your wife, you mean.”

Cade had brokered enough deals to know when he’d reached the crux, the point where the agreement could be broken by one party leaning too far or pushing too hard.

Melanie would eventually be awarded the divorce with or without his signature. He glanced at her left hand, at the circle of gold on her ring finger.

He weighed his next words, trying to figure out what wouldn’t make Melanie bolt, or worse, encourage her to throw the countertop Capresso machine at his head. “Not as my wife,” he lied, “more as a…fellow reunion attendee. Let people assume what they want.” He voiced the idea as calmly as he would the terms of a corporate merger. Start with business-only, and pray like hell it turned into something more personal later.

Her gaze narrowed. “Why are you suddenly so interested in going to the class reunion? If I remember right, you skipped the fifth and the tenth. What’s so big about the twentieth?”

Cade didn’t miss a beat. “Bill Hendrickson.”

“The kid who carried a briefcase to school every day?”

He nodded. “He’s now the owner of one of the largest law firms in the Midwest and he’s looking for a new partner.”

That much was true. For a month or so, Bill had been trying to meet with Cade, but their respective schedules had kept them from finding a common time. Bill suggested a quick meeting at the reunion. “Bring your wife,” Bill had said, unaware of the rift in the Matthews marriage. “I’d love to introduce her to my Shelley.”

Bill had made it clear he liked to employ family men because he thought they were more committed, more honorable. Cade wasn’t so sure he agreed with Bill’s logic, but he did know one thing for sure—he’d love to work for the massive, national firm that Bill headed. They’d handled clients Cade could only dream of working for; the kind with names that everyone in America knew.

It was what he’d worked for, toiling away under his father’s thumb, hoping to prove himself and then break into the big leagues.

“What’s wrong with staying at Fitzsimmons, Matthews and Lloyd?” Melanie asked.

Cade’s gaze swept over the hourglass shape of his wife, down the dusting of freckles that trailed a pattern from her shoulder to her wrist, a path he’d kissed more than once. The ache that had become his constant companion in the last year tightened its grip. “Because I need a change of pace.”

If this divorce happened—and as more time went by with Melanie remaining resolute in her plans, he knew it would—then he knew he’d have to leave. He couldn’t stand living twenty minutes from Melanie, knowing she was moving on with her life.

And worst of all—dating other men.

He tore his gaze away from her. A woman as gorgeous and vivacious as Melanie wouldn’t be going to bed alone for very long. “Bill’s firm is in Chicago and—”

“You’re moving to Chicago?” she said, her voice soft, surprised.

“I’m considering it, if everything goes well with Bill. Chicago is only a few hours away, which means I can still see Emmie.” He grinned. “Half the time she’s here or out with friends. I’m more of a laundry dump than a dad.”

Melanie echoed his smile. “I know the feeling. She does the same thing to me. If I hadn’t hired her, I don’t think I’d see her for more than a five-minute conversation a month.”

“Our little girl has grown up, hasn’t she?” Cade’s memory ran through a quick tape of Emmie’s first steps, first day of school, first bike. The years had rocketed by too fast. Hindsight berated him for missing far too many of those firsts.

“Yeah,” Melanie said, and the bittersweet expression on her face told him she was watching the same mental movie. “If you get the job, are you selling the house?”

Back to the logistics of divvying up a marriage. “I’ll keep it for a while,” Cade said. If there was a chance Melanie would ever live there again, would ever sit at the oak dining room table they’d bought for their fifth anniversary and share a dinner with him, he wanted to have that familiar three-bedroom in Indianapolis waiting.

He shook off the thought. Cade had to be pragmatic instead of getting caught up in the green of her eyes, the scent of her skin. The sheer magic of being so close to her again, separated only by a few inches of love seat.

This reunion idea was a last-ditch effort, brought about because he’d thought he’d read some meaning in the gold band on her left hand. Assuming, that was, that she’d ever loved him at all. That she hadn’t married him just because she’d been pregnant with Emmie. In the still, dark night, that was the possibility that haunted Cade. Had he been so clueless, he’d imagined a love that had never existed?

“I had no idea you were considering a move,” Melanie said.

“I haven’t broken it to Emmie yet, so please don’t tell her. I want to have something definite in hand first.”

More, Cade needed to know for sure there was zero chance with his wife. All year, he’d kept telling himself that given a little time, Melanie would be back. She hadn’t.

With all the signs she’d been sending him, he could have taken out a billboard: Your Marriage Is Over. And yet, the glutton in him continued to hope that the past nineteen years had formed a foundation they could come back to, build a new beginning on, after they moved the last few years of wreckage out of the way.

The realist in him whispered their foundation was made of sand, not stone.

“Oh.” Melanie’s mouth formed the vowel, held it for a minute, as if it was taking her a moment to get used to the idea of him moving away. “Okay.”

“Anyway, you know how I hate to go to those things, especially alone,” Cade said, putting on a smile, making his case, treading carefully. “I can never remember anyone’s name. I need a wingman.”

I need you.

It wasn’t until Melanie responded with a smile of her own that Cade found himself able to breathe again. “You are pretty bad at that. Remember when you kept calling Jim Sacco ‘Stan’?”

Cade laughed. “He was a former partner at Fitzsimmons, Matthews and Lloyd, too. We even worked together a couple times. I’ve never lived that one down.”

Melanie joined his laughter. Cade wished he could reach out, capture that sound in a jar and bring it home with him. The walls in the house had grown as silent as tombs without Melanie.

“Oh, and what about the time you forgot the name of the governor?” She chuckled softly. “So much for any political ambitions you might have had.”

“That’s when my wingman came in mighty handy,” he said, thinking of that nightmare dinner party seven years ago, of Melanie slipping in with her easy touch and smoothing everything over. With them so close together on the love seat, it was almost like before. Cade and Melanie, staying up late, finishing off the appetizers while they rehashed the night. “You told him some story about me getting the flu or something—”

Another smile from her, the kind that could disrupt a man’s best intentions. “And I told him the medicine had some kind of mental side effects.”

“All that mattered was that he bought it and signed the firm as his personal counsel. You made that save, Mellie.” He leaned forward, careful not to invade her personal space, to keep it casual, to act as if his heart didn’t still trip over itself every time she smiled.

“That’s why I need you with me at the reunion. You make me look good.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Her glance flitted away. She reached for her coffee, her hand a nervous flutter that nearly toppled the cup. It clattered against the table, then settled into place.

“I’m serious. Your talent is people. Making them feel comfortable, welcome.” He glanced around the corner of their little nook, into the main part of Cuppa Life. The cozy coffee shop was beginning to fill with chattering college students, clustering around the tables and doing homework, playing cards, or just talking. It was the polar opposite to the stuffy, serious law offices of Fitzsimmons, Matthews and Lloyd. For a minute, he wondered what it was like to work in a place like this. To escape the daily grind of a job that had never felt quite right, as if all these years he’d been wearing the wrong size suit.

“This place is ‘Cheers’ with caffeine.”

She laughed. “Not quite as successful, but, yeah, I guess it does have that kind of atmosphere. Speaking of which, I better get back and help Emmie with the afternoon rush.” She rose and turned to go.

Cade reached for her arm. Everything within him begged for more contact, more of her. With reluctance he held back, tempered his touch to border on acquaintance, not spouse. “Melanie, go with me. Please.”

She paused, her emerald gaze meeting his for a long, silent second. “Are you really moving to Chicago?”

Once again, the belt tightened around his heart. If this didn’t work, there was no way Cade could stay in that house another second. “Yeah.”

Emmie shouted to her mother that she needed help making something called a “Frazzle.” With an apology, Melanie hurried back to the counter.

In a blur of activity, Melanie dumped a slew of ingredients into a blender and whirred the icy concoction together. She poured the frothy liquid into a cup, handed it to the customer, then set to work on a couple of lattes, filling the orders of the group of twenty-somethings who’d all come in at once. It was a good five minutes before she had a second to return to Cade.

He rehashed their conversation in his head, as if a replay could show him how to fine tune it next time, to get a different result.

“Did you mean what you said about helping me get my loan?” she said when she came back.

He nodded. “As much or as little as you want. I can even give you the money from our account.”

She shook her head. “I want to do this alone.”

“It’s our money, Mel.”

“It’s your inheritance. I want to earn my own. I want this—” she indicated the shop “—to be mine.”

“Okay. Whatever you want. You call all the shots, Melanie.”

She hesitated so long, worry began to crowd onto Cade’s shoulders.

Then she thrust out her hand. He took it, feeling the familiar delicate palm inside his much bigger one, knowing that if he inhaled the fragrance of her skin, he’d be swept back up into what could have been, instead of what really was.

Instead he shook when she did, the businesslike stance feeling so odd, he wanted to laugh.

“Then you have a deal, Cade Matthews.”