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WHEN CADE KISSED HER, everything within Melanie went from ice-blue to red-hot. It was as if he’d never kissed her before, as if she’d waited for this touch for a lifetime.

With a clarity that astounded her, Melanie remembered every detail of that first, electric touch from twenty years ago, how she’d wanted him all night, fantasizing about the moment when he would finally go beyond holding her hand.

They’d gone to the mall, wandering the tiled space, not buying anything. They’d talked and laughed, all the while aware of the tightening tension between them. When they’d stopped to throw a penny into the fountain, Cade had moved into place behind her, ostensibly to guide her hand, but more, she knew with that instinct every woman possessed, to touch her.

She’d tossed the penny, made the wish that had simmered inside her all night, then turned to him, hoping. As if he’d heard her thoughts, he’d kissed her, under the pale white cast of the lights above them. It had been everything she’d dreamed about—and more. Cade Matthews hadn’t disappointed her with his touch.

Not then, and not now.

Those memories washed over her, whispering against this new kiss. Desire arched within her, rumbling through a body that had been focused on business matters for far too long. His lips were tender against hers, drifting over her mouth, an easy, sweet taste of what was to come. Then, when she didn’t pull away, his kiss deepened, taking her down a sensuous path so familiar, it nearly made her cry.

She’d missed him, damn it. Missed his kisses, missed his touch. Before she could stop herself, her arms stole around his neck, feeling the ends of his short hair tickle against her skin, making every inch of her want him with a fierceness that bordered on frenzy.

His tongue slipped between her lips and every resolve she’d had melted in the seductive waltz he played on her mouth. She did the same to him, nerve endings tingling with awareness and memory, one fire stoking the other.

He reached up and cupped her jaw, tenderly, in the way he used to, back when their focus had been on each other and nothing else. Behind her closed eyes, a slideshow of memories flashed through Melanie’s mind, teasing at the edges of their kiss, urging her to forget the divorce, forget the hurts.

How she wanted to give in to that kiss, to do nothing more than love this man. To let his touch erase the words, the silences, the nights spent alone.

But she had spent too many regretful mornings knowing no kiss could do that.

Melanie jerked back and broke the connection, ignoring the pull of regret. “Cade, we can’t do this.”

“Why not?” he asked, his gaze still locked on hers. “We’re still married.”

She turned away, busying herself with cleaning the counter, trying to tamp down the need still rolling inside her. It had been a long, lonely year but she knew she was doing what was best for her, and in the end, for Cade.

“Don’t do this, Cade. I can’t…” Her voice trailed off, unable to voice the vulnerability still lingering in her chest. If he touched her again, she’d surely dissolve.

“I need you, Melanie,” he said, his voice hoarse.

“I’ve always needed you.”

“No, you don’t. You never did.”

He cupped her jaw, tipping her chin upward, waiting for her to meet his gaze. “Melanie, I’d never be where I was today if it wasn’t for you. You were always the better half of my success. Of everything.”

She shook her head, causing his touch to drop away. “Cade, all I did was bake the leg of lamb and set the table for the dinner parties.”

“It was much more than that and you know it.”

“Was it? Because I never felt that way. I put on the parties, smiled until my lips hurt, served coffee, tea and your best qualities to every guest. At the end of the night, you were toasting another success and I was washing the damned dishes.” She put up a finger when he started to protest. “You forgot me, Cade. Left me behind as you hurried ahead in your career. The only time you needed me was when there was a party to host or a client to impress.”

“I never meant to do that.”

She drew in a breath, cooling her temper. “I know, Cade. I guess I just wanted to feel like something I did, something other than raising Emmie, meant something. I never felt that when I was pulling a roast out of the oven or pouring champagne.” She glanced around the coffee shop. “Until now.”

“What you did mattered, to me,” he said.

“You never said it.” She let out a little laugh.

“Heck, you were never home long enough to say anything.”

He reached for her, but she turned away. Instead of letting her go, Cade moved forward, taking her hand with his. “I’m here now, Melanie.”

How she wanted to believe that. To think that it could be different—that she could have the marriage she’d dreamed of, and the dreams she’d just achieved. To trust Cade would be there, physically and emotionally, when she needed him.

But if there was one thing Melanie couldn’t take, it was more disappointment.

“Cade, it’s too late,” Melanie said. “We drifted apart. I became your personal assistant, not your wife. And then, when it looked like I might have my chance, you wanted to put me right back into the same box I was trying to climb out of.”

“All I wanted was a family,” he said. “How can you hate me for that?”

She reached out, touched his hand, but then retreated. Each of them had been hurt that night, but instead of coming together, they’d ended up on opposite sides of a common fence. “I never hated you, Cade. I just wanted to go down a different road.”

“You’ve never told me why, Melanie,” Cade said, coming around her, forcing her to face him. “Why did you leave me?”

Melanie sighed. Why couldn’t he just let their marriage die? “I told you. A hundred times over the past few years, but you never listened.”

“I’m listening now. Tell me what it is, so I can fix it.”

She threw up her hands. “That right there, that’s part of the problem. You can’t fix everything, Cade.”

“I can fix this, Melanie. Give me a chance.”

For a second, she wanted to do just that, but then she thought back to the dozens of times they’d had conversations that echoed this one. Things would change for a week, maybe two, and then Cade would go back to being Cade, relying on Melanie to do everything but live for herself. When she’d finally had her chance, all he’d wanted to do was return to the status quo.

She shook her head, then crossed the room, her keys in her hand. She held open the door, waiting for him to exit before shutting and locking it. “No, Cade. You can’t fix this.”

Then, before she did something really stupid, like revisit that kiss, she turned and went home to her empty apartment, her stomach as disappointed as her heart.

An hour later, Cade walked into the offices of Fitzsimmons, Matthews and Lloyd, although Fitzsimmons had died ten years ago and Lloyd last summer, leaving it technically just Matthews. Even though it was late on Sunday night, he found his father exactly where he’d expected him to be—behind his desk.

The imposing office had been a major part of Jonathon Matthews’s life for forty-plus years, and it showed in the dark paneling, the heavy furniture, the deep, plush carpeting. Every inch of the room reflected Jonathon’s personality, his high expectations.

When Cade entered the room, his father barely looked up from the brief he was reading. Jonathon had aged well, the only concession to his sixty years a pair of glasses that he wore when no one was looking. His gray hair was cut short, his suit tailor-made. The same attention to detail that marked his office wore well on every inch of the man.

“Cade,” his father said, laying the brief aside.

“Glad you came in. I wanted to talk to you about the Tewksbury case.”

“I’m not here to work, Dad.” The look of surprise on his father’s face told Cade he’d spent far too many weekends here. “I wanted to talk to you.” He slipped into one of the two claw-foot chairs facing his father.

“I’m taking next week off.”

“Off?” his father echoed, surprise in his tone, his brows arched above the gold frames. “What could possibly be more important than the Tewksbury case?”

“Melanie.” Cade swallowed. “I’m going to go work in her coffee shop this week.”

The silence in the room was as heavy as a steel beam. “You’re what?”

“Going to—”

“I heard you the first time.” His father scowled.

“What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m trying to save my marriage.”

“At the expense of this firm. She’s divorcing you, Cade. Let her go, for God’s sake.”

“She’s my wife.”

Jonathon waved a hand in dismissal. “You can always get another. A hell of a lot easier than I can find a lead attorney on this Tewksbury mess.”

Anger boiled inside of Cade. He knew, since the day he’d told his father Melanie was pregnant, that the marriage had been a disappointment, a detour from the path Jonathon had planned for the son he saw as the heir to the firm. “Is that how you look at wives? Interchangeable?”

“That’s how I look at the ones who walk out on their husbands for no good reason.” His father dipped his head, attention on his work again.

But just before he dropped his gaze, Cade saw a flash of vulnerability in his father’s eyes. A sheen of hurt, that had lingered despite the perfectionist paint job his father had applied to himself.

“Because Mom did it to you?” Cade said quietly, touching on the one nerve that ran through all three Matthews men.

The sore spot made Jonathon scowl and pick up the brief again. “I have work to do. And so do you, if that pile on your desk is any indication.” But his voice had lost its punch.

“Answer me, Dad.” Cade leaned forward. “Is it because she left you with two five-year-old boys and never came back?”

His father shook his head, dismissing the glistening in his eyes. Because it was too painful? Too hard for Jonathon Matthews to admit failure? “All that’s ancient history.”

Cade wasn’t going to let that history die. After all these years, he and his father had never talked about that October day when Elaine Matthews had packed up her station wagon and headed to California. “Your mother is gone,” Jonathon had said to his twin boys, before introducing the new nanny in the next breath, as if the whole thing was nothing more than a shift change in the Matthews household.

“After she was gone, you poured yourself into work, leaving nannies to raise us. Hell, half of them were so bad, we raised ourselves because you weren’t there.”

“I had to provide for my family.”

After marrying and parenting his own child, Cade understood his father better. How would it have been for Cade if he had lost Melanie when Emmie was a little girl? Would he have done the same, retreating into the predictability, the quiet of work?

“Or was it because you had to escape two little boys with a whole lot of questions?” Cade looked at his father and saw himself in twenty years. The thought didn’t bring Cade cheer. “And here I followed in your footsteps, right down to the hours at work.”

“Law is a consuming business.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I can have a family and a career.”

His father whipped his glasses off and tossed them to the side. He squeezed at his eyes, erasing the trace of emotion. “What are we living in, fairy tales now? You have a commitment to this firm, to ensuring that our clients are taken care of. If your wife couldn’t understand that—”

“She did, Dad. More than any one woman should have had to.”

“I didn’t make you put those hours in, Cade,” Jonathon said. His gaze connected with Cade’s. A look of regret flickered in his eyes, then was quickly whisked away. “Before you throw stones at me, you better damned well look at your own garden.” His father settled the glasses on his nose again and returned to the brief, to the comfort of work. It had always been Jonathon’s escape, and sadly, it was now also his entire life. “Bring me the Tewksbury file, please and we can strategize for court.”

Cade bit his tongue before he lashed out. He knew from experience that the only way to deal with his father was calmly and with a good argument. The minute Cade raised his voice, Jonathon would tune him out. “I told you, Dad. I’m working with Melanie this week. Todd can handle my cases.”

His father shook his head, negating the idea. “I need you here.”

“It’s only a week, and then I’ll be back. Surely the firm can live without me for a few days.”

“We probably can,” his father conceded. Then he laid his hands flat against the smooth surface of his desk and leveled his steely gaze on his son. “The point is you’ve been…distracted lately. I put up with it after Melanie left, because every man is entitled to some time to get over a thing like that.”

“A thing like that?We were married nineteen years.”

“But then,” his father went on, ignoring Cade’s words, “you didn’t snap out of it. You’ve been about as useful around here as a puppy.”

“I’ve always given you my best, Dad, you know that.” The best years of his life, the best weekends, the best nights. Cade had nearly killed himself, putting in long hours, always trying to please his father, to achieve some impossible standard.

And for what? Cade still didn’t measure up and never would. Pleasing Jonathon Matthews was like trying to fill an endless, empty well.

“Have you?” his father asked. “Because there have been rumors. That you’re talking to Bill Hendrickson about leaving.”

Cade blinked in surprise. “Yes, that’s true.”

“When were you going to tell me?” A flicker of hurt ran through Jonathon’s blue eyes, then disappeared. For a moment, Cade wanted to relent. He knew his father had always thought his son would step into the role of heading the firm, but Cade didn’t want this life. Didn’t want to sit in this office at sixty because his house was emptier than his heart.

“I just wanted to look at my options,” Cade said.

“Options other than working for me.”

“Yes.”

Jonathon Matthews gave one short, brisk nod.

“Fine. Then you might as well leave now. Save me from wondering when you’re going to drop the ax.”

This was what frustrated Cade the most about his father. His inflexibility. Either you measured up or you didn’t, and if you didn’t, Jonathon was quick to sever the ties. “Dad—”

“You’ve disappointed me, Cade,” Jonathon said, rising and pushing his chair back into perfect alignment with the desk. “I expected much more from my own flesh and blood.”

“You’ve expected everything from me!” Cade shot back. “I’ve given you nineteen years, Dad. Nineteen years in a job I never really loved.” “You could have told me that before I paid for law school. Saved me the money,” Jonathon said. “And now you’re leaving me, just like she did.”

“I’m not her, Dad. And the sooner you stop taking out her sins on me and Carter, the better off we’ll all be. Hell, we might even be happy.” When his father buried his head in his work again, refusing to open that door of vulnerability again, Cade turned and strode out of the room, unemployed—and wondering if the mess his life had become was beyond salvageable.