Wedding Vows: I Thee Wed: Back to Mr & Mrs / Reunited: Marriage in a Million / Marrying Her Billionaire Boss
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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.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT WAS I THINKING?” Melanie slumped into one of the bar stools beside Kelly Webber, a frequent customer turned good friend. The college crowd had begun petering out as night began to fall and discussion of dorm room parties replaced the complaints about professors with homework fetishes. Emmie was sitting at a table in the corner of the room, ostensibly doing her homework, but really chatting with a friend while their dueling laptops accessed Cuppa Life’s wireless Internet connection.
Melanie let out a sigh. “Once again, I said yes when I should have said no.”
“That’s called Momitis. It’s how I got roped into doing the PTL dinner and chairing the book drive all in the same week.” Kelly took a sip from her decaf iced mocha and gave Melanie a sympathetic smile. She had her dark brown hair back in a ponytail and wore a blue track suit, her usual running-the-kids attire. Her two sons were taking karate lessons at the studio three doors down, giving Kelly a moment for a coffee and friendship break. “Just skip the reunion. Who needs that one-upman-ship fest?”
“But Cade needs my help.” Melanie sat back and blinked. “What am I saying? I’m not married to Cade anymore, or at least I won’t be soon. I shouldn’t care if he needs my help or not.”
Kelly laid a hand over Melanie’s. “But you do.”
A sigh slipped from her lips. “Yeah.”
“What you have is a conundrum, my friend.”
Melanie grinned. “You helping Peter study for his English tests again?” Kelly often used car time with her captive child audience to do test review.
“Hey, it helps dispel my soccer mom image when I throw out a multisyllable word.” Kelly winked.
“You’ll be ready for Jeopardy! before that boy graduates high school.” Melanie laughed, then sobered and returned to the subject she’d been avoiding. “I guess the real problem is that I don’t want to go to that reunion and tell everyone…” Her voice trailed off. She stirred at her coffee with a spoon, even though it was already fully sugared up.
“Well, that I’m not what they expected me to be.”
“What? You didn’t become what you imagined on graduation day?” Kelly clutched at her chest in mock horror. “Who does, Melanie? Heck, most of us have no idea what we want to be when we grow up. And a good chunk of us never do. Take my husband, for instance. He just bought an ATV. An ATV. We live in a subdivision, for Pete’s sake. Where’s he planning on riding it? Around the cul-de-sac?”
Melanie laughed. “I thought he was sold on getting a jet ski.”
“Apparently those are a little hard to use on the grass. The man forgets we live on eight acres in Indiana, not to mention an hour away from the closest thing to jet ski water.” Kelly threw up her hands in a “duh” gesture. “So now he’s hell-bent on saving for a lake house. I swear, that man has more toys than our ten-year-old.”
Melanie fingered the spoon, then finally let it rest. “At my age, you’d think I’d be well adjusted enough that I wouldn’t worry about what people at the class reunion think of me. I mean, I’m a grown-up.”
Kelly laughed. “Honey, even Miss America worries about what people will think of her at her reunion. I don’t know what it is about those things, but they always bring out our inner seventh-grader.”
Melanie nodded in agreement, drew in a breath and held tight to the stoneware mug. “Cade said he’ll cosign on my loan if I help him at the reunion.”
“A little quid pro quo?” Kelly grinned. “Sorry. That was on last week’s test.” Her gaze softened.
“What does Cade want you to help him with?”
“Networking at the reunion. Cade’s a master in the courtroom, but put him in the middle of a cocktail party and he’s totally out of his element. He gives new meaning to the words social faux pax.”
Kelly chuckled, twirling the straw in her frozen mocha. “Do you think he asked you for this favor because he secretly wants to try to get the two of you back together?”
Melanie glanced again at her daughter, and wondered about the glances she’d seen Emmie exchange with Cade. The good mood Emmie had been in this morning had lasted all day, clearly a sign something was up.
Ha, like what Emmie was trying to cook up was the problem. Today, Melanie had found herself exchanging a few glances of her own with Cade. The year apart had only seemed to intensify her gut reaction to his presence, as if her hormones had been silently building, waiting for the trigger of Cade to set them off.
Hormones could be kept under control. She wasn’t going to let a little desire send her running back into a marital mistake.
“Even if he does,” Melanie said, “it’s not going to happen. I can’t go back to being the little wife.”
“What if that’s not what Cade wants? What if he’s changed?”
“If there’s one thing I know about Cade, it’s how much he likes things to stay exactly the same. He loved knowing I’d be there at the end of the day when he came in from work. He liked wearing his blue suit on Mondays, the gray onTuesdays. Eating spaghetti every Thursday night, like our lives were a stuck record.”
“Surely you don’t think he wanted that at the expense of your dreams?”
Melanie considered her friend’s comment for a moment, sipping her coffee. “I don’t think Cade ever set out to hurt me, to purposely stuff me in this little Stepford box. We stepped into these roles and then it got easier to go on playing them, rather than changing the game halfway through. He wanted a wife who would arrange the dinner parties, pack his suitcases, have his dinner waiting. He’s a good man, but a stickler for tradition.” Melanie rose and deposited her empty mug in the sink, then returned to Kelly, lowering her voice so Emmie wouldn’t overhear. “For Cade, sameness is security and we got into one heck of a secure rut. He needs something different from a marriage than I can give. I don’t want a man who loves me for my ability to cook a crown roast for twelve. Whether or not he looks good in a suit on the night of the reunion, I’m not falling back into that same trap and letting my emotions override my brain.”
Like that hadn’t happened a hundred times already today. When Cade was in the shop, Melanie had been intensely aware of his every move. The scent of his cologne, the blue of his eyes, the very nearness of him.
The bell over the door jingled again, the spring breeze whisking in with Ben Reynolds, the owner of the pawn shop next door. An instant smile lit up his friendly features, putting light into his gray eyes. “Hi, Melanie.” He took off his fedora and clasped it between his hands.
“Ben! Hi! Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No, thanks. I came by to talk to you.” He ran his fingers around the rim of the hat. Clearly he wasn’t here for his regular daily chitchat and cappuccino. Dread tightened in Melanie’s gut.
She told Kelly she’d be back in a second, then led the way to the love seats, vacated earlier by a couple who had lingered there for a few hours.
“I hate to tell you this because I know you wanted my place,” Ben said after they were seated, “but I got an offer today.”
An offer already?The place wasn’t even listed with a realtor yet, though nearly all of Ben’s customers knew he wanted to retire and sell the space. “I’m working on getting the bank loan, Ben, you know that.”
“I need to sell as fast as I can. Peggy’s mom is getting worse. That heart attack really did a number on her. Peggy wants us to move to Phoenix soon as we can, to help her mom out. Plus, I’m done with Indiana winters. If I never see another shovelful of snow, I can die happy.”
“You’ve been a great friend, Ben,” she said, laying a hand on his arm. “You were the first to welcome me to the neighborhood, and the most vocal advertiser for my shop I’ve ever met. I understand your position. You do what you need to for your family.”
Ben’s face took on an apologetic cast. “I still feel bad, knowing how much you want the space. If you could find a way to get the funding faster…” He threw up his hands.
“I understand.”
Ben gave her a sympathetic smile. “Think about it for a second. I’m going to take you up on that coffee offer.” He headed over to the counter and ordered his usual decaf from Emmie.
Melanie watched him walk away and knew there wasn’t another way. Melanie had already talked to two banks this past week and she’d heard the same thing—once she had a couple years under her belt, with the business showing a steady profit, they’d be more inclined to lend her the money. Otherwise, without much for assets behind her, she didn’t have a chance of getting the money.
Being a housewife and a room mom apparently hadn’t given her the kind of solid financial background bankers liked to see.
Until now, she’d run her company on her own terms, without needing to use Cade or her marital status. Everything was in her own name. The startup expenses had been small enough that she was able to cover the majority of them with an inheritance from her grandmother and the sale of the few remaining antiques in the shop. The rest she’d paid for with credit cards, taking a leap of faith that the market for a coffee shop would be much stronger than that of an aging antiques shop.
The gamble had paid off. Melanie had no debt, and was pleased to finally see more pluses on her balance sheet every month.
With the expansion, she could double her sales. Being located across the street from Lawford University provided a steady under-twenty-five clientele that increased by thirty percent each month. Coupled with the businesspeople who worked in the area and stopped in throughout the day for a caffeine boost, Cuppa Life had a pretty continual customer flow.
Melanie glanced at the door. Cade had left an hour ago, for a meeting with a client. His offer still rang in her head.
That offer came with some strings, but they were strings Melanie was willing to accept, if it meant she could finally have the business she’d envisioned. She could handle this—handle being around Cade—all without losing her heart or her head.
“Ben, don’t worry,” Melanie said, coming up to the older man just as he was about to put on his hat and head back out the door. “I’ll have the funding. Give me two weeks.”
The man who had dispensed wonderful business advice in exchange for a free espresso here and there, nodded. “You’ve got your two weeks, Melanie. But after that…I have to think of my own family. I’m sorry.”
“Two weeks,” she reiterated. “I’ll make it happen.”
How hard could it be? She’d attend the reunion next Friday night, help Cade as she always had, just one more time. In the end, it would mean she’d see her dream fulfilled.
All she had to do was pretend she was married to Cade. After nineteen years in the job, she’d perfected the happy wife role.
Too bad her heart was no longer in it.
“You did what?”
Cade swung his racket, sending the tennis ball over the net and onto the cushy green court on Carter’s side. He was glad for his weekly early Saturday morning tennis match with his twin brother. After all that had happened in Melanie’s coffee shop, he needed to expend some energy and frustration. It was either tennis or pounding some walls. Considering his lack of expertise in the handyman arena, this was a better option, particularly for his walls. “I asked Melanie to go to the reunion with me.”
Carter lobbed the ball back. “I thought you guys were getting divorced.”
“That’s the plan.” Maybe. He smacked the ball over the net.
“Uh-huh. You’re thinking you’ll get her all dressed up—” Carter let out a grunt as he hit the yellow sphere “—you throw on a tie, take her out on the dance floor a couple of times, waltz around to some Sinatra. Before you know it, you’re in love again, just like in high school?”
Cade made an easy return, then shrugged. “Hey, it happens in the movies.”
Carter reached high, nicking the ball a moment before it flew past him. “Real life doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not? Melanie and I were happy for years.” Cade waited for the bounce, then returned again.
“Women today expect more.”
Cade arched a brow. “Says the man who thinks marriage is a contagious disease.”
“At least I know better than to create a business plan to win a woman over. I know you, Cade, you’ve probably got a ten-point strategic overview all laid out on how to win Melanie’s heart. You’ve analyzed the pros and cons, created a damned spreadsheet for your options and even calculated the odds on flowers versus diamonds.”
Cade scowled. “I have not.”
Okay, he did have a list. But he didn’t have a spreadsheet and certainly hadn’t used a calculator to determine the best course of action.
“If you haven’t, which I highly doubt, you will.” Carter got the serve this time and sent the ball over the net toward his brother. “You’re the most uptight man I know. If you weren’t my twin brother, I’d think you were an alien.”
“Speaking of nonhuman creatures,” Cade said, grinning as he slammed the ball back with enough force to tell his brother he was definitely done with the subject of his marriage. “What’s new with you?”
“Funny you should ask,” Carter said as he waited for the bounce before swinging his racket. “Remember Uncle Neil’s will?”
Cade nodded. He’d been at the reading last month. Uncle Neil, a lifelong bachelor, had divvied up his companies and his possessions among his few nephews and nieces. Cade and Melanie had inherited a house in Cape Cod, a nice beach place that he remembered going to as a kid.
Someday, maybe, Melanie would want to go there. More specifically, go there with Cade. Take a weekend, stroll on the sand and rekindle the flame that had seemed to grow smaller since they’d married.
Then again, at the rate his reconciliation efforts were going, he’d be best off selling the place.
“Did you decide what to do with that toy company you inherited?” Cade said.
Carter drew in a breath. “Yep. I quit my job last week and moved into Uncle Neil’s office.”
“You did?”
“I’m sick of the corporate rat race,” Carter said.
“I don’t know how you’ve stood it this long.”
Cade hadn’t. In the last few years, Cade had grown more and more frustrated with his job, with working for his father, and for the first time ever, wondered if he’d made a mistake by following in his father’s footsteps. Cade was a good lawyer—but lately not a happy one.