Page 45 of After-Party Consequences

‘That’s tough,’ he said, his gaze darkening with sympathy.

‘Not particularly. We were never close. She spent most of my childhood living at the family estate in Northumberland while I lived with my father in London. And she was so unhappy. She just wasn’t ever reallythereeven when she was, if you know what I mean... So when she took her own life, I didn’t feel the loss. Not the way Adam did.’

‘But you were just a little kid. Even when your mama isn’t around, it still hurts when they’re gone,’ he said, his gaze filled with a compassion she knew must come from his own experiences.

She seized on the small insight. ‘When did you lose your mother?’

His gaze became instantly shuttered before he gave a harsh laugh, devoid of humour. ‘I didn’t lose her. She lost me.’

‘How do you mean?’ she asked.

His expression went carefully blank. ‘She left me in a department store in Baton Rouge when I was five years old. Told me to hide out and she’d come back to get me. So I did, until the nightwatchman found me the next morning and called the cops.’ He shrugged, but the movement lacked his usual grace. ‘And that’s how I got kicked into the system.’

Charlotte touched his hand, her heart racing—the lack of emotion in his voice and his blank expression only making his story sadder. It wasn’t hard to see where Cade’s trust issues came from now. ‘Cade, I’m so sorry. That’s dreadful.’

‘Not really. She was a junkie. I was better off without her.’

‘Even so, no child should have no one,’ she said, the emotion threatening to overwhelm her again. No matter how unseen she’d sometimes felt as a child, however much of a burden she’d been made to feel, she had never been alone. Some of the staff and teachers paid to care for her had been kind and nurturing, and she had always had Adam. However dysfunctional their relationship had been at times, he had always been there for her in a crisis.

‘I wasn’t alone. I had myself,’ he said as he skimmed his thumb under her eye. ‘Please don’t start crying again.’

She laughed and sniffed back the tears, stupidly relieved all of a sudden. She’d been so terrified of relying on him too much, but surely sharing the burden together could be mutual? It didn’t have to leave her overexposed. If he was exposed too.

Before she could probe further, though, he lifted her bag off her shoulder and slung an arm around her waist to direct her towards the kitchen’s breakfast counter. ‘Take a load off while I finish supper.’

He’d changed the conversation deliberately. Clearly, getting him to talk about his past was going to be a work in progress, but she felt deeply moved by what he’d shared. And once she’d climbed up on the stool and managed to tamp down onthe inevitable buzz of awareness from that proprietary touch, watching him cook her dinner was captivating too.

She gave herself permission to enjoy the moment and not overthink it.

He worked quickly and efficiently, slicing the salad ingredients with the speed and skill of a chef.

‘Where did you learn to chop so fast?’ she asked.

He glanced up. ‘I worked as a short-order cook in a diner while doing my MBA at Yale,’ he said. ‘I had a couple of scholarships to cover tuition, but I was already investing the money I’d earned flipping houses into building a property portfolio, so working the breakfast and the late shifts in between the classes and assignments kept me afloat.’

‘When did you sleep?’ she asked, astonished. Surely the workload at Yale’s renowned business school would have been enormous enough? ‘And socialise?’

‘I didn’t do either, much.’ He sent her a wry smile as he fired up the griddle. ‘You don’t need all that much sleep in your early twenties. And I’ve always been a loner, with a passionate aversion to small talk,’ he added by way of explanation while pulling two jacket potatoes covered in tin foil from the oven.

‘Have you always worked this hard then?’ she asked, fascinated.

The man wasn’t so much a workaholic as a work machine... But his drive and ambition—and almost preternatural focus on getting what he wanted—suddenly seemed as hot as the scent of his woodsy cologne, and the sight of his biceps bulging beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt as he hammered out the steaks.

She shifted on the stool.Fabulous. Even watching him cook aroused her.

‘I guess.’ He shrugged as he set the steaks on the hot griddle. ‘It’s not difficult to motivate yourself, though, when you love what you do.’

Plus, hard work was the only way to make your mark if you came from nothing, the way he had. It was a sobering thought.

She loved what she did too, now. And she’d worked extremely hard to get her business operational. The challenges she’d faced in the last few days as she interviewed seamstresses, organised for Landry Construction to employ them to comply with her visa status, and began work on her newest commissions had been frustrating and time-consuming but also exhilarating. What she had achieved already with Trouble Maker meant so much more to her than being able to look elegant prancing down a catwalk without falling on her bum!

But she’d never had the sustained focus he had, and she’d never been reliant on herself alone to survive and prosper. She could see that more clearly now.

‘How do you like your steak?’ he asked, breaking her out of her revelry and making her aware of her stomach grumbling from the delicious scent of sizzling meat.

‘Medium rare is good,’ she said.

She watched him as he finished off the meal—splitting the potatoes, adding generous amounts of butter and sour cream and chives, tossing the salad in a dressing he rustled up from scratch, and flipping the steaks. By the time he’d finished, she felt oddly humbled and stupidly emotional again. And hopelessly turned on.

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