Page 2 of Finding Forever

“What?”

“I prefer Cade. Only the people I like”—of which there were few—“call me Cade.”

“Your family calls you Niall. Don’t you like them?”

His lips twisted into a bitter smile. His family—well his siblings anyway—hadn’t always called him Niall. That they now did had always felt like a betrayal to him.

“Oh, Ilovethem very much but sometimes I’m hard-pressed to like them.”

She tugged her pink lower lip between small, even white teeth and nodded.

“I get it,” she offered in a small voice, her somber gaze never wavering from his face.

She took a tentative sip from her glass and continued to stare at him pensively.

He didn’t push for details, instead he leaned back against the cool glass of the window behind them and stared at the deep green fabric of the drapes. The ostentatious, overly embellished gold pelmets above them were boxy and pushed the curtains far enough from the wall and window to give them a cozy, private nook. Back here the sounds of the party were muffled enough to make them feel like they were far removed from everyone else.

“Why’re you hiding here?” he asked and watched infascination as color bloomed from beneath the high collar of her dress, up into her face.

“I’m not hiding.”

He lifted a skeptical brow and swept his pointed gaze around their gloomy, fabric hidey hole, before bringing his eyes back to her flushed face.

“Well, Iwasn’thiding until you did that thing.”

He lifted his brows and she averted her gaze, stubbornly staring straight ahead at nothing. Cade canted his head as he inspected her profile.

“What thing?”

“You stared at me like you meant to talk to me.”

He felt his lips twitch, and he choked back a chuckle.

“And what was so wrong with that?”

“I didn’t want to talk to you.”

“Aah. And yet now you are.”

“Like I have a choice,” she grumbled.

“You do,” he told her gently. “We could just stand here in silence.”

Her eyes fluttered back to his face, uncertainty flickering in those grave gray depths.

“Really?”

“Sure… but before we descend into said silence, you mind telling mewhyyou don’t want to speak with me?”

She shook her head.

“What about your name? Isthatsomething you’d feel comfortable divulging?”

She hesitated and then shifted from foot to foot. Cade expected her to flatly refuse but she surprised him when she said, her voice no louder than a whisper, “Fern.”

He liked the name, it suited her. Delicate and somewhat unique, but also completely without artifice.

“Fern? Nice to meet you.”

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