Page 5 of Finding Forever

She was nervous about seeing him again, afraid of his reaction to what she had to say. Not sure he’d care. But she needed him to care. Needed him to help her. Fern wasn’t sure what she’d do if he didn’t help her. The prospect of his rejection terrified her and created a dull spiral of nausea-inducing panic in her stomach.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, while pressing the other against her abdomen. She willed the nausea away, trying to maintain her composure.

“Keep it together, Fern,” she admonished herself, her voice low and stern. “Just a little while longer.”

The trickiest part would be to get him alone. Her stepsisters would be vying for his attention, they’d been swooning over the prospect of meeting him. They’d both lamented—loudly and at length—over the fact that he’d disappeared before they’d had the opportunity to talk to him the night of the gala.

Neither woman had noticed that Fern had disappeared at the same time, of course. She’d always been beneath their notice.

Fern took in a deep steadying breath and exhaled slowly. Feeling only marginally less frightened, she straightened her shoulders and stepped out of her room.

“This is a waste of fucking time,”James Angus Hawthorne groused in his customarily curt manner. His thick, salt-and-pepper brows furrowed as he glared out of the car window while they wound their way up a steep hill toward the massive glass and mortar structure at the top, which was in the middle of the rolling winelands of Cape Town. The flashy glass house felt out of place among the tranquil, verdant green of the countryside and screamed new wealth.

Cade agreed that this was a waste of time, but GrangerAbernathy was a slippery fucker and he’d been obfuscating over the terms and conditions of the sale of his late wife’s hempcrete empire. Maeve Lambert-Abernathy’s company was the leading supplier of sustainable building materials in the world and James Hawthorne—CEO of Hawthorne Construction & Engineering (HC&E), one of the biggest construction companies on the planet—was keen to acquire it.

He’d been after Lambecrete (Pty) Ltd. for the last several years. Ever since Cade had highlighted the advantages of offering sustainable construction alternatives to potential clients. But Granger Abernathy—a cagey sonofabitch at the best of times—had finally announced that Lambecrete was for sale only seven months ago. HC&E had been in negotiations with the bastard since then.

They were here to close this deal, but the circumstances were unusual to say the least. They’d been dancing to Abernathy’s twisted little tune for half a year trying to iron out the kinks of this deal and even now—when it was finally coming to fruition—Abernathy still had to call the shots.

“It’s just the weekend, Dad,” Cade murmured, trying to keep his tone soothing. Fuck knows, he didn’t want to get the old man’s back up. It wasn’tjustthe weekend though; they were scheduled to be here from Thursday to Monday—although Cade was hoping to wrap it up by Saturday.

For that to happen, things would have to go smooth as silk over the next forty-eight hours. And part of that was preventing his father from losing his cool. The old man who—at sixty-five—wasn’t really that old, could be crotchety and stubborn as fuck. Powerful men like his father did not enjoy being jerked around by pissy little control freaks like Abernathy.

“Least you’ll get to spend a few days with Gideon and Beth after we’re done here,” Cade reminded.

For some reason, his father—one of the wealthiest men inthe world—really enjoyed staying with Gideon and Beth in their firmly middle class, three-bedroom house in a pretty suburb in Cape Town. Cade couldn’t fathom it himself. He’d be staying at the apartment he’d bought several years ago and flying home a few days before his dad. Maybe he’d convince Gid to go fishing with him first. And he’d pop in to see Kenny, who also lived in the Cape.

He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her in person since the gala three months ago. He’d been distracted…

He frowned at the memory of that distraction.

Not an entirely pleasant memory. Fucking awkward was what it was and thinking about it now made him squirm. He’d tried his damnedest to put it out of his mind since then, but occasionally—usually at the worst possible times—it would come creeping back.

He’d wondered about her—Fern—a few times since then. But his brain went skittering in the other direction whenever his thoughts strayed toward her. And he usually shuddered at the cringeworthy intrusive thoughts of what had occurred between them.

Only the worst, most awkward, sex of his life. Jesus. Yep, there went the shudder again. It had been humiliating. Cade had wanted her,sobadly. It’d hit him like a freight train, that insta-lust. He’d never experienced anything remotely like it before.

He’d swept her to the library—they’d kissed, and then…

Elbows, noses bumping, teeth knocking, fumbling, somuchfucking fumbling. It had felt contagious, her clumsiness had set his off… or maybe it had been vice versa.

Her hand on his dick had squeezed too tightly, too much nail—his mouth on her small tit with its delectable nipple… too slobbery.

Christ.

He cringed again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, lad?” his father snapped. “Are you coming down with something? Don’t you dare leave me to deal with Abernathy on my own while you malinger like a Victorian miss.”

“You’d relish the opportunity to be alone in a room with him,” Cade scoffed, pushing the unwelcome thoughts of that woman from his brain.

This time the genesis of his shudder stemmed from the idea of his father having unsupervised access to Abernathy. That wouldnotgo well, which was why Cade and his team of attorneys and advisors had done their level best to keep the two men from ever interacting on a one-on-one basis. His father’s contempt of Abernathy was too blatant.

“Five minutes alone with him,” his father agreed with a gleam in his eye. “I’d soon have him on the same page.”

James Hawthorne had gone through a rebellious phase in his early twenties. Eschewing his father and the family business, in favor of hanging out with a rougher, tougher crowd, Cade’s father had been a brawler, bouncing in some of the seedier clubs in Glasgow, street fighting to earn money when his family had cut him off.

Even after he’d returned to the family fold a few years later, he’d retained a lot of those rough edges and had earned a fierce, no holds barred, balls-to-the-wall reputation in the business world.

---