Page 63 of Finding Forever

Nox had gone quiet again since their lunch at Gideon’s place and had broken that silence only to offer a curt—and unwanted—congratulationsin response to Cade’s.

Gideon and Kenny’s questions had been more probing. They’d mostly been curious about the when, with only Gideon asking—privately—how Cade felt about the development.

Cade’s reply to the question had been an honestI don’t knowand Gideon had dropped the subject.

“Oh?” That brought her eyes up to his, but there was only the merest flicker of interest in her dull gaze.

He didn’t like seeing her like this. Not at all. And he blamed himself.

“Yes,” he said. “They congratulated us. Gideon told me in private afterward that Beth really enjoyed your day out last week. She was excited about possibly doing more stuff together. But apparently you haven’t been returning her calls and texts?”

“I’ll get to it,” she said, trying to suppress that enduring flicker of guilt that came up every time she thought of Beth.

“We should invite them to dinner. You wanted that, right? You can cook something spectacular.”

Her face was resolute as she met his eyes directly and said, “No, Cade. I don’t want that. Not anymore.”

“Why not?” She baffled him. What exactly did she want from him? Couldn’t she see that he was trying here? “I thought you enjoyed spending time with her.”

“I can’t…” She stopped, seeming to consider her words carefully, before continuing. “I’d rather not.”

“Fern, I know?—”

“Whydid you bring me here?” she interrupted him abruptly and he suppressed the surge of frustration at the deliberate shift in topics.

“I thought you’d like it,” he said and she pressed her lips together in displeasure. “You talked about it, that day on the beach. Said you’d like to eat here. Tell me why you’d rather not spend time with Beth?”

He determinedly brought the subject back to the point and she slammed her fork back on the table with barely suppressed violence, causing the water in her glass to slosh a little and dampen the pristine white tablecloth.

“Because she’s married to your brother, Cade!” she snapped, abruptly losing patience. “She arealHawthorne, not a pretender like me. She’s a loved and respected member of your family and after I leave, she will still be one of you and I’ll be alone again.” She shook her head slightly, her gaze turned inward, as she placed a palm over her abdomen and the smallest of smiles graced her lips. “No… not quite alone. I’ll have my baby. And he and I will form our own family. But my point is, allowing myself to get close to Beth will only result in heartache. For both of us. I’ve lost enough in my life. And I refuse to set myself up for even more disappointment and loss.”

Her admission troubled him, but it didn’t surprise him. He should’ve realized sooner that she felt this way.Of course, she felt this way. She struck him as someone who’d been yearningfor acceptance and searching for a place to belong for most of her life.

“I didn’t mean for you to feel like you had no place here, Fern. Or to ruin the friendship you’re building with Beth. By now, I’m sure you’ve recognized that she’s not someone who toes the family line, so to speak. Whatever happens between us…”

“Separation and divorce resulting in a complete loss of contact, you mean?” she clarified succinctly and he paused for a moment as he considered her words.

“The baby…” he began, not sure why he was bringing it up. Not even entirely sure what he wanted to say after those two words.

“Won’t know you, of course,” she inserted smoothly and his lips tightened before he nodded curtly, ignoring the unfamiliar pang in the middle of his chest at that reminder.

“Right, uhm… what I meant to say is, that when the inevitable happens between you and me, Beth won’t simply write off her friendship with you. Especially not if by then, you’re close friends. That’s simply not the type of person she is. And none of us would expect her to do so either. So please, don’t let anything I said the other day, influence how you feel about her, or destroy the friendship you two were starting to build.”

“Don’t do this,” she whispered, her voice throbbing with misery and that pang in Cade’s chest intensified. He took a sip of water, wondering if it was heartburn. It didn’t feel like heartburn, it was too sharp, too acute for that.

“Fern…” He didn’t know what to say beyond that and his voice tapered off as he watched her clearly battling with her emotion.

“Please don’t be kind to me,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken.” I’d prefer if you didn’t do things like this—this dinner, this conversation—it’s notimpersonal. In fact, it’s downrightfriendly evennice… and I thought we weren’t doing friendly. Please, pick a lane and stick with it. Because this…” She flicked a hand toward the room at large, “it confuses the hell out of me.”

She lowered her gaze back to her salad, and Cade found himself utterly stymied by her words, because she was right. He was the one who’d demanded they keep things impersonal between them, yet here he was giving her friendship advice, trying to make her feel more at ease in his family. Actively contradicting himself, while Fern was trying to give him exactly what he’d demanded of her.

And just because he had discovered that what he wanted wasn’t necessarily what he liked or needed, didn’t mean he had the right to play fast and loose with her feelings.

“Getthose papers off to Mike Stansfield at the Greenleaf Group before the end of business today, I want it back Monday first thing. Signed and sealed. No more delays,” Cade told Mitchell—his executive assistant—on Friday, four days after his godawful dinner with Fern.

They were at the tail end of an hour-long phone call and Cade was ready to call it a day. He’d been staring at screens for the last two hours without a break and was starting to develop a blinding headache.

He was prone to stress headaches and it generally made him irritable as all hell and if he didn’t get off this phone call soon, Mitch would bear the brunt of his bad mood. Not that the guy wasn’t used to it. But Cade tried not to be too much of an arsehole to the people who worked for and with him. That was more his dad and Nox’s style.

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