Page 22 of Cade

“To talk to me. Not to stand out there and talk to Lauren for half an hour,” Cade persisted.

“Whatever. You have no issues with how she does her job. We both know all this is nonsense, and I’m not even sure why you bother with it.” Always one to call him out, Catherine didn’t wait for him to acknowledge that he was right. “Now, I have been up here too long already, so if you wouldn’t mind getting to the point.”

He had no issues with Lauren’s job. She was right on that front. It was more of a habit now to tease the two women about being friends whenever Catherine visited his office. Lauren would never let her job slip in favor of chatting.

It also gave him a bit of a buffer right now because he needed to be delicate about what he wanted to ask her. He hoped she had a clue where their parents were, and if he could just get a line on him, he might figure out what his next move would be.

“Do you know where mother and father are?” Cade asked directly.

Catherine shook her head. “Mother calls here and there, but never from the same number, if it even shows up on my phone, usually an unknown caller. Why?”

Shit. He was really hoping for more information. “I’d like to know what father is up to and he keeps calling and blustering, but I don’t know where he is.”

“As long as it’s just his nonsense yelling, then it’s not too bad. At least he hasn’t shown up here again in a while,” Catherine offered.

“I’m worried he will. I have nothing to back that up, but I’d like to know where he is. It would tell me if I need to be on guard or not.” All of that was true, even if he left some of his concerns out.

“I’ll press mother the next time she calls and I answer. You can always use Ryker’s hacker guy,” she said.

Cade laughed. He already had. “You know he has a name, right?”

“Yep. Hacker guy.”

He rolled his eyes at his sister. “That’s not it, and you know better.”

“He said I can call him that so there.”

“You’re just doing that to try to get to Ryker.” His sister had been interested in Ryker since the first time she met him. Hell, it had been obvious to anyone and still was, for that matter. Ryker didn’t give her the time of day, though.

“I’m going to go back to my job now. I’ll let you know if I find anything out about where they are.”

She let herself out, leaving the door to his office wide open just to piss him off. He got up and closed the door back before returning to his desk and opening the email that ‘Hacker Guy’ had sent him just this morning.

He had looked into April’s past and present, trying to decide what he could offer her to get her to agree to his offer. He hadn’t really read it before going to her place, thinking that he would offer his name to get her partnership in her law firm and that would be enough. It clearly wasn’t.

Now he needed to read it through and figure out how to use it. He didn’t want emotions involved, and if it helped his cause to let her think that any of their past was her fault, he’d let her, even if it killed him a little. None of what happened had been her fault. That’s why he had left, to keep it from ruining her.

And yet, here he was, willing to look for blackmail to get her to jump into the fire with him, and she wouldn’t even see it coming. With April, he knew he could trust her. Nothing about what he’d told her when they were younger had ever come out in a paper or anything else. She’d told him it was in their bubble forever, and she had kept her word.

He missed her, too. It hurt to admit it, but he did. Most days, he could avoid letting his mind wander down memory lane, but after their date, he couldn’t seem to push her back down in that place where he stored his regrets, far from the front of his mind.

Perhaps more accurate was the fact that he missed who he was with her. Back then, being around her had helped wash away all of the drama in his life and he felt cared for. If he could do it all over again, he wouldn’t leave her. At the time, his young mind had believed that what he was doing was for the best.

Looking back, he knew that they would have found a way to make everything work. April wouldn’t have left him just because of his father’s threats, even if they weren’t empty ones. He absolutely would have made it impossible for April to get a job and maybe even had her kicked out of school.

Cade had his own money even then and could have supported them until his father came to his sense and even moved them to a new school. He should have at least talked to her, and that was the main reason he didn’t explain what happened to her now. She’d be upset with him, and he didn’t blame her.

He wanted her to commit to the agreement before explaining so she couldn’t back out. She was going to yell at him and he was ready to take all her anger just to have her back for a short while.

Plus the added bonus of making a baby. He wanted her. That much was true. He knew, without a single doubt, that they would be great together if either one of them let it happen. Years ago, he didn’t make the move, scared it would ruin what they had. As an adult, he knew better. It would only improve it.

Mind made up, Cade rolled his shoulders and grabbed his phone. One phone call was about to change the trajectory of both of their paths. April was a workaholic and while he could relate, she wasn’t yet at the top of her company, but she was well on her way. He could advance that like he told her.

It was time to force her hand.

“Hello, is this Mark?” Cade asked into the phone.

“This is him. How can I help you?”

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