Corner-Office Courtship

But not before she let herself have one last glance at Cade standing there as if he were keeping her safe until she could get on her way. Tall, broad-shouldered and so handsome…

Nati raised a hand in a little wave and finally gave the car enough gas to actually put it into motion.

All the while unable to prevent herself from fantasizing about being back in that big Georgian house again.

And spending the rest of her Friday night alone there with Cade Camden…

Chapter Three

“I brought lunch.”

“I’m so glad! I’m starving,” Nati told her friend when Holly arrived at the shop around noon on Saturday. “Did you get your errands done?”

“Every one—thanks to you being here to share shop duties now. How was the morning?”

“You made a couple of nice sales. I’ve only had a few looky-loos, nobody bought anything.”

“But now you’ll have the money from doing the Camden wall—you were smart not to turn that down.”

Nati shrugged, unable to decide whether working for Cade Camden was good or bad. Certainly the money was good. The fact that she was working for a Camden—whom she’d actually had dreams about all night long in which one or more of them was hot and bothered and not entirely clothed—didn’t seem like such a good thing.

“What’s for lunch?” she asked, changing the subject.

“My throw-everything-in salad with the homemade dressing you like.”

“Yum. Thanks for this—I was running late this morning and didn’t have time to fix lunch. I was going to skip it,” Nati said.

“Another sleepless night because of The Camden?” Holly guessed.

Holly was a childhood friend who was more like a sister to Nati. They’d always told each other everything, so Holly knew that Nati was suffering doubts about having anything to do with a Camden. Holly also knew that Nati had been up half the night after her Thursday meeting with him. But last night? Holly didn’t know about last night yet.

“I had trouble falling asleep again and then when I did the dreams I had were… Wow!” she confessed to her friend.

Holly laughed. “Cade Camden is the stuff ‘wow’ dreams are made of,” she concurred.

Holly had come in just as Cade had left on Thursday so she’d seen him.

“Have you decided yet if you’re going to tell your grandfather you’re working for a Camden?” Holly asked as they ate. Nati’s friend had gone to her side of the door that connected their shops.

“No, I still don’t know if I should tell him or not,” Nati said.

“He gets home tonight?”

Nati’s grandfather, Jonah Morrison, was on a brief vacation in Las Vegas with some of his lodge buddies.

“Late tonight. I have until tomorrow to think about it, I guess,” Nati answered.

“I think you should tell him. I know you—you’ll be sorry if you don’t. You’ll hate lying—even by omission—and you’ll worry that he might find out. And I don’t think he’ll care, anyway. What went on was a lifetime ago, and your grandfather will be glad you have the work. He’ll say good for you for taking some of the Camdens’ money.”

Holly had grown up across the street from the Morrisons, so she knew Nati’s grandfather well.

“Yeah, I could see him saying that,” Nati agreed.

“Because he’s the sweetest guy in the world. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s so tenderhearted that he tears up at the sight of puppies and kittens, and he’ll just be happy that you have money coming in no matter who it’s from.”

“Right—it was more like my great-grandparents to rant and rave about the Camdens, not my grandfather.”

“Although he might feel guilty because you need the work—” Holly cut herself off. “No, forget that. It’ll be fine. You need the money, and your grandfather won’t care who you’re working for. Just do the job, take the check, then wash your hands of the Camdens.”

“Yeah,” Nati agreed, unsure if she was doing the right thing.

Or if washing Cade Camden out of her thoughts when this was all over with would be as easy as Holly made it sound.

“It’s just me…”

Nati heard Cade’s voice coming from the entrance as he let himself in. It sent a tiny tingle up her spine.

It was after five o’clock on Saturday and she’d been expecting that he might show up any time. And maybe hoping—just a little—that he would. She couldn’t help it.

She was cleaning up the remnants of the mess made from tearing off wallpaper, cleaning the wall and then priming it, when Cade came into the dining room.

Apparently working on Saturday didn’t require him to dress up because he was wearing a pale yellow sport shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. A pair of jeans that he wore to perfection slung slightly low on his hips. Nati’s jaw dropped for a split second before she forced her eyes up to his face, which looked remarkably sexy with a five-o’clock shadow.

“Hi,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

“Hi. I’m so glad you’re still here.”

She didn’t know why he should be glad but his words gave her a wave of satisfaction anyway.

“Five minutes later and I wouldn’t have been,” she informed him as she stuffed the last sheet of wallpaper into the trash bag she’d brought with her. “The contract is there on the dining room table,” she added with a nod in that direction. “I was just going to leave it for you.”

“Any chance you could stick around for a while? I can sign the contract and then there’s another job I’m hoping you might take. If you don’t have to be anywhere in a hurry maybe we could talk about it….”

“No, I don’t have to be anywhere—in a hurry or otherwise,” she said, realizing only after the fact that it made her sound like a dud.

But what difference did it make if he knew her social life was nearly nonexistent? In fact, it was better that he think she was a dud, she told herself. Maybe it would act to deter any interest in her.

As she pulled the drawstring closed on the trash bag, she said, “I’ll take this to my car and give you a minute to read the contract, then come back.”

“Okay,” Cade said with more enthusiasm than seemed warranted.

Outside the sun had gone down and taken the warm autumn temperature with it, so after putting the trash bag into her trunk Nati opened her car door to retrieve the overblouse she’d brought with her.

Slipping it on, she tried not to think about the fact that while she’d worn a perfectly work-appropriate beige crewneck T-shirt and jeans, the overblouse took the outfit beyond work clothes and made it a tad dressier. It was fine-gauge wool in deep cocoa brown, with long sleeves and an asymmetrical front opening that fastened at her hip with one large button.

Yes, it added another layer and a bit more warmth, but just a bit. Its primary purpose was to spruce her up a little. Which was what had been in the back of her mind when she’d brought it with her.

And when she took a brush from her glove compartment, ran it through her hair, and then applied some lip gloss, it was hard to deny her intentions—she wanted to look her best now that Cade Camden was home.