by Natalie Ann
Hell, years ago he’d have been thrilled with it. But he wasn’t that person anymore.
The problem was, he was way more invested than her in his mind and he wanted to know if there was even a chance she’d be able to catch up.
“We’ve got more. Are you happy now?” she asked, grinning at him, a look in her eye that said it was hard for her to admit that but she was willing to let him know. She was trying, he could see. The question was, why was it so hard for her?
“For the moment.” He’d pushed enough...for now.
Made No Sense
It’d been five days since she’d cooked dinner for Cade. He’d spent the night like she figured he really wanted to. She was fine with it, all the while trying to tell herself to not get too used to it or him.
She understood that he wanted to know what was going on between them, but what was she supposed to say? That she wanted a real relationship with him? The guy everyone wanted to sleep with in college? The guy that got set up by three girls to prove just what a playboy he was?
Yeah, she’d heard that story. Or variations of it while she was at Duke. Years later it was still making the rounds. That he was dating several girls at once and they all found out, cornering him at a sorority house one night and all but clawing his eyes out.
It was said he barely escaped before they scalped him, then went on his way and started dating even more women several weeks later.
Then there were stories how he really wasn’t dating any of those girls that set him up, at least not all at once, but that they concocted a plan all along to see if they could make an example of him.
She was guessing the truth was somewhere in the middle.
Another thing she’d heard of was that he dated a lot, that he got around. He even admitted it himself that he didn’t take relationships seriously.
But for some reason, he wanted to know where she saw things going with them. It made no sense at all.
In the past five days, she had been in contact with him though. They hadn’t seen each other but they talked or texted daily. She wouldn’t do what she did before. She wouldn’t purposely avoid him. It was wrong on her part, she knew, but when she was unsure of things, she kept her distance until she could figure it out. Or that was how she’d always dealt with things in her life.
Staying away seemed to work. Either stuff resolved itself or she had enough time to make an informed decision on how to proceed. Too many years of being on the defensive made her extremely cautious.
What she figured out was that Cade Fierce was someone she could easily fall in love with if she only let herself go. She wasn’t going to. At least not any time soon. Not until she knew for sure where his interests lay. Why? Because she’d been hurt enough in life.
“Alex, please report to the front office. Alex, the front office.”
She heard her name over the intercom and waved Ralph over to the embroidery machine she’d just finished programming. “This is all set to go, can you just watch and keep loading the shirts in?”
“Will do, boss,” Ralph said, tipping his hat that he always had on his head.
She walked up front to see what was going on and noticed Ella Fierce standing there elegant as always. That girl never had a hair out of place or a wrinkle on any article of clothing.
“How do you do it?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“Do what?” Ella asked.
“Look so perfect all the time.”
Ella laughed. “I can assure you I’m far from perfect. Why would you say that?”
“Because you never look anything but. Cade told me I should ask you how you manage to be so feminine and still have so much authority all the time.”
“He really said that?” Ella asked, her face softening. “What a sweet thing to say. He might be my favorite again.”
Alex laughed. “It just came up one day when we were talking about why I always dress like this at work and not like when we’ve gone out.”
“So you are seeing Cade?” Ella asked, her head tilted.
Crap. That slipped. “I don’t know what we’ve got. More than friends.” There that wasn’t so hard to admit to his sister.
“Well, Cade has a bad habit of blurting things out without thought around those he feels really comfortable with. I’m going to assume that is what happened with you because any idiot would know that in your line of work, you wouldn’t be wearing heels and skirts.”
“Exactly!”
“But I do know you look pretty nice all spiffed up in gowns and makeup.”
Her shoulders dropped. “Those stupid pageants.”
“There’s nothing stupid about them.” Ella looked around, making sure there wasn’t anyone within hearing distance. “If the truth is told, I might have wanted to do one or two myself growing up, but I had no talent. Aside from that, the boys wouldn’t let me live it down. For years I was trying to best them in everything. It’s hard to do that in a dress.”
“What changed?” Alex asked.
“Puberty. I realized the more I looked like a girl, the more it drove them insane. Watching them warn all the guys off was kind of funny.”
“Really?” she asked. “I’m not sure I’d find it funny having one brother doing that to me, let alone four.”
“It was funny in the beginning, but you’re right. I painted myself into a corner and it’s never really stopped. The thing is, I like looking like a girl surrounded by the four guys. I guess we all know what works for us and what feels comfortable and this is it for me,” Ella said looking down at the purple and black dress she had on with purple heels.
“You’re right. So, what do I owe this visit to? Did you want to see the glass for the shadow boxes?”
“I do if you’ve got time. It seems my brother got to see them before me.”
“Damn, Cade. He told me he wouldn’t tell you that he weaseled it out. He trapped me into it. I swear. I never said a word about it. First he made it sound like he knew all along what you wanted, then admitted he didn’t when I answered him. I brought one home to look it over more and somehow he managed to find it in my drawer.”
“Cade is sneaky that way,” Ella said, and Alex got the double meaning there. That Cade had been able to wiggle things out of her that she’d had no intention of saying several times now. “Though I’m not sure I’ve known him to look through drawers for things. That’s kind of more my thing.”
“What?” Alex asked.
“Long story and has to do with presents and trying to find them. But now that I think about it, it was Cade that tricked me into doing that as a kid the first time. Then it was just so much fun to continue and see if I could do it without my parents knowing.”
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine what it was like growing up in your house.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Why don’t you hang on for a second and I’ll run back and grab the box and the glass for you. It’s not really safe to have you walking back there wearing your shoes, no matter how lovely they are.”
“Not a problem,” Ella said.
Alex ran back through the shop and to her office. She should probably move her office closer to the front so that customers could meet with her there, but she liked being closer to the shop where she spent most of her time.
“Here you go,” she said, carrying the box back with the red glass in it. She had a red light bulb and a clear glass block in the other hand. “We can try them both out and see what you think. Personally, I like the red bulb with the clear glass with this black box. If you did the boxes a lighter color maybe the red glass would look different.”
“Yeah. I think the red glass is just too dark. Especially if it’s on the wall and the lights are dimmed at night anyway.”
“I’ll switch them out quick,” Alex said.
“Much better,” Ella said. “This is perfect. Do you mind if I take them both for our meeting next week? Did Cade see it all set up?”
“No. Just
the one clear glass block that I brought home to look over. He has no clue what the finished product will look like.”
“Good.”
“Alex?” She turned to her secretary, Alena, behind the glass. “There’s a reporter on line one. He’s calling to talk to you about Keith Stevens?”
Just great. Talk about horrible timing too. “Tell him I’m unavailable for comment.”
“Everything okay?” Ella asked.
“Yes. Not a big deal.”
“Alex?” Alena said, sticking her head out further. “He says it’s urgent and he needs to speak to you right away.”
“Tell him I’m not here. I’m not sure what unavailable means to him.”
“Will do.”
“Are you sure everything is okay?” Ella asked again.
“Trust me. It’s nothing.”
“Okay. I’ll let you return to work then. I’ll get back to you soon on how this all works at the next meeting.”
“Sounds great,” Alex said, watching Ella walk out.
She turned to walk back to her office, but her secretary stopped her. “He left his name and number and asked you to call right away.”
“Thanks.” She took the piece of paper and started to crinkle it up without looking at it. She had no intention of letting Keith know she got the call. She didn’t take it and she wouldn’t return it.
Thick as Thieves
“You’re such a jerk!”
Cade turned to see Ella standing in the doorway to his office. “What did I do?” he asked, moving his feet off the coffee table, but not standing up from the couch.
“You tricked Alex into showing you my idea.”
He smirked. “You just wish you were as smart as me to figure out how to trick someone.”
She laughed at him. The laugh that said she knew something he didn’t and she wasn’t about to clue him in on it. That seemed to be going on a lot lately with her. “Cade, you have so much to learn.”
He shook his head, not wanting to get into it with her. She really did always get the upper hand, it seemed. “Did you like the glass?”
“I did. It looks much better in the shadow box.”
“Is it here? Let me see it.”
“Nope. If there was one person I’d consider showing first, it’d be Brody since it’s for the bar. Or maybe Aiden if he wanted some in the restaurant. But not you. I’m thinking no one is seeing them until the meeting.”
“Brat,” he said without much heat.
“So you’ve always said.”
“Was there something else you wanted?” he asked when she stood there staring at him like she did so much as a kid. She had more patience than any of them and could make them all squirm within minutes with her cool gaze.
“Do you know a Keith Stevens?”
“No, why?”
He could see she was hesitating, then finally said, “When I was at Alex’s, a reporter called wanting to talk to Alex about that guy. She said she wasn’t available. I was just curious.”
He sat up a little straighter. “What was her reaction to the call?”
“Not much of one really. Just said to say she wasn’t available. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was just a marketer trying to sell her something.”
“Then why did you bring it up?” Cade asked. Ella always had a reason for everything she did, she just didn’t always share that reason.
“Just to see your reaction. How are things going with you two?”
“What makes you ask that?” He wasn’t saying any more until he knew what was going on.
“I asked Alex that question. Or one similar.”
“What was her answer?”
Ella laughed. “I should tell you it’s none of your business but I won’t. That would be mean and I’m in too good of a mood to be mean today. She said you guys were more than friends.”
He held his sister’s stare, then said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“You know what.”
She winked at him and then walked out of his office. Ella may bust on all of them, but at the heart of it, she knew what everyone needed and when. She was trying to figure out what was going on between him and Alex and she did it in her way and then she let him know the answer.
Ella was tough as nails. If she didn’t get the answer she wanted, or thought she would from Alex, she would have pried some more. Or she would have pushed him some more. But she didn’t.
And Alex’s answer to Ella about them being more than friends was simple enough, but if there was one thing he knew by now, nothing about Alex was ever simple.
Which was why he was doing an internet search on Keith Stevens.
It took him a bit to find anything relevant and it wasn’t until he found the name of someone running for Senate in Texas. He was thinking it couldn’t be the same person until he saw the guy graduated from Duke the same year as Alex. Seemed he was a year ahead of her but stayed for his MBA.
There was nothing to be found in the way of any connection between Alex and this guy, so he really had no idea what was going on. Maybe it had to do with work. Made sense. Of course, it didn’t explain why a reporter was calling though.
Damn Ella.
There wasn’t anything he could do about it, and he couldn’t ask Alex. Not without saying Ella told him and he wouldn’t betray his sister for something that seemed unimportant.
They were the Fierce Five. They laughed, they fought, they played pranks on each other. But in the end, they were loyal and thick as thieves.
***
Later that night, Alex called Cade. She hadn’t had any communication at all with him today and she wondered if Ella might have said something to him about the reporter calling.
She wasn’t positive and she’d like to think Ella wouldn’t do that, but the bottom line was, she couldn’t take the chance.
“Hey there, hot stuff,” she said when he answered the phone.
“Wow. What’s got into you?”
“I’m not allowed to pay you a compliment? I thought you liked it when I did that.” She heard his laughter over the phone and it warmed her to know she caused it.
“You can compliment me all you want. You’re calling late tonight,” he said.
It was a little after eight. He normally initiated the texts with her throughout the day. She was the one that called him at night. It’d been two days since she’d called, but they still had some communication every day. Until today.
He hadn’t texted her at all and that was the reason she’d thought Ella told him about the reporter. “How was your day?” she asked.
“Boring. How about yours?”
“The same,” she said. She decided to test the waters. “Ella stopped over. Thanks for ratting me out and letting her know you saw the glass first.”
He laughed. “It’s too much fun to poke at her. She wasn’t mad. She didn’t give that impression to you, did she?”
“No. Just said you were sneaky like that. I’m starting to realize how sneaky you really are.”
“It can be a good trait to have,” he said.
“Especially for a lawyer.”
“I’m not a lawyer in the true sense of the word. It’s not like I practice daily.”
“Sure you do,” she said. “Everything you do is always with the business in the back of your mind. It’s business law, right? You didn’t go for criminal or anything like that.”
“Nope. Business law. It’s boring at times. What is even more tiresome and tedious is patent law and I’m starting to look into that more.”
“I suppose that goes hand in hand with a lot of what your family is doing right now.”
“It does,” he said. “I’ve been working with another patent attorney for about two years on a few things and I’m thinking it might be best if I do a lot of it for us. He’s been great. My siblings have no idea how exhausting this all is.”
“I bet. Just from meeting Brody, Aiden, and Mason, I can’t see any of them sittin
g behind a desk for more than ten minutes.”
“Very true. Could you tell them that next time they give me grief?”
“Sorry, but the same could be said about me. I think the only one that can relate to you is your sister.”
“So I’ve been told before,” he said. “Enough about work. It’s after hours for most people. What are your plans this weekend?”
“Not much. Tomorrow night I’m hoping to get out when everyone else leaves for the day. No plans this weekend. What about you?”
“Nothing set in stone. How’d you like to get dinner Saturday night at Fierce? In the restaurant?”
“I’d like that a lot,” she said.
They talked for a few more minutes and she hung up satisfied Ella never said a word about the reporter and that things were going just great between her and Cade.
Big and Dominant
Alex looked around Jolene’s house again. She didn’t think she’d be back here for another party, but she thought wrong. She and Cade had been seeing each other for almost two months. Seeing each other, or dating, wasn’t as serious as saying it was a relationship, and at the moment she was still trying not to say those words to anyone. Not even to herself.
More than friends seemed to be working for her. She figured it was working for him too since he hadn’t brought it up again.
But here she was at Nic’s bridal shower being held at Jolene’s house for the girls. It wasn’t an overly large gathering and that suited her just fine. She really wanted to back out, but she was getting close to Ella and Ella had insisted.
If Ella hadn’t insisted, then Jolene would have dragged her by the ear. Or so Ella had told her. Alex believed it.
But right now it was all the siblings’ significant others before the rest of the party showed up, which were mainly co-workers. Aimee, Nic, Jessica, herself, and Ella. Not that she thought of herself as Cade’s significant other, but it seemed the rest of his family did and she didn’t have the heart to correct them.