“How?”
“She was in the dining area at the bakery that Saturday you showed up to help me. She knows there’s nothing between us.”
Though a few family members trickled in, being alone at the table with Caden felt as if they were the only ones in the room. The air between them changed. It was thick with a tension she’d never felt before. It became quiet, just a pounding between her ears as Caden reached across the white cloth and took Maggie’s hand. Shivers of delight sprinkled down her spine. Why was he affecting her like this?
“There’s something between us,” he said softly. A faint trumpet joined the serenade from the grand piano in the other room. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling it, especially today. I can’t explain it, Maggie, but I enjoy you being by my side, and when you’re not...” His shoulders gave a slight shake. “I don’t know. I just like being with you. I’m not really good at this. I just need you all the time.”
The breath left her body. In her past she’d been wooed by men, been called beautiful before by other men, even wined and dined, had had sweet nothings whispered in her ear in French, Swahili, Spanish, and in Italian, but with just a mere look from Caden, she felt a deep desire in her bones. Not knowing what to say, Maggie gulped. At her silence, he continued.
“Look, I know you are a former beauty queen and celebrity in your own right, but I’m talking about the beauty I’ve gotten to know over the last week, the internal beauty.”
“You really don’t have to say this,” Maggie said. She started to pull her hand away, but he held on. There was already a smitten look in Caden’s dark eyes. This was not what she needed. They were working together. This was a charade. But damn, it felt good.
“But I do.” His fingers traced the ring he’d placed on her finger earlier. “I messed up what I was trying to say on the bus. Being here, with you, has me out of sorts. I don’t do this.” He waved his hand around the room.
“Do what?” Curiosity got the best of her.
“I never go to weddings.”
The server came over with more bread. Maggie felt her surprised smile freeze on her face, frozen like the glorious paintings on the wall. The fresh bakery smell wafted her senses back. “When you say never, you mean you don’t like them.”
“I’ve been to them as a kid and teenager,” he started, “but as a rule, I don’t go to them.”
Earlier, Corie had discussed the relationship between her husband and Caden. Her cousin harbored ill feelings toward Caden for not attending the wedding and for the raunchy bachelor party he threw for Hawk. “But your friends, frat brothers or even your family members?”
Caden shrugged his shoulders. “I prefer to say goodbye to my friends, seeing them off with a bang. Not being caught up in some suit, sweating and saying goodbye to their single life.”
“So this ultimate playboy persona is real?”
His head dipped low, but his eyes turned up to meet hers. “I don’t want to go into details.”
“Thank you,” Maggie interjected quickly.
And without an ounce of shame, Caden offered her a cocky lopsided grin. “But my bachelor parties are epic.”
“So I’ve heard,” Maggie said with a hum. “Naked girls recently. Michele informed me while she was fussing at Kofi at your mom’s retirement announcement.”
“Yeah, well.” Caden stumbled to find the words. He at least had the decency to blush.
She nodded and reached for the bread. “Sure. I’ve partaken in some of that kind of art before.”
Eyes focused on her, Caden’s shoulders straightened. “As a model or a participant?”
“Be serious,” Maggie laughed. “I’d be all over the news. “‘The Scandalous Socialite.’ I can see it now.” They both shared a laugh over the title. “Why don’t you attend weddings, Caden? Really.”
“Honestly speaking?”
Maggie sat back in her, seat preparing to hear whatever it was that prevented him from attending. This honest speaking was for the birds. How was she supposed to sit here while Caden poured his heart out to her and she kept her own secret? Her father had reminded her about her trust fund deadline and making wiser choices.
“I have a fear of them,” Caden announced.
This big, strong, strapping man in front of her, who excluded masculinity with his defined muscles, square jaw and powerful hands, was scared of...weddings? Maggie narrowed her eyes on him. His sensual mouth remained a flat line. His eyes didn’t water or twitch with the threat of laughter. She failed at her attempt to not laugh.
“You think I’m playing?” he asked her.
“Of course not.” Maggie heard her voice start to quiver with a giggle. “I need you to explain to me how this is possible.”
“You mean besides all the tension people work themselves into for months at a time for it to last all of like five minutes? When I was twelve, I attended my uncle Samuel’s third wedding. My brothers and I sneaked off into the kitchen for a cookie or something sweet, and we had to hide under the table when the bride and her mother walked in. Her mother had to stop her from abandoning her wedding day and leaving Uncle Samuel at the altar.”
“Wedding jitters,” Maggie explained, resting her elbows on the table. “Are they still married?”
“Hell no,” Caden exclaimed. “Uncle Samuel made it to wife number five before he decided marriage wasn’t his thing.”
Maggie moved her hand to her mouth to suppress the shock and giggle.
“Let’s not forget about how everyone is all made up and they don’t look like themselves.” Caden’s shoulders shook with a shiver.
“You brought a bridesmaid home, didn’t you?”
“When I was eighteen,” Caden admitted. “A cousin tied the knot, and his fiancée insisted on this giant wedding party. This bridesmaid totally hit on me—sorry, is this too much information?”
“No,” Maggie said while shaking her head. “I need to hear how this ends. Continue.”
“So she’s hitting on me, and at eighteen, what’s a guy to do?”
“Of course,” she agreed.
Caden paused for a moment. “You get a woman home looking one way and then...you wake up next to a stranger.”
“Instead of banning weddings,” Maggie provided, “I make it a rule not to date the groomsmen or the best man.”
“Sure, but then I attended a wedding of Kit’s friend. I was accosted by all these women who kept throwing their daughters at me.”
Maggie nodded. “Okay, that I get. It’s worse for women who are over twenty-one and not married.”
Caden reached across the table. “Not that I’m complaining, but I can’t imagine you haven’t been proposed to.”
Allowing him to take her hand, Maggie lowered her lashes. “I’ve been proposed to. I just never accepted.”
“Why?”
Because of what your brothers tried to predict about me, she thought. Instead, Maggie inhaled. Everyone had returned from the buffet line, and the delicious smells of fried chicken and macaroni and cheese, as well as greens, wafted to the table. She already knew Caden disliked his brothers as much as she did. Why add fuel to the fire?
“We should eat,” Maggie suggested and pulled her hand away.
* * *
After dinner everyone dispersed for their own activities. Mitchell Swayne stepped up to Caden for a private conversation. Caden balanced himself on his heels, prepared for a battle. Alone, Caden led the apology first. Mitchell was kind enough to hear him out.
“I guess you can say I was caught up in the emotion of my mother’s announcement and the end of an era. It felt like the beginning of a new one,” explained Caden. “You know, after being reunited with Maggie, I knew I never want to be apart from her again.” His answer was sincere. Maybe it was the spell of the city, or maybe Maggie did hold a magical power over him. Either way,
he felt his words deep in his heart.
“I’m not going to say I approve of the way you proposed to my daughter,” said her father, sticking out his hand for a shake, “but I can say I’ve never seen her so happy in a while.”
Caden wondered if Maggie’s unhappiness stemmed from the family’s financial woes. Mr. and Mrs. Swayne put on a brave front. Caden would never know there was a problem. Maybe tonight Maggie would feel like talking about things. He’d opened up with her about his fear of weddings. Maybe after a quiet glass of wine she would feel like opening up to him.
“Sir.” Caden cleared his throat. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Maggie.”
Mitchell patted Caden’s shoulder while shaking his hand. “All right, I will take your word for it. For now.”
Maggie ambled over to them and fitted herself against Caden’s frame. She pressed her left hand against his chest. A part of him knew this was for show—maybe even to irritate her father—but Caden didn’t care. He’d take whatever attention and touch he could get.
“What is up for now?” Heat lightning lit the darkening sky as Maggie raised her brow.
“I was just congratulating Caden, sweetheart,” said Mitchell.
“Was my father trying to convince you to relocate to Southwood?” Maggie asked him. “He’d love for me to move back to Southwood permanently and have the same day-in and day-out job.”
Mitchell nodded his head at Caden in apology. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried working the same job day in and day out, Maggie.”
Maggie balked and walked away from the two of them.
The bus honked, and Mitchell said good-night to them, promising to see them in the morning. Caden caught up with his faux fiancée and linked his hand with Maggie’s and walked her over to the curb, where a cab waited for them on Orleans.
“Dare I ask what that was about?”
“No,” Maggie huffed. “I mean, we will never see eye to eye. What has worked out for him is not for me. Or rather, what works for me doesn’t seem to be something he respects.”
Caden opened the cab door for her. “What do you mean?”
“You know how you have this fear of weddings?”
He slid across the leather maroon seat next to Maggie and listened as she confided in him.
“Every year when I was a kid, I loved going to the fair. I love the thrill of the rides, as you can tell.” She lifted her eyes toward him and smirked. “But at an early age, I hated the merry-go-round. My parents would wait for me and my sister after every ride. The roller coasters took me through all kinds of emotions. At the end of each ride, no matter how scary, I knew they’d be there.”
In the darkness of the cab, Caden took Maggie’s hand in his and stroked her soft skin between her thumb and forefinger and drew circles.
“The thing with the merry-go-round is that I got nothing from it,” she said. “We go around and around, see the same thing, and there were my parents. It was boring. Boring beyond the fact that it scared me.”
“So you think staying in Southwood is the merry-go-round?”
With her free hand, Maggie pushed her hair behind her ear. “I do. I mean, I used to go back to Southwood for a break every year and to disconnect, but now it’s different.”
Because of the family finances, he thought. “Because you’re totally disconnected from the world now?”
Maggie nudged him with her elbow. “I do still vlog.”
“Oh yes,” Caden chuckled. “With your green-screen background so everyone can play Where in the World Is Maggie Swayne.”
“Hush.” She nudged him a little harder. “I make it work. I don’t hate living in Southwood now. Just don’t tell my parents, and don’t tell them it’s been nice getting back to basics, such as letter writing.”
Caden nodded, recalling Maggie seated at her table writing out invitations rather than electronic invites and email. She might have put herself on restriction, but Caden had not. He’d reached out to the Ravens Cosmetics group to his frat brother, Will, and secured a judge and donations of cosmetics. He already had the guest emcee, basketball star turned sports announcer at MET Dalton Knight. Dalton had confirmed by text just this afternoon, and Kit continued to green-light all their ideas.
“So you just don’t want to live in Southwood forever?” Caden asked her.
Next to him her body shifted as she shrugged her shoulders up and down. “I love traveling—sue me. Which is why me being president of SSGBP is important.”
Caden felt his slow smile creep across his face. Under the light of the passing lampposts, he saw the twinkle in her eyes. “I already told you, I’m offering you a job.”
“Just not the seat?” Maggie pulled away.
“The seat is mine.”
He did recognize her eye roll, even in the dim light. “And you’re not going to tell me why you have to be the one to run it. Not Kofi? He struck me as the business end of A&O.”
“I’ve seen what these pageants can do to a family,” he replied in the dark.
“Your cousins?”
“My dad,” Caden answered honestly. “That time we were together years ago, remember when I went to get ice?”
Still on her side of the seat, Maggie nodded. “Yeah, and you never returned.”
“I caught my father coming out of a contestant’s room.”
Tires bumping against the potholes of the road filled the silence between them. Maggie covered her face with her hands. Her green eyes stretched wide. “Oh Caden, I’m so sorry.”
Caden shrugged his shoulders. “Thanks, but he’s also the reason I swore I’d never get married. I saw the anguish my mother went through when she found out.”
“Poor Kit. But I’ve seen them together. Are they working things out?”
“Maybe,” Caden sighed. “But just like you, I don’t like sticking around home too much. When I am at my house, I don’t always reach out to my brothers, who were all very aware of our father’s behavior.” Caden reached for Maggie’s hand. “So don’t you think our desire to not be home, our love for traveling and going to new places makes us the ideal couple for this fake engagement?”
As the words came out of his mouth, he felt an awkward feeling pass over his body. Shame almost. He knew it wasn’t true. They were perfect together, regardless of their charade.
After their heavy conversation in the back of the cab, both Caden and Maggie were ready to break the grim mood with a lot of wine tasting at Second Vine Wine on Touro Street. They talked more about the pageant than what Caden wanted. Mesmerized, Caden watched Maggie absentmindedly twirl a strand of red hair around her index finger as she spoke about the itinerary she came up with and how if her final ideas were approved, it would end with the main Miss Southern Style Glitz Beauty Pageant and a huge party after, where she, of course, would be named president. Caden had different ideas how the evening would end—preferably in bed and with no hard feelings, other than the intended ones.
Once they emptied out their bottle of red—aptly named Toast of the Tiara—they headed on out to go back to the hotel. The heat lightning from earlier turned into storm-warning flashes. Light rain began to fall. Caden looked down at Maggie, who inspected the sky as well. They were almost five minutes away from the Melrose Mansion.
Maggie’s eyes met Caden’s. “We can make it.”
“We can call a cab,” Caden suggested. “We have been drinking.”
“There’s no such crime as tipsy walking,” she said with a hiccup followed by a surprised giggle. Her laugh was infectious. Maggie lifted the hem of her skirt and stepped out onto the street. “Don’t be a chicken,” she called out to him.
Never one to avoid a challenge, Caden followed. Most normal people began to run and take cover. Not Maggie. She ran down the center of the street, avoiding the cars and the puddles, screaming with joy.
�
�Are you crazy?” he yelled out to her. “If you get waylaid with a cold, I’m not going to give you any credit when I speak with Aunt Em next time,” he teased, knowing good and well his aunt would figure he didn’t come up with all the ideas by himself.
Maggie stopped running in the center of Burgundy Street. Thunder sounded off in the distance. He would have thought it was his heart racing, but lightning struck three seconds later.
“The storm is coming,” he said, reaching her.
The water had flattened her red hair against her face. Her long lashes fanned against her face as she bit her lip. “I must look a mess.”
“Never,” Caden said in a whisper. He wrapped his arms around her curvy waist. “We’re not going to make it.”
They got as far as the corner of Touro and Burgundy at the Ruby Slipper Café before a bolt of lightning struck a car down the street, setting off the alarm. Rain began to gush down the streets. Caden took Maggie by the hand and led her under an old building with an awning for shelter. He tried the door, but the knob wouldn’t budge. Rain ran like a river and splashed over the curb. Gardenia bushes on either side of the steps absorbed the water falling from the roof. There wasn’t much space, but Caden pressed her against the door and shielded her body from the rain with his.
“Why, Caden Archibald,” Maggie drawled out in an exaggerated Southern accent. “Are you trying to get fresh with me?”
Caden smiled down on her. “By getting fresh, do you mean like this?” His hands snaked down the wet material against her leg.
“Well, I meant by kissing me,” said Maggie, minus the accent. She sighed dreamily and looked up at the sky. “But I suppose you’re right. We’d only be proving that men and women cannot work together.”
Technically they weren’t working together right now. And with that conclusion, Caden dipped his head lower and brought his mouth to hers, stopping her from whatever else she wanted to say. She tasted like sweet grapes and heaven. Caden melted into her body. Soft silky skin met his palms when he slid his hand underneath the skirt. Her round bottom fit perfectly in his hands. Their kiss deepened. Maggie’s hands caressed his wet cheeks. Her thumbs traced the outline of his jaw, sending a shiver down his spine. Everything about them felt right. Caden found a truth in their kiss. They belonged together, and knowing that didn’t scare him like he thought.
Southern Seduction ; Pleasure in His Arms Page 14