“I met her yesterday,” Cade confirmed. “You know what this week has been like—I didn’t get over to Arden until late yesterday afternoon.”
“How did it go?”
“Okay, I suppose. It was great until I introduced myself. Then things cooled—we were joking around a little but when she found out who I am… Well, like I said, it got a little chillier.”
“Did she throw you out of her shop?” Jani asked with some dread, as if she were thinking ahead to what she might encounter when it was her turn to do a good deed.
“No, but she might have thought about it,” Cade said. “There were a couple of pauses when I half expected her to unload on me or kick me out or something. But instead she just got less friendly, more businesslike.”
“So it was friendly before she knew who you were?”
“Yeah. Nati Morrison seems really nice. Sweet. Funny—”
“You liked her….”
“Sure. Yeah. You know…” Cade hedged.
“Pretty, nice body, if you’d met her in a bar you’d have bought her a drink?” Jani probed.
Cade laughed. “Probably,” he admitted, not telling his sister that in fact Nati Morrison was beautiful. And cuter than hell when she smiled and a tiny dimple appeared just above the right corner of her mouth.
He also didn’t tell his sister that Nati Morrison had silky, shiny hair. Or that she had flawless alabaster skin with a healthy little pink blush to high cheekbones. Or that she had a nose most women he knew would have paid good money to have surgically produced for them. Or that her lips were lush and lovely, and her big, round eyes were the color of the finest topaz—brown and bronze and gold all at once—incredibly beautiful, with long, long lashes.
And the body that went with it wasn’t bad, either—she was a compact thing at not much more than five feet three inches, with curves in all the right places and a tight round backside….
“Cade?”
Jani’s voice barely got through to him.
This was crazy—he kept zoning out into Nati Morrison Land…
He had no idea what his sister had just said, if she’d said anything at all.
“Sorry. Like I said, I’m in outer space today,” he apologized.
“I said that she must have at least some idea about what went on between H.J. and her family.”
“She knows that GiGi and her grandfather knew each other in Northbridge—I mentioned it and she finished my sentence. Whether or not she knows anything more than that is still a question. She could just be one of those people who doesn’t like us—you know how that is.”
They were all well aware of the two camps of opinions about their family—there were those who admired, respected and appreciated what the Camdens had achieved. And there were those who envied and hated them, and contended that their fortune had been built on the backs of the “little people.”
“Right,” Jani said, “Camdens are either titans of industry or despicable robber barons.”
“And sadly now we know that there could be some truth to that second opinion,” Cade muttered.
“Yeah,” Jani muttered. “But Natalie Morrison is going to do your wall?”
“I think so. That’s what she’s coming over to look at tonight. Then I suppose she’ll give me a price.”
“A million dollars?” Jani joked.
Cade laughed. “I guess we’ll see. That would be a way to get even with us.”
“Well, you better not keep her waiting,” Jani advised. Then she held up the papers she had in her hand. “This is the material for the next board meeting—that’s why I came in here in the first place. To find you lost in thought with a smile on your face—I’d forgotten about that smile….” Light seemed to dawn in Jani. “Is that what you’re thinking about today? And smiling about? Natalie Morrison?”
“Nati. She doesn’t like to be called Natalie.” He had no idea why he was correcting his sister.
“You’ve been sitting around here daydreaming—and smiling—about Nati Morrison?”
“Nah! I told you, it’s just been a long week and my brain has been checking out today.”
“Mentally checking out Nati Morrison,” Jani goaded.
“Just give me the papers and get out of here so I can go home,” Cade countered, snatching the sheets from his sister’s hand.
“Home to Nati Morrison,” Jani teased like the incorrigible younger sister she could be.
“Home to see what I can do to make up for the sins of our fathers. Don’t get cocky, your turn will come.”
“I can only hope that my turn turns me on as much as yours seems to be turning you on.”
Cade laughed wryly and shook his head. “I’m not turned on by anything about this chore GiGi has me doing.”
“If you say so…” Jani teased again as she headed for his office door.
“I say so,” he insisted just as she went out, shaking his head again at the idea that anything about the situation with Nati Morrison was turning him on in any way.
Sure she was a pleasure to look at. She’d also been a pleasure to banter with yesterday before she’d learned who he was—and not so bad even afterward. But that was nothing.
As the first of the Camden heirs to be doing this making-amends thing, he was flying by the seat of his pants, writing the rules as he went along. And the biggest rule so far was to be careful.
Which, coincidentally, had become his biggest rule when it came to women in general these days.
But in terms of Nati Morrison specifically, he had no way of knowing what old issues might be brought back to life merely by a Camden showing up, so he had to be extremely cautious. There was already an ugly history between the Camdens and the Morrisons, and he didn’t want anything in the present to make things uglier—that would defeat the whole purpose of this endeavor.
For that reason alone, Nati Morrison was not someone he could ever risk getting personally involved with.
But that wasn’t his only reason.
Cade finished clearing his desk for the weekend and left his office, telling his secretary to take off early and have a nice weekend.
He headed home with Nati Morrison still on his mind. He tried to think about her in a way that sobered him rather than made him smile.
Yes, the history between their families was a huge concern, no question about it. But on a more personal level, long before he’d met Nati Morrison yesterday, he’d arrived at a firm sticking point in regard to who he would and wouldn’t have a relationship with.
It had to be someone who wasn’t in a position to see him as her golden goose. Or her winning lottery ticket. Someone who didn’t need a golden goose or a winning lottery ticket.
And not because he was a snob—GiGi grew up with modest means and had raised him and all the rest of her grandchildren to be anything but snobs. She’d be the first to cut him down to size if she thought he was.
But dating exclusively within his own social circle or the very near ripples around it had just become a safety issue for him. An issue of protection. Of self-preservation.
Any woman he opened the door to had to be a woman who was only interested in him for the person he was, regardless of his last name or the size of his bank account.
So he wasn’t taking