CHAPTER TWELVE

One week later

‘C ADE , YOU ’ RE HERE !’ Charley stared at the man standing with his back to her in the huge open-plan kitchen area of the equally massive penthouse apartment they had been sharing for seven days. The man she had been managing to avoid for all seven of those days by getting back before him each evening from the workshop she was establishing a block away, and heading straight to her bedroom—because she was way too exhausted to socialise. Or eat a meal with him.

Dressed in a simple white T-shirt—which stretched distractingly over broad shoulders, a muscular back and a lean waist and dropped just shy of his equally impressive butt showcased in faded jeans—he looked relaxed and at home... The casual clothing reminded her uncomfortably of the jeans and tee combo he had looked so delicious in at the Broussards’ party.

So delicious, they’d ended up creating a baby.

He turned slowly, and she spotted the meat mallet in his hand.

‘Are you cooking?’ she asked, stunned.

It was barely six, and the man was a workaholic. She hadn’t even realised he knew where the kitchen was, because the steel-and-marble space had remained spotless and unused—despite the groceries he’d had his assistant stock the fridge with the day after they arrived.

That would be the day when they had had their last proper conversation. Or rather their last disagreement. Because he had wanted to accompany her to the ob-gyn appointment that morning, and she had point-blank refused.

He had been annoyed, but to her surprise, he’d backed off without much of a protest. And she’d hardly seen or spoken to him since, because he left before she woke each morning and didn’t return until nightfall.

Truth be told, she had been beyond grateful to be left to her own devices for the past week. Her life—and their relationship—were confusing enough without dealing with the simmering sexual tension which was always there when she was in the same room with Cade.

He had texted her each day, usually a curt line to ask her if there had been any nausea. But luckily that one episode in New York seemed to be the worst of her morning sickness over with, after her new ob-gyn, Dr Chen, had given her lots of tips on how to avoid a recurrence—as well as a ton of different vitamins to take.

Apart from ensuring his ‘people’ were on hand to help her with setting up her workspace—and dealing with the insane amount of paperwork necessary to hire the two brilliant seamstresses she had found—Cade had made no demands on her socially, as per their fake dating agreement. Nor had he insisted on spending any time with her in the evenings—after checking in on her when he arrived back from his office.

But as he put the mallet down on the chopping board, and she saw the two thick steaks lined up on the counter next to an enormous array of fresh salad ingredients, she realised her reprieve was over.

‘I wanted to catch you tonight before you hid out in the bedroom,’ he said.

‘Hid out? What is that supposed to mean?’ she protested. ‘I’ve been tired. It’s hard work setting up a business and being pregnant...’ she added, but before she could get up to full steam, he lifted his hand.

‘Let me rephrase. Before you crashed out in the guest room.’

The emphasis on guest seemed significant, but she didn’t get the chance to question what he meant by the inference before he ploughed on, cutting her outrage off at the knees. ‘I’ve done some reading on what’s best to eat during pregnancy...’

He had?

She couldn’t quite hide her surprise. Or the press of something wrapping around her ribs. She’d been making the effort to eat regularly and often, as per the doctor’s orders, but she hadn’t had the time or inclination to cook for herself.

‘Apparently bland and packed with vitamins and protein is a good call—so I figured steak, a baked potato and a side salad would work.’

‘You’re going to cook a meal for me?’ It was a silly question, as he’d just said as much, but even so she felt the wall of emotion hit her unawares.

‘Yes.’

‘Oh,’ she said, blinking as ridiculous tears stung her eyes.

It was just the pregnancy hormones making her over-emotional. She’d already established that. She brushed the moisture away with her fist, but then he tilted his head to one side, scrutinising her in that way he had which made her feel seen.

And the wave of emotion crested again.

‘Hey, now...’ He walked around the counter, clearly as disturbed by her over-the-top reaction as she was. ‘My cooking isn’t that bad, I swear.’

She found herself laughing and crying at the same time.

He brushed her tears away with his thumbs, his gaze unguarded for the first time. But the fierce concern only made her feel more vulnerable. And more scared.

‘It’s just the pregnancy hormones,’ she murmured, stepping away from his gentle touch and wiping her eyes—feeling desperately exposed and pathetically needy.

‘Uh-huh,’ he said, but she could see the question in his eyes.

‘They hit me unawares sometimes,’ she added. ‘And make me overreact to anything even remotely triggering. Sorry.’ That had to be it. She’d persuaded herself over the past week that her initial panic about relying on Cade too much didn’t apply. This wasn’t about who she’d been, but who she was now. And as she’d started to come to terms with the reality of the pregnancy, she had become more convinced that it made sense to lean on him, at least where the baby was concerned. So why did this feel like too much?

‘There’s no need to apologise,’ he said, but then he added, ‘Why would you be triggered by me cooking for you?’

She sighed. She didn’t want to answer. Because it felt too personal. And if she told him the truth, too revealing.

But she could see she’d been a coward in the past week. She had been hiding out in her room, avoiding him. One of the reasons why she’d decided to stay here was to get to know him better, to deal with a few of his insecurities too, and discover what kind of a father he would be.

But didn’t that require conversation? Time spent together, talking openly?

There were so many things she wanted to know about him—about his past, his childhood, the things which kept him up at night, which drove him so relentlessly, even the reason why acquiring Helberg seemed so important to him. But if she wanted him to reveal his secrets, his vulnerabilities—then she had to be willing to do the same.

‘I guess because no one has ever cooked a meal for me before—well, not like this,’ she offered.

‘I see,’ he said. He didn’t seem all that surprised—maybe no one had ever cooked a meal for him either. But the thought made her consider how tough his childhood must have been in comparison to hers, and she found herself backtracking.

‘Which is, of course, nonsense, now I think about it. Even though he ignored me, my father paid a small fortune to the staff when I was little to make sure I was well cared for while my mother was alive. Then I went to a string of expensive boarding schools—with a host of catering options. And the last thing you want when you’re a catwalk model is to have someone cook you a meal before a show...’ She began babbling, because his scrutiny had only become more intense. ‘Just in case you gain a couple of millimetres on your hips and can’t get into the designs assigned to you. So apparently, the pregnancy hormones are making me feel sorry for myself for no reason.’

He frowned. ‘I’m not sure having someone paid to care for your needs or being forced to starve yourself counts as no reason,’ he murmured. Then he threw her completely by asking, ‘What happened to your mother?’

‘She died when I was eight,’ she said.

‘That’s tough,’ he said, his gaze darkening with sympathy.

‘Not particularly. We were never close. She spent most of my childhood living at the family estate in Northumberland while I lived with my father in London. And she was so unhappy. She just wasn’t ever really there even when she was, if you know what I mean... So when she took her own life, I didn’t feel the loss. Not the way Adam did.’

‘But you were just a little kid. Even when your mama isn’t around, it still hurts when they’re gone,’ he said, his gaze filled with a compassion she knew must come from his own experiences.

She seized on the small insight. ‘When did you lose your mother?’

His gaze became instantly shuttered before he gave a harsh laugh, devoid of humour. ‘I didn’t lose her. She lost me.’

‘How do you mean?’ she asked.

His expression went carefully blank. ‘She left me in a department store in Baton Rouge when I was five years old. Told me to hide out and she’d come back to get me. So I did, until the nightwatchman found me the next morning and called the cops.’ He shrugged, but the movement lacked his usual grace. ‘And that’s how I got kicked into the system.’

Charlotte touched his hand, her heart racing—the lack of emotion in his voice and his blank expression only making his story sadder. It wasn’t hard to see where Cade’s trust issues came from now. ‘Cade, I’m so sorry. That’s dreadful.’

‘Not really. She was a junkie. I was better off without her.’

‘Even so, no child should have no one,’ she said, the emotion threatening to overwhelm her again. No matter how unseen she’d sometimes felt as a child, however much of a burden she’d been made to feel, she had never been alone. Some of the staff and teachers paid to care for her had been kind and nurturing, and she had always had Adam. However dysfunctional their relationship had been at times, he had always been there for her in a crisis.

‘I wasn’t alone. I had myself,’ he said as he skimmed his thumb under her eye. ‘Please don’t start crying again.’

She laughed and sniffed back the tears, stupidly relieved all of a sudden. She’d been so terrified of relying on him too much, but surely sharing the burden together could be mutual? It didn’t have to leave her overexposed. If he was exposed too.

Before she could probe further, though, he lifted her bag off her shoulder and slung an arm around her waist to direct her towards the kitchen’s breakfast counter. ‘Take a load off while I finish supper.’

He’d changed the conversation deliberately. Clearly, getting him to talk about his past was going to be a work in progress, but she felt deeply moved by what he’d shared. And once she’d climbed up on the stool and managed to tamp down on the inevitable buzz of awareness from that proprietary touch, watching him cook her dinner was captivating too.

She gave herself permission to enjoy the moment and not overthink it.

He worked quickly and efficiently, slicing the salad ingredients with the speed and skill of a chef.

‘Where did you learn to chop so fast?’ she asked.

He glanced up. ‘I worked as a short-order cook in a diner while doing my MBA at Yale,’ he said. ‘I had a couple of scholarships to cover tuition, but I was already investing the money I’d earned flipping houses into building a property portfolio, so working the breakfast and the late shifts in between the classes and assignments kept me afloat.’

‘When did you sleep?’ she asked, astonished. Surely the workload at Yale’s renowned business school would have been enormous enough? ‘And socialise?’

‘I didn’t do either, much.’ He sent her a wry smile as he fired up the griddle. ‘You don’t need all that much sleep in your early twenties. And I’ve always been a loner, with a passionate aversion to small talk,’ he added by way of explanation while pulling two jacket potatoes covered in tin foil from the oven.

‘Have you always worked this hard then?’ she asked, fascinated.

The man wasn’t so much a workaholic as a work machine... But his drive and ambition—and almost preternatural focus on getting what he wanted—suddenly seemed as hot as the scent of his woodsy cologne, and the sight of his biceps bulging beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt as he hammered out the steaks.

She shifted on the stool. Fabulous . Even watching him cook aroused her.

‘I guess.’ He shrugged as he set the steaks on the hot griddle. ‘It’s not difficult to motivate yourself, though, when you love what you do.’

Plus, hard work was the only way to make your mark if you came from nothing, the way he had. It was a sobering thought.

She loved what she did too, now. And she’d worked extremely hard to get her business operational. The challenges she’d faced in the last few days as she interviewed seamstresses, organised for Landry Construction to employ them to comply with her visa status, and began work on her newest commissions had been frustrating and time-consuming but also exhilarating. What she had achieved already with Trouble Maker meant so much more to her than being able to look elegant prancing down a catwalk without falling on her bum!

But she’d never had the sustained focus he had, and she’d never been reliant on herself alone to survive and prosper. She could see that more clearly now.

‘How do you like your steak?’ he asked, breaking her out of her revelry and making her aware of her stomach grumbling from the delicious scent of sizzling meat.

‘Medium rare is good,’ she said.

She watched him as he finished off the meal—splitting the potatoes, adding generous amounts of butter and sour cream and chives, tossing the salad in a dressing he rustled up from scratch, and flipping the steaks. By the time he’d finished, she felt oddly humbled and stupidly emotional again. And hopelessly turned on.

Cade Landry might be arrogant, and overwhelming, and cynical, and tightly controlled when it came to his emotions as well as his work ethic—but all those things also made him exciting and fascinating...and really hot.

‘Dig in,’ he said as he placed the loaded plates on the breakfast bar and climbed onto the stool across from her.

She didn’t have to be asked twice. She cut into the perfectly cooked steak, put it in her mouth and let the meaty juices dissolve on her tongue.

‘Delicious,’ she moaned.

‘Yeah,’ he said, his gaze roaming over her in a way that made her skin tingle.

The sweet spot between her thighs—which only he had ever found—rejoiced right alongside her taste-buds. She stiffened, acknowledging the danger. Apparently, Cade Landry’s culinary skills were as seductive as all his other skills....

They ate in silence. She polished off most of the enormous steak and made inroads into the potato and crisp salad. But once he had cleared his plate, she was forced to admit defeat.

‘You done?’ he asked.

‘Yes, thanks, it was very good,’ she said as he scooped up the plates, cleaned the remnants of her meal into the waste disposal and loaded the dinnerware into a state-of-the-art dishwasher.

‘So, I think I’ll head to bed,’ she said, trying to lessen the sexual tension threatening to devour her almost as efficiently as he had demolished his steak.

Because watching the man do domestic chores was stupidly sexy, too. Who knew?

The confidences they’d shared about their pasts, their childhoods—and the fact they had both, in different ways, been abandoned by their mothers—threatened a level of intimacy which she needed to process before she did anything daft.

This still wasn’t a real relationship. She had to remember that. He’d only offered her more than the other women he’d dated because she carried his child. An accidental conception didn’t make them a couple.

But as she got off the stool to head to her bedroom, the delicious steak she had devoured now sitting like a brick in her stomach—her emotions churning right under it—he strode around the kitchen counter and snagged her arm.

‘Wait up, Charlotte.’ He tugged her around to face him. ‘Don’t run out on me again,’ he said, and she heard the tension. ‘This doesn’t have to be a stunt relationship, not when we both want each other so much.’

He rested a hand on her hip.

She could move away from him, tell him she didn’t want him with the same urgency, the same need. But how could she? When her sex was already aching to be filled. The need to protect herself from any romantic delusions, though, was still paramount.

‘I’m not sure that’s smart,’ she said.

‘Why not?’ he asked as emotion swirled in his eyes.

Because I’m still a little scared I could end up needing you too much.

She pushed the terrifying thought away this time. One thing she’d always been was a realist. Even as a little girl. He wasn’t offering love, and she didn’t want it. Because that would leave her more vulnerable, and she was vulnerable enough already.

‘I’m scared of becoming a burden or a responsibility,’ she said.

And wanting something I can’t have.

That was how she’d always felt as a child. Because of the mother who had been too sick to acknowledge her, the father who had never cared about anyone but himself. And the big brother who had treated her for so much of their lives as a duty to be managed.

Cade swore softly, still holding his hand on her hip his body vibrating now with the same frustration she felt.

‘That’s not how I see you, Charlotte. You’re witty and vibrant and infuriating and sexy as hell. I don’t want to take your independence away from you... But I’ve gotta tell you, living here with you, knowing my kid is growing inside you and being unable to touch you, is driving me nuts.’

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. She saw the need and the passion which matched her own. And felt herself melting.

‘You can touch me, Cade. I want you to touch me. As long as we’re clear that’s all this is. Nothing more than an itch we both enjoy scratching.’

He cradled her cheek, and she saw the flash of triumph—the aching desire. And felt oddly hollow inside.

But she knew she had to stand firm.

She had been broken before, in so many ways. Whatever happened, she had to prevent herself from being broken again—but she could do that as long as they set out clear parameters for this relationship.

‘Understood,’ he said, his hand stroking her neck, his thumb toying with the thundering pulse in her collarbone. ‘But I want you in my bed, not the damn guest room.’

She nodded. She could give him that—it was the practical, grown-up solution.

Giving in to this raw, insistent need was dangerous. She understood that. But physical intimacy was only that, and as long as she understood this, surely it didn’t have to derail her emotionally...

‘Yes, okay.’

Before she had got the words out, he boosted her into his arms.

She wrapped her legs around his waist and pressed her mouth to those hard, sensual lips as he carried her into the bedroom they had shared once before... The bedroom where their baby had been created. But as she bared her body to him, she promised herself she would never bare her soul.