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  I hadn’t been insulted. I thought the appetizer looked great, but it was Cade’s creation. It wasn’t my place to tell him he was wrong. You don’t tell an artist how to paint. I couldn’t tell a successful chef how to prepare his food.

  Others received the same critiques and criticisms through the night, but Caden was also just as quick to compliment and pat someone on the back for a job well done.

  The blogger had come. It seemed to have gone well, but we wouldn’t know for sure for at least another week. Cade seemed happy about it, though. He popped open a couple bottles of wine at the end of the night in celebration once the kitchen and dining room were cleaned up. I should have left then, but I sat at the bar and enjoyed the company of the others and the buzz of satisfaction that hummed softly between us.

  The hairs on my arms seemed to stand on end as warmth trickled down my spine. I didn’t need eyes to know that Cade had just appeared at my side. His arm slipped around the back of my stool, and his hand cupped my shoulder.

  “Thank you for coming in,” he said against my ear.

  My body flushed with heat as I turned to look into his blue eyes. I was hooked there for a moment, unable to blink or look away. In his eyes, I saw hundreds of happy moments and just as many unhappy ones.

  Finally, I averted my gaze and drained my glass. “No problem,” I said and hopped off the stool.

  Cade always paid me when I helped him out, not because I insisted on it, but at his insistence. I’d once told him that I loved him and believed in him and M.J.’s and that as long as they both continued to prosper, that was enough payment for me.

  “You’re not an apprentice anymore, Darla,” he’d said to me once. “At least not in my kitchen. You know my menu and how to make the food on it as well as anyone else. Don’t undervalue yourself. Get paid what you are worth.”

  It took some time, but eventually I agreed with him, but I didn’t want to wait around to be paid this time. Cade had a way of clouding my brain and making me forget. It was a dangerous thing, to forget, because when we forgot, we fell back into our old ways. Our old ways weren’t always healthy.

  “You can send me a check or make a deposit in my account,” I said as I gathered my coat and satchel.

  Cade’s fingers wrapped loosely around my wrist. If I didn’t want to cause a scene in front of his staff, I had to remain still and not try to pull away from him. I tried to kill him with my eyes instead.

  He was unperturbed by my death stare. “Come to my office and I’ll print a check for you.”

  Caden had a way of herding me to places I didn’t necessarily want to go with very little effort. He continued to hold on to my wrist and put a hand on my back and began to guide me toward his office.

  We stopped in front of one of the cooks that had been with Caden for years. “Hey, Patrick. Lock up for me when everyone’s done. I’m going to my office to print Darla a check. Don’t let them linger too long.”

  Cade may as well had said, “I’m taking Darla to my office to bang her brains out,” because Patrick’s eyebrows rose and he gave us a sly smile. I didn’t like it. I transferred my death glare to him, and he instantly wiped away his stupid grin.

  “You don’t need Patrick to lock up because it’s not going to take you that long to give me a check,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Cade said, shrugging a shoulder innocently. “I have to unlock the office door and then sit down at the computer. Then I have to start the computer and give it time to boot up before I can open anything. Then I have to type in all of the pertinent information, double check it, triple check it, and then print it and check it again. That can take longer than you think, babe.”

  We stopped outside his office.

  “You’re right. That can take a long time, which is why you should mail it to me or put it in my account like I said.”

  He smiled beatifically, unlocked the door, and gently herded me inside the office like the sheep I was.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Caden left me by the door and went to sit at his desk. He softly hummed a song I didn’t recognize as he worked on his computer. I pretended not to notice his frequent glances at me as I studied the same pictures and objects I had seen thousands of times, but my gaze got stuck on a framed picture of us.

  The image seemed to come to life and replay in my mind. It was taken two years ago in the tiny kitchen of my apartment. Caden didn’t come over often since the place was so small and it didn’t allow for much privacy, but that day he brought me lunch because I was busy baking dozens of cookies for a side job.

  It began innocently enough. He said something sarcastic and I flicked flour in his face.

  “You little brat,” he said and planted his hand in the flour that dusted the counter.

  I tried to back away, but I had reacted too slowly and ended up with a face full of flour. In retaliation, I scooped a small amount of flour right out of the canister and threw it at him. It was the wrong thing to do. Caden’s hands were bigger, and he didn’t like to lose. I screamed as he released a fistful of flour at my face.

  Needless to say, we destroyed the kitchen and the cookies that were cooling on a rack. Every surface was covered in flour. When Caden blinked, flour drifted from his long eyelashes. I sneezed, and flour exploded from my face. The remnants of the flour we had thrown hung in a cloud around us as we leaned on each other shaking with laughter.

  His floury hands covered my white dusted cheeks.

  “I fucking love you, Darla.”

  “I love you, even though I’m probably gonna die from flour inhalation.”

  His smile as he chuckled was brilliant, beautiful, and sexy. I remember the full feeling I had in my chest at that moment, the jubilation of being in love. His mouth tasted like flour and romance.

  I had been so swept up in him, as I so often was, that I hadn’t noticed Cherry’s entrance, or the flash as she snapped pictures of Caden and I kissing in the aftermath of our destruction.

  Arms slipped around my waist and a body pressed against my back. The contact brought me back to the present, to Caden’s office, but part of me stayed in the past in that tiny flour-covered kitchen.

  As he nuzzled against my hair, I had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from turning around to put my arms around his waist, to breathe him in.

  “Where’s my check,” I said instead.

  “On the desk. Why don’t you turn around and give me a kiss? I haven’t seen you in over a week.”

  After a few seconds, I did turn around. Caden’s smiles varied from angelic, which made him look like a fallen angel, to scorching hot, as if he were a fallen angel that was going to make you pray to God in the most sinful ways possible. I almost gulped when I saw that he wanted to make me pray.

  I let him kiss me because I wanted it, too. Just a little taste, a little dessert before dinner. That’s what Cade was, a bad habit, a deliciously satisfying bad habit that you sometimes regret after it’s already too late. But I would have no regrets this time.

  With an immense amount of effort, I pulled away from Caden and stepped out of his embrace. I walked over to his desk and took my check.

  “Thanks,” I said as I put it in my back pocket.

  “Thanks?” he parroted with a laugh as I headed to the door. “You just kissed me like you were eating me for dessert and all you gotta say is, ‘Thanks,’ as your ass walks out the door?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I opened the door and walked out before Cade could stop me. He caught up to me a few feet away in the corridor and snagged the back of my shirt, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, putting his hands on my hips and pushing me back against the wall. “Where you going, babe?”

  “Cade,” I said wearily, letting my head fall back against the wall with a dull thud. “I have to get up in about three hours. I’m going home to take a nap.”

  “Okay.” His lips grazed mine. “Then we’ll go home together. My pla
ce.”

  “Hmm,” I murmured as he gently bit down on my earlobe. “That does sound like an interesting idea.”

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “But…” I put my hands flat on his chest and pushed. I took two steps and pushed him until his back hit the opposite wall. His eyebrows were high, his lips curled in amusement.

  I kissed him, taking another sample of sin. His hands tightened on my hips as he pulled my body against his. We fit together, we always had fit well together, like two pieces of a puzzle. We lined up real good, and I could feel his erection where it lined up against the soft triangle between my thighs. Just as the kiss began to really heat up, as his hands began to wander, I broke away and once again moved out of his reach.

  My lips ached, and an uncomfortable pressure had built up between my legs, but I pushed him away when he made another grab for me.

  “What the fuck, Darla?” he said with irritation, even as he stroked himself through his jeans.

  “But,” I repeated the word carefully. “If you want me back, you’re gonna have to try harder this time, Cade. You always had it easy when it came to having me. I think that’s why you think it’s okay to act the way you sometimes do.”

  He gave me a dubious look. “We’ve been apart for extended periods of time before. Why would this be any different?”

  “Oh, it better be different. You didn’t really try then. You didn’t make any changes. You just wore me down.”

  He smirked and began to move toward me. “I’ll wear you down again.”

  My hand smacked into his chest, halting his progress. He looked down at my small hand on his chest and snickered.

  “Really, Dar? You think your tiny hand is going to stop me from getting any closer?”

  “You ain’t hearing me, Caden,” I said icily. “Listen to me very carefully.”

  I dropped my hand slowly and took a step closer to him. I wanted him to see my eyes, to see how sincere I was.

  “It’s about time that you treat me the way I deserve to be treated.”

  Finally, he was beginning to take me seriously. His smirk was fading quickly.

  “How do you think you deserve to be treated?”

  It was actually a good question, a thought-provoking question. I never thought that I needed to be treated like any kind of royalty. It always annoyed me when someone said that a woman should be treated like a queen. I thought that paved a way for a superiority complex.

  Some women wanted to be treated as if they were their significant other’s whole world. I didn’t want that either. I wasn’t that selfish. I didn’t want to be considered with reverence either, because there was always the chance of not meeting expectations.

  Cade waited patiently. We heard the last of the staff as they walked out the front door. It was so quiet between us I was almost sure I’d also heard the lock slide into place.

  Finally, I was able to find the right words to answer his question.

  “I want to be treated as if I matter. I don’t want to be taken for granted. I don’t want you to think that you can do or say whatever you want and then expect me to be there when you’re ready to apologize. And I want you to remember that I am a person with hopes and dreams and that they matter, too. I want you to remember that I am still here because of you, Caden, and I want you to treat me as if you know that and that you don’t want me to regret it.”

  He stared at me as if I had just sprouted wings and a unicorn’s horn at the center of my forehead. Maybe in his mind, he thought he treated me good when things were pleasant between us, and he wouldn’t be wrong. But we treat pets good. We treat strangers good. People who were in love should treat each other better than good.

  Cade’s mouth closed and he tore his gaze away from me. A crease appeared between his eyes, a sign of serious thought on his part. What he was thinking, I didn’t know, and he didn’t tell me.

  “I’ll take you home,” he murmured and began to turn away.

  I took a step back, feeling suddenly awkward. “I’ll take a cab.”

  I never drove when I had to work at M.J.’s. By the time I usually got out of there and got home—on the nights I did go home and not with Cade—I sometimes had to park a couple of blocks away. Walking home alone in the city wasn’t exactly the safest. Typically, Cade took me home, but I hadn’t planned on that this time.

  He whirled on me, though. The crease deepened as he looked at me. “For fuck’s sake, Darla. When have I ever let you go home alone this late at night? Just let me make sure you get home safe. Damn it,” he cussed and pushed a hand through his blond hair. “Give me that, at least.”

  He turned away without waiting for a response.

  The drive to my apartment was silent. It was unusual because there was rarely silence between us. Sometimes when there was nothing of substance to talk about, we spoke of the most absurd things. Silly things that made us laugh, but there was no laughter this time. Nothing but the strange weight that had settled between us.

  My heart was racing. I was anxious. Cade’s silence made me anxious. He had never actually responded to what I’d said. He was a man that always said what he was thinking, regardless of how it affected the person he said it to, but he said nothing.

  In front of my apartment, he double parked the car and put his flashers on, as he always did whenever he took me home and wasn’t staying with me. He usually walked me to the door and didn’t leave until I was inside and the door was locked, but this time, he stopped on the sidewalk, a few feet behind me. After I got the door open, I turned around to thank him, but the words got stuck in my throat.

  The crease was still there between his eyes, but I saw something else in his gaze that I had never seen before. Uncertainty. Cade had always been confident, even in losing situations, but his confidence was clearly wavering.

  To be honest, I felt a little gratified, because it made me realize that I’d gotten through to him. At the same time, it made me sad to see him like that. I didn’t want to do that to him.

  I closed the small distance between us, put my arms around his neck and kissed him lightly on the mouth.

  “I love you, Cade,” I whispered and kissed him once more.

  I turned around and ran inside. I closed and locked the door without looking at him again.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  When I stumbled outside only two and a half hours later for work, I almost fell back inside on my ass. Cade stood on the sidewalk, almost in the same spot he had stood not long before. My slow, sleepy brain wondered if he had stood there the entire time.

  “You scared me,” I said as I pulled the door closed behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  He held up an enormous plastic travel mug.

  “Your favorite coffee with a double shot of espresso,” he said with a small smile. The crease between his eyes was gone, which was a relief.

  With a small smile of my own, I reached for the mug with both hands. Our fingers touched, lingered for a moment, and then I held the mug as his hands dropped to his sides.

  “I want to drive you to work. You’re too tired to drive.”

  I was too tired to drive, and driving while fatigued was the same as drunk driving. I didn’t want to risk hurting myself or anyone else on the road.

  “Thank you,” I said, grateful.

  “You’re welcome, babe.”

  He leaned in and kissed me softly on the lips, just like I had done to him when we’d last parted ways.

  “You know, one day you’re going to get a ticket,” I said as he opened the passenger’s side door for me. He was double parked again.

  “Nah.” There was a ghost of his usual cocky grin. “I’m a lucky bastard.”

  I slid into the seat. “You’re just figuring that out?”

  He stood there for a moment, gazing at me with a distant look in his eyes. “I should have figured it out a long time ago,” he responded softly.

  Before I could say anything to that—not that I really knew what to say—he
closed the door.

  “Do you think you’re going to work your whole shift today?” he asked after we began to move down the street.

  “I don’t know.” I sipped on the coffee and closed my eyes in caffeinated bliss, but not for too long because my caffeinated bliss had the high potential of turning into an unconscious bliss.

  “If you think you’re going to skip out early, give me a half-hour heads up and I’ll come get you.”

  I looked over at him. “You don’t have to come get me. I can get someone to drop me off at the train. Besides, you’ll probably be asleep yourself.”

  “No,” he said firmly as his hands tightened on the steering wheel. “You sacrificed your own sleep to help me out. It’s my turn to make a sacrifice.”

  I wasn’t so sure that we were still talking about sleep. His words seemed to carry a deeper meaning.

  “Uh,” I said stupidly. “Okay.”

  We were silent for a few minutes, but then he asked me how the baby shower went. It wasn’t strange that he asked, but it felt different between us. He was definitely different somehow, but so was I, but I knew why I was different. Connor. Talking about McKenzie’s shower brought the other man to the forefront of my mind. I hadn’t exactly forgotten him, but there had been other things going on that overshadowed him.

  It was hard to talk about my long weekend in Virginia without mentioning Connor. I only said his name once, followed by a brief explanation of who he was, but I otherwise tiptoed around his name as if it were a landmine.

  Somehow, I made it through my day. Cade was waiting for me outside when I came out a couple minutes after noon.

  “Go be a chef, they said. It’ll be fun, they said.” I blew air from my mouth, making a motorboat sound with my lips.

  Caden laughed. “Who are they?”

  I smiled sleepily. “Me.”

  We laughed together. It made my heart feel a little warm and gooey. I liked this version of us, though we weren’t really an us anymore.

  “The long hours can be a real bitch,” Cade said in agreement. “But it’s worth it, right? We love what we do.”