The Rules (23 page)

Never. Not once in five months had I considered any part of Olivia’s tirade to be lies. Hell, the woman had the paperwork to back up her story. I felt a chill as I calmly uttered the damning parts. “She showed me your
marriage
certificate and
Libby’s
birth certificate.” I held on to the counter with both hands.

Cade’s chest rose and fell. His eyes grew huge. His nostrils flared. He clearly wanted to murder Olivia. When he finally moved, it was to spin around in a circle as though looking for something to take his anger out on. I owned nothing worth throwing. I didn’t move a muscle. Had I been wrong?

Cade’s shoulders slumped finally, and he headed back to the couch. He picked up his glass and downed the rest of the wine in one gulp. He stomped over to where I stood and grabbed the bottle next. After filling both our glasses, he took another long drink.

I took a few steps away.

He ignored me and headed back for the couch where he slumped back and put his head in his hands.

I picked up my wineglass and padded his way. I wasn’t scared for my own safety. My furniture maybe, but nothing I had was worth worrying about. The most expensive item in the room had just been swallowed. I didn’t think the empty bottle alone was worth much.

Several long, uncomfortable minutes went by.

I waited.

Finally Cade lifted his head and looked at me. For the first time ever, I saw pain in his eyes.

I had been hurting for months. It hadn’t occurred to me he’d been hurting also. Perhaps worse.

He leaned back and started talking. “I met Olivia in college. She was a friend of Christine.”

“Who’s Christine?” I interrupted.

“Riley’s ex-fiancée.”

“Oh right.” I wondered what had happened between those two.

“Olivia was made of sugar for the first few years. She came from more money than me. I was hesitant at first. But she was persistent. I was afraid, for good reason, I wouldn’t be able to live up to her expectations. She had expensive tastes.

“She worked hard to get me. I thought she loved me. I never realized the only thing she loved was money, and she’d seen in me the potential to earn more of it. She’d judged me right in that area at least. She’d even submitted for me. When I started dabbling in BDSM and later knew it was a path I wanted to follow, she readily agreed.”

I didn’t move a muscle.

“After two years, she wore me down. By then I was working my way up the corporate ladder. I was twenty-four. I had a master’s degree. I had a fantastic job. And I had big ideas. I was also an idiot. I never saw her for what she truly was—a greedy, conniving bitch.”

I flinched. Cade ignored me or didn’t notice. He was in his world now. He needed to tell this story in his way, and I needed to hear it.

“I married her. And then she went psycho on me. I tried. I really tried. I gave her four years of dating and four years of marriage before I couldn’t take it another minute. I filed for divorce. I thought she would go ballistic when I told her, but she surprised me. She moved out without putting up a fight. I knew she was cheating on me. She probably didn’t want to risk that tidbit coming up in mediation.

“Of course she cleaned house in court. Not surprising. It was fast. Really fast. Too fast.”

“She was pregnant,” I commented.

Cade turned to me. “Baby, I swear to you, if that woman was pregnant, I had no knowledge of it. And there’s no way the kid’s mine.”

“Seriously?”

“I’m telling the truth.”

I swallowed. “How do you know for sure?”

He shrugged. “We hadn’t had sex in months when I kicked her to the curb, and the divorce was fast, but not that fast. The last time I saw Olivia, it had been months since I’d slept with her. Can’t say I looked at her closely, but she never said she was pregnant. Why the hell wouldn’t she have told me? She could have milked me for way more money at the time, or even used the baby as leverage to try and blackmail me into staying with her. The father must be whoever the fuck she was sleeping with when I divorced her ass.”

I nodded.

Cade gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “Fuck.” He set his head in his hands again.

“I’m sorry.”

He turned toward me again. His face was hard. “So you just left? Some bitch came to the door claiming to be my wife, and you fucking left?”

“Well, yeah. She had a certificate.”

“Of course she had a certificate. They don’t fucking disintegrate into thin air when someone gets divorced.”

He had a point there.

“She had the kid too.”

“With her? She brought a kid to the house?”

I nodded. “She looked just like Olivia. And that woman isn’t a fit mother. She was a bitch. I felt horrible for that child. And it made me even angrier with you for abandoning your own daughter.”

“Jesus.”

“I’m so sorry,” I repeated. “I should have had more faith in you.”

“You ripped off my necklace and left it lying on the front steps.”

“No. In my defense, Olivia did that.”

“That skank touched you?”

“Yes.”

Cade picked up his glass from the floor again and drank the last of the wine. “You have more of this?” He lifted the glass into the air.

I nodded.

He stood, mumbling to himself on the way to the kitchen. “My woman has furniture from the dime store and hundred-dollar bottles of wine in her fridge.”

I smiled. I especially liked the way he said “my woman.”

Was there a chance in hell we could reconcile?

I wrapped my mind around the idea.

Cade returned with the second bottle open, topped off my glass, and sat. I thought perhaps he had my idea from earlier and had decided to just drink from the bottle.

He didn’t appear to notice he held it.

“Did she come inside?”

“Yes.”

He was piecing together what had happened. His free hand went to his disheveled hair, and he made it sexier. “And the kid?”

“Olivia commanded her to stand near the front door while she pranced to the kitchen like she owned the place.”

“That woman touched my stuff?”

“Well, not really. She just set her purse down on the counter and showed me the paperwork.”

“Wait. She happened to be carrying an old marriage certificate and a birth certificate in her purse?”

I nodded. That probably was a bit weird.

“And the birth certificate listed me as the father?”

I nodded again.

Cade leaned back and pulled his cell from his pocket. He handed me the bottle of wine while he pressed buttons. Almost immediately he started speaking. “Hey�� Yeah, I’m with her now… Yes, she let me in… Okay, right, well that’s true. I didn’t give her much of a choice… So, get this, Olivia paid her a visit… No, I’m not fucking kidding. If I were, I’d be remarried right now, and the woman of my dreams wouldn’t be sitting next to me on a ratty couch nibbling her bottom lip in uncertainty…”

I almost fell off the couch. My belly did a flip flop. He’d be married right now? I was the woman of his dreams? I couldn’t move or breathe. My heart pounded.

Cade continued. “Could you? Have Martin handle it, yeah? I don’t care what it costs. Find that bitch. I want to know what the fuck she’s up to… And, Riley… She has a kid. She told Amelia it was mine.” Now his gaze went to me. He took my hand and squeezed it while he finished and hung up.

“That was Riley?”

“Yes.”

“You two are in business together?”

“Only from the standpoint that I’m a silent partner of his business. I don’t interfere otherwise.”

“But both companies are developing the same sort of software for cell phone apps?”

He smiled. “Yep.”

I finally caught on. “Is that legal?”

He laughed. “Of course it is.”

“But you’re creating a competition within the industry.”

“Yep.”

I rolled my eyes. “No wonder you make the big bucks.”

He reached tentatively for a lock of my hair and twirled it around his fingers.

“Did you mean it?” My voice was rough.

“Mean what?”

“What you said to Riley.”

His mouth lifted on the corners the slightest amount. “Every word.”

My hands started shaking. “I really fucked this up.”

He wrapped a hand behind my head and pulled me close to his face. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I judged you very fast.”

“You’d known me ten days.”

“True.”

He pulled me closer.

“Can we survive this?” I asked.

“Can we not?”

I took a deep breath and lowered my gaze to his lips. God, I’d missed his lips.

Cade released me and reached down for his wineglass on the floor. He poured another glass from the bottle still in his hand. He held the bottle up for inspection. “When did you become such a wine snob?”

I grinned. “About six months ago.”

“I approve. This is one of my favorites.” He swirled it around and took another sip. He stood then and wandered around my apartment. There wasn’t much to see. But I figured he was antsy. I only had the one bedroom, a bathroom, and the room we stood in. Cade stepped to the entrance to my bedroom and chuckled. “Still a mess, I see.”

“Not gonna change,” I responded.

He turned to me and leaned on the doorframe. “Is that so?”

“Let’s be clear.” I took another drink of wine. “I’m not the same woman you met six months ago.”

“Really?” He didn’t seem to believe me.

“Really.” I stood also, strolling in his direction.

“How do you figure?”

“I’m not going to clean my mess no matter what you say.” I shrugged. “Tried it for a while. Didn’t work. It’s not my style. Can’t find anything when it’s all tucked away somewhere.”

“Bet I could change your mind.” His smirk wreaked of cockiness.

“And I’m telling you, you can’t.” I stood firm, a few feet separating us, meeting his gaze.

“I can still picture your pink ass under my palm. You just need a bit of discipline.” He took another drink and then let the glass dangle slightly tipped at his side while he held it by the stem.

“If you recall correctly, that only worked once. Then I was immune to that type of corrective action.”

“If
you
recall correctly, my next step was time out.”

“Yeah, well, I never agreed to that idea. And, though I might have given it a shot at the time, not anymore. I’m a grown woman.”

“Grown women sometimes need correction too.”

“Grown men sometimes need a good slap in the face.” I grinned.

“Dare you.”

My eyes went wide. “I was kidding.”

“I wasn’t.”

I inhaled deeply. My body turned to mush. I wanted him to touch me so badly I could almost taste him already. But I forced myself to stay rooted to my spot. Sleeping with him was a very bad idea. Everything was too fresh. My nerves were frayed. His had to be also. We both needed time to think about what had happened.

Cade stepped back a few paces into my bedroom. “It’s role play, baby. All we can do is experiment with what gets you off. What works, we keep. What doesn’t, we toss.” He shrugged and turned to face my room. “Love what you’ve done with the place,” he teased.

“I’ve been a bit stretched for funds. I was actually looking forward to shopping this weekend with my newfound wealth. Now, I see I’m once again without a job.”

He jerked his gaze to meet mine. “Why?”

I rolled my eyes and leaned against the doorframe he’d vacated. “I’m not working for you, Cade. End of discussion.”

“You don’t work for me. I have no say in the happenings of The Rockwood Group. Silent partner, remember?”

“Oh, like there’s such a distinction.”

“There is. And if you quit this job, I’ll spank your ass until it hurts too bad for you to come.” He narrowed his gaze. “You do
not
want to try me on this issue.”

I feared he wasn’t kidding. Still… “Half the building heard us arguing this afternoon, and the other half must have gotten the details through the rumor mill. I can’t go back there.”

“Yes you can, baby. And you will. With your chin held high.”

I shook my head. “No way.”

“So, the going gets tough, and you’re just going to quit? Again?”

That stung. I cringed. “Yep.”

He stepped toward me. Too close. “Not gonna happen, baby.”

“You know you don’t own me, right? I can and will make my own choices, Cade.”

“What I know is that your face still flushes a gorgeous shade of pink when I make you nervous. You still fidget around me because you can’t hold still. And sometimes your choices suck, so you need someone to guide you a bit.”

“Guide me?”

“Yes.” He grinned.

“Or did you mean, tell me what to do?”

He shrugged. “Semantics.”

“Hardly.” I crossed my arms.

“Baby, you worked hard for that position at Rockwood. I want you to have it. I’ll smooth things over with the staff.”

“How? By telling them all you’re fucking me and they better do as you say or else?”

“Am I?”

“Are you what?”

“Fucking you.”

I shut my mouth. Not yet. But he would be. If my damp panties were any indication, it wouldn’t be long before I fell under his spell again. I needed to get him out of my apartment before I turned into mush without the opportunity to consider this turn of events. “You should leave.”

“I should. This is true.” Cade sank his ass on my mattress. “So, you splurge on wine and mattresses.”

“And televisions.”

“What?”

“I also bought a nice TV. Needed something to occupy my mind so I didn’t think about Olivia and that poor little girl all the time.”

Cade fell back onto the mattress. “I’m trying to imagine what that crazy bitch was up to, how she knew you were there, and why she showed up to run you off and then never came back.”

“That is a conundrum. Could it be because she’s a crazy bitch?”

“Nope. That was too calculated. It makes no sense at all. If she wanted something, why didn’t she come to me? Why just you? What did she gain?”

“Oh I don’t know. The satisfaction of knowing she broke us up?”

“Too simple.”

“Well, could she get more money out of you?”

“She got plenty of money out of me. And besides, don’t know why she would need it.”