Corner-Office Courtship

But in the end she didn’t like what that approach would say about her own integrity. Having a clear conscience was more important than making some sort of petty point with this stranger who was generations away from the man who wronged her great-grandfather decades ago. A stranger who might not even know what had gone on.

She could merely refuse to work for him, she told herself, and send him on his way.

But her shop had only been open a few months and she wasn’t in any position to turn away work. She needed any money she could make. And Camden or not, he was offering her a job.

“I’d have to look at the wall,” she said without enthusiasm. “I need to see what kind of shape it’s in before I know what will need to be done and how much it might cost. Plus we’d have to talk about your preferences—different textures and finishes take different amounts of time, so labor charges can add up.”

“Sure,” he said, seeming undaunted by the potential expense. The Camdens were rich enough to buy and sell her a billion times over.

“Is there any chance you could stop by tomorrow?” he asked. “Maybe late in the day, after you close up here and I get home from work?”

“I can come anytime.” Nati nodded toward the double pocket doors to her right, just behind her counter. They were open, exposing the shop next door. “I’m friends with the owner of the Pet Boutique. Whenever one of us needs to be away we open those doors to connect the two stores and take care of both shops at once—I’m doing that right now while Holly goes to the bank.” Too much information.

“And you’re free tomorrow?”

Nati didn’t have to check anything to know that she was. “Just tell me what time’s good for you.”

“Six-thirty? I’m in Cherry Creek, just past the Denver Country Club, off University, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” she said. “But aren’t there people in your neck of the woods—”

“Like I said, you came highly recommended and I want it done right.”

“Okay,” she said, wondering why she was feeling let down that they’d gone from the easy banter about the scarecrow to this all-business approach.

But all business—only business—was how it should have been from the start. And now that she knew who he was it was certainly how it would be from here on.

He gave her his address and directions to his house. Then he said, “Tomorrow night, six-thirty. I appreciate your coming that late, on a Friday night. I’ve been trying to get in here to meet you all week but I’ve had too many fires to put out at work and this was my first chance. It shouldn’t waste too much of your night to just take a look, though.”

If only he knew that she spent most Friday nights—and every other night of the week—painting inventory to sell in her store.

But she wasn’t going to tell him that. “It’s fine. No problem,” she assured.

He should have left then. But he stayed staring at her for another moment before he said, “When my grandmother’s friend told her about you she gave her your card. The name rang a bell. My grandmother said she knew some Morrisons a long time ago. Jonah Morrison in particular. When she lived in—”

“Northbridge. In Montana. Jonah Morrison is my grandfather,” Nati said pointedly.

“Small world…”

So was this a coincidence?

Somehow that seemed farfetched to Nati.

“Well, then,” Cade Camden said with a sigh, “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

Why did it seem as if he was looking for an excuse to stick around?

But Nati wasn’t going to give him any reason to. Even if there were an infinitesimal part of her that wanted to.

Instead she said, “Six-thirty. I’ll be there.”

“I’m looking forward to it….” he said almost more to himself than to her.

Then he walked out into the bright October sunshine of a Colorado day while Nati watched him go.

And as she did, she recognized some very conflicting emotions roiling around inside of her—among them what seemed like it might be an eagerness to see Cade Camden again.

But she mentally stomped the feeling out like a cinder from a campfire.

At least she thought she did.

Until a moment later when there it was again…

Chapter Two

“Here’s the material for the next… And there you are again—this is the third time I’ve come into your office today and found you staring into space with that weird little smile on your face.”

Cade glanced in the direction of his open office door, where January was standing in the threshold.

His little sister was right: every time she came into his office today, she’d caught him staring into space. He’d basically wasted this entire day. He seemed to have Nati Morrison on the brain.

As for his smile?

He hadn’t even been aware of that….

“What are you daydreaming about?” Jani demanded.

“Ah, it’s just… You know… Nothing. It’s been a long week, it’s Friday, I guess my brain is starting the weekend a little early and taking me along with it.”

“Do you have big plans?”

“No. In fact I don’t have any plans.” He glanced at his watch. “Oh, but I do need to get out of here. I have that Morrison woman coming by the house to look at the wall and my place is a mess.”

“That Morrison woman…” Jani repeated, coming in and closing the door behind her.

All week long the Camden grandchildren had been discussing what their grandmother had asked of them. But they were always careful to do it so that nothing could be overheard.

They all agreed that amends should be made. But no one was eager for GiGi to send them on their particular missions. So there was some sympathy in Jani’s expression when she turned back to Cade as he began to clear his desk to leave.

“So you finally met her?” Jani asked, her voice somewhat hushed, even though there was no need to whisper. She’d crossed the office to stand facing Cade at his desk.

“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 any chances when it came to Nati Morrison. He would do what GiGi wanted him to do, but that was it. He wasn’t getting personally involved. He wasn’t putting himself at risk.

He’d made that mistake twice before.

No, he told himself as he drove home, as he pulled into his driveway then into his garage, Nati Morrison might be funny and spunky and kind to old women; she might have great hair, great skin, lush lips, beautiful eyes, even a dimple, but it wasn’t enough for him to let down his guard.

So get on with this, get it over with, then get out, he told himself.

And that was exactly what he intended to do.

He just wished that his grandmother would have sent him on a mission that didn’t include someone whom he’d now spent an entire night and day thinking about.

And apparently smiling like an idiot over when he did….

Nati was five minutes early on Friday evening when she arrived at the Cherry Creek address that Cade Camden had given her the day before.

About a mile east of the Denver Country Club, the house was in a neighborhood comprised of older, upscale homes. Cade Camden’s house was a stately redbrick, two-story Georgian with decorative black shutters on either side of the black door and all of the white-paned windows. While it was hardly modest, it wasn’t the mansion she’d thought it might be.

For the sake of privacy, the front yard was bordered by redbrick columns and wrought-iron fencing. Two larger columns bracketed a double-car driveway. Nati drove her aging sedan around the block while she tried to decide whether she should pull into the driveway or park in front of the house on the narrow city street.

Nearing the house for the second time, she decided it might be presumptuous to park in the driveway, so she pulled up to the curb and turned off her engine.

Why am I so nervous about this whole thing? she asked herself as she unbuckled her seat belt and gathered the notebook with samples of her work and the pamphlets and fliers about wall textures and colors.

She’d arrived at any number of houses in the last six months to bid on jobs.

But none of those other bids had involved a Camden, she reminded herself.

Cade Camden.

The man she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since she’d first looked up from behind her counter into those amazing blue eyes.

But if ever there was a guy for her to stop thinking about, it was him.

She’d spent a full year under legal siege from her now ex-husband and his family. Barely six months after the divorce, the very last thing she needed was to get involved with another spoiled rich boy and the family that came with him.

And if that weren’t enough—and it most definitely was—this particular rich boy was a Camden.

If dealing with the power bought by the Pirfoys’ money had been daunting, she couldn’t even fathom what kind of hell the Camdens could rain down on her.

And the Pirfoys hadn’t come with the reputation the Camdens did. Or with the track record the Camdens already had with the Morrisons.

Ruthless—that was what her grandfather had said about H. J. Camden. Whatever and whoever was in H. J. Camden’s way got run over, left as roadkill.

And how far from the tree could the apple have fallen? Nati asked herself.

Probably not far. It was unlikely that the Camden stores, the Camden empire, the Camden fortune had continued to thrive without H. J. Camden at the helm because his descendants were nice guys.

And the fact that Cade Camden had seemed like a nice guy yesterday?

Her ex-husband had seemed like a nice guy at the start, too.

She could still turn this job down, she reminded herself.

Maybe she should….

But her car was sixteen years old and making a bad noise. Plus, she had trouble getting it to start every morning. She had more bills due this month than she had money to pay them, her grandfather’s birthday was next month and with Christmas the month after that, there was no doubt that she needed the money this job would bring in. She just plain couldn’t afford to turn it down.

And this was just a job, after all. She would do what he hired her to do, get paid and go on her way. What went on in her head in the process didn’t matter. It was just a nuisance that she’d have to deal with until it wore itself out. Which she was certain it would do.

She was going to do this job, collect a nice fat check and get her car fixed and pay her bills. And in a way, the fact that Camden money would be paying those bills was a win for the Morrisons. Not that her great-grandparents would have considered it anywhere near restitution, but it was a teeny, tiny win nonetheless.

Nati pulled on the handle to open her car door but nothing happened.

The door needed to be fixed, too, and she suffered a moment of anger, frustration and longing for the luxury car she’d had to leave behind in the divorce.

“Don’t pour salt into the wounds,” she beseeched the old beige sedan that she’d used in college until she’d married Doug. She’d left it with her grandfather for the six years of her marriage and was now driving it again.

As if her plea had helped, when she tried the door a second time it opened and she got out.

“Thank you,” she said to the car when she closed the door, then she headed up the driveway to Cade Camden’s house.

There were two steps up to the small landing at the front door where twin marble planters bearing matching topiaries stood like sentries on either side. Nati rang the bell and instantly heard a muffled “Coming” hollered from inside.

A moment later, Cade Camden himself opened the door.

He was wearing suit pants and a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows and the collar button undone. There were some nearly transparent spots on the front of his shirt where water must have splashed him, and he was drying his hands on a dish towel.

“Right on time!” he crowed in greeting. “If you had been ten minutes earlier you would have caught me with dirty dishes in the sink.”

“Your maid didn’t do them?”

“My maid?” he parroted with a laugh. “I don’t have a maid.”

“Sorry,” she said. “I just figured—”

“They were my dishes from last night and this morning,” he explained. “My grandmother would have shot me if she knew that I hadn’t rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher when I’d finished eating, but you know how it is—sometimes you just feel lazy….”

“I won’t tell,” Nati promised, taking stock of his face again and realizing that no, she hadn’t been imagining him to be better looking than he actually was—something she was hoping she might have been doing. He was every bit as head-turningly handsome as she’d been remembering him, and he smelled wonderful, too. He appeared to be freshly shaven and the scent of citrus and clear mountain air was wafting out to her.

And weakening her knees a little…

He also had great hair, she realized in that instant. Thick and clean, he wore it cut short on the sides and back with the top just a bit longer but still neat. Not so neat that it looked as if he’d put much care into it, though. In fact, it was just tousled enough to keep him from appearing too businesslike, to give him a casual air. And somehow it made her want to run her fingers through it….

Nati tightened her grip around her notebook and pamphlets as if that was the only way she was going to be able to keep from doing it.

“Come in,” he invited then, moving to one side of the entry so she could step across the threshold.

The entry was large, with a steep set of stairs directly in front of the door, a hallway alongside the stairs that was a straight shot to a kitchen at the other end of it, a formal living room to the left and double doors to the right that were open to a library that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel—all dark wood, tufted leather seating and books and books and books.

Cade closed the front door. “The wall that needs work is in the dining room—be prepared,” he cautioned as he led Nati down the hallway beside the stairs.

Don’t look at his rear end…

Don’t look at his rear end…

Don’t look at his rear end…

Oh, but it was such a good one…

Because yes, despite her efforts to keep herself from doing it, she did look. And whether his impeccably tailored pants did it justice or his backside did the pants justice, Nati didn’t know. She only knew that Cade Camden had a very, very fine derriere….

“Nice house,” she said, forcing herself to glance at the big spotless kitchen that showed no signs of having been a mess earlier.

Cade tossed the dish towel on a kitchen counter. “I’ve been here almost a year but I can’t take credit for anything—the couple who owned the place before me had been remodeling it a room at a time. The dining room was last on the list and just as they were getting to it, they split up.” He took her through the kitchen, through an adorable butler’s pantry and into a formal dining room.

There was a long rectangular table with six chairs on each side and one at either head, a sideboard and a tall hutch—all in mahogany. The back wall immediately drew Nati’s attention. The gold-foil wallpaper printed with black safari animals riveted the eye.

“Oh, dear…” she said with an astonished laugh.

“Yeah, I know. Even if it wasn’t peeling off and ripped in spots, it would still be something, wouldn’t it?”

“Do you mind if I tear that piece off a little more so I can see what shape the wall is in behind it?” Nati asked, pointing to one section that was already coming away.

“Be my guest. It’s all gonna have to come down anyway.”

Nati set her things on the dining room table and got to work.

“The paper comes off pretty easily and the wall doesn’t look as if it’s in bad shape, so that’s all good. I’ll need a day to strip the paper and clean up the wall—whatever glue is left will have to be cleaned off so the surface will be uniform and smooth, and it’ll have to be primed. Then I can go to work on it.”

She glanced at Cade and found that he was staring at her, not the walls. “So it seems like something you can do?”

“It does,” she answered. “It will take a few days—this wall is big and there will have to be some overnight drying time between coats. But yes, I can do it.”

“Music to my ears,” he said as if he’d been worried that she couldn’t. “When can you start?”

“I’ll have to check with Holly to make sure she’ll watch my shop but I think I can probably sneak away tomorrow afternoon and get this paper down and the wall primed—that way it will have Sunday to dry and I can come back on Monday—does that work for you?”

“I have to go into the office tomorrow, but I can give you the code to the front door so you can come and go whenever you need to.”