Corner-Office Courtship. Victoria Pade

like a sister to Nati. They’d always told each other everything, so Holly knew that Nati was suffering doubts about having anything to do with a Camden. Holly also knew that Nati had been up half the night after her Thursday meeting with him. But last night? Holly didn’t know about last night yet.

      “I had trouble falling asleep again and then when I did the dreams I had were… Wow!” she confessed to her friend.

      Holly laughed. “Cade Camden is the stuff ‘wow’ dreams are made of,” she concurred.

      Holly had come in just as Cade had left on Thursday so she’d seen him.

      “Have you decided yet if you’re going to tell your grandfather you’re working for a Camden?” Holly asked as they ate. Nati’s friend had gone to her side of the door that connected their shops.

      “No, I still don’t know if I should tell him or not,” Nati said.

      “He gets home tonight?”

      Nati’s grandfather, Jonah Morrison, was on a brief vacation in Las Vegas with some of his lodge buddies.

      “Late tonight. I have until tomorrow to think about it, I guess,” Nati answered.

      “I think you should tell him. I know you—you’ll be sorry if you don’t. You’ll hate lying—even by omission—and you’ll worry that he might find out. And I don’t think he’ll care, anyway. What went on was a lifetime ago, and your grandfather will be glad you have the work. He’ll say good for you for taking some of the Camdens’ money.”

      Holly had grown up across the street from the Morrisons, so she knew Nati’s grandfather well.

      “Yeah, I could see him saying that,” Nati agreed.

      “Because he’s the sweetest guy in the world. He’d give you the shirt off his back. He’s so tenderhearted that he tears up at the sight of puppies and kittens, and he’ll just be happy that you have money coming in no matter who it’s from.”

      “Right—it was more like my great-grandparents to rant and rave about the Camdens, not my grandfather.”

      “Although he might feel guilty because you need the work—” Holly cut herself off. “No, forget that. It’ll be fine. You need the money, and your grandfather won’t care who you’re working for. Just do the job, take the check, then wash your hands of the Camdens.”

      “Yeah,” Nati agreed, unsure if she was doing the right thing.

      Or if washing Cade Camden out of her thoughts when this was all over with would be as easy as Holly made it sound.

      “It’s just me…”

      Nati heard Cade’s voice coming from the entrance as he let himself in. It sent a tiny tingle up her spine.

      It was after five o’clock on Saturday and she’d been expecting that he might show up any time. And maybe hoping—just a little—that he would. She couldn’t help it.

      She was cleaning up the remnants of the mess made from tearing off wallpaper, cleaning the wall and then priming it, when Cade came into the dining room.

      Apparently working on Saturday didn’t require him to dress up because he was wearing a pale yellow sport shirt tucked into a pair of jeans. A pair of jeans that he wore to perfection slung slightly low on his hips. Nati’s jaw dropped for a split second before she forced her eyes up to his face, which looked remarkably sexy with a five-o’clock shadow.

      “Hi,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

      “Hi. I’m so glad you’re still here.”

      She didn’t know why he should be glad but his words gave her a wave of satisfaction anyway.

      “Five minutes later and I wouldn’t have been,” she informed him as she stuffed the last sheet of wallpaper into the trash bag she’d brought with her. “The contract is there on the dining room table,” she added with a nod in that direction. “I was just going to leave it for you.”

      “Any chance you could stick around for a while? I can sign the contract and then there’s another job I’m hoping you might take. If you don’t have to be anywhere in a hurry maybe we could talk about it….”

      “No, I don’t have to be anywhere—in a hurry or otherwise,” she said, realizing only after the fact that it made her sound like a dud.

      But what difference did it make if he knew her social life was nearly nonexistent? In fact, it was better that he think she was a dud, she told herself. Maybe it would act to deter any interest in her.

      As she pulled the drawstring closed on the trash bag, she said, “I’ll take this to my car and give you a minute to read the contract, then come back.”

      “Okay,” Cade said with more enthusiasm than seemed warranted.

      Outside the sun had gone down and taken the warm autumn temperature with it, so after putting the trash bag into her trunk Nati opened her car door to retrieve the overblouse she’d brought with her.

      Slipping it on, she tried not to think about the fact that while she’d worn a perfectly work-appropriate beige crewneck T-shirt and jeans, the overblouse took the outfit beyond work clothes and made it a tad dressier. It was fine-gauge wool in deep cocoa brown, with long sleeves and an asymmetrical front opening that fastened at her hip with one large button.

      Yes, it added another layer and a bit more warmth, but just a bit. Its primary purpose was to spruce her up a little. Which was what had been in the back of her mind when she’d brought it with her.

      And when she took a brush from her glove compartment, ran it through her hair, and then applied some lip gloss, it was hard to deny her intentions—she wanted to look her best now that Cade Camden was home.

      But only because she wanted to be presentable when dealing with a client…

      She called herself a liar and went back inside.

      She hoped Cade wouldn’t notice that she’d done anything. But he glanced at her the minute she rejoined him in the dining room, giving her a quick once-over.

      He seemed to approve, though, because the faintest of appreciative smiles brushed across his lips before he handed her the signed contract.

      “That was quick,” she said with raised eyebrows. “You didn’t have any questions or problems with it?”

      “Nope, looks just right to me,” he said, almost as if he was commenting more on her appearance than on the contract.

      Then he switched his attention to the wall she’d spent the afternoon working on.

      “This is already an improvement,” he observed.

      “It’s only primed but just losing that gaudy wallpaper was a big step.”

      “Did you have any problems with it?”

      “Only in a few spots. Nothing big. And I got everything off without doing any damage, so I think we’re good to go from here.”

      “I told my grandmother about what you did with the frame on that mirror I saw in your shop and it reminded her that she has her grandmother’s hope chest.”

      “That would be your great-great-grandmother’s hope chest. How old is that?”

      “GiGi—that’s what we call my grandma—is seventy-five. If we stick with round numbers, let’s say GiGi’s mother would have been twenty years older than her, add another twenty years to get GiGi’s grandmother’s age, so the hope chest has to be…” He laughed. “Really old.”

      Nati laughed, too, at his failure to come up with a precise number.

      “I’d never seen it before,” he went on, “but GiGi made me root around in the attic until I found it this morning. It’s kind of like a wooden steamer trunk. The overall finish has survived