Scandals from the Third Bride. Sara Orwig

to,” he answered quietly. “I have blueprints. At least look at what I want.”

      “No!” she cried. “There’s no point in it. None! I’m not working for you and opening up old wounds or causing myself anguish. You’ve hurt me enough, dammit!”

      “‘Dammit’ is right,” he charged in a low voice. “This is work, not our private lives. It’s just that everyone—I mean all the galleries and the ad people and the artists—says that you’re the best. Start being the professional that I know you are,” he ordered. “We have the rest of the evening and nothing to do except eat or shout at each other about past hurts or discuss the paintings I intend to have in my new house. Come look at my blueprints.” He tugged lightly on her arm. “You’re the expert. Come look.”

      Reluctantly, she nodded and got another warm smile. As they crossed the lobby, he stopped at the desk to pick up a large roll of papers.

      In silence they took the elevator to a suite on the top floor of the hotel. Cade unlocked the door and held it open for her.

      She entered a large living area with beige and white decor. An adjoining dining area held a table with chairs for eight. Through open doors she could see two bedrooms and beyond sliding glass doors was a balcony with an iron table and chairs.

      Cade shed his coat, and she remembered times he had taken off his coat before turning to make love to her. Her mouth went dry as he slipped out of the coat and draped it over a chair. When she had known him before he had been fit, muscled and strong. She guessed that hadn’t changed.

      As she watched, Cade cleared a crystal vase of fresh flowers off the dining table and she joined him while he opened the blueprints. No way did she want to work for him or even have someone else in her firm hired by him. She was conscious he stood only a couple of feet away. She looked at his well-shaped hands as he smoothed out the stiff paper. He had become far more appealing, but she supposed she saw some of the same things in him now that she had when they had been younger and madly in love.

      In another reminder of how successful he had become, she looked down at the prints that held a drawing of a Greek Revival mansion that had two immense wings and was three stories tall. Surprised, she glanced into his dark eyes that as so often before, caught and held her, making her forget what she had intended to say. His dark eyebrows arched questioningly.

      “What is it, Katherine?” he asked.

      She didn’t want to admit that she had lost her train of thought. “You left here without funds. You’ve done well, Cade.”

      “I’ve been lucky,” he said in an offhand manner as if he hadn’t done anything more than the next person. “Here’s my house. It’s under construction and I’m not living there now. I want murals in six of the rooms.”

      “Cade, this is such a waste of time,” she said in exasperation. She couldn’t imagine working for him because she was having difficulty getting through an evening with him.

      “Give me a price,” he urged, facing her. His calmness and persistence were wearing her patience thin.

      “No, I won’t. Don’t you realize that I absolutely have hated you for walking out on our wedding? Do you have any idea how that hurt?” she asked, shaking as she let go some of her restraint. His patient silence irritated her even further.

      “You humiliated me and broke my heart!” she cried out. “I was devastated. I didn’t imagine anything could hurt like I did!” she exclaimed. The words came tumbling out and now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. “You didn’t give me one reason why, or one scrap of a warning. You were gone. Running out on me in the worst, cruelest possible way.”

      He flinched and paled beneath his tan, but he had an inscrutable expression that hid his feelings.

      Suddenly she let go, all the pent-up fury boiling to the surface, and she reached out to slap him.

      Like lightning he caught her wrist and held her firmly, but not tightly enough to hurt her. “You’re not going to strike me when you don’t know why or what occurred back then,” he said.

      They were both breathing hard, tension drawn tightly between them while he held her wrist. Rage consumed her. Fire flashed in his dark eyes and the clash between them was tangible. While they stared at each other, he clamped his jaw tightly shut as if holding back harsh words, which was exactly what she was trying to do. The moment drew out and then, as they stared at each other, her anger changed.

      While she gazed into depths of brown, he looked at her mouth. When he did, her lips tingled. From the very first his kisses always melted her and erased any resistance to him.

      Desire flamed, building heat inside her. They both were breathing hard. For an instant, everything else fell away except hunger for his kiss. She almost leaned toward him, started to and then realized what she was doing. She yanked her head back and shook her shoulders.

      “Damn you, Cade. And you’re still not going to explain why you walked out.”

      “I didn’t come back to Texas to dredge up old hurts and fling accusations. That’s over,” he said, releasing her wrist. “I’m not going there because we could hurt each other more than ever. There’s no point in stirring up resentment over the past. Not now. You were hurt at the time and for that I’m sorry,” he said with a dismissal that added to her fury. Yet even as his voice remained calm, she could feel the tension stretching and fiery sparks flying between them, invisible, yet tangible.

      “Sorry is so completely inadequate!” she cried, jerking her arm free and spinning away from him to walk to the window again. Tears threatened, and she fought to get a grip because she didn’t intend to shed one tear over him. Not after all this time and all the control she had achieved. Where was all that restraint she had maintained through the years?

      She wrapped her arms around her middle and hugged herself. “I don’t want to have anything to do with you, Cade,” she said.

      “You can look at my house plans for a minute. There’s no commitment in looking. Come back over here, Katherine.”

      She turned to glare at him and he stood, impassively waiting until it seemed ridiculous and childish to refuse to look at his blueprints. She crossed the room to stand a few feet away from him.

      As she gazed at the drawing of the house, she was again amazed by his success, which was greater than the news articles or the magazines had indicated.

      “This is the dinning room and I want a mural on this wall,” he said, pointing with his index finger. “One of the other walls will have mullioned windows that will prevent a clear view of the outside, so I want a landscape.”

      She examined a drawing of a room with a cathedral ceiling and an enormous stone fireplace that had a medieval flair, and she could imagine a scene of a European countryside on one wall. He wanted six murals. Her usual price popped into mind and she suspected that she could easily get more from Cade. She tried to stifle any thoughts about the income and what she could do with it for her company. What a windfall the job would be if it had been anyone else who wanted to hire her!

      Cade shifted papers and she watched his well-shaped hands as he carefully smoothed a print. She could remember those hands on her body, moving over her seductively, magic hands that had set her aflame. Everything he did provoked memories that were too vivid. Attempting to focus totally on his plans, she leaned over the table to peer at the drawings. Cade moved closer beside her and turned over a page to look at the next drawing. “Here’s the kitchen and dining area and I want a painting in here.”

      “Why are you showing me these pictures? The answer is no,” she repeated, wondering if he ever heard “no” any longer.

      “You’re letting your emotions rule your judgment because you’re turning down good business. My house will get attention and it would be advertising for you,” he said, turning to study her. He stood only a couple of feet from her and she drew a deep breath. Why couldn’t she handle being near him? When she was so angry with him, she hated to discover that