Chapter 5
FIVE
CADE
The keys of her keyboard click ominously from where she sits at the island, bent over her laptop while I keep refreshing one of the better known tabloid sites looking for that photo.
Tobias refuses to take my call about it, and none of my other friends are being helpful.
Which leaves me endlessly scrolling through social media and refreshing sites I haven’t touched in over three years.
“I have pings set up for anything related to you—us,” Lydia says without looking up. “Stop stressing out.”
I stiffen, eyes narrowing on her. The light of her screen highlights her features in a way that makes her look younger, yet somehow sterner. “You don’t understand why I might be stressed.”
She sighs, almost like she’s done with my bullshit. And I guess she is, because she slams the lid of her laptop closed and crosses her arms. Good, I think. Let her run off. I don’t need her—and I don’t need whatever it is Tobias is trying to do for me. I don’t need her.
And yet, it feels like a lie just thinking about it.
“You’re right, I don’t,” she says softly, though that stern look doesn’t disappear from her face.
“And honestly, I don’t know if I should care.
I have a job to do, and that’s get you back in a suit and tie and on a plane to New York where you go back to being a big shot billionaire at some big shot company. ”
My stomach sinks as I drop my cell to the counter and lean against it, a breath falling from my lips. “That is the last thing I want,” I mutter with a shake of my head.
“Okay,” she replies. “Good. Now you’re being honest with me.”
Our eyes meet, and any softness that might have been there before is gone. “So?”
“I can help you stay just as you are, if that’s what you actually want. I know both options you have: take back your position or become a figure head with all responsibilities handed down to someone of your choosing. Now that I know you actually want option two, we have somewhere to start.”
I scoff. “If you really think I have a choice—”
“You do, Mr Abernathy, and I’m about to help you exercise that.”
I press my lips together, hating how she refers to me by my surname. The way she says it should mean she respects me, but instead it feels like another weight pressing down on my shoulders. “Call me Cade,” I say, heart pounding.
Lydia blinks once but doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Her stare is scrutinising, heavy, and it’s almost like she sees right through me.
But when she shakes her head, I release a breath. “Okay. Cade. If you want to stay the way you are, you need to have a plan.”
“And what are you suggesting?” I ask, a little too excited by how my name rolls off her tongue, the way she tests it like she can’t be sure. It makes me wonder how many other ways I can make her say it.
Knock it off, I think, mentally slapping myself for even thinking that. She’s my employee—well, Tobias’s employee. But she’s also a decade younger than me, and the last thing she needs is an asshole billionaire lusting after her. Especially after what I’ve done—what I could do.
“You need to fill your position,” she says, going back to her laptop. “We need to find you a COO. Someone who can step in for you.”
“The company is run by my aunt,” I reply.
“An aunt who wants you to take over.” Lydia doesn’t look up from the screen as she types something. “Which will make you CEO when she eventually steps down and hands it over to you. You still take over but just have your newly appointed COO oversee the company for you.”
“Doesn’t mean I won’t have to deal with shareholders and the board,” I mutter under my breath. That’s still more work than I want. It still might mean giving all of this up.
“And that’s exactly why I’m here.” She finally looks up, a pleased smile forming on her lips.
“What is your plan?” I deadpan, trying to ignore how she manages to have my heart pounding from the twinkle in her eyes, a devious glint playing within them.
“It’s the only plan we have,” she replies.
“Your board needs to see you as more than just an Abernathy nepo baby who can’t do the job.
They’ll respect you more if you show them you really want to do what’s best for the company—which is leave it in the hands of someone much more capable of doing the work you don’t want to do. ”
“Or it’ll make me look weak.” I plant my hands on the counter, leaning towards her.
“Or,” she says, hopping off the stool and rounding the island, “it makes you trustworthy. Out here, you’re an enigma.
A sad story.” I stiffen, but that doesn’t stop her from coming around to my side of the island, suddenly close—too close.
Her perfume tickles my nose, vanilla and something a little deeper. Too damn tempting to bode well for me.
“But if you show them you’re changing, then you’ll open yourself up to being relatable,” she concludes, staring up at me with those serious yet devious eyes.
“Most of them want the company to succeed. They have families to take care of, and they don’t want to consider what might happen if you aren’t cut out for the job.
Then they will fight your position. It’ll also show you’re ready to take responsibility seriously.
This isn’t weakness—it’s good business. It gives you an opportunity to still be in control but keep your focus elsewhere—outside of the company. ”
My aunt tried this once, years ago. Wanted me to settle down, find myself a nice wife, marry, and then take over for her.
She wanted to show her board that I had what it takes to be a leader.
That I was done being a party boy who slept around and made myself well known to the tabloids thanks to the lodge.
Then the fire hit, and she let it go.
But maybe she’s introduced Lydia as more than just a pawn in her game for something else. Maybe she wants more than just the Sterling name. My aunt has always been a tricky woman, but would she stoop so low as to wave this beautiful woman in front of me in the hopes I do exactly as she wants?
I know why they picked her. I understand it from a business perspective and PR one.
She’s perfect; daughter of the town, beautiful, sweet. She’s immune to getting attached to me because she has goals of her own.
Though the longer I stare at her, the more worried I become. Because she might not get attached. But after so long being afraid of leaving this cabin, of being alone, would I?
brEAKING NEWS: IS RECLUSIVE BILLIONAIRE HIDING FROM MORE THAN JUST RESPONSIBILITY?
Heir to Abernathy fortune, Cade Abernathy, caught in a compromising position with a much younger, unidentified woman. Captured—
I slam the tablet down and scrub a hand down my face, fingers trembling. The image of me holding Lydia, trying my best to hide her, is burned into my mind.
My hand twitches towards a bottle of whiskey I’ve hidden beside my sofa, precisely for the type of PR crisis this might cause. It’s taken a lot of strength not to down the bottle in one sitting. And with Lydia just rooms away, I don’t dare try.
“You look like you want to strangle something,” the woman in question says.
I glance at her and stop. Dark hair flows down her back in soft waves, half pulled up by a clip. She’s wearing a t-shirt too big for her and a pair of workout shorts that give me the perfect view of her legs. Thighs smooth and thick, pressed together in a way that leaves me hungry for more.
I clear my throat and trail my eyes up to her face. “What?”
Lydia presses her lips together and just shakes her head. “I have an idea.” She moves to the sofa and drops onto the leather, one leg curled beneath her, the other swinging back and forth as she watches me. “I know you aren’t going to like it, but I’m only doing my job.”
My stomach twists uncomfortably, but not from her words. It’s because of how close she is, how tempting her entire presence is to me.
“It’s after 7,” I reply, coughing, shifting so her legs aren’t in my direct line of sight. “We don’t need to do anything else today.”
From the corner of my eye, I catch her cocking her head and observing me quietly. “You really don’t want to hear my idea?” she asks quietly.
I grit my teeth. “I’d rather find a distraction from the fact that we’ve been snowed in.”
Lydia sighs and sets her phone down on the sofa between us. For a brief moment, I catch sight of her lockscreen—the ranch at sunrise with the Jade Mountain ridge in the distance. My heart sinks as I wonder what my aunt could possibly want with her family.
“The chances of me going home are slim, aren’t they?” she asks, elbow resting on the back of the sofa, allowing her to rest her chin on her hand.
There’s a softness in her gaze that takes my breath away. It’s not something I deserve to be witness to—or have directed at me. And yet I see no judgement in her stare, nothing to indicate that she feels any sort of negative way about me.
The screen of her phone lights up with a message. Without thinking, I grab it, more curious than I should be.
“Wait!” She tries to grab for the cell, landing half in my lap as I hold it away from her.
Somehow, this brings her almost face to face with me; her eyes, a striking grey, reminds me of the sky before a storm.
The deepening of the clouds before that first strike of lightning, just as the rain starts to fall.
Her hair tumbles into her face as she falls into my chest. One hand rests against my pounding heart, the other grips my wrist.
Plump lips part on a gasp as I wrap my arm around her.
The pull I feel towards her explodes within me, especially now that she’s in my arms again.
And when her cheeks flush a deep, unforgiving red again, I can’t help but enjoy the way it spreads all the way down her neck and beneath the collar of her shirt.
“Mr Abernathy,” she murmurs, but doesn’t pull away.
“Cade,” I correct, voice low. “I’m not Mr Abernathy.”
She draws in a sharp breath. “Okay, Cade.”
I can’t help but watch her lips move as she says my name. I can’t help but want to know what they taste like.
The man I was before would have stolen a kiss without a second thought.
He wouldn’t have cared; would have gone after her the moment he saw her.
Lydia might have been the opposite type for the old Cade Abernathy, but she’s everything I need now.
She’s real and alive, full of fire and warmth.
And after living in isolation for years, she makes me want to live.
The new Cade leans closer as a small breath falls from her lips, watching as her eyes darken.
“Pull away,” I tell her, voice strangled. “Tell me to fuck off.”
For a moment, she hesitates, eyes darting from my eyes to my lips. “Make me,” she whispers, gaze hardening with that challenge I’ve come to know too well.
With her words hanging in the air, I don’t stop myself.
She tastes exactly as I expect her to: sweet with a hidden depth, like a well-aged wine. Heat explodes within me, a fire lit by the little sound she makes in the back of her throat, stoked by the way she presses into me.
This isn’t just a challenge. Not when her lips part for more.
Not when I feel her melt into me.
And especially not when my heart begs for more.