The Bridal Chase

And she was left with nothing.

CHAPTER TWO

CADE glanced back towards the bar, a dull ache sliding into his chest.

Given different circumstances, like a few months earlier, and it would have taken a hurricane to tear him away from a unique and tantalising woman like her. Now all it took was Heather.

He’d had no other choice. Heather had arrived right on time. He’d wanted to say goodbye to the tall, curvaceous beauty with the pick-up line and amazing smile, but it was wise not to have. Heather would not have understood.

Heather may be beautiful, successful and classy, but tolerant she was not. Meeting her at a gallery opening just after deciding it was time to settle down and get married had seemed like fate. She’d seemed perfect.

He steered Heather towards the car park, focusing on the footpath and his fiancée beside him and not the woman he’d just left.

He should have said something to her. It didn’t have to be a lot. Just to let her know that he appreciated her wit, her attention and her smile. The thought of putting her off being so confident and charming…

The guilt sat heavy in his gut.

He swung to Heather. ‘So how was your day?’ he blurted, opening the door on his black Lexus.

‘Oh, just the usual, honey. What about yours?’ she lilted, shooting him one of her dazzling smiles.

‘Fine.’

She swung and faced him, stabbing him with a piercing gaze, her eyes glittering dangerously. ‘Did I see you talking to a pretty woman back there?’

The question was loaded, like a double-barrelled shotgun aimed at his chest. He knew she’d already come to her own conclusion, her tone said it all.

He shrugged as innocently as he could manage.

Damage control was all he could offer. ‘The one that wanted to know the time?’ he offered diplomatically, striding around the car.

The woman had wanted to pick him up but Heather didn’t have to know that. It would just upset her, and there was no way in the world he wanted to do that.

Besides, nothing had happened.

‘So where are we going tonight?’ she said more cheerily as though she’d already dropped the matter.

He was thankful. He didn’t want to go there… He wasn’t sure he should be feeling like this, about anyone except Heather.

He just didn’t seem as close to his fiancée as he first had been. There was no doubt that she had heaps to do, what with her busy career, her obligations to family and friends and planning their wedding.

The wedding seemed to take all the spare time she had, despite having a wedding planner and both his and her mothers’ help. But then the wedding was only two weeks away now.

He took a deep breath. It would all be fine after the wedding. Like it used to be. Besides, everyone loved her. He loved her. There wasn’t anything more to it.

Cade just wished their approaching nuptials didn’t occupy all her time. He’d wanted to spend a lot of time with her, get to know her even more.

He sighed. He guessed they had the rest of their lives for that.

‘Does dinner at The Palace sound okay to you?’ he asked, slipping behind the wheel.

Heather liked to be wined and dined at the finest of places and surprised with treats and gifts, and he loved seeing her happy. Which reminded him. He reached into the back seat and pulled out a small wrapped package. ‘For you.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ she lilted, fluttering her eyelashes at him as he started the car. ‘You know I love surprises, darling.’

He nodded, starting the car, quelling the image of being with that tall, mysterious beauty. He had everything and there was no way he’d risk that for anything.

He glanced at the woman who would soon be his wife, the tension easing from his shoulders. She was impeccably dressed, as she always was. Groomed and preened to perfection; even after a day’s work at the fashion house that she managed she looked like a million dollars. Not the same sort of perfection as the stranger in the bar…hers was more a natural beauty, something she had without effort.

He could almost smell the stranger’s sweet vanilla scent on the edge of his memory.

He caught himself. It didn’t matter. Heather loved her top-shelf perfume, her designer wardrobe, his family and him…that was all that mattered.

They were going to have the perfect life together. She was everything he’d always wanted.

Roxanne dropped her head on to the desk, lifting and dropping it again for good measure. Why?

What was wrong with her?

Why had she even tried to pick the guy up with only minutes before his fiancée turned up? As if he was going to do anything then anyway…he wouldn’t have even been considering her. There would be no way even the most daring man would risk it.

She couldn’t stop thinking about it.

She rubbed the sore spot on her forehead. Maybe his impending date wouldn’t have mattered to him if her dress had been shorter, sexier, red?

She sighed, dropping her head again on to the desk and staying there, covering her face. She was hopeless.

What sort of professional was she? She hadn’t even looked at her watch to check out how much time she had…hadn’t even thought about it after he had walked in that door, towering above the mortals, looking like a god in that tailored suit.

She would have thought it would have been easier, especially after all those detective novels she’d read and the shows she’d watched on TV.

She stared around the small office in the two-storey walk-up that her sister, Nadine, had found to run her business. It wasn’t exactly typical of an investigator’s office.

It was small, the size of a small apartment, with enough room for two desks, a couple of wastepaper baskets and three walls of filing cabinets that Nadine’s daughter, Rory, had decorated with crayon.

A small pile of toys sat in the corner on a miniature desk where Rory came to help out when pre-school was out and the holidays were on.

One window looked out on the neighbouring office block’s western wall and had floral curtains and the other faced the street with pink blinds that wouldn’t go down.

The outer office was painted a soft peach with the paint that her sister had left over from painting her daughter’s bedroom, with a sofa that had seen better days and a pile of magazines from the Dark Ages.

Despite appearances, Nadine said the business was going quite well…if you didn’t count today’s disaster or the fact that Roxanne had been left to hold the fort—and she had no experience in this type of fort at all.

What she was going to do now with the Cade case she had no idea. Half of her wanted to shove the thing into the filing cabinet and forget about it, the other half hankered to go and see the guy again, to try again.

Could she?

No. It would be too obvious and far too awkward for her, and the fact that her track record with men was a disaster had to be taken into account.