Chapter 2: Finding Forever: Chapter 1

Fern Lambert pensively smoothed her damp palms down her modest ankle length gray skirt and then tugged at the buttoned-up collar of her plain, cream blouse. This outfit would not have been her first choice for what was to come. Nothing in her closet would ever have been her first choice… but she’d long ago learned to pick her battles. And fighting for her right to choose her own clothing was a battle she’d lost long ago.

But tonight was special, tonight she’d see him again.

Cade Hawthorne.

Fern hadn’t seen him since that night—at the party—when she’d lost herself in his arms. Yet she’d thought of him every day since. She was realistic enough to know that he probably wouldn’t have been thinking of her in the same way. She’d be surprised if he even recognized her tonight. As Granger so often liked to remind her, Fern wasn’t particularly memorable.

Cade’s obvious and unexpected desire for her had shocked her. Fern wasn’t used to men wanting her in that way, and he’d certainly seemed to crave her. The depth of his need had been flattering. While her own reciprocal lust had been revelatory.

She was nervous about seeing him again, afraid of his reaction to what she had to say. Not sure he’d care. But she needed him to care. Needed him to help her. Fern wasn’t sure what she’d do if he didn’t help her. The prospect of his rejection terrified her and created a dull spiral of nausea-inducing panic in her stomach.

She clamped a hand over her mouth, while pressing the other against her abdomen. She willed the nausea away, trying to maintain her composure.

“Keep it together, Fern,” she admonished herself, her voice low and stern. “Just a little while longer.”

The trickiest part would be to get him alone. Her stepsisters would be vying for his attention, they’d been swooning over the prospect of meeting him. They’d both lamented—loudly and at length—over the fact that he’d disappeared before they’d had the opportunity to talk to him the night of the gala.

Neither woman had noticed that Fern had disappeared at the same time, of course. She’d always been beneath their notice.

Fern took in a deep steadying breath and exhaled slowly. Feeling only marginally less frightened, she straightened her shoulders and stepped out of her room.

“This is a waste of fucking time,” James Angus Hawthorne groused in his customarily curt manner. His thick, salt-and-pepper brows furrowed as he glared out of the car window while they wound their way up a steep hill toward the massive glass and mortar structure at the top, which was in the middle of the rolling winelands of Cape Town. The flashy glass house felt out of place among the tranquil, verdant green of the countryside and screamed new wealth.

Cade agreed that this was a waste of time, but Granger Abernathy was a slippery fucker and he’d been obfuscating over the terms and conditions of the sale of his late wife’s hempcrete empire. Maeve Lambert-Abernathy’s company was the leading supplier of sustainable building materials in the world and James Hawthorne—CEO of Hawthorne Construction & Engineering (HC&E), one of the biggest construction companies on the planet—was keen to acquire it.

He’d been after Lambecrete (Pty) Ltd. for the last several years. Ever since Cade had highlighted the advantages of offering sustainable construction alternatives to potential clients. But Granger Abernathy—a cagey sonofabitch at the best of times—had finally announced that Lambecrete was for sale only seven months ago. HC&E had been in negotiations with the bastard since then.

They were here to close this deal, but the circumstances were unusual to say the least. They’d been dancing to Abernathy’s twisted little tune for half a year trying to iron out the kinks of this deal and even now—when it was finally coming to fruition—Abernathy still had to call the shots.

“It’s just the weekend, Dad,” Cade murmured, trying to keep his tone soothing. Fuck knows, he didn’t want to get the old man’s back up. It wasn’t just the weekend though; they were scheduled to be here from Thursday to Monday—although Cade was hoping to wrap it up by Saturday.

For that to happen, things would have to go smooth as silk over the next forty-eight hours. And part of that was preventing his father from losing his cool. The old man who—at sixty-five—wasn’t really that old, could be crotchety and stubborn as fuck. Powerful men like his father did not enjoy being jerked around by pissy little control freaks like Abernathy.

“Least you’ll get to spend a few days with Gideon and Beth after we’re done here,” Cade reminded.

For some reason, his father—one of the wealthiest men in the world—really enjoyed staying with Gideon and Beth in their firmly middle class, three-bedroom house in a pretty suburb in Cape Town. Cade couldn’t fathom it himself. He’d be staying at the apartment he’d bought several years ago and flying home a few days before his dad. Maybe he’d convince Gid to go fishing with him first. And he’d pop in to see Kenny, who also lived in the Cape.

He hadn’t had a chance to speak to her in person since the gala three months ago. He’d been distracted…

He frowned at the memory of that distraction.

Not an entirely pleasant memory. Fucking awkward was what it was and thinking about it now made him squirm. He’d tried his damnedest to put it out of his mind since then, but occasionally—usually at the worst possible times—it would come creeping back.

He’d wondered about her—Fern—a few times since then. But his brain went skittering in the other direction whenever his thoughts strayed toward her. And he usually shuddered at the cringeworthy intrusive thoughts of what had occurred between them.

Only the worst, most awkward, sex of his life. Jesus. Yep, there went the shudder again. It had been humiliating. Cade had wanted her, so badly. It’d hit him like a freight train, that insta-lust. He’d never experienced anything remotely like it before.

He’d swept her to the library—they’d kissed, and then…

Elbows, noses bumping, teeth knocking, fumbling, so much fucking fumbling. It had felt contagious, her clumsiness had set his off… or maybe it had been vice versa.

Her hand on his dick had squeezed too tightly, too much nail—his mouth on her small tit with its delectable nipple… too slobbery.

Christ.

He cringed again.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, lad?” his father snapped. “Are you coming down with something? Don’t you dare leave me to deal with Abernathy on my own while you malinger like a Victorian miss.”

“You’d relish the opportunity to be alone in a room with him,” Cade scoffed, pushing the unwelcome thoughts of that woman from his brain.

This time the genesis of his shudder stemmed from the idea of his father having unsupervised access to Abernathy. That would not go well, which was why Cade and his team of attorneys and advisors had done their level best to keep the two men from ever interacting on a one-on-one basis. His father’s contempt of Abernathy was too blatant.

“Five minutes alone with him,” his father agreed with a gleam in his eye. “I’d soon have him on the same page.”

James Hawthorne had gone through a rebellious phase in his early twenties. Eschewing his father and the family business, in favor of hanging out with a rougher, tougher crowd, Cade’s father had been a brawler, bouncing in some of the seedier clubs in Glasgow, street fighting to earn money when his family had cut him off.

Even after he’d returned to the family fold a few years later, he’d retained a lot of those rough edges and had earned a fierce, no holds barred, balls-to-the-wall reputation in the business world.

Cade believed that was why his dad—while griping about it occasionally—had not seemed overly concerned when first Gideon, then Nox, had drifted from the family and the business to pursue their own interests. He’d done it too and it had served him well throughout his life. That said though, Gideon was never returning to the business. He was making a name for himself as an artist. He’d even won an award last year for his work on a best-selling graphic novel.

Nox, in the meantime, had fallen completely off the radar. He hadn’t had any meaningful contact with anyone in the family in eighteen months. They knew he was safe, living mostly in isolation in the Western Cape, but even knowing his brother was alive and physically well, Cade still worried about him. This prolonged absence was uncharacteristic to say the least. Despite there being only five years between the four siblings, Cade and Nox had gravitated toward each other when they were kids, while Gideon and Kenny—the younger two—had always been inseparable.

All four of them had been pretty close but there had always been that older vs younger rivalry. But now Cade had lost his closest friend and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit to feeling abandoned and betrayed and so pissed off that Nox’d had the freedom—like Gideon and Kenny before him—to simply fuck off and follow his selfish bliss or whatever. Cade didn’t have that luxury. Someone had to pick up the slack around here. Be the responsible one, the one who didn’t simply abandon their heritage, their business… their father.

He scrubbed a tired hand over his face and scanned the documents in his hand for the umpteenth time. Looking for any possible loopholes in what needed to be an ironclad contract. No back doors for Abernathy to slime his way back into Lambecrete.

His father was barking orders into his phone and Cade wondered which hapless exec was at the receiving end of his temper this time. Probably Larsson. That kiss-arse had been trying—and failing—to fill Nox’s shoes as Chief Financial Officer of HC&E. At least their dad had not yet gone so far as to officially replace Nox, but Larsson had been his go-to finance guy since Nox had started with this absentee son bullshit.

It was even worse than when Gideon had gone off to pursue his art studies. At least Gid had attempted to maintain contact with the family—despite their less than warm reception of his overtures—and they’d always known their youngest brother was not interested in the business anyway. Gideon had shunned his inheritance and trust funds, while Nox had thrived on his work and had always thoroughly enjoyed the lifestyle that went hand-in-hand with being a Hawthorne.

Cade shook his head, irritated that his mind wasn’t in the game. All he’d done was recall some cringeworthy sex with a woman he’d prefer to forget—another shudder—after which he’d sat steeped in melancholy over his brother’s absence. The car rolled to a stop in front of a line of smiling faces and an older man stepped forward to open the door for his father.

“Welcome to The Glasshouse, Mr. Hawthorne,” the man greeted with a formal bow, before stepping aside, as his father—big and bullish—pushed his way out of the car.

The man’s smile never faltered as the older Hawthorne rudely muttered “Glasshouse, so fucking original.”

Cade sighed, and nodded politely at the younger man who’d opened his door and was offering a similar welcome.

This was going to be a long fucking weekend.

Abernathy was being an obstructive twat. Ostensibly dealing with an emergency, he’d instructed his staff to offer them full use of “the facilities” and had promised to be back in time for dinner. Which left James Hawthorne fuming and Cade gritting his teeth, wondering how to keep his affronted father from simply upping and leaving. God knew, he didn’t want to start this dance all over again, not when they were so close to sealing the deal.

At the same time, Cade knew exactly how his father felt. They were busy men; they didn’t need to be fucked around by a mouth breathing tool on some dick measuring power trip.

His father had appropriated a sunny solarium type room and had set up shop there. He was presently surrounded by his core entourage of executive assistants, attorneys, a couple of VPs, and getting some work done.

Cade, who was finding it hard to focus, had left them to it. He’d retreated to his room, changed into a pair of black swimming trunks, and was currently making use of those facilities by doing laps in the Abernathy’s Olympic-sized pool.

Well, he was trying to. He’d no sooner completed his fourth lap than a couple of women in skimpy bikinis started splashing around in the shallow end.

He tried to ignore them, powering past one, only to have the other step directly into his path. He nearly plowed straight into her but managed to stop before hitting her and surfaced with a violent explosion of water that drenched both women in the process. The high-pitched giggles and squeals grated on his nerves, while he stood there, shoulders heaving as he fought to catch his breath.

“Oh my God, sorry. I didn’t mean to get in your way like that,” one of them screeched, pressing a hand to her chest in a move designed to bring his attention to her surgically enhanced, barely covered assets. Her pink bikini top was fighting valiantly to keep those puppies restrained, but it appeared to be a losing battle.

He wasn’t particularly interested, but they were hard to miss when they were practically being thrust in his face. He jerked his eyes to the side, to find another—similarly underdressed—pair of tits aimed in his direction.

“Hiiii,” the owner of said breasts purred—her voice a shade less grating than Pink Bikini’s. “You must be Niall Hawthorne. I’m Allegra Abernathy.”

“And I’m Antonia Abernathy,” Pink Bikini chimed in.

“Right.” Cade nodded curtly, slicking his hair out of his face, annoyed to have his swim interrupted and not particularly inclined to stand here making small talk with Abernathy’s high-pitched, overly-keen daughters.

“Sorry to interrupt your swim,” the slightly less shrill one said, not sounding the slightest bit apologetic. “We’ll get out of your way, won’t we, Toni? Just sit over on the side and catch some sun, while you do your thing.”

Cade was torn, he wasn’t up to making the inevitable inane small talk that would follow his swim—he’d never been much of a talker— but he definitely needed the exercise to clear his mind and recover from the long flight. He heaved an impatient sigh and gave the sisters another abrupt nod before turning away to continue with his laps. Maybe, if he stayed in the water long enough, they’d get bored and wander off.

Fern stood at her bedroom window and watched her stepsisters lounge by the poolside, shamelessly doing their damnedest to catch the man in the water’s attention. He’d been at it for half an hour now, propelling back and forth without stopping while Allie and Toni draped themselves appealingly along the edge of the pool. First, they’d sat with their legs in the water, kicking up little fountains of sparkling droplets, whenever he passed by. When that failed to draw his attention, they dragged a couple of loungers almost all the way to the edge of the pool and stretched out on those.

That was when the sultry application of sunscreen had begun. After they’d both slathered the shiny oil all over their fronts, they’d started to seductively rub each other up. The entire production had been pretty disturbing, considering they were sisters and not at all as in to each other as the bizarre, intimate stroking would suggest.

Fern was embarrassed on their behalf and when first Allie, then Toni, removed their bikini tops—Fern cringed. Meanwhile, Cade Hawthorne hadn’t so much as glanced at them after their initial attempts to strike up a conversation with him.

He was an impressive sight to behold. Almost machinelike in his relentless endurance, arms and legs pistoning powerfully as his large body knifed cleanly through the water. Fern could barely tear her eyes away from the play of muscle and sinew in his broad shoulders and strong back. She hadn’t seen this much of him during their encounter. His shirt had been half unbuttoned but not completely removed, and she now regretted losing the opportunity to run her hands over that smooth, beautifully muscled expanse of tanned skin. It had all been so new, so overwhelming, so shockingly intimate that she still blushed at the memory two months later. The urgent whispers, and the soft, shocking touches in secret places.

She swallowed as she fought back the memory of how brazen she’d been. She’d grasped the hard length of him and had marveled at the girth around which she could barely wrap her fingers. A part of him that she’d never seen, but had felt, stroked, squeezed, and with which she’d become breathtakingly, closely acquainted.

Her breath hitched at the recollection of the shocking press of his hardness against—then inside of—her yielding flesh. It had been revelatory. And like nothing she’d ever experienced before.

She hadn’t been certain she liked how vulnerable it made her, or how she felt like she’d lost a vital part of herself in the process.

And—while singular—there had been none of the expected symphonies or crashing waves or shooting stars. Nothing but short, harsh, impatient exclamations from him and quiet, uncomfortable moans and sighs from her. Followed by pain, a dull, confusing throbbing… then a sharp burst of profanity from him and a quick withdrawal just as she was starting to feel something profoundly hedonistic.

The whole incident had been bewildering and a little anticlimactic.

Yet, as soon as he’d withdrawn from her body, she’d missed the heat of him, the hardness inside and around her. Missed his breath on her face, his delicious, fresh scent, his invasion of her every sense.

He’d been unable to meet her eyes afterwards. Making her feel like she’d done something wrong. He’d apologized—quietly, quickly, almost fiercely—and had fumbled to check his phone. Then he’d bowed stiffly and left her there feeling distinctly undone, unfinished, and unraveled. She’d felt an inexplicable sense of loss and grief after he’d gone.

Fern had remained hidden in that room for hours, before gathering up the remnants of the tattered pride that had lain strewn all around her and leaving. The gala had still been in full swing. Of Cade Hawthorne there’d been no trace, and Fern tracked down Toni and Allie to inform them she was leaving. They’d mocked her of course, called her a boring nun who couldn’t even stay up past midnight, and Fern had fled with the sound of their grating laughter ringing in her ears.

Now, months later, she stared down at the man who’d—unbeknownst to him—become the source of her dreams and nightmares, her most secret desires and deepest fears. The prospect of facing him again was terrifying. She did not know how he’d react to what she had to tell him—to offer him. All she knew was that she had no other choice.

With time running out for her, Cade Hawthorne had become her only hope.

Fern wasn’t sure she’d get the opportunity to have a private conversation with him. Not when Allie and Toni would attempt to dominate any spare moment he had. He didn’t seem too interested in either of her stepsisters, but they were determined women who usually got what they wanted. Even though they were both preening for Cade’s attention, Fern knew that they’d come to a mutual agreement that Allie would be the one to try and win him. But that didn’t mean the plan couldn’t change in an instant if he showed more interest in Toni.

It chilled Fern’s blood how utterly ruthless her stepsisters could be when it came to getting what they wanted. She’d seen them in action before, seen them grab their prize with impunity, regardless of whether it belonged—and was precious—to someone else.

She turned away from the window, sickened by their display, but also unable to look at Cade Hawthorne a moment longer, when her stomach was churning with anxiety at the sight of him and the knowledge of what she would have to do once she had him to herself.