Victoria Pade - A Camden Family Wedding

“I see,” Dane’s grandmother said facetiously. “Memorizing every little detail about the way Vonni Hunter looks was purely business related.”

Nothing got by GiGi. Her tone let him know she was fully aware that he was attracted to the wedding planner.

But that still didn’t mean he was admitting anything. “Yep,” he said, not letting her get a rise out of him. “I’m just looking ahead to marketing and advertising.”

“Sure you are.”

It was true, though. Regardless of how struck by Vonni Hunter he might have been, for Dane, women were just for fun. And he didn’t play and work on the same field.

Plus there was the unsavory connection between the Hunters and Camdens in the past—he would never get mixed up with someone who could have any kind of ax to grind.

So there were two reasons he wouldn’t let anything happen with her.

“I’m just telling you, Geege, that if matchmaking is what you have up your sleeve with this, don’t run the risk of me screwing up your wedding for it. The past few of these assignments may have gotten some of us coupled up, but it isn’t going to happen to me.”

And Dane didn’t have so much as a shadow of a doubt about that.

Yes, his younger brother Lang and cousins Jani and Cade had met their mates on these restitution projects atoning for H.J.’s sins, but Dane was going to break the pattern.

And for a third and very good reason over and above the fact that he didn’t mix business with pleasure and that there was history with the Hunters.

He wasn’t ever getting married or having kids.

As one of the three eldest Camden grandchildren, he felt as if he’d already been domesticated to death. He’d been answerable to GiGi, to his great-grandfather and to Margaret and Louie, the household staff who had been involved in raising them all. He’d done plenty of adapting and compromising. He’d helped care for and look after and teach so many younger siblings and cousins that he felt as if he’d already been a parent.

And now he just wanted the blissful quiet and sanctuary of living alone in his own house.

He wanted not to keep anyone’s schedule but his own.

He wanted company when he wanted it and not when he didn’t.

He wanted the perfect freedom of a single man who was not a parent.

So no matter how green Vonni Hunter’s eyes were, it wasn’t possible for her to get to him any more than she already had.

“I do not have matchmaking up my sleeve,” GiGi objected. “I need my wedding planned. I decided it was you who should handle making things up to Vonni Hunter, and the wedding departments were just my suggestion.”

“Uh-huh...” Dane muttered at her feigned innocence.

Because he knew his grandmother. He knew that she wanted all of her grandchildren to get married and have great-grandchildren for her. And he also knew that while his cousin Jani might be newly married, pregnant and on a lighter work schedule, either of his sisters could have also been given all three of these projects without any problem. And certainly, they both would have been better suited to planning GiGi’s wedding than he was.

“I’m not getting married, Geege. And no woman on the face of this earth is going to change that. Not you, not Vonni Hunter or anyone else.”

“That’s fine,” GiGi claimed loftily. “You’ll just be Poor-Old-Uncle-Dane-Who-Doesn’t-Have-Anyone.”

Dane laughed. “How about if I’m just Fun-Uncle-Dane-Who-Doesn’t-Have-Anybody-Tying-Him-Down?”

“Finding a woman you love and having a family lifts you up, Dane. It raises you to a higher level and makes you a more well-rounded person. It’s what we’re put here to do.”

“And your opinion wouldn’t be at all colored by your own romance, would it? Plus, I’ve found a woman to love—more than one—you and Jani and Lindie and Livi—”

“Me and your sisters and cousin don’t count.”

“And I have plenty of family to lift me up and raise me to a higher level and make me about as well-rounded as I’ll ever be.”

“Kids you have with a wife—that’s the family that elevates you and makes you complete,” his grandmother persisted.

“I’m complete just the way I am. And happily single. Forever!”

GiGi’s sigh on the other end of the line was pronounced, but Dane decided it was time to end this back-and-forth and return to the work he had to do. So he said, “I’m supposed to meet with Vonni Hunter tomorrow night to get started. So keep your cell phone with you—you never know when I’ll have to call or text or send you pictures for approval. And we don’t have any time to spare.”

“I feel the same way about you,” she muttered.

“You love and adore me no matter what I do with my life?”

“Yes,” she confirmed begrudgingly. “I just don’t want you to be a lonely old man.”

“Couldn’t happen in this family,” he said, before saying goodbye and finally getting off the phone.

He was resigned to accomplishing all his grandmother had asked of him—short of getting personally involved with Vonni Hunter, which was not going to happen.

“Sorry, GiGi,” he muttered as he set his cell phone on his desk. “The best I can do on the personal side is enjoy the view.”

Of the lovely Vonni Hunter.

Who could not change his mind about marriage and family any more than any other woman could.

* * *

Vonni was standing outside the Cherry Cricket at eight o’clock Wednesday night when she spotted Dane rush out of the Camden Building a block down.

Neither of their schedules had allowed for an earlier meeting, and since the rough-and-tumble bar and grill was between their offices on Second Street, Dane had suggested he buy her a burger as they began the process of planning his grandmother’s wedding.

Vonni had hesitated. She’d found it unnervingly difficult not to think about this guy since she’d met him, and because of that she knew it was better to keep this strictly business. A burger at the Cricket hardly qualified as being wined and dined, but there would be dining and she didn’t want anything about her contact with him to seem date-like.

But he was very persuasive.

Plus, she knew she wouldn’t have the chance to eat before they got together and didn’t want her stomach rumbling through a business meeting.

So there she was, watching the intensely attractive Dane Camden coming toward her.

He was tieless, the collar button of his white shirt was unfastened and his suit coat was slung over one shoulder. He very much looked as if he was done with business for the day and ready to relax. Like on a burger date.

Luckily Vonni was still wearing what she’d put on this morning for work—a white cowl-necked blouse under a teal green jacket and pencil skirt with the toes of her four-inch heels pinching to remind her she was still working even if he wasn’t.

“I didn’t keep you waiting, did I?” he asked as he approached, flashing a smile that was enough to make her forget about her aching feet.

“I was a few minutes early.” Which she always tried to be when it came to business. And that was all this was, she reminded herself when he held the door for her, told the bouncer sitting on a stool in the alcove that they were two for dinner then ushered her with a hand not quite touching her back to the table when the bouncer passed them off to the hostess.

All very date-like.

He requested a table outside where it was quieter and the hostess took them beyond the noise of the bar to a café table in the patio section that ran alongside the building.

Then the hostess traded places with a waitress who asked if they would like something to drink.

Before answering, Dane said to Vonni, “I’m having an end-of-the-day beer. How about you—beer, wine, something harder...?”