Shirley Jump - Wedding Vows - I Thee Wed - Back to Mr & Mrs / Reunited - Marriage in a Million / Marrying Her Billionaire Boss

“That’s the plan.” Maybe. He smacked the ball over the net.

“Uh-huh. You’re thinking you’ll get her all dressed up—” Carter let out a grunt as he hit the yellow sphere “—you throw on a tie, take her out on the dance floor a couple of times, waltz around to some Sinatra. Before you know it, you’re in love again, just like in high school?”

Cade made an easy return, then shrugged. “Hey, it happens in the movies.”

Carter reached high, nicking the ball a moment before it flew past him. “Real life doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? Melanie and I were happy for years.” Cade waited for the bounce, then returned again.

“Women today expect more.”

Cade arched a brow. “Says the man who thinks marriage is a contagious disease.”

“At least I know better than to create a business plan to win a woman over. I know you, Cade, you’ve probably got a ten-point strategic overview all laid out on how to win Melanie’s heart. You’ve analyzed the pros and cons, created a damned spreadsheet for your options and even calculated the odds on flowers versus diamonds.”

Cade scowled. “I have not.”

Okay, he did have a list. But he didn’t have a spreadsheet and certainly hadn’t used a calculator to determine the best course of action.

“If you haven’t, which I highly doubt, you will.” Carter got the serve this time and sent the ball over the net toward his brother. “You’re the most uptight man I know. If you weren’t my twin brother, I’d think you were an alien.”

“Speaking of nonhuman creatures,” Cade said, grinning as he slammed the ball back with enough force to tell his brother he was definitely done with the subject of his marriage. “What’s new with you?”

“Funny you should ask,” Carter said as he waited for the bounce before swinging his racket. “Remember Uncle Neil’s will?”

Cade nodded. He’d been at the reading last month. Uncle Neil, a lifelong bachelor, had divvied up his companies and his possessions among his few nephews and nieces. Cade and Melanie had inherited a house in Cape Cod, a nice beach place that he remembered going to as a kid.

Someday, maybe, Melanie would want to go there. More specifically, go there with Cade. Take a weekend, stroll on the sand and rekindle the flame that had seemed to grow smaller since they’d married.

Then again, at the rate his reconciliation efforts were going, he’d be best off selling the place.

“Did you decide what to do with that toy company you inherited?” Cade said.

Carter drew in a breath. “Yep. I quit my job last week and moved into Uncle Neil’s office.”

“You did?”

“I’m sick of the corporate rat race,” Carter said.

“I don’t know how you’ve stood it this long.”

Cade hadn’t. In the last few years, Cade had grown more and more frustrated with his job, with working for his father, and for the first time ever, wondered if he’d made a mistake by following in his father’s footsteps. Cade was a good lawyer—but lately not a happy one.

For a second, he envied Carter’s ability to chuck it all, take a chance. Pursue a dream that might not work out. Just as Melanie had.

Cade shrugged off the thought. It was probably some early onset midlife crisis. He’d buy a convertible and highlight his hair and be over it.

But as he looked at his twin brother, at the excitement in his eyes as he talked about the toy company between racket swings, Cade had to wonder if he needed more than a few hundred horsepower to erase this feeling.

“Anyway, the company’s been struggling for a while,” Carter said. “Morale is in the toilet, sea turtles have faster production than I do. I have to do something, but toys aren’t quite my strong suit.”

“They aren’t mine, either,” Cade said, sending another serve over the net. “We didn’t exactly have a lot of playtime when we were kids.”

“Yeah, that being responsible thing kind of kills the opportunity for a little cops and robbers in the backyard.”

Cade missed the shot and cursed. He had no desire to revisit his childhood. Once had been enough. It hadn’t been happy, it hadn’t been fun and no one knew that better than Carter. No need to reopen old wounds.

“Anyway,” Carter said, pausing to take a breather,

“I was wondering if you knew anyone who specialized in that whole revitalizing a company thing.”

“I heard about a firm in Lawford, Creativity Masters. The client I met with, Homesoft Toilet Paper, was singing their praises.”

“They found a way to make toilet paper creative?” Carter chuckled, then swung and hit the ball back.

“My toy company should be a piece of cake after a few rolls of squeezably soft.”

Cade cut off a laugh as he returned the ball with a hard, swift swing. Once again, the feeling that he was missing something returned. Maybe Cade needed a little creativity boost for his own life.

He wondered vaguely what he would have done differently, had he been able to go back to prom night and change the course he and Melanie had taken. Would he have gone into another field? Tried another avenue?

Carter reached to the right, smacked the yellow ball with his racket and let out a curse when it sailed outside of the white lines, bouncing against the fence. He paused, dropping his hands to his knees and inhaling, sweat beading across his brow. “I’m getting my butt beat. Can’t you let a man win once in a while? Protect his ego?”

Cade retrieved the ball, then bounced it on the court a couple of times before readying it for serve, giving each of them a breather. “Lay off the doughnuts in the break room and you’ll be able to reach those high shots.”

“It’s not the doughnuts. It’s the receptionist.” Carter grinned. “Late night with Deanna. I’m not operating on all cylinders.”

“When have you ever operated on all your cylinders?”

“That was always your job,” Carter said with a grin.

That was true. Cade had shouldered the paternal expectations, gone into the family firm, fulfilled the next generation of Matthews lawyers. Carter, however, had been the one with charm, who smiled his way through college, with job offers falling at his feet like starry-eyed coeds. He’d had options—something Cade had never even considered.

For a moment, Cade envied his twin, the freedom he had to quit the accounting firm for a spin at toy making. Cade shook it off. It was simply a restlessness, maybe brought about from another birthday that edged him closer to forty. He didn’t need an escape from his job, he just needed a way to deal with the fact that his perfect life had disintegrated.

Cade slammed the serve over to Carter’s side, making him dash to the right and dive to return. “To win back a woman like Melanie,” he said, undeterred by the conversation detour, “you’re going to need a hell of a lot more than your navy Brooks Brothers and a spray of roses, you know.”

“I know how Melanie’s mind works.” The ball sailed into Carter’s side of the court, an inch past the reach of his racket. Carter cursed again.

“I hate to tell you this, Cade,” Carter said, lowering his racket and approaching the net, his breath coming in little gasps. “But you’re a detail guy. When it comes to women, detail guys have no chance. You need to be a concept man, so you can see the whole picture and fill in the blanks you’ve missed with her. It’s not about red roses over pink, Cade, it’s about seeing what’s bugging her.”

“I was married to Melanie for nineteen years. I know the whole picture.” But clearly, he’d missed something behind the canvas.

“If that’s so, why is she divorcing you?” Carter gave him a sympathetic glance. All their lives, Carter had been the only one who knew what made Cade tick, and how to get right to the heart of Cade’s problems.