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

But if there was one thing Melanie couldn’t take, it was more disappointment.

“Cade, it’s too late,” Melanie said. “We drifted apart. I became your personal assistant, not your wife. And then, when it looked like I might have my chance, you wanted to put me right back into the same box I was trying to climb out of.”

“All I wanted was a family,” he said. “How can you hate me for that?”

She reached out, touched his hand, but then retreated. Each of them had been hurt that night, but instead of coming together, they’d ended up on opposite sides of a common fence. “I never hated you, Cade. I just wanted to go down a different road.”

“You’ve never told me why, Melanie,” Cade said, coming around her, forcing her to face him. “Why did you leave me?”

Melanie sighed. Why couldn’t he just let their marriage die? “I told you. A hundred times over the past few years, but you never listened.”

“I’m listening now. Tell me what it is, so I can fix it.”

She threw up her hands. “That right there, that’s part of the problem. You can’t fix everything, Cade.”

“I can fix this, Melanie. Give me a chance.”

For a second, she wanted to do just that, but then she thought back to the dozens of times they’d had conversations that echoed this one. Things would change for a week, maybe two, and then Cade would go back to being Cade, relying on Melanie to do everything but live for herself. When she’d finally had her chance, all he’d wanted to do was return to the status quo.

She shook her head, then crossed the room, her keys in her hand. She held open the door, waiting for him to exit before shutting and locking it. “No, Cade. You can’t fix this.”

Then, before she did something really stupid, like revisit that kiss, she turned and went home to her empty apartment, her stomach as disappointed as her heart.

An hour later, Cade walked into the offices of Fitzsimmons, Matthews and Lloyd, although Fitzsimmons had died ten years ago and Lloyd last summer, leaving it technically just Matthews. Even though it was late on Sunday night, he found his father exactly where he’d expected him to be—behind his desk.

The imposing office had been a major part of Jonathon Matthews’s life for forty-plus years, and it showed in the dark paneling, the heavy furniture, the deep, plush carpeting. Every inch of the room reflected Jonathon’s personality, his high expectations.

When Cade entered the room, his father barely looked up from the brief he was reading. Jonathon had aged well, the only concession to his sixty years a pair of glasses that he wore when no one was looking. His gray hair was cut short, his suit tailor-made. The same attention to detail that marked his office wore well on every inch of the man.

“Cade,” his father said, laying the brief aside.

“Glad you came in. I wanted to talk to you about the Tewksbury case.”

“I’m not here to work, Dad.” The look of surprise on his father’s face told Cade he’d spent far too many weekends here. “I wanted to talk to you.” He slipped into one of the two claw-foot chairs facing his father.

“I’m taking next week off.”

“Off?” his father echoed, surprise in his tone, his brows arched above the gold frames. “What could possibly be more important than the Tewksbury case?”

“Melanie.” Cade swallowed. “I’m going to go work in her coffee shop this week.”

The silence in the room was as heavy as a steel beam. “You’re what?”

“Going to—”

“I heard you the first time.” His father scowled.

“What the hell are you thinking?”

“I’m trying to save my marriage.”

“At the expense of this firm. She’s divorcing you, Cade. Let her go, for God’s sake.”

“She’s my wife.”

Jonathon waved a hand in dismissal. “You can always get another. A hell of a lot easier than I can find a lead attorney on this Tewksbury mess.”

Anger boiled inside of Cade. He knew, since the day he’d told his father Melanie was pregnant, that the marriage had been a disappointment, a detour from the path Jonathon had planned for the son he saw as the heir to the firm. “Is that how you look at wives? Interchangeable?”

“That’s how I look at the ones who walk out on their husbands for no good reason.” His father dipped his head, attention on his work again.

But just before he dropped his gaze, Cade saw a flash of vulnerability in his father’s eyes. A sheen of hurt, that had lingered despite the perfectionist paint job his father had applied to himself.

“Because Mom did it to you?” Cade said quietly, touching on the one nerve that ran through all three Matthews men.

The sore spot made Jonathon scowl and pick up the brief again. “I have work to do. And so do you, if that pile on your desk is any indication.” But his voice had lost its punch.

“Answer me, Dad.” Cade leaned forward. “Is it because she left you with two five-year-old boys and never came back?”

His father shook his head, dismissing the glistening in his eyes. Because it was too painful? Too hard for Jonathon Matthews to admit failure? “All that’s ancient history.”

Cade wasn’t going to let that history die. After all these years, he and his father had never talked about that October day when Elaine Matthews had packed up her station wagon and headed to California. “Your mother is gone,” Jonathon had said to his twin boys, before introducing the new nanny in the next breath, as if the whole thing was nothing more than a shift change in the Matthews household.

“After she was gone, you poured yourself into work, leaving nannies to raise us. Hell, half of them were so bad, we raised ourselves because you weren’t there.”

“I had to provide for my family.”

After marrying and parenting his own child, Cade understood his father better. How would it have been for Cade if he had lost Melanie when Emmie was a little girl? Would he have done the same, retreating into the predictability, the quiet of work?

“Or was it because you had to escape two little boys with a whole lot of questions?” Cade looked at his father and saw himself in twenty years. The thought didn’t bring Cade cheer. “And here I followed in your footsteps, right down to the hours at work.”

“Law is a consuming business.”

“It doesn’t have to be. I can have a family and a career.”

His father whipped his glasses off and tossed them to the side. He squeezed at his eyes, erasing the trace of emotion. “What are we living in, fairy tales now? You have a commitment to this firm, to ensuring that our clients are taken care of. If your wife couldn’t understand that—”

“She did, Dad. More than any one woman should have had to.”

“I didn’t make you put those hours in, Cade,” Jonathon said. His gaze connected with Cade’s. A look of regret flickered in his eyes, then was quickly whisked away. “Before you throw stones at me, you better damned well look at your own garden.” His father settled the glasses on his nose again and returned to the brief, to the comfort of work. It had always been Jonathon’s escape, and sadly, it was now also his entire life. “Bring me the Tewksbury file, please and we can strategize for court.”

Cade bit his tongue before he lashed out. He knew from experience that the only way to deal with his father was calmly and with a good argument. The minute Cade raised his voice, Jonathon would tune him out. “I told you, Dad. I’m working with Melanie this week. Todd can handle my cases.”

His father shook his head, negating the idea. “I need you here.”

“It’s only a week, and then I’ll be back. Surely the firm can live without me for a few days.”