Page 47 of Confusing Cade

I kissed her quickly, got out of bed, put on the robe hanging on the hook in my bathroom, and padded to the kitchen. In a few minutes, I returned with two lattes from the machine built into the cabinets.

“A latte?” she asked. “You have alattemachine?”

“My decorator insisted on it when she did the renovation of my kitchen. And I use it more than I expected.”

“Well, I’m eager to try it,” she said and took one of the steaming hot cups from me.

I slid back into bed with her, balancing my serving. “I didn’t put any syrups in, so I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s perfect.”

We drank a few sips in silence, and I enjoyed the slowness of the moment. Only a few women had ever woken up in this bed with me, and none of them were like Bella. None of them understood my past or the expectations I was always running from, and none of them had the hustle or the moxie that she did. Bella was willing to do whatever was required to survive, and she was willing to fight and do whatever to stay afloat. And I admired that a lot.

“Do you want to stay?” I asked.

“Want to stay?”

“For breakfast. For lunch. For... just... I don’t know. Stay.”

She smiled. “Yes, I will.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

BELLA

There was no way I was going to leave.

It was Saturday morning, anyway, and it wasn’t like I had much to do. But even if I did, I would have canceled all my plans. The truth was, there was nothing that sounded better than spending my whole day with Cade, a man I was dying to know more about. I needed to check in with Lilly and knew that there had to be a phone call, not a text, so all I could do was wait.

After we finished the lattes, Cade found another robe in the hallway linen closet and brought the fluffy terrycloth to me. “Are you hungry?” he asked as I slipped into it and cinched the tie around my waist.

“No. I don’t usually eat much breakfast.”

“Me neither.”

“Well, what do you do on Saturdays?”

He grunted. “I don’t know. Do shit.”

“And what did you plan on doing today?”

He grinned. “Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

I smiled back. “I guess if someone had asked me, I would have pegged you as a guy who doesn’t take much time off and who has almost no free time.”