Meeting His Match (A Match Me Novel) (Entangled Lovestruck) (14 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Addison spent the next two days hiding. She paced her apartment, casting guilty looks at her closed computer, and ended up eating half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s instead of opening it and facing the music. She’d just flat-out turned off her phone.

She couldn’t handle it if Caine called. Or, worse in some ways, if he didn’t.

And that didn’t make a lick of sense. If she truly wanted him to be happy, she’d hope that he and Brenda hit it off and were even now planning their wedding and bushel of children.

But the very idea made her sick to her stomach.

She didn’t know
what
she wanted. It was all so mixed up in her head and heart that she didn’t know which way was up anymore. If she and Caine were doomed, then she’d done the right thing by leaving him before things ended up uglier than they already were. The weight in her chest only seemed to grow with each hour that passed. She wanted to see him, to have his arms around her, to see that unexpected wicked grin spread over his face.

A knock on her door had her heart leaping into her throat. She had plenty of friends, but she hadn’t told anyone she was back from Tennessee yet—or that she’d jumped in a cab to the airport like a thief in the night as soon as Caine’s car disappeared around the curve in the road.

She debated not opening it, but whoever was on the other side didn’t seem to be willing to give up. With a sigh, she walked over and opened it.

Regan nearly bowled her over as she pushed her way into the apartment. “I thought so.”

“How did you find me?”

“It really wasn’t that hard. You’ve lived in this tiny apartment ever since I’ve known you. When Caine said you bolted, it didn’t take a genius to deduct that this was where you’d hole up.”

Her chest constricted at the sound of his name. “He called you.”

“No, actually, he didn’t. But Brock’s mother did, along with Caine’s secretary, and his head of staff. I didn’t even know the McNeills had a head of staff for their freakishly large house down in that death trap of a forest, but I had to listen to Brock try to calm him down. Apparently there’s a pack of wild dogs destroying everything.” Regan propped her hands on her hips. “You bought him dogs.”

“He needed to be more approachable.” She sank onto the couch, her mind whirling. It was only then that she noticed the woman who had followed Regan through the door. “
Grandmother?
”

“Hello, dear.”

This was too strange. She looked from one woman to the other. “I wasn’t aware you two were acquainted.”

“Regan reached out to me yesterday. Rather forcibly, I might add.” She sank onto the couch next to Addison and took her hands. “What’s this I hear about you and another young man?”

This
was the conversation she’d been dreading. She already knew how it would play out, but she couldn’t help saying, “I care about him, Grandmother. So much it feels like I can’t breathe without him. I know it’s wrong—”

Regan snorted. “Why don’t we try that one again?”

Addison ignored her. “But it
felt
real. I’ve never felt like that before. I know he can’t be my soul mate, but—”

“Wrong again.”

She finally turned to glare at Regan. “Will you just shut up and let me talk?”

“Not when you’re determined to sabotage the first chance you’ve had at happiness since I’ve known you. Caine’s a big boy. So whatever you’re over there mentally flogging yourself about, you can just let it go. He makes his own decisions—he always has.”

That didn’t make her feel the least bit better. “Why did you send me down there? You had to know this would blow up in my face and hurt both of us. I thought you knew everything.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Everyone likes to throw that fact around when they’re in a mess of their own making.”

There it was. The truth. Addison was the one who’d made a mess of things. “You had to have known putting me in that house with him would complicate things.”

“I’d hoped it would.”

Addison pushed to her feet. “What the hell does that mean?” Had Regan really planned this?

“I’ll tell you what I told your grandmother when I showed up on her doorstep yesterday.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re wasting away. You’re so damn miserable and you think if you just keep moving, it won’t pull you under. It’s bullshit. You don’t honestly think I could sit back and watch you disappear on me—on all of us? Caine’s right for you. You’re just too stubborn to acknowledge it.”

“He’s not my soul mate. If I try to force a relationship with him knowing that, it will end horribly. Tell her, Grandmother.” She waited, but the woman didn’t seem inclined to jump in with a supportive comment. Addison turned to stare at her grandmother and frowned. She looked…uncomfortable. “What’s going on?”

“Yes, Rose. Please tell your granddaughter what I found when I came knocking on your door at eight in the morning.”

Grandmother didn’t look up from her clasped hands. “I may have been…wrong.”

Wrong?
Addison shook her head, not comprehending. “Wrong about what?”

“All of it.” She finally looked up. “I believed we only get one. I wouldn’t have told you time and again if I didn’t.” She shot a nasty look at Regan. “And I stand by my opinion of that Lee fellow you contemplated trying things with before. He wasn’t good for you. But…maybe this Caine is.”

She blinked. Where the hell was this coming from? “I don’t understand.”

“It seems Grandma Rose has a suitor—one who answers the door in his bathrobe because he obviously stayed over.” Regan gave a victorious smile, oblivious to the fact that Addison’s world was falling apart around her. “So you see, if your saintly grandmother gets a second chance at love—and you go, Grandma—then there’s no reason
you
can’t.”

She couldn’t deal with this. If that was true, it meant she’d ruined things with Caine
for no reason
. “You don’t…” She threw up her hands. “Oh my God. You don’t just get to crash into someone’s life uninvited and start meddling.”

Regan’s smile dimmed. “What’s the problem? I thought you’d be happy about this?”

“Happy? My grandmother has been
lying
to me. How is that making me happy?” She turned to Grandmother. “Why didn’t you say something?”

She lifted her chin. “I’m not proud of keeping Roy from you—from all of you. He’s a good man and he deserves better than that after six months.”

Six months
. “Then tell me
why
.”

“Because I was afraid. I don’t like admitting it to you any more than I did to
her
.” She jerked her thumb at Regan. “After your grandfather died, a part of me died with him. I told you the truth when I said that I had tried to entertain other suitors and that it all came to naught. None of them could compare… Until now.” She smiled and Addison went cold because she recognized that look. Her grandmother was in love. “He’s wonderful. He makes me feel more alive than I have in decades. I feel like I have a second chance at life.”

“I’m…happy for you.” She was—or she would be if the loss of Caine weren’t eating her up inside. She wanted to crawl into a hole because there was no cosmic force to blame like she’d been comforting herself with. No, it was just Addison, the one-woman disaster. She’d ruined things all on her own. “But that doesn’t change what happened with Caine. His life is in ruins and for what? A potential relationship that was doomed before it got started.”

Regan sank onto the arm of the couch across from her. “And who doomed it, Addison? Who was the one who wouldn’t give him a damn chance when he asked for it, and then used the first excuse she could come up with to retreat back into her shell?”

She jerked back. “Don’t you dare blame this on me. This is
your
fault. Both of your faults!” Then she realized she was pointing a finger at her best friend and her grandmother, and the burning in her chest only got worse. “God, what am I saying? I’m turning into a monster.”

“No, honey. What you are is love struck. You never saw Caine coming, and that scares the shit out of you.” Regan gave a faint smile. “I happen to know a thing or two about this kind of thing. Those McNeill men are sly when they want to be, and us New York women can be too stubborn for our own good.”

“But…Aiden.”

Grandmother took her hand. “Aiden was your husband and you loved him just as much as I loved your grandfather. But do you really think either of them would want us to stop living after their deaths? I put my life on hold for far too long because I believed—I
had
to believe—that each person got only one soul mate. I want better for you than that, honey.”

“But—”

Regan took her other hand. “Would you have wanted him to be alone for the rest of his life if your positions were reversed?”

She opened her mouth to say there was no one else for her, but couldn’t make herself speak. Of course she wouldn’t want Aiden to stop living. He’d wanted kids as much as she had. It struck her that if the theoretical man in Caine’s question had been Aiden, she wouldn’t have even hesitated before telling him that he deserved a second chance at life. She took a gulping breath. “Oh, God.”

“That’s what I thought.” Regan patted her hand. “I happen to know there’s a flight to Nashville tomorrow. Why don’t I book it for you?”

“He’ll never forgive me for just leaving like that.” She’d been such a shit in so many different ways, she wanted to go back in time and slap herself.

“You won’t know until you try. Are you willing to miss your second chance?”

Hell no. If Caine told her to take a long walk off a short pier—and maybe she deserved that—then at least she’d know that she’d done everything she could to make it right. “I’ll pack my things.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Grandmother gave her hand another squeeze. “Go get him, honey.”

…

Caine folded his hands and looked across the table at his father. It had taken his old man a full week to make an appearance. Frankly, if he had been taking bets, he would have wagered the man would never show up. Pride was something the McNeill family had in spades, himself included.

His father didn’t look particularly happy to be having this meeting, but he finally huffed out a breath and met Caine’s gaze. “We need you.”

The words came like a blow to the chest. He knew without bothering to sift through his memories that they had never come out of his father’s mouth—especially not in regard to
him
. But he wasn’t going to roll over and play dead just because his dad had finally decided to show a little appreciation. “I’m listening.”

“I’m not as young as I used to be. Even if I was, your mother will leave me if I go back to the hours I was working before you took over.” He shifted, seemed to realize he was doing it, and went still. “The company needs you as CEO.
I
need you as CEO.”

Truth be told, the last week had been hell for him. It was something else Addison had been right about—he
did
enjoy his work. If there was some way to find a decent balance between it and the home life he currently didn’t have, it would be an ideal situation. “If I’m going to consider coming back, there are conditions.”

“What conditions?”

Part of him wondered why the hell he was bothering. Addison was gone. She’d made damn certain that he knew where he stood in her life—behind her dead husband. He didn’t expect her to stop caring for the man, even if it had been seven years since his death, but if she couldn’t admit that there was room in her life for someone else… Then she was right. There was no way they could make things work because she would see every fight or setback as further evidence that each person only got one blasted soul mate.

That didn’t stop him from thinking about her. Nonstop. He’d taken to wandering the house at night, drifting through the rooms like he was one of the ghosts the locals claimed existed.

He felt like it more often than not.

Caine shook his head. He couldn’t afford to mentally wander while negotiating with her father. Family or not, the old man would take him for everything he had if he didn’t pay attention. “The hours, for one. There’s no reason I can’t delegate some of the paperwork so I can focus on the bigger picture.” He held up his hand when his father started to speak. “I know it’s not how things were done when you did it, but it’s a changing world.”

“If this is about that woman—”

“I’m going to stop you right there before you say something unforgivable.” He took a deep breath, forcing calm into his body. Addison wasn’t here. Getting furious on her behalf wasn’t going to benefit anyone. It didn’t stop him from wanting to beat something until the shitty feeling in his chest went away. “Regardless of whether it’s Addison or another woman, at some point I
will
want to pursue a family.”

“Continuing the McNeill name is vital.”

The question rose again—had his father only had children so he’d have a built-in heir? Caine didn’t give it voice. It didn’t matter anymore. He knew what
he
was going to do, and that would have to be good enough. “When I have children, it’s going to be for reasons beyond continuing our line—and I’m sure as fuck going to be a father to them.”

His old man flinched. “Was that supposed to strike me down?”

He was so fucking tired. “Contrary to what you apparently believe, it’s not always about you.” He straightened the blank notepad in front of him. “I also want the ability to relocate.”

“This
is
about that woman.” When he tensed, his father laughed. “Well, hell, son. I never thought you’d be swayed by the fairer sex. That was always your brother’s path.”

Half a dozen responses rose within him, but he didn’t give voice to any of them. Whatever he said at this point would come across as an excuse, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to touch the comment about Brock. “Do you agree to my terms?”