Since their mother had passed away Nadine had taken over the role with a vengeance. Well, she wasn’t a teenager any more and Nadine didn’t need to know she’d gone and tried to do a job herself and made a mess of it.
So, she had messed up the first time. She wasn’t going to run to Nadine at the first sign of trouble, she wasn’t going to pass the buck and she certainly wasn’t going to show that she wasn’t prepared to go out there in the real world again and put herself on the market.
She could face Cade Taylor Watson again.
Roxanne was up to the task, just not today, not without some more preparation and planning. She’d blundered in earlier, but not again.
She straightened the papers on the desk with quick, jerky movements, avoiding her sister’s gaze. Saying no to that client wouldn’t have been good for Nadine’s business anyway and the business was all her sister had after her jerk of a husband ran off with his secretary.
Nadine had taken up where her ex’s investigating business had left off. She didn’t just do the general private investigating work that her husband had done with a few marital jobs thrown in. Marital was her speciality.
Roxanne was behind the idea of testing a man’s fidelity one hundred and fifty per cent. She wished she’d known about it years ago—her life would have been so different if she had.
Nadine yanked open the door. ‘So, call me if you have any problems. In the meantime, just make appointments and take messages.’
Roxanne nodded, clamping down on the urge to confess her foray earlier. ‘I’m here to help,’ she blurted, plastering a smile on her face.
She would have come to help her sister earlier, but she had been committed elsewhere, in another state, with her own life, job, apartment and lover…
Now, she wasn’t.
She should have come as soon as she heard Nadine was starting up her own business and saved herself a lot of distress instead of staying in Melbourne.
‘How’s Rory?’ Roxanne blurted. If her daughter hadn’t been sick Nadine would have been here when the client had come in. She would have known exactly what to do and how to pull it off without a hitch, first time round. ‘Better?’
‘Not really.’ Her sister glanced behind her, frowning. ‘I’ve got to get back just in case she wakes up and needs me.’
Roxanne nodded.
‘And don’t hide here all night. You have to have a life too. You’ve got to put your chin up and get on with it, you know.’
She held her tongue as her sister swept out, closing the door firmly behind her. There was nothing wrong with staying late at work. It didn’t mean anything. She was so over Aaron.
Her belly twisted at the thought of him, of what he could be doing—whether he thought of her at all, or not.
She lifted her chin. She had a problem to solve and she had a duty to not distract Nadine from her daughter. They needed time together and her niece needed her mother more than her mother needed to worry about work.
That was her job, for now, and she was going to manage the office and keep the place ticking over until Nadine got back, and she was going to do it no matter what it took, even baiting handsome men.
If, in the process, she managed to prove to her sister that she wasn’t the total cock-up that she thought she was, it would be a bonus. Sure, she was useless in keeping a relationship with a guy, keeping a house tidy and keeping a fridge sanitary, but she could do this.
If someone wanted to prove that Cade Taylor Watson was a womaniser, a man likely to roam, a man who was going to betray his girlfriend, then she was the woman for the job.
She wasn’t a quitter.
She was going to nail the guy.
She couldn’t help but smile, the vision of Cade Taylor Watson’s handsome face coming to mind.
Her body warmed. Who could call it work?
All she had to do was get him to show his true colours… How hard could it be? He was a man.
The job was as good as done.
CHAPTER THREE
THE restaurant was perfect. The lighting soft, the twinkling candles on the tables, the gentle strains of the lone lute player filling the room, curling around her.
The mood was gentle, romantic, inviting love, inviting intimacy…cripes, inviting sex. She couldn’t have done it better.
Roxanne swivelled on the barstool, surveying the patrons leaning in to each other in whispered closeness.
She had plenty of time. If he got here at a reasonable hour…and the word was that a call was going to come in with the message that suggested his fiancée couldn’t make it. He’d think there’d be plenty of time to explore his options with her, and for her to prove his infidelity.
The guy didn’t stand a chance.
She smoothed down her indecently tight red gown. She had considered a short one that showed a lot of leg but she decided classy elegance would be better in this case, knowing Cade a little better.
Roxanne caught herself. Not that she knew him. Goodness, a couple of seconds and a smile didn’t mean a thing.
Sure, she’d pored over the information that she had been given on him. The fact that he had two parents who were still in love after thirty-five years, that he had a younger sister in the art business, that he had an apartment on the north side with views of the bay and was a top architect and partner in a prominent firm in Sydney. They were just facts. So, the guy liked to go camping, fishing and to all sorts of theatre. It wasn’t like knowing this information meant anything, least of all that she was interested.
This was not a dating service—it was a fidelity-testing one to see whether the guy was marriage material for Miss Heather Moreton or not, to give a guarantee that most wanted when committing to a guy, but rarely got.
This was an amazing service that her sister offered her clients so they didn’t have to go through all that pain later. And it would come.
Men couldn’t be trusted. Not an inch, no matter how nice and kind and handsome they appeared to be. Men were all the same. Liars, who’d betray to serve their own interests when you least expected it.
She couldn’t help but think of her mother, her sister and a myriad of friends…
Roxanne gripped the bar stool.
Cade Taylor Watson strode through the door, his black suit hugging his generous frame, his white shirt throwing the deep purple tie he wore in stark contrast, and his presence striking her immediately.
Hell.
He could have been wearing a tuxedo for the cut of the suit, the commanding aura he exuded as he strode towards her…the bar.
She swung back around, staring at her tropical daiquiri, her mind blank.
What was her line for meeting him again? Fate? It seemed so stupid now…maybe he wouldn’t even recognise her from last time. He probably hadn’t given her a second thought over the weekend…
What she’d said to him had haunted her, as did her foolish move to rush in without looking at her watch, thinking of nothing but talking to the guy, touching base, making a connection and hoping and praying that he was interested in her and she wasn’t making the biggest fool of herself for talking to him.
The only difference in doing this job opposed to real dating was that she was getting paid…or at least Nadine was.
He took a stool one space away. ‘Scotch, neat,’ he directed the barman, plucking his pen from his shirt pocket.
She focused all her attention on her glass. Did he