Wanting Mr. Cane (Cane 1)

Forget. Forget. Forget.

I couldn't get invested in Cane. I couldn't like him. I couldn't need him. I had to be happy with the fact that I was better off without him.

With the mantra ringing in my brain, I was back in the room, handing him a sandwich and his change with a warm smile. His eyebrows dipped, like he was confused by the smile and the offer of the sandwich, but he took it all anyway and thanked me.

He didn't eat his, but Mom and I devoured ours, despite the heavy, gloomy mood weighing over our heads. Who knew distress and anxiety could make a person feel so hungry?

Two hours passed and Dad still wasn't awake. Cane blew a breath when he realized it, and I knew he had to go by the way he slid to the edge of his seat again, looking between the two of us.

"I would stay," he said with a sigh, "but I have a business meeting that includes talk about having another Tempt factory opening in Canada. If I didn't have to be there, I would let my secretary handle it. I’d stay here all night if I could." He flashed his wickedly straight teeth.

Mom stood up. "Oh, Cane, please go. That is your job, and things like that are important. Go," she insisted. "I will let you know when Derek is awake."

Cane stood and looked at Dad, the pain still swirling in his eyes. With a simple nod of his head, he took a step to the left, toward the door. "Please let me know first thing. When he wakes up, tell him I'll be thinking about him until I can see him again."

"I will," Mom assured him.

He exhaled, long and deep, like he didn't want to leave, but he headed for the door anyway. He pulled it open, but before he walked out, his eyes landed on mine. His lips pressed together and as he looked at me, I could have sworn I saw something in his eyes. A small glimpse of sympathy and...longing.

"Take care, Cane," I called after him before he could go.

"You too, Kandy Cane," he teased, but I didn't laugh and neither did he. Mom did, but it was a soft, small chuckle, like things were still the same and he was only joking around. Like that name didn't have a deeper, truer meaning to me. He knew it did—knew all too well how it affected me—and he'd called me it anyway.

Kandy and Cane. His Kandy Cane.

I watched him go, and when he left, the room didn't feel as crowded. My mind didn't reel chaotically with unrequited, forbidden thoughts, and some of the tension in my body had even faded...but not all of it.

Why? Because Dad still wasn't awake. Because I'd done wrong last night, and the bonds that had been created were tainted and murky. The lines had blurred now.

We'd started something—lit an inextinguishable fire in our souls—and that fire was going to burn us inside and out. It was going to consume us whole and probably destroy us.

The fire was going to blaze like a furnace, and neither of us had time to prepare for it.

14

KANDY

It was around midnight when Dad finally woke up. Neither Mom nor I had fallen asleep. We just waited for what felt like centuries, and when we heard him grunt, and then let out a small sigh, we gasped, because the next thing we saw was magnificent: his dark brown eyes.

We rushed for him, both of us hugging him at the same time as he chuckled low and deep.

“Oh, my girls,” Dad sighed, voice raspy. “My girls.”

We didn’t sleep at all that night. We called for the doctor, who came in about an hour after he was awake. He was checked thoroughly, and the doctor was surprised he wasn’t in more pain than he let on. Still, she gave him morphine to ease it, assuring him that the pain would kick in soon, once the previous dose had worn off.

“I want you to stick around here for three more days,” Dr. Ambrose told Dad. “I just want to make sure you’re healing properly and that nothing else has been damaged.”

“Okay. Three days I can do,” he confirmed.

“I’ll call Cane. He said he wanted to know as soon as you were awake,” Mom chimed, hopping up and going for her handbag. Cane’s name made my booming heart go a little unsteady, but I kept up a smile for Dad. For now.

“Was he here?” Dad asked after taking a sip of water.

“Yes. He was around earlier, stayed for about two and half hours. We thought you would have been up before he left. He had a meeting to go to.”

“Oh. Yeah, bring the phone here. Let me call him,” he insisted. Mom handed him her cell, and Dad pressed the call button.