by Frost, Sosie
“No sense in her hating the both of us,” I said.
And he knew it.
“…You’re a good man, Cameron.”
Didn’t feel like it. “I’ll take care of it.”
The line went dead.
I nearly crushed the phone in my hand.
What the fuck did he want from me?
Everything we’d worked for, everything that I had promised her, crumbled to dust in an instant.
We were on the precipice of something amazing. Something terrifying and beautiful and utterly magnificent. Something I’d never thought possible for myself.
Something I never thought I’d ever want.
And then came the offer.
Far better than anything we could’ve hoped when I first took the position of CEO.
The buyer was a chic lingerie outfit, an up-and-coming luxury brand, gobbling up smaller designers and lines for the past three years.
They had money to burn, and they were very interested in my lingerie.
But the classic line? The shapewear? The girdles?
They’d be left behind. Everything that had made Maxwell Intimates the company it was would be lost forever. The only thing remaining would be my scandalous line of sensual lingerie.
I knew what it meant, but I had no choice.
I called the meeting for later that week.
Mackenza would hate me for it.
And I prayed I wouldn’t lose her forever.
20
Mackenza
I knew better than to trust the Panty King.
And I’d prepared myself to survive his inevitable betrayal.
But I didn’t realize how bad it would hurt.
Or how cruel the man could be.
But he didn’t earn his billions spreading giggles and rainbows. No. He earned his money off the destruction of others.
Even the ones he claimed to love.
I waited in the darkness of the empty boardroom. Silent. But the echo of the gavel’s adjourning crack deafened my ears.
Cameron entered one hour after the meeting.
Didn’t even have the courage to be there for the vote when the board agreed to dismantle the company, sell the properties, and cash in their most profitable retirements thanks to the sacrifice, determination, and now abject humiliation of my family’s once proud legacy.
He said nothing, but there was nothing else to say.
Fortunately, I had words enough for the both of us.
“Yesterday I had an amazing meeting with our production team,” I said.
Cameron didn’t react. I would’ve been surprised if he did. Not like he had taken any interest in the company in the last two weeks. Hadn’t been in the office. Refuse to take calls. He claimed to be attending important meetings to safeguard the company, but no one in our distribution lines or design teams had a record of meeting with the CEO.
Wherever he’d gone and whomever he had met with was not a part of Maxwell Intimates.
At least Mr. R had gotten his wish.
Whoever he was.
Cameron had planned this from the beginning. And, like a fool, I thought I might’ve changed his mind. That my words, my hopes, my dreams might have swayed the man who claimed he cared for me.
Instead, he patronized me. Took me to bed, claimed my body, and used the pregnancy as his own damned trophy. A monument to his own fertility, masculinity, and his utter domination over everything — business, social, and woman.
“I had meant to surprise you,” I said. “I figured out a way to save seven percent on our bottom line for the entirety of the classic designs.”
“Mackenza…”
“Of course, the prices were contingent on a contract to supply the same materials for your lingerie line. I told him yes, because I feared that we had very little time to turn profits and show growth. Didn’t consult with you. Figured you would have a coronary, fight with me, then realize it was a great idea and take credit for it with the Board. Little did I know, the sale was already in motion.”
“There’s nothing I can say.” Cameron took the seat opposite me.
The last thing I wanted was to get lost in the dark mystery of his gaze.
Especially now that I knew the answers I’d find.
“But you know what worried me the most?” I asked. “I’d hoped you would be proud of me. That you’d see me taking initiative in something other than design. That you’d see I could discuss finances, logistics, contracts. And it was only after I’d made the deal that I realized…” My stomach turned, but it wasn’t morning sickness. “I hadn’t done it for the company. I made the arrangements, contacted the suppliers, and organized the entire deal just to impress you.”
“I’m impressed,” he said.
“Bullshit.” I wouldn’t hear it. “If you were really impressed, you would’ve been in the office that day to celebrate with the rest of the team. But you weren’t. And you weren’t in the office the next day either. No one could reach you on your phone, no one received an email from you. You just vanished.”
“Will you ask me where I went?”
I hesitated, staring into the wooden table’s glossy reflection, smudged beneath fingerprints.
“I might have…before.” My voice quieted. I imagined him sipping champagne with Mr. R while counting their precious pennies. “But I realized this was the end a while ago. And I should’ve known better. Before you joined Maxwell Intimates, you’d worked with lace industries for almost two years. That’s an exceptionally long period of time for you to be within one field. I suppose it’s a small miracle that you waited until now to abandon it.”
“You think I’m abandoning you?”
“I don’t think it’s your fault.” Wasn’t sure if my consolation would ease his conscience. “It’s just the man you are. Always looking for something new. Another challenge. An unclaimed prize. I expected this. I did. I only hoped…”
I didn’t bother revealing anything more about my own naivety. No sense humiliating myself any more than I already had.
“This is different,” he said. “You’ve gotta believe me.”
No. Now, I didn’t have to do anything for him.
Once the sale finalized, he’d no longer be my boss, I wouldn’t be his assistant, and whatever else we had would unravel like a pulled thread off a fraying scarf.
“You didn’t tell me you’d been meeting with potential buyers,” I said.
Cameron shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”
“You told me everything was silent. That none of the investors would even acknowledge selling the company. You assured me they would wait. See what would happen.”
“The situation changed.”
That was his explanation?
I expected a better lie to spare my feelings.
But that would’ve required Cameron thinking of someone else, searching outside of his own narrow scope of the world to realize there was more than just earning money, breaking records, and doing what others could not.
Sometimes, the best things in the world were what everybody else had already found.
Love. Family. Trust.
But he had never once challenged himself to attain those goals.
While I had risked them all on him.
I should’ve known better.
“There was nothing that could have been done,” Cameron said. “Bonne Chance was interested, they offered more than what the company is worth, and we would’ve been fools not to take the offer.”
“They only want the lingerie.”
I couldn’t even resent the damned clothing anymore. After all, he was right. It did sell—for a considerable amount.
“But that was your plan all along,” I sighed. “And it worked flawlessly, I have to admit. Gobble up smaller and failing companies. Produce something new, unique, and completely beyond the realm of their distribution lines and available capital. Pump up the stocks. Then sell it for a small fortune to another company doing the same exact thi
ng.”
“I had to do what was in the best interest of the company,” Cameron said. “And, as a result, we all make money on this deal.”
“Who cares about money?”
Cameron’s patience fractured. “Are you that naïve? If we hadn’t focused on the lingerie, the company would’ve folded months ago.”
“I don’t believe that. We had a chance, but you gave up on us.”
“I’m doing what’s best for us.”
“It’s not what’s best for me.”
His jaw tensed, the only indication of his aggravation. I recognized it. The twitch in his eyebrow. The thinning of his lips. I had made it a game to study what made Cameron Mitchell tick. And I’d learned so much.
How he preferred his coffee, which I ignored.
Which side of the bed he slept on, which I eagerly stole just for the opportunity to feel his arms wrap around me every night.
What music he loved in the morning to get ready, which I always switched to country.
No other woman had ever dared to challenge Cameron. While others fell over themselves to get into his bed and wallet, I had struggled for so long to deny my every attraction to the billionaire.
And I’d failed.
Just as spectacularly as I failed to protect my family’s company.
And my heart.
But I had one reason to keep fighting, to do what was right, and defend myself from any more pain, heartbreak, or disaster.
The baby.
And that little life and future and potential was worth far more than the family legacy Cameron so willingly destroyed.
“With the money from the sale, your family can pay their debts,” Cameron said. “It will give your parents a cushion. Let them plan for retirement in peace. And that means you won’t be tethered to a sinking company anymore. You can take your own money and invest it into your own line of clothing. Or save it while you work with another designer. You have your entire life ahead of you to do whatever you want. Don’t let it be defined by what happened here today.”
I might’ve laughed if the prospect wasn’t so goddamned sad.
“You think I can just abandon everything I’ve ever wanted, start fresh, and work toward something new?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Like you?”
“Yes.”
“And what exactly do you expect to do after this?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
I shrugged. “I suppose you’ll work for Wrynn Radcliff? Rush headfirst into a new industry. Rocketry. Space flight. Astrophysics. For the next two or three years out of your life, you will eat, breathe, and live for this new obsession.”
Cameron scowled. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Do you even know why his offer interested you so much?”
He deflected the question, rising from the chair with a huff and irritated hand threading through his hair.
“Because it’s fascinating?” he asked. “Because that work will literally change the course of human history and pave the way for future generations to leave this rock and search for something new. Because I’ve never done anything like it in my life, and I’m eager to learn all I can about that science and technology?”
I’d fallen for Cameron Mitchell, but even my feelings couldn’t obscure the truth about the man. Had my heart not ached for everything we might’ve had and all that we would miss in the future, I might have believed every word he spoke.
He didn’t give excuses, and he’d never lied. But that didn’t mean what he said was right.
Or real.
Cameron did all he could to convince himself that the next new, amazing opportunity was just what he needed to finally feel something he had never felt in his entire life.
Happy.
“That’s not it, Cameron,” I whispered. “And I’m sorry.”
I pushed away from the table, but Cameron refused to let me leave the room. He grabbed my hand, eyes blazing with irritation and confusion.
“What the hell are you talking about, Kenza?”
“You don’t know why you want to go work for Radcliffe,” I said. “You don’t know why you wanted to start your own lingerie company. You don’t know why you wanted to climb Everest. You don’t know why you lived in Antarctica.”
“Of course I do.”
“Because you were looking for something to challenge you?”
“Yes.”
I slowly shook my head. “No. It’s because you were looking for something to fulfill you. And you’re never going to find it.”
His brow furrowed. “Stop before you say something you regret, Kenza.”
“You’re obsessed with trying to find something new, unique, challenging to fill whatever void is in here.” I tapped my hand over his chest, instantly regretting brushing my fingers against his strength and warmth. “Something is missing in you, Cameron. And you know it too, or you wouldn’t be so obsessed with this endless search for distractions and challenges and reasons to keep running. And until you face whatever it is you fear, you’ll never stop to appreciate what it is that you do have. What you could have.”
The man tensed, hardened to stone. “That’s bullshit.”
“You will spend your life dedicated to finding whatever it is you think you’re missing, and all it will do is deny you every bit of happiness and compassion.” I ached for him, but I had nothing to offer him, nothing I could do to change him until he confronted his problems himself. “You don’t think anything is good enough for you, but only because you don’t think there’s anything good in this world.”
Cameron released a piercing breath, his gaze fixated on me.
Oops. One step too far.
“And what about you, Kenza?” His voice lowered, gruff and sharp, like a pinprick to the bottom of an unsuspecting foot. “You’re so hell-bent on saving this damned company that you can’t even see what’s in its best interest. This sale isn’t about Maxwell Intimates. It’s about you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He held out his arms. “It’s always been about you. You resented that I was the one in charge of this company, so much so that you would’ve burned it to the ground to preserve what you thought it represented. You would’ve discontinued the lingerie. Fucked around with girdles and slips for months on end, ignoring every sign that the company was about to crash. You never stop and think about the employees or the investors or your parents or what’s best for any of them.” Cameron shrugged. “You said it yourself. You don’t care about the money. All you care about is the name. You’re so obsessed with the past that you can’t see yourself in the future where this doesn’t exist.”
“And I shouldn’t have to.”
“Because the company is that important?” He asked. “Or because you’re too goddamned frightened to march out into the world and stand on your own?”
He was arrogant.
He was infuriating.
And he was absolutely right.
But we were well beyond right or wrong now.
“Of course, I’m frightened,” I said. “I’m pregnant. The only career I ever wanted for myself now belongs to somebody else. And everything I’ve planned for my future is destroyed. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do, and you think you can insult me, that you can gloat, and call me frightened?”
“I’m not gloating.”
“Fuck you, Cameron. I’m not like you. I can’t abandon parts of my life with absolutely no remorse or regret. I have nothing now.”
He stepped close, his words darkening. “What about me?”
“What about you?”
“You have me.”
I laughed. “For how long?”
“Don’t you dare insinuate—”
“What?” I shrugged. “That I might be the next part of your life that you shrug away while you search for something new and exciting?”
“If you really think that, then we have nothing at all.” Cameron’s gaze darkened. “But you kno
w that’s not the truth. You know how I feel about you. Problem is, I have no fucking idea what’s going on in your brain. This sale, this decision, is killing me, because I knew the instant it happened, it would drive you out of my arms.”
“You’re right.”
“But if you think I’m just going to let you run…” Cameron scowled. “We belong together.”
“That’s the difference between us—you think we're perfect, while I know that I fell for the wrong man.”
“And I’m in love with the right woman who refuses to see it.”
Words that cut deep when they should’ve stolen my breath.
But I had to be smart enough to get out before those feelings ruined more lives.
“I have more than myself to protect now,” I said.
“You never had anything to fear from me.”
I almost laughed. “That’s not true. Look at what you’ve done to my family’s company. To our legacy. To our name. How do I know you won’t do worse in the future?”
“Because I love you.” He growled the words, taking hold of me by the shoulders. “And you love me.”
I stayed quiet, terrified, unwilling to admit anything which might’ve only caused more pain.
“Tell me you love me.” Cameron had never had a demand go unanswered until he met me. “Why would you deny everything I could offer you, everything you feel, everything you know is right? It’s okay to be scared. Christ, I’m fucking shaking.”
So was I, but I wouldn’t admit it.
“You’ve always searched for your perfect man, but I got to break the news to you,” he said. “He doesn’t exist. But I’m standing here. Right in front of you. Offering you everything. You can resent me all you want because I’ve ruined everything you’d ever planned for your life, and you can hate me because I made you fall in love before you were ready. But I’m sorry, sweetheart. That’s what love is.”
I didn’t recognize my voice. “Traitorous and wretched?”
“It’s a bomb that goes off in the middle of your life,” he said. “It destroys everything you thought you knew about yourself, your desires, and your place in this world. But it replaces all of that with something just as confusing, bewildering, and more wonderful than you can imagine. And I dare you to tell me that you don’t feel that same way.”