by Skylar Kade
“Damien, what’s going on?” He looked over the brunch tableau. His parents and brother and little Cordelia were seated around his brother’s dining table, the surface filled with his mother’s famous pancakes and eggs and bacon breakfast. In that moment, nothing mattered more than getting to Camille.
“Emergency. Don’t wait for me.” Without another word, he snagged his keys from the table by the front door and prepared to break a few laws getting to Camille.
His heart lodged in his throat throughout the entire drive, aching more every time he called and her phone went to voice mail. If something had happened to her, he’d never forgive himself. If only he’d stayed with her last night, taken her to his place, been brave enough to take her to meet his family, anything…
All the ways he could blame himself lashed at his conscience and in the face of all that scrutiny, his fear of commitment looked ridiculous. He just wanted her to be safe. Nothing else mattered.
A squad car sat around the corner from her building, lights spinning but siren off. He parked behind it, then approached Davis in the passenger’s seat.
“That was quick,” the officer said, looking up and down Damien’s rough appearance. “I’m letting you come up, but you better stay behind me until we have more information, okay?”
Damien grit his teeth. But rushing into the situation wouldn’t help anyone, especially since they had no idea if anything was wrong in the first place. Camille could be taking a long bath, or her phone could have died… Any number of plausible scenarios could explain the circumstances. But that did nothing abate his terror.
He followed Davis around the corner and into the building, then up to Camille’s door. They listened from outside for a moment, but couldn’t hear anything. Davis took off his uniform shirt to expose the plain cotton tee beneath, handed it to Damien, then waved him farther down the hall. Then Davis pulled a sheaf of rolled paper from his back pocket knocked on the door. “Miss Verona? It’s the superintendent. I have some repair information for you.”
A thump sounded from the apartment, setting Damien’s nerves on edge, but then the door opened a little bit and he heard Camille’s voice. “Huh?” She paused, clearly confused.
Davis stepped in to cover the silence. “I have those insurance forms too, if you’d like me to come in and go over them with you.” He waved the papers through the cracked door.
He almost didn’t catch the shaking in Camille’s voice. “Now’s not a good time. I’m a little under the weather. Could you come back later?”
Damien couldn’t hold back any longer. He took a step forward, drawing Camille’s attention. Her wide eyes had deep circles beneath them and a bruise shadowed her chin. Anger gathered in his chest and only his years of practice in restraint kept him from charging inside.
“Miss Verona, I really need to get these taken care of now.”
Another voice, barely audible, said something and Camille hunched her shoulders, then reached a hand through the door opening, pointing her thumb up and finger out in the unmistakable shape of a gun. “I’ll take those papers, Mr. Davis. Give me five minutes and I’ll come down to fill them out, okay?” Her eyes begged them to get her message. Damien nodded in reply.
“Sure thing, Miss Verona,” Davis said. “Feel better.”
The door slammed shut and Camille’s pained gasp from behind it had Damien ready to launch himself at the closed entryway, but Officer Davis restrained him. The lock snicked shut and he stared at the knob as if willing it to open.
Davis marched him down the hall. “Give her five minutes. She was scared, but seemed to have some control of the situation.”
Dread coated the back of his throat. “I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.”
Davis stepped all the way down the hall then pulled out his radio and called for backup, scratching a hand across his buzzed black hair as he explained the situation. When the five minutes were up—and Damien knew, because he’d checked his watch a million times—he looked to Davis.
“They’re on the way,” Davis said.
Fuck that. He didn’t want Camille in there any longer than she had to be. Who knew when that crazy woman had shown up or when she might decide to do something stupid? He charged to the door and knocked before Davis could stop him. “Camille, I know you’re in there! You promised to call me last night, but didn’t. Is that how you treat your boyfriend, hmm?”
The door was yanked open and a blonde with wild eyes grabbed his hand and pulled him inside. A gun was in her other hand, wobbling around the room. “Shut up and sit on the couch next to her,” the woman demanded. “You stupid son of a bitch, you’re ruining everything.” She hadn’t locked the door. That was good. He hoped Davis had noticed.
He took a seat next to Camille, grabbing her hand and checking her body over for injuries. She looked remarkably well, aside from her bruised jaw and shadowed eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked. She said nothing and he realized why when the woman stalked over and pointed the gun at him.
“I said shut up.” Blonde hair stuck up around her forehead and her clothes were rumpled, like she’d slept in them all week. “My agent is working on a project for me and we’re almost done.” The gun swung around towards Camille. “Isn’t that right?” Hysterical laughter bubbled from the stranger before she took a seat in the recliner across from them. Camille’s apartment looked even worse than it had on Thursday, like someone had tossed it a second time in a fit of pique.
Camille reached for the laptop in front of her, eyes hard. While her fingers jabbed at the keys, Indigo watched over her shoulder, letting the gun drift farther and farther away from them, only to swing it back to Camille’s head. He knew waiting for Davis’s backup would be the sensible thing to do, but he’d come this far. Every time the muzzle fixed on Camille, a little piece of him died. He couldn’t take much more.
“Indigo, right?” The woman shifted her attention to him. Good. “I thought I recognized you.”
Her shoulders hunched up. “From where?”
He forced a broad smile onto his face and slouched back against the arm of the couch so he could watch her from a better angle. “I read your book. Good stuff.”
“Really?” Her body relaxed. “I’m always happy to meet a fan.” She let the gun droop to the side as she leaned closer to him.
“Yes. I thought it was fucking brilliant. You really know your stuff.” He added a wink, knowing she’d react to the flirting. The woman was off her rocker for attention. “If I’d known you were going to be here with Cam, I would have brought my copy.”
Camille had stopped typing. From the corner of his eye, he saw Camille turn toward him, but he kept his eyes on Indigo.
The gun was about level with the back of the couch, pointing toward the large window at the rear of the apartment. Good. It was off Camille. He wouldn’t let it get back on her. Nothing was more important than her safety.
He rose from the couch in small, cautious movements. “Maybe you could sign something here for me?”
Indigo waved the gun in his direction, her eyes confused and wild at the edges. “Maybe. Like what? And don’t move any farther.”
Looking around the room, Damien spied a pen and paper by the phone and pointed to them. “How about that? We can walk over there, you can sign it for me and then I’ll come back to the couch, okay?” His chest felt like a building demolition as he waited for her response.
Indigo narrowed her eyes at him and Camille. “What about her?”
He looked to Camille, feigning disinterest. “She’s just an agent. You’re the author. I think I’d rather talk to you.”
Indigo preened, but the gun didn’t move away from him. “I’ll sign for you, sure.”
Relief weakened his muscles, but he kept upright and shuffled over to the phone in small steps, making sure Indigo followed. That crazy bitch wasn’t near Camille anymore. At least if Davis and his team started negotiations with Indigo, he was the one closest to her. He hande
d her the pen and paper.
She scoffed. “Put it on the table, uncap the pen and hold the pad still.” He followed her directions, setting her up to sign with one hand. In a flourish, she signed the paper, her signature shooting off the edge of the pad when a knock on the door sounded throughout the apartment.
She grabbed Damien by the arm, shoved the gun against his back and marched him to the door. He opened it, revealing Officer Davis with his uniform shirt back on. “Indigo Baumgardner, we need you to drop the gun and come out with your hands up.”
The muzzle jabbed into Damien’s spine. “Not until she finishes her press releases!”
What the hell? “What are you talking about?”
Indigo cackled. “‘Disgraced literary agent Camille Verona’ is right now sending out press releases taking full responsibility for my story.” With feigned innocence, she continued. “Poor Indigo came to her with a story about her lover and the calculating Camille told her to make it autobiographical. Said it would sell better that way!”
Davis raised his eyebrows. “Miss Baumgardner, what happens after she sends these out?”
“As soon as my reputation is restored and hers is ruined, I’ll find myself another agent to publish my next book. Who knows what ‘disgraced literary agent Camille Verona’ will do! Do you like that phrase? That’s all mine.”
Was she serious? Damien couldn’t believe the insane plan she was spewing, but he went with it anyway. He moderated his voice so no panic would leak through. “Indigo, I’m glad I got your signature now.”
Davis rolled his finger, telling him to keep her talking. He opened his mouth to ask her about her next story, when Camille piped up. “Do you want to read this one too, Indigo?”
Like that, his plan dissolved. The gun was pulled from his back and Indigo stalked over to Camille, trained the weapon on her again and started reading over her shoulder. “Good.” She punctuated her approval with a muzzle tap to the back of Camille’s head. “Send it.”
Camille hit Enter and Indigo took two steps back. “Thank you for all your help.” She smoothed out the wrinkles on her shirt as if that were the key to restoring her sanity. “Only one more to go. Get to work.”
Damien stepped away from the door, sensing Davis come in behind him. “Miss Baumgardner,” the cop said, “put down your weapon and put your hands behind your head.” Davis’s gun was out, pointed at the floor.
“No!” she screeched. “We’re almost done!” In one wild movement, she trained the gun on Davis, then shifted it between Damien and the cop. “Stay back.”
Fuck that. He inched closer to Indigo, trying to get between her and Camille. He didn’t want his attention to leave Indigo, but he could feel Camille staring at him.
“Stop moving!” The writer kept shifting the gun between him and Davis, finger on the trigger. He was two feet away from the couch when the gun went off. He dove for Camille, covering her body with his own as two more shots rang out. His head thunked against the coffee table, the room spun and wetness trickled down the side of his head.
Searing fire scored his back and he gasped. A thump echoed from across the room and the apartment went silent, apart from Camille’s ragged breathing from underneath him.
“Shooter down,” Davis said. “Call for an ambulance, two GSWs.” His radio crackled and his boot steps neared them. Damien finally raised his head and started to rise from Camille, hissing when he moved. His back exploded in pain, but he swallowed it, running his hands all over Camille’s body to make sure she was uninjured, even as her face went blurry.
“Please tell me you’re all right, baby.” The room dipped and spun. In the background he heard a cacophony of voices, but he refused to focus on anything but Camille.
She traced his lips with her finger. “I’m okay.” She levered herself up on her elbows, her eyes going wide. “But you’re not! Damien, you’re bleeding!” She wiggled out from under him, pulled her black T-shirt off and ripped it in half. Clad in only a thin tank top, she pressed one rag to his temple and the other to his back.
“I’m fine—Oww!” He grit his teeth and sank against the soft, blue area rug. He hoped he didn’t bleed on it. Camille started in on a litany of curses and admonishments, but none of it mattered. She was safe.
He lost track of time, listening to cops move through the room and breathing in Camille’s nearness. Maybe he’d blacked out. But whenever he opened his eyes, she was there, one arm pressed against his back as she stretched out next to him, silently fuming while tears brimmed in her reddened eyes. At some point, the paramedics loaded him onto a stretcher, though he couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to anything they were doing until they rolled him away from Camille. He was about to protest but then she followed along, talking to the third medic that had come into the apartment. Interrogating him, more like.
That was better. His fiery submissive was back. Damien let his eyes close, knowing she’d be there when he woke up.
Chapter Seventeen
Cam still couldn’t wrap her mind around the last twenty-four hours. Indigo, dead. Damien, shot. And the concussion…she knew that old coffee table was nothing but trouble.
Why the hell had he even shown up? She waited for the chance to ask, sitting by him through the ambulance ride and his stitches and his CAT scan and his overnight observation. In the evening, some nurse tried to throw her out, but she’d refused. Damien had taken a bullet for her and she deserved answers.
When the fingers of dawn had just started rising through his hospital window, he stirred on his hospital bed. She was out of the chair, water in hand, before he could open his eyes.
“Hey, beautiful,” he said, his voice gravelly and tired.
“You’re an asshole, Damien.” Cam shoved a straw into his mouth, making him drink water so he couldn’t talk back. “You shouldn’t have involved yourself. I mean, look what happened!” She’d sworn she wouldn’t cry, but, damn it, the tears just appeared. She’d tossed and turned during a series of fitful naps in that devil-made hospital chair, seeing Damien shot and killed over and over, her heart breaking each time.
He flicked the straw, took the cup and set it aside before tugging her down onto the bed next to him. He lay on his side, keeping pressure off his forty stitches and she curled up against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. “I’m so sorry I left, sweetheart.”
That was it. The floodgates opened and she bawled against his hospital gown. “Don’t apologize, you jerk. This is my fault. You got caught up in it, injured, almost killed—”
His lips stole the rest of her fears. She kissed him back like her life depended on it, needing the reassurance that he was alive.
She couldn’t deny it anymore. He’d wormed his way into her heart, snuck under all the flimsy barriers she’d erected. Fuck. She did love the reckless bastard.
The rough cloth sheets abraded her cheek as she dried her eyes. The anger and resentment she’d gathered around her to ward off the cold loneliness slipped away, leaving her bare to him once more.
“I think we need to talk.” His words cut off the wild happily-ever-after fantasy she’d been imagining. Those were never good words to hear.
She tried to extract herself from the tangle of his arms and legs, but he had her firmly pinned against him. The last thing she wanted to do was injure him. Looked like she was going to get her heart broken, up close and personal.
“Are you sure you want to have this talk while concussed?” The blow to his head hadn’t been too damaging, the doctor had said, but they still wanted to watch him closely for a while, and his follow-up CAT scan was still a few hours off. Convenient excuse to delay the inevitable too.
He rolled his eyes and she almost threatened to spank him for it until she remembered where they were and why. But when he hissed and pressed a hand against his temple, she couldn’t resist leaning over him and pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“I’m supposed to be taking care of you.” His raw voice grated over her heart. “
And there’s no good reason to delay sorting things out.”
Great. Cam dug her fingernails into her palms and braced herself for the goodbye speech. Their prenegotiated weekend was over and he’d made it very clear that a relationship wasn’t in the cards.
She started to preempt his speech, tried to find words to set him free that didn’t stick in her throat. Before she could start, a voice called from the doorway. “Damien?”
He looked up from Camille’s beautiful, tortured face to find his whole family crammed in the doorway. His father’s stoic expression countered his mother’s panic. Even little Cordelia seemed to sense the tension as she flailed an arm at Derek’s chin.
“Mom, I’m fine.” At his words, Camille stiffened and tried to roll away. Damien squeezed his arms around her, grunting when it pulled at his stitches. “You’re not going anywhere, missy.”
His family crowded into the room and he fumbled for the bed controls, wincing when even that movement ached. Eventually, he and Camille were sitting upright in the bed, and though her tight-jawed expression would have had him chuckling and threatening her with punishment any other day, right then he couldn’t do anything but thank his lucky stars she wasn’t hurt.
With Camille tucked under his right arm, his mother perched in the chair next to his bed and his father, brother and niece ranged behind her, he finally breathed easily. All the people he loved, all in one room.
“Mom, meet Camille.” Ever polite, even in awkward situations, his mother extended her hand, shaking with Camille.