by Stacey Lynn
—
When I got home, I pulled my car into the garage and shut the door. Entering my house, I glanced at the chair David had been in only hours earlier.
It felt like days.
And I hated the sting of disappointment that I felt when he wasn’t in my home. When I realized he hadn’t invaded my life again to get me to listen to him.
I had work in the morning and still needed to think. A weekend in Jamaica had somehow shifted everything inside of me.
I needed time to right myself again, figure out exactly what…or who…I wanted, and when I felt more settled, then I’d begin to deal with the fallout.
Heading to the bathroom, I dug my phone out of my purse and saw that it was still off. I’d turned it off after I’d called Chelsea to let her know I’d gotten a flight out and forgotten all about it.
After I washed my face and changed into pajamas, I slid between my sheets and turned the phone on.
It immediately lit up with text messages and missed calls. Two from Suzanne. Three from Chelsea and two from Trina.
The familiar anger I was feeling toward Trina began to prickle. I hadn’t known her longer than a year, but I still thought we were friends.
Please let me explain.
At least call to tell us you’re okay. Please?
I scrolled past those and hit Chelsea’s text. We’re home. Where are you? Safe? Okay? CALL ME.
It was already ten o’clock, and Chelsea and I both had work in the morning. If they’d just gotten home an hour ago, she had to be exhausted. Still, she’d want to know how I was doing.
Home safe, I typed. We’ll talk soon.
Wine at my place!
I smiled at her text. Chocolate cookies with my mom and wine with Chelsea had to heal every wound possible. I typed out a response, telling her we’d do it soon, and then I switched off the light.
I’d deal with everything later.
Chapter 16
Camden
I used to love my job. I worked for a small accounting firm, and the majority of my job entailed being a third-party administrator to small businesses. I handled their taxes and payroll, and even though a life of numbers and constant calculations and spreadsheets would bore most people to death, I found solace in knowing that when it came to numbers, every problem had a solution. There was the added benefit of knowing I was doing something to help small local businesses succeed. In Latham Hills, we didn’t have a lot of chain department stores and restaurants. The majority of the businesses were mom-and-pop shops, like Declan’s Fireside Grill, where owners struggled to provide a great service at a decent price while keeping their businesses in the black.
It was my job to see that it happened.
Unfortunately, last spring, the president of our company had promoted the largest sleazeball I’d ever met in my entire life, and that was saying a lot considering I’d known my fair share of assholes. Gordon Branzen was the president’s nephew. Nepotism at its finest. He couldn’t count even with the aid of a decent calculator, used a half bottle of gel in his hair daily, and smelled like he lived on a pig farm. His suits didn’t fit correctly and he slouched when he walked. When he talked to me, I had to pull away from the stench of his breath. I hated him.
He’d made my life a living hell for the last three months, when accounts he was supposed to be managing continued to have missing monies from the businesses’ general ledgers and profit-and-loss statements.
I had spent the entire day answering questions from clients who weren’t technically mine and becoming more and more frustrated, considering he was messing everything up for them and wasn’t being held accountable for it.
And because I was his manager, his disastrous attempts were falling on my shoulders.
It didn’t help that my own concentration had turned to shit. I’d slept fitfully last night, waking up every couple of hours, and twice I’d caught myself reaching for David next to me. Somehow, spending two nights with the man in Jamaica had programmed me to roll toward the heat of his strong body. I’d groaned, reminded myself that he’d been the one lying to me, and forced myself to go back to sleep. When I woke up, my eyes were still dry and red, my head pounded from a stress headache, and then I had to come to work and deal with this crap all day.
If I were more daring, braver, I’d quit. I’d been conservative with my income, saving religiously, and even in a bad economy, I still had enough in savings where I could live comfortably for months without having to cut back on anything.
When Gordon strolled up to my desk right as I returned from a lunch where I’d barely been able to stomach eating anything, a file in hand, his crooked smile showing his yellowed teeth, I quickly debated the merits of that thought.
“What’s this?” I asked when he held out the file.
“I need you to fix this for me.”
I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth to swallow an unprofessional retort. “What is it?”
His brown eyes narrowed. “A file. A client.” He waved it at me, and then tossed it to my desk. “Just fix it.”
Rage bubbled in my chest. “Gordon, I’m your manager. Perhaps you should treat me with a bit more respect?”
He leered at me, grinning in a way that made me cringe. “I’ll treat you good, Cammie—you’ll see.”
No one called me Cammie. I hated it. Hated him. Hated this job I used to love. Hated everything about the last forty-eight hours. I was losing control, anger beginning to sizzle and spark. “And I could have you reported for sexual harassment with that comment, Gordon. I suggest you be careful.”
He laughed and stepped back. “Just fix it. And good luck with that. Like Jameson is going to do anything to me. You report me and you’ll be the one out on your ass.”
He walked away, his slouch a bit less pronounced. I fought the urge to fling the file on the floor and walk out.
He was right, though. Jameson Peters was blind when it came to the wasted space of his nephew in our company. And for whatever reason, he protected Gordon, who was Peters’s only nephew.
But if he thought he’d be training Gordon to take over the business one day, as the only heir Peters had, then there wouldn’t be a company to work for much longer.
After Gordon turned the corner and disappeared, I picked up the file he’d carelessly tossed onto my desk and went to work.
It was just like the situation with all the other clients he handled. Missing money. Incorrectly input figures. Nothing made sense.
By the time the workday ended and I got in my car to drive home, I was exhausted and stressed, and all I wanted to do was curl up on my couch with a beer and a blanket and a good book and forget about my life for one more day.
That turned out to be impossible when I reached my driveway and saw the black Escalade sitting at my curb. My pulse ratcheted as I pulled into my garage and exited my dependable Malibu.
As soon as I walked to the back, David was rounding the back bumper of his SUV.
Figured. I should have known months ago when I’d seen him in his fancy Escalade leaving Fireside that he wasn’t just some bartender.
Despite my mom’s warnings the night before, despite her encouragement, I still crossed my arms over my chest and scowled. “What are you doing here?”
He walked up the driveway, hands in his pockets, as nonchalant and chilled as always. He was missing the light shining in his sexy blue eyes, although I took no joy in noticing it. “I came to talk.”
“Did you ever think of calling first?”
He stopped a few feet from me and tilted his head. “Would you have answered?”
Fair point. “I still would have liked the choice as to when I see you again.”
We were in a standoff, my stubbornness versus his. Yet as the seconds ticked by, I began softening. I knew I came across as rude and uptight, but I didn’t necessarily enjoy being that way. I was just about to cave when a friendly voice shouted from across my front lawn.
“Everything okay over the
re, Miss Reed?”
I turned and forced myself to smile at Sal Lorenz.
He returned the smile from over the row of his perfectly pruned rosebushes, only losing the happy look when he glanced at David. We must have looked like we were arguing, which wasn’t off the mark, because his expression changed to one of concern.
“I’m fine, Mr. Lorenz,” I called back to him. “Just talking to a friend of mine.”
Sal Lorenz was a kind old man, often stopping by to check on me. He claimed it was because he was worried about me and didn’t like the idea of a woman living alone without a strong man to protect and care for her. I suspected it was because he’d lost his wife of forty-five years to brain cancer two years earlier, and he simply didn’t know what to do with all the time he spent by himself.
I’d taken up a rather interesting friendship with the old gentleman, who had to be going on two hundred years old based on his wrinkles and hunched back alone, even though he claimed to be only eighty-six.
He shot another look toward David and clipped the air with his pruning shears. “Okay, then, you let me know if you need anything. Made some banana bread today. I can bring it by later for some cribbage. See if you can finally beat me.”
I struggled not to laugh at his protectiveness. And simultaneously fought the urge not to blush. Because wasn’t that what all twenty-nine-year-olds did? Played cribbage with their elderly neighbor?
Next to me, David failed to muffle his laughter.
I glared at him. “You can come inside or leave, but you should decide quick before Sal decides to use those shears.”
“Inside,” David choked out through his poorly hidden laughter. “I choose inside.”
“Figures.” I turned back to Mr. Lorenz and waved. “Maybe some other night, Mr. Lorenz. Okay?”
“Take care of yourself, young lady.”
“Come on,” I said to David, and walked toward my front door.
We needed to talk, anyway. Might as well get it over with.
“Your neighbor seems nice.” David stood close to me while we walked, his hands still in his pockets. But he was too close, his voice too deep. It sent a shiver down my spine that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. “Protective. I like that you have that.”
I didn’t say anything until we were inside my house. My entryway was narrow and I had to press myself against my door for David to enter. Despite his caring tone, I debated letting it shut in his face.
But I generally tried not to be immature.
He brushed against me, grinning down at me as he caught my quick intake of breath. I hated that he affected me this way.
Hated that I’d let myself become so affected by him so quickly.
“Do you want a drink?” I dropped my keys in my purse and headed toward the kitchen. I’d barely eaten anything all day, but I needed a drink if I was going to have to talk to David.
As he followed me quietly, I felt him scanning my small house. Close to Fireside Grill, I was also only a couple of blocks away from Trina and Blue. The three of us didn’t get together as often as I liked since we were all busy with our jobs, but on nights when I didn’t run with Chelsea, I tried to get one of the other women to go for a short walk with me. Tomorrow, I had to get back to training for my last 10K run of the season, but tonight I was throwing my training diet out the window.
Beer. Lots of it. And a heck of a lot of food. Preferably ice cream.
“I could have a beer,” David replied, still behind me when I entered my kitchen and skipped past the refrigerator. His confusion was almost a palpable feeling when I opened the door to my basement and waved him through.
“Going to kill me down here and stuff me in a freezer?” He smirked as he reached me.
I glared, but it lacked heat. “Tempting.” Waving for him to go first, I then headed down the narrow staircase, ducking when I reached the bottom.
“Holy shit.” David exhaled and stared at the line of fridges on the far side of my basement wall. “You rob a liquor store? Host the prohibition?”
“No. I just like wine and beer, I guess.” My cheeks warmed and I walked toward the fridges. “Help yourself. I have something in here from almost everywhere in the world.”
“Dang.” His voice still held a large amount of awe. “Had I known about this months ago, I would have tried harder.”
He was teasing. The words still stung.
“Would it have made you honest?”
He looked at me, lost the humor, and stated, “No.”
I pressed my lips together and turned back to the fridges in front of us. Scanning them, I grinned when I saw a beer I hadn’t yet tried.
“Arrogant Bastard Ale?” David asked when he saw my selection.
“Seems appropriate.” I arched a brow, challenging him to deny it, but he didn’t.
Instead, he stepped toward me and lowered his voice. “I told you, Camden. No more lies between us. I won’t stand here and go back on that now.”
Before I could respond, he reached for his own beer, a German stout I’d had before and enjoyed. I didn’t tell him how good it was. Without waiting for him, I turned and headed back up the stairs, the thud of his footsteps following me close behind. After opening my beer, I left the bottle opener on the counter and made my way to my living room.
By the time he entered the room, I was curled in a protective ball at the edge of the couch, knees to my chest, wrapped in a blanket, beer held in both my hands. I hated confrontation. I hated being hurt even more. It had been so long since I’d experienced either that I was unsure if I should start asking questions or wait for him to begin explaining, but as the silence stretched, the tension thickened.
Chapter 17
David
From the moment I’d handed my credit card to a private charter company, waking up the pilot from a middle-of-the-night deep sleep and begging him to get me off the island, I had planned every word I wanted to say to Camden when I saw her again. Once we hit Miami at the private plane terminal, I’d done the same thing to another pilot. It took a lot of money—thousands of dollars—but it had been worth it.
It had given me time to put all my thoughts in order, everything I thought she’d need to hear to forgive me. Seeing the visible pain I’d inflicted on her yesterday made me hate the way I’d handled all of it. Intellectually, I knew I’d been running from the last five months through no fault of my own.
How exactly did you explain to someone who always seemed so strong and confident that you walked away from your lifelong dream because you were too big of a pussy to deal with it?
As I sat in Camden’s living room, feeling her irritation from across the room, hating that she was balled up like she needed to protect herself from me, I knew I had to start.
And the only way to do that was to go back to the beginning.
“I told you my dad died when I was in college.” I took a large swallow of my beer and cringed at the heavy flavor.
Camden watched me, smiling slightly at my reaction and then looking at me. “Yes, you told me.”
Fuck. I hated this. Hated reliving any of it. I would, for her, but already I was feeling pulled apart at the seams.
“I didn’t tell you that I was the one who found him.”
Her lips parted on a gasp, forming a perfectly shaped O. “What?”
“I was interning at his office that summer, filing and handling mail. He’d always wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but insisted I worked from the bottom up and learn everything about the company like he’d had to do.”
“David—”
I shook my head and stopped her. Whatever she wanted to say, she needed to hear the rest first. “I was supposed to meet him for lunch and his assistant was expecting me, so she didn’t even buzz into his office or let him know I was there. She waved me through, and when I walked in, I saw him collapsed on the floor, still holding onto the phone he’d been using just minutes before.
“My mind transported back to being young and excited
, looking forward to being a part of something my dad had always loved. I loved that the McGregor dynasty was going to be passed on to me someday, had grown up hearing about it. Then I walked into the office to find my dad—a man I’d always respected and admired, had looked up to and wanted to be like—collapsed, unconscious, and I could do nothing to help.
“He was still warm,” I said, not even realizing where I was, but lost in memories. “EMTs came in, swarmed him. Security had to pull me off him, and someone called my mom. But I didn’t need anyone to tell me he was already gone.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and focused on Camden. Her pale skin, paler from the shock of my story, tears streaking her cheeks. “I rode to work with him that morning like I’d done every morning that entire summer and then I watched, stood there helplessly while they wheeled him out on a stretcher, zipped in a plastic bag.”
My throat burned and I drained the rest of my beer in a swallow. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and cleared my throat. “After that, I walked away from the family business. The day of his funeral, I swore to myself that I would never feel that helpless again. That I would never, ever let anyone feel what I had felt and I’d do anything I could to stop it.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose. With a wobbly voice, she concluded, “So you became a doctor.”
I nodded. “So I did.”
She pressed her lips together and I waited, tried to figure out how to explain everything else, when she said, “I don’t understand. Being a doctor—that takes a hell of a lot of work, and money and time and commitment. Why would you hide it? Why would you lie about it?” Her auburn brows furrowed.
I wanted to jump across the room, smooth out all the tension in her features. I wanted to run my hand through her hair that was tied back like it had been every other time I’d seen her until Jamaica. Pulled back tight. Like she couldn’t stand the thought of a single strand touching her. Seeing her buttoned up in her suit and in heels, all that tightly wrapped and primly dressed sexy-as-hell woman, I’d had to force myself to keep my hands in my pockets so I didn’t ruffle her up as soon as she’d slid out of her car.