by Simply BWWM
She groaned miserably and then opened her eyes and spoke in a monotone. “Maybe he’ll get bored with me and move on to other women, and I can hang out with the family in the future and not have to worry about him wanting me. Maybe that will happen.”
“Well, whatever happens, I want you to know that I love you and I support you. You’re a strong lady. One of the strongest that I know, and you have gone through much worse than this. So, you just let it go and do your best to heal and make things good between you and your mom. The rest of the family will try, I bet. Not Cameron, but his dad and brother.” She paused. “I’m so sorry, Natalie.”
“Me too, but thank you for the ear and the understanding. I needed it much more than you will ever know,” Natalie told her best friend gratefully.
Natalie kept to herself in the days following her tryst with Cameron in his studio, and he mostly kept to himself, though he seemed to be waiting for her everywhere she went in the house, and he tried to talk with her whenever he saw her, but she wouldn’t speak to him, and she kept leaving him alone and retreating to corners of the house where she could be alone.
Charisse and Wilson finally came home, blissful, sun kissed, and deeply in love. Their happiness spread through the empty house like a fresh breeze, and when Adam and Theresa came back the next day, it felt to Natalie as if all of their presences took a great weight off of the tension that had filled the house while they were gone.
The newly married couple insisted on dinner with their children every night, and reluctant though she was to be in the same room as Cameron, Natalie could not let her mother and her new stepfather down. She obliged their request, and she showed up each night for dinner.
Cameron did his level best to try to engage Natalie in conversation each night, to be near her, to touch her arm or her shoulder, to bring her a drink or to do anything he could that might elicit a response from her toward him.
They were all sitting around the table the third night that Charisse and Wilson had been home when Cameron, who had been watching Natalie from across the table, looked at her with a warm smile on his face.
“Natalie, I saw that you had some photographs and articles in the National Geographic. That must be quite a boon for your career.” His eyes stayed on her, and she nodded, while refusing to meet his gaze directly.
“It is.” Then, she turned to Adam and smiled at him. “Adam, I would love to hear how your trip with Theresa was. Where did you go?”
He looked over at her and beamed with happiness. “Oh, well we went to Scandinavia. All over the place really. Norway, Finland, Sweden. We were hoping to see some of the northern lights, but I guess that’s mostly done in the wintertime, and here we are in the dead of summer. The days were incredibly long there. It was really strange, but it was a lot of fun.”
“Where do you two think you’ll take your honeymoon?” she asked, hoping to continue the conversation in that vein and keep Cameron from interjecting and asking her anything else.
Adam smiled again at the thought of it. “We’re talking about taking a riverboat down the Nile and then seeing some of the wonders of Asia. I guess we should talk with you about that before we make any final decisions or book anything! What great luck to have a resident traveler in the family.” He laughed then and shook his head. “That was an oxymoron wasn’t it? Resident traveler.” He chuckled a bit more.
“I’d love to hear more about Mom and Dad’s honeymoon.” Natalie grinned at them, and she saw Wilson smile wide because she had called him Dad for the first time. She believed that he was a good man, and that he would be a father to her in every way that he could, as well as being an excellent husband to her mother, so she had no problem acquiescing to his request that she call him Dad.
“I’d love to hear about that too,” Cameron added, giving her a meaningful look. “Then, I’d love to hear about some of your time in Asia,” he told her pointedly. She ignored him and looked at her mother, waiting for a response.
“Oh, you’ve heard about our honeymoon!” Charisse giggled and grinned, waving her hand in the air. “We went to Paris and Mont St. Michel, then took a train to the French Riviera and stayed in Nice and had a wonderful time. Then, we headed down the Italian coastline, all the way to Amalfi, before we went to Sicily and then over to Greece. Goodness, it was paradise! We just loved it. The weather was good, and there were less tourists than we thought there would be, but I guess all the Europeans take their vacations in August, so we were early. Just beautiful!”
“That’s the good stuff.” Natalie grinned at her, and Cameron jumped in.
“Have you ever been to any of those places, Natalie?” He was direct with her, and there wasn’t much wiggle room to get out of talking to him.
“Yes, some of them.” She looked down at her plate and took a bite of her salad so that she didn’t have to say anything else.
“You’ve been over most of that area, I think.” Her mother looked at her with a thoughtful expression. “I think the only place you haven’t gone is Sicily. Oh honey, you’d love it there. You really would.” She looked around the table and glowed with pride.
“Natalie went to Europe between high school and college. She took a gap year and had a great time, exploring just about every place over there! She wound up doing some photojournalism work while she was there, even though she hadn’t started school yet, and a few of those stories were published, so all through school she just kept submitting more and more work, and then by the time she was in Asia after she graduated from college, National Geographic and so many other publications were picking up her articles and photography! It’s been incredible. I can’t even begin to imagine where she’ll be in twenty years.” Charisse was grinning blissfully.
“Hopefully, not too far away from here,” Cameron told her with a smile.
“Awe, Cameron, that’s so sweet. I’m so glad to see that all of you are getting to know each other. It really means so much to Wilson and me that this family comes together as one. That’s our fondest wish.” She looked over at Wilson, and he nodded in agreement and gave her hand a squeeze.
“I’m doing my best,” Cameron replied, his eyes locked on Natalie. “Our Natalie is a busy lady, though. She doesn’t seem to have much free time to get out and enjoy extracurricular activities. In fact, she’s been working so much that the only time I’ve gotten her out of here has been to the yacht party I had before the wedding.”
Wilson looked surprised. “Have you been working all the rest of this time?” he asked in displeased wonder.
She nodded, sorely wishing that she could kick Cameron underneath the table, and giving it some considerable thought. “Yeah, I have been, but I have deadlines looming, and I have things I’ve got to get in. I’ll catch up on the free time soon.”
“Oh honey, you always have worked too hard. Why don’t you try to spend a little more time with the boys?” her mother encouraged her.
“Oh yes, I know Theresa and I would love to see you anytime. We could go to dinner or something. Just let me know,” Adam added helpfully. Natalie smiled at him gratefully.
“That sounds good, Adam. I’ll take you up on that as soon as I can.” She meant it. She did want to get to know him and Theresa.
“That’s the spirit, Natalie. What if you come out on the sailboat with me tomorrow? The weather is supposed to be excellent. It won’t take too much time.” Cameron had backed her into a proverbial corner, and she was stuck.
“I have to work tomorrow. Sorry,” she said shortly.
Her mother scolded her gently. “Oh, now, Natalie, that’s no way to build new relationships with your brothers. Come on, put the work down for a few hours. I know you must be way ahead on your work; you always are. You’re what they call an overachiever. You’ve got everything done before it needs to be done. I know you could set everything down just for a few hours tomorrow to go out with Cameron on the sailboat. That was a nice offer from him. Come on. Please go.”
Natalie was truly trapped the
n. With a sigh and a tight smile, she nodded. “Okay. I’ll go. Thanks, Mom.” She didn’t speak again all through dinner, but Cameron looked like the cat who ate the canary for the rest of the evening, watching her and smiling at her with twinkling eyes until she made her goodbyes for the night and escaped to her bedroom.
She knew that she was going to have to change her living situation soon. There was no way that she was going to be able to stay away from Cameron as much as she wanted to with the rest of the family there pushing them together.
The next morning, as soon as she wandered into the kitchen for breakfast, she came face to face with Cameron, who looked enormously pleased with himself.
“I’m so looking forward to today,” he told her with a genuine smile. “I’m glad you’re coming.”
“Don’t be too sure. I might suddenly get cramps.” She glared at him.
“What, and let your mother and my father down? Now, you wouldn’t do that, would you?” he asked with a slight drawl. Then, his face took on a more stoic look. “Listen, I know things are rocky between us right now. I’m just trying to fix that. I’m working hard on it. It means a great deal to me that things are okay between us, no matter what happens. I’m glad you’re coming. It’s a step in the right direction,” he told her earnestly.
She sighed and took her coffee to the table, not replying to him. He slid his hands into his jeans pockets and pressed his lips together in a thin line for a moment and then nodded. “Okay. Good talk. Listen, come down to the boathouse at noon, and we’ll go out. I’ll have the boat ready to go by then. Okay?”
She nodded. “Noon.”
“I’m really looking forward to it,” he said quietly, his eyes steady on her before he turned and walked out of the room. When he had gone, she breathed out a sigh of relief and told herself that she had a stay of execution before she had to see him again in four hours. She wished that she could get out of it, but he had been right; her mother and new dad would be sorely disappointed in her, and she didn’t want to disappoint them at all. She also didn’t want to draw any attention whatsoever to the fact that she and Cameron were having irreconcilable differences, because that would lead to questions, and questions would lead to awkward conversations.
In her mind, she preferred to skip all of it, and if a few hours out on the sailboat with him would make her parents think that things were peachy keen, then she was going to take one for the team and make it happen just to get them off of her back and make everything look good.
At noon, she headed down the pier in a long and flowing sundress, with her sunglasses on and a thick book in her hand. She prayed that she could stick her nose into it and avoid at least some of the conversation that she was certain he would try to have with her.
He was standing at the end of the dock near the boat, and when he turned and saw her walking toward him, he stood still and watched her, never once looking away. When she reached him, he shook his head softly.
“You are so beautiful,” he told her in that low voice of his. Her belly tightened and warmed, and she cursed her body for reacting to him the way that it always did.
“Thank you,” she answered, looking away from him. “Let’s get going,” she told him, meaning that she wanted it over with and that it couldn’t be over until it had begun, but she didn’t want to say it to him and potentially cause an argument before they had even gotten on the boat.
“I couldn’t agree more,” he replied. He held out his hand to her to help her aboard the sailing boat, and she took it regretfully. At his touch, her skin tingled, and those old familiar electric waves moved through her. He had every bit as much an effect on her as he ever did, even though she had been doing her best to try to talk herself out of her feelings for him. It just hadn’t happened. Nothing she told herself about him stuck.
Cameron was dressed in dark shorts and a short-sleeved polo shirt, and she couldn’t help but notice how strong and muscular his body looked in them. She had seen him nude enough that she knew exactly what he looked like beneath his clothes, but seeing hints of his body showing from beneath the shorts and the shirt reminded her of what she had been missing out on. It reminded her of their incredible sex, of the powerful feelings and emotions that they shared when they were together. It reminded her that he had been the best lover that she had ever known. All of that made her want to turn away and not look at him for the rest of the trip.
He freed the boat from the dock and took it away from the shore and into the misty green waves of the Pacific Ocean. They sailed in silence for a while, her sitting a short distance from him, watching the waves and the sea creatures around them, him sailing the boat for them. He had her help him a time or two, telling her how to do one thing or another, and she did, and to her surprise, she liked it. It felt like they were a team, a partnership, and for once, it felt right and good. It surprised her, and she found herself wondering what it would have been like if they could have had a real relationship, if he wasn’t such a playboy, if their parents weren’t married, and it had all worked out some other way.
She had to admit to herself that she had very strong feelings for him and that spending any time with him, close to him, was an immense pleasure for her, except that she was working so hard on trying to get over him and to focus all of her thoughts and emotions on work. It wasn’t easy trying to force herself to get over him, especially when he was constantly there near her trying to get her to remain at his side, right along with all of the other women that he dated and slept with.
They went far out to sea, and then he tied the boat down and let it sail, though he did drop the anchor. She turned to see what he was doing and found that he was headed below deck. He stopped just before he entered the cabin, and he waved to her to follow him. She did.
She was surprised to find that he had a wonderful lunch prepared for them. Lobster with crab salad and boiled shrimp. There was fresh bread and olive oil with balsamic vinegar, and green salad, along with a rich chocolate cake for dessert. He opened a bottle of wine and poured her a big glass of it, handing the glass to her.
“I bet you could use this,” he said kindly as he put the glass in her hand. She nodded as she accepted it, and then lifted it to her lips to take a drink from it.
He poured a slightly smaller one for himself and lifted his glass in the air to make a toast. Looking at him with uncertainty, she lifted her glass too.
“To the future,” he began, “may it be beautiful for us both.”
“Cheers,” she agreed. She hoped that she would have a beautiful future, one without heartache in it.
They drank and then ate their meal together as he talked to her about where they were and told her about sailing to different places. He asked her questions about her travels, and she was a little more inclined to answer him, as there was no way out of not answering him.
When the meal was finished, he poured more wine in her glass, nearly filling it up again, and she drank it gratefully. She helped him clean up after the lunch, and as they were standing together side by side washing the few dishes that they had, he spoke quietly and then turned to face her.
“I know something is wrong between us, but I don’t know what it is. I know that I want to fix it, and I know that I miss you like crazy,” he said seriously, his blue eyes seeming just a little darker than their normal sky blue.
She sighed, and her shoulders fell. “There’s so much wrong, and I can’t see any way to fix it.”
He reached his hands up to her shoulders and held her firmly, turning her to face him. “Don’t you think we should try? Don’t you think that it’s worth it to try? I miss you! Don’t you miss me? Don’t you miss how incredible it is between us?”
She tried to speak, opening her mouth once but then closing it. All of her arguments seemed pale in the light of his plea to try to repair what was wrong between them. “I can’t,” she answered simply.
He shook his head. “I can’t just let it go like that. I’ve tried, but you have got such a
hold on me. Don’t you miss it?”
“What?” she asked, finally raising her eyes to meet his.
Cameron’s eyes were locked on her. “This! Natalie, this magic between us, this incredible connection that we share, this unbelievable passion! This!” He pulled her to him and kissed her firmly, moving his lips over hers as if he had been parched for her for so long and had finally gotten quenched with her.
The passionate kiss was an immediate assault on her senses; the feel of his mouth on hers, the taste of him with hints of wine, the electric sensations that swept through her and the way her body melted into putty at his touch. He pulled her close into his arms and kissed her for a long moment before letting her go just a little.
“That. Don’t you miss that?” he asked breathlessly.
She felt tears stinging her eyes. Yes, she missed it. No, she did not want to tell him and in doing so betray herself yet again for the umpteenth time. “I can’t afford to miss that. This whole thing between us that you’ve been doing, that we’ve been doing, it has to stop.”