by Lauren Wood
“I better get back to work,” I announced regretfully.
“You just remember what I said,” he offered. “And bring that woman back to see us. Preferably next time without the false pretense of friendship weighing you both down.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him he wouldn’t be seeing Camille again and neither would I. But as I went through the motions of the afternoon, I couldn’t shake what he had said.
The only thing I was left with after my ex was a broken heart and the vivid regret of having ever met her. All I could think was that the only thing that could have prevented her from hurting me was to never have fallen for her in the first place. Whatever happy memories I had certainly hadn’t been worth it.
But was it possible for things to be different? With the right woman...was it worth the risk? Rudy seemed to think so. So did a million other people who flocked to Heartstring every day in the hopes of finding the same thing.
For the first time, I kind of admired the Meadows’ family commitment to bringing people together, trying to help them find love. I was glad I had given my word to give up my vendetta against them. I knew it was the right thing to do, and making Camille’s life easier...I had to admit that gave me a little joy, too.
When I returned home later, I found myself staring at my dark, empty apartment. I had grown so used to spending my evenings in front of the computer, conning women into meeting up with me to hear my take on how hopeless their search for love was. I was starting to feel lost without it.
I plopped down on the couch and stared at my phone. No calls or messages from Camille, though I wasn’t expecting her to reach out. Our business was finished. She’d accomplished what she set out to do by tracking me down, and now she was done with me.
But the nagging feeling in my gut wouldn’t go away. I was feeling more confused than ever. I couldn’t seem to resist her, and she appeared to be in the same spot. Maybe now that she had gotten what she wanted, she would find it easier to stay away from me. Maybe that had been her only motivation the whole time.
But something in her had to feel for me. Why else would she have slept with me twice? A woman like her would sooner let her brother’s fancy lawyers get the job done than have sex with me just to get her way. She was too proud and stubborn for that, which only made me like her more.
I was terrified of getting hurt all over again, but then I started thinking about the things she had said. About how I was hurting others in my quest not to get hurt again. I had hurt her, or maybe I still was hurting her. She was right about one thing: I was terrified of what would happen if a date actually worked out. My certainty that it could only end in tears and heartache had given me a sort of strange comfort. I didn’t know what it looked like for it to end any other way, but the prospect of it...was terrifying.
She was right about a number of things, actually...I realized with a sigh as I leaned back on the couch, feeling weighed down by the heavy silence of my apartment. Maybe it was time for me to give someone a fair chance.
But out of all the women I had met and chased off, none of them had compared to Camille. Was that a sign? Was she the one who deserved the fair chance? But after everything, would she even want it?
I clenched my phone in my hand for a moment, debating whether or not I should message her. What would I even say? I opted to toss the phone down onto the coffee table and pick up the remote instead. In my search for something to watch to get my mind off things, I was flooded with an endless stream of rom com previews.
I rolled my eyes and sat through more than I should have. Highlight reels of men having their grand epiphanies and racing off with ideas of big romantic gestures to win over the women they loved. My epiphany didn’t feel so inspiring. All I knew was that I was terrified and lonely...and more than a little pathetic.
By the tenth time the same scene had played out with the same dramatic music blaring in the background, I decided I couldn’t settle for being pathetic. I didn’t let fear stop me in any other area of my life—why should my love life be different?
My own highlight reel played in my mind...The first time Camille showed up on my doorstep. Kissing her in the street. Making love to her on the couch. Even when she was mad at me, I thought she was the sexiest woman alive. Maybe that was just enough to see us through whatever obstacles came our way.
13
Camille
After sleeping with a man, waking up naked and alone on your couch isn’t exactly how you dream of the next morning playing out. Though in Mark’s case, I told myself it was for the best. For the rest of the day, I kept my phone in my hand...always feeling seconds away from firing off a text or calling. But I didn’t know what to say. What was there to say?
He was supposed to leave us alone now. He was going to leave me alone, too. That was that.
But that fact did little to comfort me in the coming days. I was restless and struggling to focus on work. Every time Joe walked down the hall, I perked up—hoping he would pop in to tell me our troll had struck again. At least then I’d have an excuse to go see him again, even if it was just to yell at him. Historically, me yelling at him had always spiraled into something more enticing.
But Joe never came in. My brothers, along with Jack, congratulated me on handling the whole thing without legal intervention. My life had gone back to the way it was before. So, why did I still feel like something was missing?
Jada convinced me to try out some new hobbies with her. We’d both decided we needed to spend more time together and find non-work activities to fill our lives. I saw it as the first step to a shared apartment as two little, wrinkled spinsters growing old together, but I didn’t tell her that.
On Friday night, she dragged me off to a pottery class. After trying our hands at the wheel to mold our own pots, which we both failed miserably at, we decided to clean up and try painting finished pieces instead.
I stared at the perfectly formed pot on the table in front of me and frowned. “Why didn’t it look like that when we tried it?”
She swirled a brush around in her palette of glazes. “I have no idea, but painting these things is a lot easier than trying to make them.”
“Agreed.”
“You never told me how you did it,” she said, after we had been painting a while.
“Did what?”
“Got rid of the troll,” she replied.
“Oh.” I couldn’t hide my discomfort in being reminded of him. Going there was supposed to help me avoid that very thing. “I didn’t do anything really, other than annoy him until he caved. But in the end, he was the one who agreed to stop.”
“It’s almost a pity. He was cute.”
“Why a pity? And what difference does it make if he’s cute? I’m not saying he is,” I lied, “but if someone’s attacking us online, I don’t care what they look like while they’re doing it.”
“I only meant it’s a shame that all the good-looking single guys have something wrong with them,” she told me.
“Oh, well, I’m not losing any sleep over it,” I lied again.
An hour later, we had left our painted pottery pieces at the shop to be fired and bundled up to find a cab.
“Should we get something to eat? Or maybe ice cream?” she asked, shivering in her coat. The fall cold had officially set in and was especially sharp that night. I stared back at her without an ounce of interest. She tried again. “A drink?”
“Now you’re talking.”
She laughed as we turned in the direction of the nearest bar, and I was surprised to see none other than Mark come around the corner. We both froze, Jada looking back and forth between us.
“I’ll go grab us a seat,” she said, sensing the tension.
“Um...hey.” I smiled awkwardly as she took off ahead of us.
“I’m glad I ran into you,” he replied. “I was hoping I would.”
My brow wrinkled with confusion. “You went on a random walk and hoped you’d just happen to bump into me?”
“Good to know she’s added ‘helping people stalk me more efficiently’ to her job duties,” I snapped. “Anyway, why would you want to see me? I thought everything was settled between us.”
He shifted and stared down at his feet for a moment. “I wanted to apologize.”
“You don’t have to,” I fired back quickly, swallowing down my disappointment that he wouldn’t admit to something more. “You agreed to leave us alone. That’s enough.”
“No, Camille. You were right about me needing to give someone a fair chance,” he continued. “To see where dating might lead if I really gave it a fair chance. And I’m happy to report...I set my sights on someone to do just that.”
“Oh?”
He nodded. “Mmm-hmm. And I owe you a token of my appreciation. Can I buy you a drink?”
“I’m supposed to be with my sister. But congratulations. She’s a lucky girl, I guess.”
“If you don’t want me barging in on your sister time, how about tomorrow night?” he proposed, his face full of hope. When I didn’t answer, he persisted. “Come on. I was hoping we could settle on friendship as part of our truce. What do you say? Friends?”
It was hard to look him in the eye after that. Last I checked, friends didn’t have sex all over their living room. But I was burning with curiosity over just who he had landed on to give a fair chance. Or was it jealousy? I didn’t know, but it was clear he wasn’t going to give up.
“Fine,” I huffed. “Tomorrow night. One drink. Although I don’t see why you insist on us being friends, or why you couldn’t have just texted me.”
It would have been easier to refuse him over the phone. A hell of a lot easier than with him standing right in front of me, looking better than ever. But why did I care what he looked like? Thanks to me, he would no doubt soon be someone’s boyfriend.
“Because I enjoy hanging out with you,” he offered, with his most charming smile—one that slayed me and made me instantly hate whoever his new love interest was.
“I gotta go. See you tomorrow, I guess.”
I pushed past him and walked as fast as I could to the front of the bar where Jada was waiting. I stopped with my hand on the knob and looked back to see him still standing there, just watching me. It only infuriated me more.
“You could have invited him along,” Jada said when I sat down.
“He wanted to destroy our family’s business,” I reminded her. “I wasn’t about to invite him to come have a drink with us.” I left out the part about how that hadn’t stopped me from agreeing to have a drink with him alone the next night, and that we may have slept together a time or two. His vendetta against us hadn’t stopped any of that from happening, but as far as Jada was concerned, it was reason enough to leave him literally standing out in the cold.
I was on pins and needles for the next twenty-four hours, reminding myself over and over that meeting up with Mark was just a friendly gesture. Absolutely nothing else could or would happen between us, especially not now that he was already seeing someone.
I was dying to know if he’d found whoever she was on our app and convinced myself that maybe I could talk him into letting us spin the whole thing into a new marketing ploy. Former cynic set on destroying Heartstring to prove love didn’t exist ends up meeting his soulmate on the app. That’d probably surpass the media attention my brother had received over his arrangement turned real-life engagement, complete with a wife and a baby.
My bitterness didn’t stop me from putting on my best push-up bra and a low-cut shirt that showed off all my cleavage. The least I could do was throw him a little reminder of what he had passed up.
I put on a fresh coat of lip gloss and grabbed my purse to head out the door, but when I opened it...Mark was standing there with his fist in the air like he was about to knock.
“Oh. What are you doing here?”
“Picking you up,” he replied, sliding his hands into his pockets.
“I thought we would meet there. That seems like what friends would do.”
“We are still friends with...an intimate history,” he said, making my heart flinch.
“Don’t remind me. All right. You’re here now, so it’s too late. Let’s go.”
Against my better judgment, one drink turned into two, then three. The warm buzz made Mark’s company more tolerable, even though I was still harboring my secret grudge against him. It also made it harder for me not to call out the elephant in the room.
“So, you haven’t told me who the lucky woman is,” I said finally, waving to the bartender to bring over another round.
“I guess I haven’t.” He looked down at the table, using a napkin to blot up the water rings from his glass while I waited pensively.
“Are you going to?” I pressed.
He leaned back in the booth with a sly smile. “She’s drop-dead gorgeous. Very smart and a bit on the stubborn side.”
Every word he said sent me spiraling deeper into my jealousy. I wished I could smack that smile right off his face.
“Go on,” I blurted, hating myself for it. I really didn’t want to hear another word about it, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself. “Did you meet her online? On Heartstring?”
“Not exactly. I disabled my accounts, as promised.”
“Oh, so you met her the old-fashioned way.” Somehow that made it even worse, and it ruined my marketing scheme idea, which made our little outing even more pointless.
“I guess you could say...she just kind of showed up one day. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since.”
I hated that dreamy tone in his voice.
“I have to hand it to you. You move fast. It’s barely been two weeks since I last saw you.” My cheeks turned red-hot, remembering exactly what that last meeting had entailed. “And you’ve already found someone worth your while. It’s an awfully quick turnaround for someone as stubborn as you.”
“Well, like I said, she’s pretty stubborn herself. I guess we complement each other in that way.”
“Got it.” I fidgeted with my hands in my lap until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment...I need to go to the ladies’ room.”
I shot up from the table and bolted towards the bathroom, hating the quiver coming on in my bottom lip. I was not about to cry over this guy, especially while he was pining over someone else. But one thing was certain...There was no way we could be friends, which only made me all the more anxious to wrap up this evening and get the hell away from him. Hopefully for good this time.
14
Mark
Camille looked flustered and angry when she came back from the bathroom. Maybe it was cruel to keep playing with her, but it wasn’t exactly easy for me to come out with what I had to say.
“This has been...great, Mark,” she announced, grabbing her purse from the booth instead of sitting back down. “I’m going to go now.”
“I’ll take you home,” I offered.
“No, you really don’t have to…”
“Come on. I picked you up. Seems only right I should take you back.”
“But I really don’t need you to…”
Ignoring her protests, I paid our tab and walked outside with her following behind me. She seemed so desperate to get away, I half-expected her to bolt the minute I had my back turned. But reluctantly, she endured me hailing a cab and then climbed in after me.
There was an awkward silence as I walked slowly down the hallway to her front door with my hands in my pockets. Every so often, I’d glance up and smile at her, and she’d smile tightly in return.
“Well, here we are…” she said prematurely. Her door was still several feet away.
“Listen, before you go...there’s something I think you should know,” I said slowly.
“Mark, I really don’t need to hear anything else about…”
&nbs
p; “It’s you,” I blurted out, stopping her words cold. “The woman I’ve decided to give a fair chance to...that woman is you.”
Her eyes grew wide as she stood there, gaping at me. “What?”
My smile grew wider. “It’s you.”
“Oh.” She exhaled, her cheeks growing flush. “Oh, I see.”
“I know I’ve been a real jerk,” I admitted, nervously smoothing my palm down the back of my neck. “Maybe it was wrong for me not to just come right out with it earlier in the night, but I’m still...well, scared. The truth is...if I let you slip by without seeing what this could be, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”
“But I thought there was only one inevitable end to this.” She raised a brow. “Love is a sham, remember?”
I inched in closer until her back was against the door and there was only a sliver of space left between us.
“Help prove me wrong,” I pleaded softly.
She studied my face with her eyes just before they gently closed and her lips parted. Our mouths crashed together as I cupped her face in my hands, tilting her even closer to me so I could drink her in.
“Camille,” I rasped against her lips.
My hands smoothed down her back, cupping her cheeks and lifting her up to wrap her legs around me. With her spread wide in front of me, straddling me as I pinned her against the door, the bulge in my pants pressed against her with a promise...or maybe just a hope.
Her sweet-tasting tongue rolled over mine with a moan. I barely managed to groan, “Should we go inside?”
She nodded and reached back, still kissing me as she turned the knob. This time she led me straight to her bedroom, where we went crashing down onto the mattress. I kissed her slowly, with our hands pulling and kneading into every part of each other we could reach.
She was sparking with sensitivity, crying out at the smallest things...like when I lifted her shirt and nibbled along the curves of her stomach. I kept kissing downward, settling between her legs to tease her through the fabric of her panties with my hot breath.