by Mia Faye
Chapter 11
Yvette
I heard the knock on the door and knew it was him right away. Of course, it was him. He had probably come to gloat and rub it in my face. He had found a way to win without me, and I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Not only had he beaten us, either; he had gone on to win the flag football tournament. I felt slightly ashamed that I had gone against my department, in the spirit of exacting vengeance for something so silly and personal. As far as payback went, that had been a particularly weak attempt.
It was weird; I had been furious at Cam before, and in the course of the game, he went out of his way to rile me up even more. But now, I didn’t even know why I had been so mad in the first place. It’s not like I didn’t enjoy the kiss. True, he wasn’t supposed to be dragging me into rooms and ‘taking advantage of me.’ But I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t something I had been thinking of since that day in the office, and our interaction in the pool. There was always an undercurrent of something between the two of us, try as I did to deny it.
No, if I was mad, then I was mad at myself. Cam had a way of turning me into mush, but I wasn’t the victim I had talked myself into believing I was.
The knock came again, spurring me to my feet. I was in one of the rooms at the very top. It was almost like an attic; the ceiling was low and slanting, and the windows barely let in any light. It was part of the reason I chose it. Not only was it so far from the rest of the house I could be alone with my thoughts; none of the other guys wanted it, so I didn’t have to share a room with anyone.
I got up from the small four-poster bed and walked to the door. I swung it open, and as expected, Cam was standing in front of me.
I don’t know what I was going to tell him, but the words died in my throat. Cam looked the best I had ever seen him look; he was in a fitted black suit with a white dress shirt and a neat little bowtie. He looked rakishly handsome. It was very unnerving.
“I think you have the wrong room, Mr. Bond,” I said, finally finding my voice.
Cam smiled. “Can I come in?”
I stepped aside to let him in. He walked past me, leaving his scent washing over me. I closed the door and turned to face him.
The room looked much smaller with him in it. It suddenly occurred to me just how big he was, tall and big and looming.
“Congratulations on your win, by the way,” I said.
Cam waved a dismissive hand.“Oh, it was nothing. I’m sure we’d have completely obliterated them if you were playing for us.”
There was a long pause, an awkward moment that seemed to stretch on forever. His eyes were like bright embers, staring into my soul, accusatory and yet friendly.
“I’m sorry I ditched you for Sales,” I finally said. “It was dumb.”
“Why did you do it? Although I think I have a fairly good idea.”
“Really? Why do you think I did it?”
“I got the sense you were upset at me.”
Now it was my turn to stare at him silently, letting the awkward tension drag out until he couldn’t bear it.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Cam said after some time. “In the storage room. I shouldn’t have kissed you, especially after you made it clear you didn’t want us doing anything of the sort. I just sort of got carried away.”
“Right.”
“It won’t happen again, I promise.”
There was a little twitch on the corner of his lip, and I knew he had stopped himself short of adding, “Unless you want me to.” He may have said he was sorry, but if I knew one thing about Cam, it’s that he was an incorrigible flirt.
“So?” I said to change the subject. “Why are you all dressed up? What’s the occasion?”
“Ah.” Cam straightened his bowtie, grinning. “That’s actually why I came to see you.”
“Okay…”
“I had mentioned to you earlier that the winner of the tournament gets to go to dinner with some head honchos at the company, right?”
“Right.”
“Exactly. Now, traditionally, it’s a one on one sit-down with one of the board executives or something like that. You know, a chance for a junior employee to impress, set themselves out in the eyes of management. But seeing as I was the organizing chair for this getaway and that I’m head of the department, I thought it would be a good idea to ask someone to come with me.”
“You’re asking me?”
“I am, yes.”
I shook my head, confused. “But I played for the Sales department. And we lost the game.”
“I know you did. Not that it matters, but you’re Editorial, and if anyone asks, I planted you in Sales to sabotage them from the inside. But more importantly, I’m asking you to come as my plus one.”
“Oh.”
Cam’s hands went up. “I’m not asking you out on a date, Yvette. It’s just that… these types of dinners are usually snoozefests, and I could use some company. Plus, the way I see it, you should have been part of the team which won, and I would have asked you to come with me anyway.”
“I don’t know, Cam...”
“Please?”
“Who is it with? Dinner?”
“Wyatt and his wife. Our hosts might be there as well, I think.”
“I don’t have anything to wear,” I said, my last resort.
Cam grinned. “Is that a yes, then?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, sensing a trap. “It’s a maybe. But you’re not listening. I didn’t bring any cocktail attire.”
Cam walked back out of the room and returned, moments later, with something dark draped over his hand. He held it up to me, a dark blue dress with shimmering studs all over, and a nice little silver belt around the waist. It looked short, but it was a beautiful dress.
“Where did you get this?” I asked, unable to resist the temptation to reach out and touch it, letting the fabric run through my fingers. It was impossibly soft, like silk.
“Mrs. Flores let me into her closet. I thought it would look great on you.”
It probably would. I almost wanted to try it on just to see if he actually got my size right.
Cam checked his watch and tutted. “Come on, then. Go get ready. Dinner’s starting in half an hour.”
For whatever reason, I had been expecting a large, over the top dinner. Like, a huge ballroom with endless rows of candles suspended from a high ceiling, or immaculate chandeliers that twinkled and winked at you wherever you were standing. I expected a long table lined with an assortment of food and drinks, with well-dressed, incredibly polite servants buzzing around with platters and bottles of century-old wine.
Instead, the dinner turned out to be a simple set-up, a small table set with simple but elegant high-backed chairs and a candle-lit ambiance. It was lovely, intimate, and classy without being over the top. I had expected to see Brian Flores, his wife, Wyatt, and Meredith Banks. But there was only Grace Flores. Regal, beautiful Grace Flores.
She stood up as we walked to the table. I thought I felt Cam’s hand slide over my lower back as I went to greet her. I glanced over at him, but his expression was blank.
“I’m so sorry; my husband couldn’t make it,” Grace said as she hugged me. Her fragrance was flowery and heady, and it seemed to pour out of her hair. Even now, she exuded a quiet grace and poise, in a bright red frock with pearl earrings.
“Wyatt will be joining us shortly,” Cam said, which explained the fourth place on the table.
“Good job today, by the way,” Grace said, and my attention snapped back to her.
“What?” I said, not sure what she was talking about.
“I watched you play. In the flag football game. I thought you were wonderful, even if this one was bullying you a bit.”She gave Cam a push, but her smile was good-natured.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Please, sit.”
Cam made a great show of pulling my chair out for me, then hovering behind me as I sat, waiting to push it in. He leaned over me and whispered s
omething, but I was slightly distracted by the hand he had on my thigh. I was sure the contact was accidental, but still… I swallowed hard and nodded.
“You look lovely, by the way,” Grace told me. “That dress on you, absolutely gorgeous.”
“Thanks. You have wonderful taste.”
Cam cleared his throat, and Grace looked over at him with a small smile.
“Shush, the girls are bonding,” she said.
“Oh, no, no. Please. Carry on.”
A serving lady drifted past us, setting a bowl of soup in front of me. Identical bowls were set out in front of Cam and Grace. My stomach gave a low rumble; I hadn’t realized how hungry I was.
“How long have you been with Penguin?” Grace asked me.
“I just started,” I told her. “This would be my third week.”
“That’s great. I’ve been telling my husband for months now that we need to get younger people in, at least try and modernize the company. Don’t you agree?”
“Of course. I think it’s important to identify the trends of the reading culture and respond to them.”
“What trend would you say is taking over at the moment?”
“I’d say… we’re getting less and less time to read, and our attention spans are generally shorter, so the type of content people go for tends to be bite-sized. If they can consume it on the go, then that would be great.”
“But hasn’t that always been the case with books?” Cam jumped in. “You can always carry it with you, read a couple of pages on the way to work, or just before bed…”
“True,” I said. “But we live so much of our lives on our phones now. Younger people are likelier to read something if it’s an app on their phones or an image shared on social media. I’m not saying we should get rid of books. Only that we should think about the media which works best for the current generation, and the coming ones.”
“Well said,” Grace said with an encouraging smile. “She’s incredibly sharp, Cam. You should definitely hang on to her.”
I felt my cheeks grow hot and averted my eyes, looking down at my bowl of soup instead.
“Oh, I definitely will,” Cam said. I didn’t even need to look up at him to know he was grinning with mischief, as he always did.
“Excuse me for a moment,” he said. He pushed his chair back, and stood up, walked briskly from the room. I picked up a spoon and took a sip of the soup. It was delicious.
“He likes you,” Grace said suddenly.
I swallowed too fast and almost choked.“What?”
“Oh, trust me. I know that look. And the way he touches you…”
“You saw that?
“I may have noticed it, yeah. I was young once. I remember what it was like.”
I blushed again.
“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Grace said, waving a hand. “You’re a lovely girl, and you’re smart. Of course, Cam has taken a liking to you. Hell, I’ve taken a liking to you, and I only just met you.”
I smiled, feeling incredibly awkward and flattered at the same time.
I was spared from answering by the return of Cam. Grace gave me a little wink and made a gesture of zipping up her lips and throwing away the key. I decided I liked her.
Cam was accompanied by someone else, a stooped, frail-looking figure I recognized as Wyatt Banks. He looked so weak I was concerned he was going to fall over any second. Cam held out a hand to help steady him and guided him over to the table.
Wyatt looked from Grace to me with watery eyes. He squinted, frown lines breaking out on his forehead like he was trying to remember if and where he had seen either of us.
“Hi, Wyatt,” Grace said, taking his hand and shaking it. “Nice of you to join us.”
Cam turned him to me and spread out a hand by way of introduction.
“Mr. Banks, this is Yvette Matthews,” he said.
Wyatt nodded, comprehension dawning on his face. “Ah, yes. This must be your wife.”
I opened my mouth to say no, but Cam gave me an almost imperceptible shake of the head, and I fell silent.“Yes,” he said to Wyatt. “Fiancée, actually.”
“Wonderful,” Wyatt said. He sank into his seat, and Cam took him as well.
I didn’t know what was happening, but I could tell Cam expected me to play along.
“I didn’t know you two were engaged!” Grace said, looking from Cam to me.
I started to speak once more, but Cam chipped in right away.
“Oh, we had hoped to keep it under wraps for as long as possible. Neither of us is a fan of the whole drawn-out process. We plan to keep it simple, spare the expenses for a good honeymoon.”
“Ah,” Wyatt said again. His eyes had an odd, unfocused look about them like he wasn’t really sure where he was, but he was determined to push on until he figured it out. “I did that with my wife, Meredith. Except back then, it was called eloping.”
“Did you really?” Cam asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah,” Wyatt said. He sank back in his chair, and a wistful look came over him. Meredith’s parents were not particularly fond of me, this hotshot young journalist with no money and no ambition, at least according to them. But we were in love, and we weren’t about to let that stop us, so we put together all our savings and planned a trip to Africa because we were both fascinated by the history and the literature, and when we came back, we were married.”
“And how long have you two been married?” Cam asked.
Wyatt looked at him blankly. He stared at him for a long time, and then, without a word, he picked up a spoon and started to eat his soup. It was a strange moment, but then I remembered hearing about his condition, and I realized it was just his mind and memory slipping away from him. It must have had something to do with this whole act Cam was putting up.
“What about you two?” Grace asked. She was looking pointedly at me, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to meet her gaze. “What’s the story there?”
“There isn’t much of a story,” Cam said. He turned to me and smiled. “Why don’t you take this one, honey?”
I aimed a kick at him under the table. My foot connected, but he barely flinched. “You tell it much better than me.”
“Okay. Okay. If you insist.”
He turned back to Grace and Wyatt, who were looking at him expectantly. I couldn’t help smiling; this was a test of Cam’s improvisational skills, and I had a front-row seat.
“So, a couple of months ago, I was in Chicago on business. I think we were looking to partner with a local bookstore there, stretch some of our sales in the region. And I happened to visit this cute little café in the middle of town. So, there I was, making my coffee order. And out of the blue, I hear this relentless clacking sound, which I realize is coming from the table in the corner of the room. I look over there, and I see this stunning woman, bent over a computer, typing away furiously, completely oblivious to her surroundings. Of course, I go over to say hi because I was fascinated and curious. Turns out, she is scrambling to write a review she was late to submit, and that little restaurant was the only place she could get any work done without distractions.
I stayed there longer than I had expected. We got to talking, and even after she finished her work, we just sat there, chatting. I was only in town for a couple of days, so I didn’t get to see her that much afterward. But we exchanged contact information, and we stayed in contact through the next weeks. I made a point of visiting her every month, and we went out, got to know each other better, and before I knew it, I was head over heels in love with her.
So, it was a pleasant surprise when she called me one day and told me she had gotten an opportunity to come work in my city, and that she would keep me posted on how it went. It turned out she had not only gotten a job here, but she was the newest member of my department at my place of work.
I asked her to marry me a week after she moved here. It felt right, you know? Like everything just fell into place perfectly.”
I n
odded, smiling sweetly. Cam had been so convincing I had to remind myself that none of it had actually happened. But Grace and Wyatt looked like they had bought it.
“That’s such a wonderful story,” Grace said. “I thought I detected a little heat between you two. Turns out I was right, eh?”
The conversation flowed a little more freely after that. I was surprised by how easy it was to slip into character as Cam’s fiancée, and I particularly enjoyed the thrill of filling in our backstories as we went along. No preparation, no prior communication, just the two of us improvising.
As the night wore on, and the main course was finally served, I tugged on Cam’s shirt and asked him to show me to the bathroom. He nodded, gave me a kiss on the cheek, and stood up to pull my chair out. Grace was watching us with a wry smile, and I felt a bit guilty for lying to her, especially since she had been so nice to me.
As soon as we were out of sight, I turned to Cam and pushed him against the nearest wall.
“Ooh. I think I’m getting a wave of déjà vu here,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender.
“What’s going on?” I asked him. “Why are we pretending to be engaged?”
“It’s nothing really. I’m sure Wyatt will have forgotten about it by morning.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” I said.
Cam sighed. “It’s complicated, Yvette. Maybe I can tell you about it some other time…”
“Give me a summary, then.”
“I’ve been to a couple of these dinners with Wyatt. In the one before this one, I brought someone I was dating at the time and introduced her to Wyatt as my wife. It was a bit of a joke, really. She had been my girlfriend, but… Like I said, long story. Anyway, Meredith didn’t think it would be a good idea for Wyatt to come to dinner today. As you may have noticed, his condition is getting worse, and the doctors have asked her to keep him at home as much as possible. But the old fox is stubborn. There was no way he was going to miss this company retreat, and he flat out refused to miss the dinner.”
“Okay…”
“Right. Now, because of how sensitive his memory is, it’s important not to throw a lot of new information at him. His short-term memory is in shambles, and it makes it harder for him to stay lucid. So, I figured there was no reason to throw new information at him. He thinks you’re the person he saw me with years ago. I didn’t think it was too important to correct him. As I said, he won’t remember any of this tomorrow.”