by Eva Andrews
I should have known; I should have seen it. I knew by brother occasionally went on covert missions, but I never guessed Cam was still part of that that world. My brother Chris was also CIA, he had valid reasons for engaging, Cameron did not. Cameron’s cover as a civilian business man was quite convincing.
It wasn’t hard to put together that not all of his trips were for Carmichael Industries.
“Thank you for telling me Greyson.”
“This has been a very enlightening dinner, hasn’t it?” He asked, filling his wine glass with the bottle that sat at our table, and then one for me.
“Indeed. Now if I only knew what to do next.”
Looking at me as if calling me on my bullshit, he arched his brow and held his glass, “Really simple baby girl, tell your fiancée your pregnant with his child, and then ask him to stop going on secret missions. Two birds, one stone.”
Grinning, I took a drink and thought about what that conversation would look like. Cam would be ecstatic to find out we were pregnant, and on the other side of that coin, he’d be livid I found out about the mission. There was a reason he was keeping them from me, and I needed to know why.
Although I was hurt that he kept them from me, I had to believe that man had a valid reason for not telling me. He deserved to answer that for himself before I went ape shit on him. I was had been so emotional lately, I was smart enough to know I was prone to overreacting as of late.
Smiling into my glass of wine, my brain went into override thinking of how I’d tell Cameron about our baby. I wanted it to be special, and private.
Chapter 17
Cameron
My heart was pounding as I saw my house. I knew she was home because I had tracked her phone when she refused to pick up.
My mind had been racing since my jet touched down, not hearing from her only made it worse. Pulling into the garage my heart wanted to jump out of my throat.
The last thing I thought I was going to find when I came home was photos of my fiancée cheating on me with Greyson O’Malley.
Fucking O’Malley.
I had shifted through the photos for a good hour before I drove home from the airport.
I had been back on American soil less than fifteen minutes before the manila envelope was handed to me as I exited my private jet. I didn’t want to believe it, but Jesus fuck, the pictures of the two of them were hard to handle.
Walking into the house, the familiar coolness of my air-conditioned house was a pleasant break from the assault of Louisiana’s humidity, yet it did nothing to cool my temper. Looking around, the lights were dimmed and a few candles flickered on the ground level of my historic home as I walked deeper into the large home.
Outside in the yard, Shayne tossed a ball for Max as he happily chased it and obediently brought it back to her. Watching them for a moment, I pondered the thought of just tossing the photos and pretending it never happened. Part of me wanted to keep our happy balance at any cost, the other side of me refused to share her. I knew I’d never survive losing her, but I couldn’t look myself in the mirror if I allowed her to continue to cheat on me.
Walking outside, I stood behind her as she rolled her neck and put a hand on the small of her back as if it hurt.
“Must be hard to keep two men sexually pleased at the same time.”
Whipping around, she dropped her hands, “Excuse me?”
Tossing the photos at her feet, I watched as they scattered on the grass.
Looking down at them in confusion, she knelt and picked one up and then looked at me.
“You promised to never cheat on me Shayne.” I spit out with all the anger that had been harboring in my heart since I first looked at the photos
Grabbing a handful of photos, she stood up gripping the photos so tightly they crumpled in her small hand, “I have never cheated on you Cameron, despite what your best private detectives come up with. I have never, nor would I ever do that!”
“The photos don’t lie Shayne! You can’t fake that type of emotion! Look at the way you’re looking at each other in those photos! Holding hands with him in public, looking at him as if he’s God’s gift to women! That is the look of love in your eyes!”
“You don’t know shit Cameron. Where did you get these? Who gave them to you?”
“It doesn’t matter how I got them! How about I ask the questions. Do you want to tell me why the fuck you’re having dinner with another man behind my back? Sure looks like the two of you have something going on Shayne, guess I was a fucking idiot for thinking you were different. You wrapped me around your finger and fucked someone else behind my back.” Shouting at her. I saw her visibly step back from me as Max sat beside her and whimpered.
Shaking her head, she knelt down and sorted through the photos and picked a few more up. Standing up, the tears were running down her face as she walked over to me. I could see the anger in her eyes, they were filled restrained anger she was holding in check.
“It does matter who gave these to you Cameron, it has always mattered. You just can’t see past your own blind rage to understand why it matters so much.”
Looking away, I leaned my head back and looked up at the sky. I expected her to deny it, to beg me to believe that she’d never cheat on me. Instead, she was unsettlingly calm as she watched me.
“You’re right Cameron, you can’t fake this type of emotion. I won’t lie and tell you the conversation I had with Greyson that night wasn’t emotional, because it was. I won’t deny that when he comes into town I usually have lunch or dinner with him, if my schedule permits. I’ve been doing that for years now. You want to believe that I cheated on you, fine, believe whatever the fuck you want. It’s clear you’ve already judged, juried and sentenced me without any evidence other than these photos of my friend and I having an emotional discussion over dinner. However, I’m going to tell you this, and then I’m going to leave and you’ll need to make a really big fucking decision…”
“You’ll be leaving regardless.”
“No fucking problem, asshole.”
Staring at each other for a moment, I swallowed as I watched the silent tears run down her face as she stood before me in our courtyard. She was wearing my Army shirt again, and cut off shorts that showed off her gorgeous legs. Her long hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, she had no makeup on so her freckles were clear as day.
The pain in her soft green eyes hurt, but not as much as those fucking photos did.
Holding out one of the photos of her and Greyson, she cleared her throat, “This is where he asked me why he wasn’t good enough. Why I wouldn’t marry him, why I wouldn’t agree to have his babies, but I agreed to be yours, to carry your children. I had fucked up his head so badly when I broke up with him, he thought all this time that something was wrong with him.”
Refusing to say anything, I stood perfectly still.
“Do you know what I did to him? I shut him out when we were dating. I refused to share anything with him. I didn’t tell him my reason for not wanting children. He assumed he wasn’t good enough. I can’t imagine what it does to one’s pride knowing you weren’t good enough to secure a woman, and then she finds someone else and gives him everything she refused to give you.”
Shoving another photo in my face, one of them holding hands as she cried, “This one, in this one I was telling him how it has always been you Cameron. I couldn’t give my heart to anyone else because you’ve always held it. I explained the best that I could that since that time I had become pregnant with our little boy, and lost him so heartbreakingly I refused to go through it again. He and everyone else got a ghost of me, you were the only one who got the real me.”
“Shayne…”
A boy? She had never told me she knew it was a boy.
Shouting, “No! You are going to stand there and fucking listen. You are so quick to judge, so quick to assume that I would cheat on you! So fuck you, and just stand there!”
Tossing another photo at me, “This
one, I was telling him what happened to me. Trying to explain to him that it was never him, it was my fucked-up past. I’ve never been able to find happiness with any other man but you, because I’ve never given them my heart. You’ve had it since Cornell. He told me how much he wanted me to be happy, and I wished the same for him. He is my friend; he has always been and that is all there will ever be.”
“If there is nothing going on between you, why did you lie to me about having dinner with him?” Trying to regain control of my emotions I clenched my fists and stood still.
A boy, we had a boy?
“Lie to you? I’ve never lied to you!” She shouted loud enough our neighbors could hear.
Narrowing her eyes at me, “Now, have I kept things from you?” shrugging, “I might have negated to tell you who I share meals with, but you can’t sit there and be a hypocrite can you Cameron?”
“What are you talking about?”
Her eyebrows shot up, “Really? You’re really going to stand there and pretend you have no idea what I’m talking about huh? You want to throw shit in my face and pretend your hands are clean?”
Ice ran through my veins as she brushed past me, and walked towards the house, my dog followed behind her closely.
Stopping as she reached the door of our house, she spun around, “If you want to stand there and pretend that your holier than thou and keep the fact that you are still going overseas on secret missions, than fine. You want to stand there and pretend like you didn’t lie to me about where you were going? Or refuse to tell me you were putting your life in danger after agreeing to start a family with me, after asking me to marry you? You’re right, it’s not like me, or your family deserved to know, I mean, who are we right?” She shrugged, and opened the door to the house.
“We are just the people who loved you, the people who’d be left devastated if you didn’t make it back from one of those missions. Yeah, I didn’t tell you about the occasional meal I shared with Greyson because I knew it’d piss you off, and I deserved to keep my friend regardless of your insecurities. But at no time was my life ever in danger, nor was our relationship ever in danger. I deserved to know you were putting your life on the line, I deserved to know what you were doing.”
Fucking Greyson had told her.
Stepping towards her, she put her hand out to stop me.
Tears streamed down her face, “You wanted to start a family with me, you asked me to marry you. This isn’t the first time you’ve thrown photos at me, demanding that I explain. I’m going to surmise that your lovely director Lana Drake is the one who handed you these photos, unless of course you have been paying someone to follow me. If photos don't lie, where are the photos of me fucking him? Oh, that’s right, they don’t fucking exist.”
“Shayne, listen…” I tried to get an edge in so I could explain. I had overreacted on a level I had never seen before.
“No, you listen Cameron. Every single time you’ve been given a choice, a choice on how to react when she throws things like this,” throwing the photos in her hand towards me, “you always choose her. I don’t fucking deserve this Cam, I deserve a man who will have my back no matter how bad the evidence looks. I need a man who will trust me blindly, against all odds. I need a man who will protect me, not hurt me. You are obviously not that man. You’ve made your choice Cameron, Lana over everyone. Shit, I’d even bet she knows about your special ops missions, doesn’t she?”
Looking down at the ground, guilt washed over me.
“Fuck you, Cameron.” Walking into the house, Shayne and Max disappeared as I fell to my knees and watched them walked into the garage without a backwards glance.
I had fucked up.
“What the fuck did I just do?” I asked myself out loud as I heard Shayne peel out and speed away. From the sound of it, she had taken her favorite car- the 69’ Chevelle.
It took an hour before I was brave enough to walk into the house. Even though she had stormed out and didn’t take anything with her, the house seemed so empty without her. I knew she wasn’t coming back tonight, fuck, she might not ever come back after the shit I had pulled.
She was right, I should have looked at the photos and kept my head on and calmly asked her about them. Instead, I automatically assumed the worst. I had fallen into another artfully crafted play by Lana.
Tossing the photos in the garbage, I blew out the candles and went upstairs to take a shower.
I wasn’t going to run after her tonight. I had shit I needed to handle before I could go after her. Oh, and I was going to go after her alright, no doubt about it.
Chapter 18
Shayne
Sitting in the middle of Jackson Square, I let the sun warm my face as my stomach rolled. It had been a week since I walked out of the house I shared with Cameron. I hadn’t seen him since that night, nor had I technically heard from him directly.
I was still so fucking pissed at him; he had fucked me over again. Lana was a problem months ago, now she was driving the nails into the coffin of my relationship with Cameron. The woman was getting exactly what she wanted. Cam and I weren’t talking, or even living together anymore and she got to see and talk to him every single fucking day.
The bitch had fucking won, well, almost.
Twirling the expensive engagement ring on my finger, I had come to terms that things between he and I were over. If he wanted me, he would have come after me. He knew where to find me, although I hadn’t fled to the ship, I had gone to the next best place- his parents’ house.
I had been living with them for the past week, although I had talked to them about it the day I showed up at their doorstep with Max in tears, they had been kind enough to not bring it up again.
Lillian had done her best to take care of me when I came home after work, and Jameson was always down to watch a silly movie late at night if I couldn’t sleep. They were my surrogate parents, and I loved them so damn much- which only hurt my heart more.
When I let go of Cameron, I have to let go of them too. No man wants his ex-girlfriend living with his parents, or remotely close to them like I was with Lily and Jamie.
Sighing, I knew I had to take off the ring and return it to him.
I hadn’t been brave enough to take it off all week, partly in hopes that he’d walk into his old bedroom at the estate and beg forgiveness. Alas, a week had come and gone, and there had been no acts of remorse, or an apology. There had been complete silence between us.
That was the reason why I was this close to his office building, I had planned to deliver it to him personally this afternoon. A breakup like ours deserved a face to face at least- even if he didn’t want to see me.
Tears brimmed in my eyes as I thought about life without Cameron.
“You’ve done it before Shay, you can live without him again girl. Get a grip. Just go there and go up to his office and put the ring on his desk and say goodbye.” I whispered to myself as I watched the world pass me by.
As if saying what I needed to do would make it any easier. It wasn’t going to be easy. I fucking loved Cameron with every bit of my heart, and I was positive I was pregnant. Wiping off a tear, I had debated telling him about the baby last week when he came home and tossed the photos at me.
Moments away from meeting up with him, I still didn’t know how to tell him. The night he had come home I was rehearsing how to tell him. I had come up with a couple of cute ideas to break the news to him that had scattered into the wind with his accusations.
I couldn’t keep the truth from him forever, he needed to know, eventually. I just didn’t know when I’d be brave enough to tell him. Part of me worried what he’d try to do once he found out, I knew he wouldn’t be an absentee parent and the idea of not seeing my baby everyday broke my fucking heart.
A very large part of me had prayed Cameron would fight for me. That he’d come to his senses and realize our love was worth the risk. I had prayed every night as I laid down alone that he’d come back to me, and yet, every nigh
t I cried myself to sleep.
Regardless of what happened in the future, I knew he and I needed to see each other. I had to get closure, and then I’d tell him about the baby later.
Sighing, I knew I couldn’t put it off any more.
Standing up, a familiar voice sent shivers down my spine.
“Hello Daughter, my you’ve turned beautiful over the years.”
Spinning around, I tried to make sense of the person who was standing before me. The sound of her voice sent ice through my veins.
How was this possible? She was supposed to be in prison.
“How?” I asked as I stumbled backwards and put my phone in my pocket.
Smiling, the woman who looked like she could be my older sister flipped her hair over her shoulder and shrugged, “I know people Shayne, it wasn’t as if I was ever going to serve that full sentence you stupid girl.”
“You got fifty years Rebecca!”
“My name is Mother to you, not Rebeca. I will not have you disrespect me so blatantly. Clearly you’ve learned nothing while I’ve been away. Lucky for you, we are going to fix that. It is time for a little mother-daughter bonding.”
“You can go fuck yourself Rebecca. The only time it is, is time for you to get the hell away from me before I call the cops.” My heart pounded as I realized my evil mother had brought along two bodyguards.
“Oh no baby girl, you and I have a score to settle. You give me what I want, and I’ll set you free…eventually.”
Turning to flee, one of the huge Neanderthals she had hired grabbed me and crushed my hand as they walked me to a blacked out limo. Fighting as much as I could, I was shoved into the limo and my hands were bound.
Sliding in next to me, my mother looked happy as could be as she closed the door, “Congratulations on your engagement to Cameron Carmichael, landing a billionaire husband was such a perfect move Shayne. Not only do you have your vast fortune, but now you’ve got direct access to one of the biggest bank accounts imaginable.”