by Linde, K. A.
“I don’t see why,” I told him.
He just shook his head. “It’s been a long fucking night. I don’t want to talk any more about this. I want to get drunk and forget this night ever happened.”
“I could drink with you,” I offered.
“No, forget it,” he said, pushing away from me and heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I asked, following him.
“Out. I need to blow off some steam.”
“Camden, we’re leaving in the morning. Just stay here and get drunk and sleep it off.”
He’d already grabbed his coat and pressed the button for the elevator. I couldn’t believe this was happening. What the hell had really happened with his father that made him react like this?
“Should I go with you?” I offered in vain.
His eyes lifted to me. “I wouldn’t have even had this conversation with my father if you’d held up your end of the deal.”
I took a step back in shock. “Are you saying this is my fault?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Your father is a dick. That has nothing to do with me.”
“Sure, Katherine.”
Then he stepped into the elevator and left me behind in his apartment. I stared at the closed doors in shock. Camden and I had our differences. We yelled at each other and hurt each other. This should have been par for the course. Especially after how I’d acted on our anniversary.
This was why I didn’t put myself out there. He had accused me of being the problem, of the things that his father was responsible for. Nowhere in the contract did it say that I had to be pregnant in the first year. It just said have a baby, for fuck’s sake.
I stormed away from the elevator and went into the extra bedroom where I’d stashed my suitcase for the vacation tomorrow. I’d planned to stay here so that I wouldn’t have to wake up and get over here before we headed to the airport. I was regretting that now. It would be nice not to sleep under the same roof as him.
When I checked my phone, Lark had gone silent. My friends English and Whitley, who were also at the beach with Lark, had picked up the thread and sent obscene pictures from a beach party. What I should do was call Lark and vent to her.
Instead, my finger hovered on Penn’s number. It wouldn’t be strange for me to call him. He’d been in my life since I was little. He’d always been the person to pick me up, even more so than Lark. And yet, this felt like a betrayal, even to the man who had just abandoned me.
Ignoring my phone, I opened my email instead, resisting the temptation. I just needed a Xanax and to go to sleep.
As I absently scrolled through my email, a new email popped up from the contact at the charity. We’d met this afternoon, which was the real reason I’d been late to meet Camden, and she’d said that I’d hear from her if something came up. I opened the email and scrolled through the information for the children’s charity along with a date to meet the kids after I got back.
A part of me wanted to be so pissed at Camden and cancel it. I didn’t need to do more work, and I’d only decided to do it to prove myself. But what did I have to prove when he was off doing who knew what with who knew who?
Lies. I knew exactly where he went when he needed to “blow off steam.” He’d gone to Fiona’s. I knew it for certain. As much as I knew that he’d be furious if I called Penn. My own Achilles heel.
But maybe I’d still go through with the charity, not to prove it to Camden or to make myself look good, but maybe just… for myself.
8
Camden
My head was fuzzy as I crashed back into my limo and told my driver to drive. I knew it was the alcohol and the cigar, but it was more than that. My lungs felt tight. It was hard to breathe, and I wasn’t getting in enough oxygen. As I sucked in another breath, I placed my hand on my chest and wheezed. My lungs rattled.
Fuck. I knew what that meant. Fucking fuck.
I leaned forward, swiping open the compartment in the limo where I kept emergency supplies. “Where are you? Goddamn it.”
I scooted past bottles of booze, a box of condoms, and a collection of chocolates that must have belonged to Katherine.
Then I saw it. “There you are.” I grabbed the inhaler.
I shook it a few times, brought it to my lips, and pressed down on the top, inhaling deeply. I leaned back against the leather seat and waited for my breathing to even out, for the tightness to leave my lungs. It took a few minutes before everything began to return to normal.
That could have been bad. As Katherine and I argued upstairs, I’d felt it coming on, but I’d ignored it, willed it away. Not that it had ever fucking worked.
Alcohol, cigar smoke, and construction dust were not a winning set. Not even close. Fuck, it was amazing how one little life-saving bit of medicine could make me feel like such a fucking failure. Millions of people used inhalers to control their asthma, but somehow, it made me a freak to have to use medicine because my lungs couldn’t properly function.
There were very few people who knew that I needed to use it. Besides my father and Candice, if she even remembered, I could only think of my closest friend, Court Kensington. He’d never bring it up, but we didn’t hide from each other. We knew all the dark and nasty sides that we kept from everyone else. I actually wished that he were here tonight instead of in Puerto Rico already with his girlfriend, English.
But he wasn’t, and I’d just snapped at Katherine. There was no one else in my life to be with. I just needed to get away.
I knew exactly where I should go.
* * *
It was an hour later when I showed up outside of Hank’s, a run-down billiards hall on the wrong side of town. One night about two years ago, I’d stumbled across the place with the police chief, José. I’d needed an escape, and despite the fact that most people thought I had him in my pocket, we actually enjoyed each other’s company.
He’d suggested Hank’s. After he’d seen how I played, he’d regretted bringing me. Pool was my sport of choice. Unsurprisingly, as a kid who had suffered with asthma, I hadn’t been too fond of most outdoor sports, but pool was a game of math, strategy, and skill. A game I had gotten really good at while secluded in my father’s home, growing up.
I’d shown up to the pool hall dressed as a nobody, and life had faded away. I was still Camden Percy. I couldn’t escape who I was, not even in this shithole, but no one treated me differently for it. After a few months, I’d purchased a condo down the street for nights when I got too fucked up or I just wasn’t ready to go back. It was a refuge from a world that never knew I needed one.
I changed into jeans, a T-shirt, and a leather jacket at the condo before heading into Hank’s, which was surprisingly packed with customers on Christmas Eve. I recognized a few of the guys playing pool.
“Hey, Camden,” Ricky called as he leaned over a pool table. He had a wiry mustache and potbelly. The guy was from Texas and wore a cowboy hat every day of the year. In New York City. Baffling.
“Ricky,” I said, shaking his hand.
“You up for a game after I crush Big Al?” Ricky asked.
Big Al was actually a scrawny twenty-something, who wore a white sleeveless shirt and low-hung jeans. He sometimes worked as a bar back for Monica, when she let him.
“Hey, I’m going to clean up,” Big Al said before missing his next shot.
I laughed. It came out effortlessly. None of the pressure from real life here. “Maybe next game, Ricky.”
“Sounds good.”
I passed them by and headed straight for the bar. I really fucking needed a drink. I needed to drink and not remember anything that had happened tonight. My father, Candice, Lars… even Katherine. It was all too much of a goddamn nightmare. And maybe if I let Monica liquor me up, I wouldn’t have to think about anything for a few hours.
“Camden,” Monica said, already reaching for her top-shelf liquor as I slid into a seat at her bar. They’d only started carrying it once I became a regu
lar. “You look like shit.”
Monica was in her fifties and could scare the piss out of any man in this establishment. Everyone said that she had been a knockout in her youth. I didn’t need to see a picture to imagine it. She was still beautiful now. Only about five feet tall with dark brown hair and green eyes, and a total hard-ass. She didn’t take anyone’s shit, which was probably why I liked her.
“Thanks, Monica,” I said, passing a hundred-dollar bill into the tip jar.
“At least you tip well,” she said. She dropped a glass of scotch on the rocks in front of me.
“And a shot of tequila,” I added. “For you and me.”
She shrugged and reached for the Patrón. She poured us each a shot and held it out. “What are we toasting to?”
“No toasting,” I said. “Just drinking.”
I clinked the glass against hers, and we both downed the shots. She didn’t even blink as she got back to work.
“Well, what brings you in on Christmas Eve?” she asked. “Don’t you have family to see? Your pretty wife?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here.”
“I hear you,” she said, pouring a pitcher of beer.
Monica rarely saw her family. She and her husband were separated. She’d said that her son didn’t live nearby and he was busy a lot. She claimed that the bar was more her family now.
“Just keep ’em coming,” I told her.
“You going to clear out Ricky before Christmas? I don’t think his wife will much appreciate that.”
I shook my head. “I’ll just play. I only try to hustle the new guys.”
She snorted. “I remember the first time you came in here with José and cleaned the entire place out. He was spitting mad at you. I’d never seen him so pissed off. Then you bought the entire bar drinks the rest of the night. They begrudgingly liked you after that.”
I shrugged and shot her a lopsided smile. It was a good memory. I had definitely hustled them that night, but they’d come to accept me after the drinks.
“It’s how I knew you weren’t a complete shit.”
I snorted. “Like the rest of the Upper East Side?”
“Wouldn’t know anything about that, but I can tell that you’re down tonight. Worse than normal. Tell Mama Monica what’s been going on,” she said, leaning into the bar and flashing me a smile.
“I don’t know,” I said, downing the scotch and passing it back to her for a refill. “My father is a dick. He’s pressuring me to get this deal done, but he’s pissed off because my sister came home pregnant.”
She arched an eyebrow. “That’s a bad thing?”
“To him, yes. She’s pregnant before my wife. He doesn’t like the competition.”
She rolled her eyes. “That sounds stupid.”
“It is,” I agreed. “It might have all been okay if I’d ignored him baiting me, but he gets under my skin, and things aren’t great with my wife.”
“Katherine, right?”
“Yeah, Katherine. I fucked up our anniversary. We’re supposed to try to have a baby, and she got mad at me for bringing it up.”
“Why?” she asked.
“She’s maybe not ready.”
“And you’re pressuring her? Did you talk about this before you got married?” Monica asked, sinking into one hip and giving me a look. “Because, you know, pressuring a woman to have a baby is the dumbest thing you can do. She’s the one who has to carry it for nine months and birth the damn thing. Then she’s mostly in charge of raising it. She either wants it or she doesn’t.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, waving her off. But she was right. I’d come at it all wrong. How could I expect Katherine to want to have a baby when we were in such a shitty place anyway? “We talked about it before getting married, but we’re in a rut. We’re going away for a week, and we can’t seem to do anything but bite each other’s heads off.”
Understatement.
“You want some advice, kid?” she asked as she wiped down the bar.
I laughed. “Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” she said with a smile. “You need to call a truce.”
“A truce?”
“Yep. Call a truce with your wife. You need to talk it out, but right now, you’re both too hardheaded to do that. You need to relax and forget about your problems, you know?” She passed me another shot of tequila. “Once you come home, things will be better, and you can talk this shit out. It’ll help.”
I shrugged, uncertain if any of that was true. Katherine would never let me call a truce. I knew her too well. She thrived on arguing and conflict. What would we even be like without it?
“Just think about it,” Monica said as she held up her shot of tequila.
I clinked my shot against hers and then tipped it back. Maybe I’d think about it. Tomorrow. After I got rip-roaring drunk and forgot about everything that had happened tonight.
“Thanks for the advice, Mon,” I said with a head nod. “I’m going to go beat Ricky.”
“Good luck.”
I came to my feet. Wobbling from side to side, I realized how drunk I already was. Well, fuck. This was going to be interesting.
“Ricky, you ready for that game?” I slurred.
He took one look at me and dropped a twenty on the table. “I think I can finally beat you, pretty boy.”
I matched his bet and grinned slyly. No one ever beat me.
Part II
The Truce
9
Katherine
The sound of the elevator dinging open woke me the next morning. Camden had never come home last night. He’d stayed out all night with Fiona. Merry fucking Christmas to me.
I pulled the pillow over my face and screamed into it. Not until I was completely exhausted did I toss it aside and slip out of bed. I couldn’t even handle him right now. I trudged through the bedroom, stripping as I went, and then stepped into the shower.
We had to be at the airport in a matter of hours. I needed to find a way to look fucking presentable. I had to be Katherine Van Pelt today. The cool ice princess of the Upper East Side who never let a goddamn thing bother her. Not the pathetic girl who had stayed up way too late, waiting for her husband to come home.
“Katherine!” Camden called up the stairs.
He could go to hell as far as I was concerned. I ignored him and focused on my beautiful, long hair. I lathered it up with shampoo and then conditioner, taking time to thoroughly rinse it all out. Then suddenly, there was a person in front of the glass shower door.
I screamed on instinct. My heart fluttered as I realized it was Camden standing on the other side of the steamed-up glass door.
“What the hell are you doing?”
But as the words fell from my lips, he pulled his button-up over his head, stripped out of his slacks and underwear, and yanked open the door. My eyes went wide with shock.
“Camden, stop,” I commanded, stepping deeper into the shower.
He didn’t. He stepped into the spray and came toward me, pinning me back against the stone wall. My heart thudded in my chest but not from fear any longer. From that look in his eye. The one that said he wanted me.
His lips crashed down on mine, and his hand slipped over my wet skin. I gasped against him, caught off guard by his need for me. He tasted like whiskey and smoke and unbridled desire. Our bodies collided. His hand jerked my leg up around his hip. His cock pressed hard between my legs.
And then last night flashed through my mind. Me standing there like a fool, watching him walk out of his penthouse. Me waiting up, hoping he’d return. Me finally passing out from exhaustion. Now, he was back after staying out all night, doing who knew what. I might want this—I loved having sex with him—but I was not pathetic enough to accept this.
“Stop,” I said harder this time, pushing against his chest.
He stumbled back a step into the water, soaking his dark hair. His brown eyes were nearly black in the low light. He looked feral and dangerous.
“Where were you last night?” I demanded.
“Out.”
“Not good enough,” I said.
“Katherine…”
“You don’t get to do this,” I told him. “You don’t get to come back like nothing happened.”
“Nothing did happen,” he said, swaying slightly on his feet as if he was still drunk.
I glared at him. “That isn’t an apology.”
“I don’t apologize,” he growled.
Which was true. I’d never heard him apologize. Not to me. Not to anyone.
“We have a flight to catch,” I told him, pushing past him in the shower. “You need to sober up.”
I stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and walked away from him. My chest ached with every step. A part of me wanted to go back there and claim that vicious man as my own. The rest of me knew that walking away was the only option, and that this vacation was going to be a nightmare.
* * *
Two hours later, I was in a sundress with a full face of makeup, cherry-red lipstick and all. The nude Christian Louboutins on my feet were the final pieces of my armor. I needed that armor to survive the next week.
Camden appeared in a three-piece suit, decidedly more sober than he had been two hours ago. Though clearly hungover from however much fucking alcohol he had consumed last night. He didn’t say a word to me as our luggage was taken down to the limo, and then we traveled out to his private jet.
Silence was my ally in this. It was easier to text Lark, English, and Whitley about how excited I was about coming to see them than it was to pretend to be happy to be going with my husband. We made it to the airport in record time and out to the plane even faster. It was a miracle.
Camden looked like he wanted to say something to me when we were boarding, but I shot him a glare and then hustled in front of him, so I wouldn’t have to hear it. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had been out all night with Fiona? Then he’d had to come home and try to fuck me, too? I couldn’t deal with him right now. I wanted to be in the sun with a drink in hand, lying by the pool and working on my tan. That was it.