by Gina Ardito
They moved deeper into the vast open area, and Antonio let out a low whistle. “Nice place. Looks like it’s a good size, lots of natural light. I’m gonna go check out the wiring.” He leaned closer to her to whisper, “You okay down here with him?” Cam nodded, and Antonio looked over at Jordan. “Where’s the panelboard?”
Jordan pointed toward the rear doors. “Door back there, marked ‘Electrical Service.’ To the right of the utility closet.”
With a nod, Antonio toddled off, his tool belt dangling around his hips, giving him the stride of a sailor on a pitching deck.
Cam continued to envision how the place might look when it was ready for use for the foundation. Her architect had drawn up preliminary plans for the building, utilizing every bit of available space to its best advantage, including a greenhouse and vegetable garden out back to teach the children about responsibility, hard work, and healthy eating. Despite the vast nothingness, her brain filled in the blanks, and excitement grew. She hurried forward, turning in small circles as she pictured her vision come to life.
Her heels clacked on the floor in rapid succession, the sound thunderous in the cavernous space. Every noise seemed a slap at Jordan, who rolled along beside her, and she winced at how without meaning to, her very presence emphasized how far he’d fallen from the man she’d once known and loved. She should’ve worn jeans and sneakers, instead of a dress that showed off her legs and heels that emphasized every step she took. In trying to bolster her own ego, she’d managed to obliterate his. Talk about clueless. She glanced at him, and guilt constricted her ribcage.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He stopped in mid-roll to stare at her in confusion. “For what? You don’t like the building?”
“No. I’m sorry I’m walking so fast.”
To her surprise, he laughed. “Don’t slow down on my account. And don’t apologize either. It’s not like I resent everyone around me because they still have two working legs.”
“Well, you definitely resent me for something.”
OH, HE HAD PLENTY OF reasons to resent Cameron Delgado. But here and now was not the time, nor the place, for that confrontation. Besides, she’d already managed to take him by surprise simply with the outfit she’d chosen to wear today. She looked like she was about to launch into a day of shopping, brunch, and a trip to the salon with her girlfriends, rather than inspect a dusty old office building.
All part of Cam’s arsenal of quixotic charms. She had the ability to bring joy and color to the dullest activity with her choice of wardrobe, her talent for finding the humor in any situation, and her exuberant spirit. Yet, he also knew she saved her brightest fashions and snarkiest jokes for those instances when her ego was at its lowest.
Had he brought out that self-doubt in her? He didn’t know how to feel about the possibility. Guilt mixed with a smidge of satisfaction. Toss in regret. Shake well and serve.
To change the subject, he pointed to the wall of windows that overlooked the busy street outside. “Plenty of space to display the little ones’ artwork, and with the sheer number of passersby seeing those colorful handprint turkeys and lacy doily snowflakes, you’ll draw a lot of attention. I’d suggest you put the foundation’s name on every other window. No better advertising, in my opinion.”
She nodded. “I agree.” Looking down at her clasped hands, she murmured, “I should’ve called you back so I could come here sooner. From the time I first clapped eyes on this place, I sensed it was perfect for our needs. Being inside just confirms it.”
Perfect. Yeah, he’d thought it was perfect for him, too—before Susan had swept the property out of his hands to gift wrap for Cam. Yet, as he watched her stroll around the site, he sensed how much she already loved the building and oddly, how much the building suited her.
Despite the commission he was about to earn, he still couldn’t decide if doing business with her was good for him or the worst thing to happen since that game in Houston. Marcus had his opinion, of course, but Jordan had adopted an attitude of wait and see.
He faked a smile and prayed she didn’t see through him. “Well, I’m glad you finally agreed to work with me. I agree. This place would be ideal for your Manhattan center. You know, despite all the water under the bridge between us, I’ve always believed in the foundation and the work it does.”
Her lips tightened into a thin line. He knew that look. She was biting back something she knew she shouldn’t say. Nice to see he could still get a rise out of her. Especially considering the water under their bridge was pretty toxic. He stifled the tide of bitterness before it could drown him.
Whatever struggle she fought behind those clamped lips, she won the battle to keep to herself. That was a new quality.
Instead, she asked, “How long have you been back in New York?”
“A little over a year.” He stifled his disappointment that she’d learned how to monitor her words. Like her mother. What other of Laurel’s off-putting habits had she acquired since he’d been gone? Besides ditching the man she claimed to love when he no longer served her purposes?
“And what made you go into commercial real estate?”
“My major in college was in construction management with a minor in business administration. With my football career over, it was good to have another occupation to fall back on.” All facts she already knew, if she’d stopped to think about their shared history. But clearly, when she’d turned down his marriage proposal, she’d not only closed the door on their future, she’d also locked up their past in some dark, unvisited cellar. Now, they were virtual strangers to each other.
Still, if she could so callously toss him aside, he’d have to find a way to forget her as easily.
“That’s smart,” she said. “Bertie always tries to convince the younger players when they’re being scouted to take their studies seriously. You’re a prime example why that counsel is so crucial.”
“How is Bertie these days?” He knew the answer, of course, but he and Bertie had both agreed Cam didn’t need to find out about their conversation right away.
“The same.” She shrugged and strolled ahead of him, her gaze flitting around the area as she scrutinized every corner. “How’s Paris?”
He blinked at the non-sequitur. “The agent or the city?” She turned to glare at him over her shoulder, and it was his turn to shrug. “What? It’s not like I’ve seen either one of them lately.”
Cam stopped dead in her tracks and whirled, outrage stamped on her face. “She dumped you?”
“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way. After all, for her, I’m only as good as my next contract. Once I snapped my spine on that field, our relationship became as useless as my legs.”
“I’m sorry.” She walked to the wall of windows. “That sucks.”
“I’m not. It’s business.”
“There was more than business between you two.”
He snorted. “You always hated Paris.”
“Hmmph.” She tossed her head and perched her bottom atop the rack of radiators, those mile-long legs of hers extended out across the floor, the toes of those ridiculous boots pointed up toward the ceiling. “I don’t hate anyone. I didn’t trust Paris. Turns out, I had good reason.”
God, was she still carrying a grudge over his trade to Houston?
“Paris only did what I paid her to do: find me a place where I could use my talents for a team that needed me. Let’s face it. With the Vanguard, I’d have always been second best. And with you, too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come off it, Cam. You didn’t need me. You never did.”
She pushed off the radiator and stood in front of him, her complexion pink with undisguised anger. “I may not have needed you, but I loved you. Not that you ever cared about love. If you had, you wouldn’t have left me for the first better-looking, skinnier woman who made you hard.”
“You think I left you for Paris?!” A bitter laugh escaped his mouth. “You ar
e seriously delusional. I hired Paris for her business savvy, not for her looks. And yeah, she’s skinny. So what?” Cam’s sudden icy expression could freeze a bonfire, and he shook his head. “God, your mother’s insecurities have screwed you up so bad. You’ve always been the most beautiful woman I know—inside and out. Any flaw, any bit of extra on you doesn’t make you less loveable or less...anything in my eyes or in anyone else’s, for that matter. But you never see that, do you?” She didn’t answer, and her lips tightened again. “And one other thing, sweetheart. For what it’s worth, before you and after you, plenty of women have made me hard.”
“Ahem!” Antonio’s sudden intrusion doused the fire crackling between them.
Great. Talk about perfect timing! Jordan reared back to regain some space and perspective. Whatever he and Cam once had, if anything, was long gone.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Antonio said, “but I want to talk to Cam alone for a sec.”
No problem. He could use the break from her anyway. “Sure. I’ll go outside and wait for you there. Take as long as you need.”
A hundred years wouldn’t be long enough to get Cameron Delgado out of his system.
Chapter 6
Cam struggled to find ways to stay occupied for a full forty-eight hours before calling Jordan with her decision about the sale. Not that there was any doubt on her part. Reviewing the various reports from her bevy of attorneys and construction experts only left her more excited to begin the project. The site fit her needs to perfection: it came in under budget, sat in a good location, and left them plenty of room to grow. In the end, she’d simply needed time for her heart to catch up to what her head had known from the second she saw the place. There’d never been a doubt in her mind she’d acquire it, even if Jordan Fawcett was attached to it.
Still, Jordan needed to stew for a while. Leaving him dangling not only gave her the power position in their business deal, it gave him a taste of his own medicine. A few days in limbo only scratched the surface of the purgatory he’d sentenced her to.
“You should give him the green light in person,” Bertie advised as they sat together in her office early one evening.
She studied him over the last page of financials. “Why? I never do that. Once the decision is made, it’s a phone call at best.”
He shuffled a packet of papers and placed them inside a folder. “Jordan’s not your usual real estate agent.” He tapped the cover. “You and he have personal business smeared all over this deal. Invite him to lunch. You need to sit down together, somewhere in public, alone, with no distractions and talk. Really talk.”
Suspicion slithered across her shoulders. “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”
His expression remained a bland mask. “Nothin’. I’ve just been thinking about the two of you and seeing things, not as your teammate in this game, but as your referee. Not taking sides. I’m observing. So, let’s go to the videotape, as they say. What happened between you? He proposed; you turned him down. Meaning, your relationship had run its course. What’d you expect from him after that? Was he supposed to hang around here to carry your purse at social events?”
The sarcasm stung, and she jerked up her head to confront him with outrage. “Of course not! I wasn’t ready for marriage. I may never be ready for marriage. That didn’t mean I didn’t still love him. I just...”
“You just wanted him to hang around on the off-chance you might change your mind someday. Give him a little leeway on his leash, but not enough where you can’t yank him back when you need him at your beck and call.”
She frowned. “That wasn’t it at all. I wanted to take things slow.” Of all people, he should understand her hesitancy to dive headfirst into a marriage. He’d never remarried after his divorce from her mother. “‘I do’ and ‘happily ever after’ have never been synonymous in my family. So, maybe I wasn’t ready for an engagement ring and a fancy exchange of vows. Why couldn’t we have started getting more serious by moving in together first?”
Bertie leaned forward in his chair and folded his arms atop the desk. “Did you ever tell Jordan that’s what you wanted?”
Warmth flooded her face, and her throat tightened with regret. “He never gave me the chance. After I turned down his proposal, he immediately put up this wall between us. I knew he wouldn’t listen to anything I said that night. I figured we’d talk the next day. Instead, he held a press conference with Paris to announce he’d signed that damn contract. He could’ve waited, given me a chance to explain, let me make a counteroffer. He didn’t have to leave New York, leave the Vanguard, because I didn’t want to get married.”
“A counteroffer?” Bertie shook his head. “You talk about his proposal like it was a business deal. Love and business don’t mix, sweetheart. Take it from me. Besides, I don’t think the proposal and the trade were meant to happen in such quick succession. Or maybe he wanted you to come with him to Houston and figured a ring on your finger would get you to agree with less of a fight.”
“He knows I’d never leave New York,” she said with a snort. “Everyone and everything I love is here.”
“Then I don’t see how you can resent him for his choice.”
She gripped the edges of her desk until her knuckles whitened. “He should have stayed loyal!”
Bertie’s brow furrowed with lines of doubt. “To you? Or to the team? Look, Cam, forget about you and him for a second and think about where he was, professionally, at that precise moment. His career with the Vanguard was on the downhill side. You know that. He had, maybe, one good year left before we put Caceres into the starting position. Back then, the Privateers were a young team, and they needed a veteran to anchor their new, raw players. It was a perfect fit for Jordan and should have given him several more years with a major role on the field before he gracefully faded into retirement. Given the option, in his situation, I probably would have done the same thing.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “But you’re a Vanguard. Born and bred. Always.”
“I’m a football player. So was Jordan. Yeah, it’s nice to say you stayed with the same team from the day you were first drafted, but it rarely happens. I’m one of the very few lucky ones. I’ve lived the majority of my life as part of the Vanguard, and when I die, I plan to be buried on the fifty-yard line at the stadium so I can remain a part of the team into eternity.”
Cam shook her head, smiling at his nonsense. “Don’t say stuff like that, Bertie. You’ll probably outlive us all.”
“Probably.” He gave her a careless shrug and a wicked grin. “I seem to be immortal. God knows, your mother did her best to kill me off while we were married. But you’re missing my point. For ballplayers like me and Jordan, the game’s in our blood. We live for it. Coaches change, managers change, and a team’s needs change, season to season. None of that matters to us. All we care about is another day on the field, and we’ll do whatever it takes to get it. Football beats the crap out of us, and like some obsessed lover, we keep running back for more. We’ll ice our knees ‘til they’re numb, run laps at dawn, play in rain or snow or blazing heat. We shrug off the weather, tape up the bruises, and play through the pain. And yes, we’ll even sign with a different team, if it gives us the chance for another day on the gridiron, one more game, one more quarter, one more play—until football has taken everything from us and we can’t put on the cleats anymore. Sometimes, that happens ‘cuz of a sudden death, like it did for your dad, and sometimes, it happens due to a serious injury, like with Jordan. Me? It’ll probably be the arthritis that does me in eventually. But no matter how it comes or when, we know the odds going in. The end is always looming there in the distance. We know it, and we don’t care. Nothing matters more than the game.”
His voice was a harsh whisper by the time he finished his speech. Cam couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard him talk about anything with so much passion.
She swallowed the reality sandwich he fed her with a curt nod. Facts were sometimes
hard to accept, especially when they contradicted emotions. “Did Jordan ask for your opinion before...before he signed with the Privateers?”
“No. But if he had, I would’ve told him to go. Those kinds of opportunities don’t come around every day.”
Looking at the situation with candor, the way he asked her to, she had to admit Bertie’s insight made sense. Still...
“None of that explains what happened at the hospital in Houston.”
His lips tightened into a thin line. “No, it doesn’t. Which is why you two need to clear the air. Something ugly reared up between you.”
“Yeah.” Bitterness stung the air. “Paris Redmond.” Except she wasn’t ugly. At least, not on the outside. Inside, though...
She grimaced.
Bertie shook his head. “I don’t for one second believe Jordan was ever romantically involved with that piranha, but whether he was or wasn’t doesn’t change the fact that you and he lost your way somewhere, either right before or right after that proposal.”
She shoved away from her desk and spun her chair toward the wall of windows looking out over the river. “I told you—”
“I’m not saying you did anything wrong, or that he did, either.”
Whirling the chair around, she faced him again. “Then what are you saying?”
“Ask. Him. To. Lunch.” He reiterated each syllable. “Sit across from one another. Talk. Tell him why you’re angry at him, let him tell you why he’s angry with you. Maybe you’ll find you’re both wrong.”
She grabbed a pen off the desk and pointed the tip at him. “You know something you’re not telling me. What is it?”
“All I know is that, for two people who claim to care so little about each other, you’re both tiptoeing around your feelings like you’re walking through a mine field.”
“You talked to him?” She sat up straight in the chair. “When? Why?”
He waved a hand in dismissal. “Relax. We just talked football.”