by Gina Ardito
“Sorry,” she murmured, her gaze pinned to her sneakers. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I guess I got carried away. I should go.”
She stumbled away from him, headed for the exit.
“No, Cam, wait!” He reached out a hand to stop her, but she kept going. Marcus grabbed her arm as she flew past him, and Jordan saw red. “Keep your hands off her!”
Marcus let go, raising his hands in the air. “It’s cool, man. Take it easy. Just answer one question for me. Did we lose the building because of your boss or because of her?”
Cam stopped short, her hand on the doorjamb between the front and the back rooms of the bar. Now, she found the courage to look Jordan in the eye.
He stared directly back at her as he admitted, “Both.”
On that one syllable, she bolted.
Chapter 10
“Both! What the hell does that mean?”
Cam paced the floor of her apartment from the windows to the living room to the foyer and back again while an amused Bertie sprawled on her sofa and watched. For two days, she’d stewed over what had happened at Brady’s Place. After Jordan made that stupid pronouncement on Friday night, she’d fled the bar, had Danny drive her straight home, and collapsed into bed where she stared at the ceiling until the sun peeked through her blinds on Saturday. The rest of the weekend passed in a blur. She hadn’t ventured out of the apartment at all, had in fact, stayed in her ridiculous pajamas, unable to sleep or sit down or erase that two-sentence conversation from her head.
Now, on Sunday evening, when she’d pretty much given up on him, Bertie had showed up at last to talk her down before she wound up round the bend. In her opinion, he’d arrived too late. Her sanity had caught the last bus out of town at least twelve hours ago.
“I mean,” she continued, raking fingers through her dirty and disheveled hair at the same frenetic pace as her steps, “really. I don’t get it. This guy says, ‘Did we lose the building because of your boss or because of her?’ and he says, ‘Both.’ Both what? And what did the other guy mean about losing the building? Do you think he was talking about the building I’m buying? The Loughlin? But what would Jordan want it for? What does his boss have to do with it? And for that matter, what do I have to with any of this?” She shook her hands around her head. “I didn’t come to him with the site; he came to me. If he didn’t want me to have it, why bother putting me through all this?”
“Maybe you should ask him,” Bertie suggested with a smirk.
Drowning in self-pity, she barely heard him. “I’ve been agonizing over this deal since I first found out he was the agent. Do you have any idea what it’s like to see him, to hold myself back from touching him, and pretend it doesn’t hurt? To see him in that chair and want to help, but know any softness I show him will be met with derision? I don’t understand why he reached out to me at all. I don’t believe for one second he did it for the good of the foundation. He’s playing games with me, and I don’t know why. Why would he be so cruel? What did I do to make him hate me so much?”
Bertie sat up higher on the couch, all sense of humor gone. “He doesn’t hate you. My guess is he’s as confused as you are. You two have a history you’ve never overcome. That’s why I told you to have lunch with him. To talk. Clear the air. Start over.”
“Yeah, well.” She uttered a bitter laugh. “You heard how well that went!”
“So, try again. Somewhere else.”
“And risk having him kiss me again?” A snort flew from her nose. “No, thank you!” She stopped, midway in her traverse, her arms loose at her sides. “Did I tell you he kissed me?”
“Yes. Three times. How was it?”
Her guard dropped, and she relived that one moment, touching her mouth, as if she could still feel him there. “It was wonderful. I’d forgotten—” Wait a minute. Realizing what he was up to, she glared at Bertie. His cheeks twitched, and she pointed a finger at him. “Are you laughing at me?”
He rounded his eyes, and shook his head in rapid fashion. “I wouldn’t dare.” At her impatient huff, he patted the cushion beside him. “Sit. You’re wearing ruts in the floor with this whirling dervish routine. I’m surprised your shoes haven’t caught fire.”
For the first time since Friday night, a glimmer of a smile tickled her lips. She picked up her feet to show him the scuffed Converse sneakers. “They’re rubber.”
“Good. Safety first. Now, sit.” He patted the cushion again.
On another huff, she plopped into the seat. “This is all your fault, you know. If you had answered my texts Friday night, I wouldn’t have pestered Val and then wound up at her place before—” A sudden fear gripped her. “Crap. That’s another problem I totally forgot about. Val’s probably gonna quit on Tuesday, and that’s your fault, too.”
“Of course it is.” His tone was flat, unaffected. “Everything’s my fault: dinosaur extinction, the Black Plague, climate change, all the miseries of mankind are my fault. Care to tell me why I’ve compelled Val to quit now?”
“Because when I couldn’t reach you, I called her.”
“Oh, well, sure. That makes sense.”
“It does.” She tucked her legs underneath her butt and sat sideways on the sofa to face him. “Do you know what I realized the other night?”
“What?”
“That you’re my only friend.” A tear itched behind her eye, but she sniffed it back. “Isn’t that pathetic?”
“Tragic.”
Too antsy to stay in one position for long, she straightened her legs, threw herself against the cushioned back of the sofa, and folded her arms over her chest. “You’re not funny. I really needed you, and you weren’t there for me.”
“This may shock you, but I do have a job, Cam. I’m a football coach for the New York Vanguard. You might’ve heard of them.”
She smirked at his attempt at sarcasm. “Ha ha.”
“No, really. I’ve got dozens of grown men who are usually needier than you.” He settled an arm around her shoulders. “Not right now, but usually. The kickoff game is a week away, and I couldn’t just drop everything because you and your mother had another row. So you called Val. Sounds like you did a smart thing. That lady’s been with you long enough. She’s seen your ugly side, I’m sure.”
She squirmed out of his grasp. “I’m serious. I blew it with her, pushed too much. I practically bulldozed my way into her house.”
“Did she say that?”
“No, but I could tell she was uncomfortable with my being there. I’m her boss. In fact, she kept calling me boss the whole time, even when I told her not to. It was all, ‘Anything you say, boss; okay, boss; you’re the boss.’ I felt awful when she fell asleep. I gave her Monday off to recuperate and even offered her a spa treatment from Zahra as an apology. God knows if she’ll accept.” Clasping her hands in her lap, she dipped her head. “I’m no good with people. Maybe I should get a dog. Or a lizard. Definitely a lizard, something cold-blooded, since, apparently, I’m cold-blooded, too.”
“You’re one of the warmest people I know. You’ve just got a lot of barriers. Sounds to me like you tried knocking down a few of them on Friday night. That’s a good thing. I’m sure Val thought so, too.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure. I just didn’t know what else to do. Like I said, when I couldn’t reach you...” She glared at him, trying to burn him with the power of her eyes. “I called her. She was planning a nice, quiet night at home with some kind of salmon dish and a bath, and I totally crashed it.”
He quirked a brow. “You crashed her bath?”
“No!” She sighed. “Keep up, Bertie. I intruded on her plans for a relaxing evening at home.”
“Did you bring work with you for her to do?”
She clucked her tongue. “No, just a pizza. We’d both put in a sixteen-hour day on Friday. I’m not a monster.”
“Then, what’s the problem?”
“She fell asleep on the couch, and I felt awful that I’d intruded on her, so I left.
That’s when I went to Brady’s Place.”
“Where you ran into Jordan, shot a game of pool, kissed him—”
On a gasp, she slapped the space between them. “I did not kiss him!”
“Where he kissed you,” he amended, “while you struggled to retain your honor.”
“Well, not exactly, but...” She dipped her head. “Okay.”
“Then some big guy walked in and made a comment about a building and you ran out. And that’s where we’re at now.”
“Yes.” She waited, but he said nothing more. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“What do you think it means?”
“I don’t know. Ask Jordan.” He pulled her against him again, and this time, she didn’t fight. “Just do me a favor? Shower first. Brush your hair—and your teeth. And put on clean pajamas.”
She yawned as exhaustion finally claimed her. Snuggled into Bertie’s broad chest, his heartbeat thumping against her ear, she whispered, “Okay,” and promptly fell asleep.
EARLY TUESDAY MORNING, Jordan greeted Marcus outside the empty space that had once housed the Stalk Food Store and Farmers’ Market. “Thanks for coming.”
“How could I not? You sounded pretty excited on the phone.”
After Cam had run off the other night, he sensed Marcus was about to do the same. So had everyone else inside Brady’s Place, which sent them all into raucous laughter.
“What happened, Wheels?” Luis admonished. “Was Cam not impressed with your technique? Maybe we should play another game. Your charm seems to be wearing off.”
“Worst response to kissing a woman I’ve ever seen,” Kenny added. “You couldn’t even get her to stay out of pity.”
That remark got Marcus’s back up. The sports physical therapist did not take kindly to anyone ridiculing his clients. Fists at his sides, he stalked forward, intent on pounding some respect into the man. “You listen to me, you little weasel—”
“Marcus!” Jordan cut off the brewing fight. “Forget him. He’s harmless.” He jerked his head toward the front area. “Come on. Let’s go up front where we can talk.”
Marcus shifted his weight to one hip and folded his arms over his chest. “Forget about it. Call me tomorrow or something.”
Jordan pushed forward toward the doorway, hoping he could convince Marcus to stay long enough to hear him out. “No, I can’t forget about it. I need to explain. Please.”
To Jordan’s relief, on a disgruntled huff of air, Marcus followed him to the front of the bar. Jordan gestured to the same booth he’d shared with Cam. Once they were seated, he ordered a beer for Marcus, another ginger ale for himself.
Only after the drinks were on the table and he was assured there’d be no additional interruptions did he open the conversation again. “What you walked in on back there, it’s not what it seemed.”
Marcus took a swig of his beer, but his expression remained impassive. “Uh-huh. Sure. ‘Cuz it looked to me like you were sucking face with the enemy.”
“She’s not the enemy.” He rolled his eyes, sipped his ginger ale, and gathered his thoughts. “Look, like it or not, Cam and I have a history. We didn’t have a great ending, but when we were good together, we were really good together. Tonight, she’d been drinking, and we shot a game of pool, and the music and the game and the atmosphere stirred up some fond memories. That’s all it was.”
Marcus narrowed his eyes and tilted his bottle toward Jordan. “So you two were lip-locked when I walked in out of some kind of weird moment of nostalgia?”
“Of course.”
Either that, or Kenny was right and she’d kissed him out of pity. Because she had definitely responded with enthusiasm when he’d kissed her. Question was, did she respond honestly or had she put on a show to make him feel better about himself?
He had to hope for the former. But he couldn’t completely discount the latter. Maybe she had ignored him all these years because she couldn’t bear having to see him confined to a chair? Not such an odd theory. He’d hated it at first, too. Had avoided mirrors for close to a year, in fact. Well, to hell with that. Cam could keep her pity for someone who needed it. Not him.
“Okay,” Marcus replied. “Let’s say I buy that explanation.”
“What’s to buy? It’s the truth.”
“Theresa thinks you still love her.”
God, had he let so much of his guard down at Marcus’s place last week? He shook his head but couldn’t verbalize a more emphatic denial.
Marcus ignored him. “So that makes me wonder where you and I stand. It’s why I asked you if we lost the building because of your boss or because of her. I mean, if someone else representing the Delgado Foundation had been in charge of the acquisition, would you have let it go so easily?”
“Absolutely.”
“No hesitation,” Marcus remarked. “How can you be so sure?”
Because it’s the truth, his saner self had replied.
Oh, sure. Susan might have been the instigator of this whole conundrum, but if he really didn’t want Cam to have the site, he could’ve said no. Her threats to fire him were empty. He didn’t need the job. Not financially. He had plenty of money in the bank, most of it earmarked for this project with Marcus. If Susan did fire him, he could easily transition from corporate real estate to handling the books for the therapy business when it was up and running. He wouldn’t be as happy, stuck in an office all day without the ability to get outside every once in a while, but he could do it. Or he could find another realtor to join, despite Susan’s threat to blackball him. In fact, he could think of several realty companies who’d see Susan’s animosity as a selling point.
As for Cam, the minute he saw her walking around the interior of the Loughlin site, he’d known it was meant for her. It might have been years since they’d been together, but he still knew her moods, her priorities, and her goals. Hope had lit up her eyes and for that moment, he saw the place the way he sensed she did: full of kids and laughter and joy.
Just as he saw this old supermarket as the perfect spot for him and Marcus: full of people working hard to create a new normal, thanks to a split-second event that had shattered their lives. As he’d noticed on the listing website, the space was in a great location, had plenty of space—all on one floor, which was a huge plus for him and others like him—a large parking area, and came well within budget.
He looked up at Marcus now, framing his forehead with the back of his hand to block out the brutal sun his shades failed to repel. “What do you think?”
“It’s definitely better suited to our needs than the other place,” Marcus agreed.
“And there’d probably be room for a pool,” Jordan added.
Hydrotherapy was crucial for some injuries. A pool would be a huge bonus they wouldn’t have dared consider at the other site. Still, it was best he didn’t make promises he might not be able to keep.
“I’ll know more about what we can and can’t do once I get my hands on the specs.”
Marcus glanced at him. “What’s holding that up?”
“Susan,” he admitted with a frown. She’s not the selling agent for this property. Which makes this transaction...” He swallowed hard. “...delicate.”
“Delicate or impossible?”
“Nothing’s impossible. It’s just a question of drawing her in the right way. But I wanted to make sure we were ready to pursue the site before I get her involved.”
Because despite Michaela and Rachel trying to convince him otherwise, he would not go behind her back to chase this space. He’d only get serious about it if he got Marcus’s okay and Susan’s blessing. If either refused to give him what he needed, he’d look elsewhere. In business and in his personal life, Jordan wanted loyalty. He’d give no less in return.
“So, what do you think?” he pressed. “Are we interested in seeing more?”
“Yeah, I think so. What happens next?”
Jordan forced a grim smile. “I have to convince Susan to h
elp us.”
Chapter 11
When Cam strode into work on Tuesday morning, she half-expected Val’s area to have been stripped bare. But no. Not only was Val’s stuff still there, a sunny, smiling Val sat behind her desk.
“Good morning! Thanks for the spa package yesterday. It was a really nice surprise. That massage was ah-maz-ing!”
So convinced was she that she’d screwed up her relationship with Val, a dumbstruck Cam could barely speak when she found her assumption dead wrong. “Oh, good. I’m... er... glad you enjoyed it. What... what are you doing here?”
“It’s Tuesday. Your note said come back on Tuesday.” Her face drained of color. “Oh, God! Am I fired?” She whispered the last word with enough dread to chill the air.
Relief flooded through Cam, and she laughed. “No. Not at all. In fact, grab some coffee and come into my office.”
Val remained dubious. “If it’s about the notepads in my drawer, I can explain.”
“Val, relax.” She strode toward her office door. “You’re not fired. I promise. This is good news. Join me when you’re ready. We’ve got a lot of stuff to cover.”
Pushing inside, she let the door swing wide and stay open. Cam settled at her desk and booted up her computer, then accessed Val’s HR file. She’d already reviewed the numbers and the details, but she wanted to keep them fresh in her mind.
A pale Val crept into the office, eyes downcast at the utilitarian gray carpet, and Cam hid a smile. She hovered there, halfway between the desk and the door, as if she wanted an equal distance between her future and her past. Amusement lifted Cam’s mood, but she feigned a sternness just to toy with Val for a second or two. It would make the outcome that much more delicious for both of them. At least, she hoped so.
“Have a seat, Val.”
“Should I shut the door?”
“No, leave it open for now. This won’t take long.”
Val stumbled into the chair across from Cam’s desk and clasped her fingers, settling her hands in her skirted lap. Even so, Cam saw how they trembled.