“And you wanna make it better, Jo? Huh? Is that it?”
Her fingers trembled between his. Her tongue made a nervous swipe across her bottom lip, but she didn’t blink. Didn’t move her hand.
“If I can.”
He wrapped his fingers around her fragile wrist, being gentle but firm when he pulled her hand down. Deliberately icing his eyes over when he stepped away.
“Well, you can’t.”
Her head dropped a few inches before she drew in a deep breath and adjusted her glasses.
“Well, someone needs to. A grief counselor or—”
“Stop pushing.” Cam strode out of the kitchen and back into the living room, flopping onto the couch and covering his eyes with his arm. “Just let up.”
“I won’t, Cam.” Her voice came closer until he knew she was standing right over him. “I can’t.”
He sat up, setting his elbows on his knees and cradling his sleep-deprived head in his hands.
“That’s your problem. You don’t know when to stop. It’s too much. Just stop digging.”
“Friends dig.”
He looked up from the intricate design on the rug to narrow his eyes at her.
“So this is all in the name of friendship?”
Jo stared at him like she’d never seen him before, and to be honest she hadn’t. None of them had. You could only fake humanity for so long. He’d gotten away with it, but the devil inside of him wanted, more every day, to peel back this mask and show the ugly, disfigured truth writhing under his skin.
A keycard swiping at the door broke their static-charged stare. A slim woman walked in, a bellhop trailing her with a luggage-laden cart. One side of her pink hair was shaved and the other just brushed her shoulder, the bangs not quite covering the ring piercing her eyebrow.
“Just through there for my bags.” She pointed to the bedroom Cam had been using. “Cameron! Surprise!”
She sauntered over to him, throwing her tatted, silver-bangled arms around his neck, kissing his chin and cheeks and saving his mouth for last. She didn’t hold back, plunging her tongue between his lips and grabbing the back of his head before he could think to pull away.
“Etty,” he said against her lips, tugging her arms back down to her side. “I thought you weren’t back ’til next week.”
“It would not have been a surprise if I’d told you any differently.” Her French accent and warm smile wrapped around the words like a light, flaky croissant. “Eez fine, no?”
“No. I mean, yeah. Sure. It’s your suite. I just had a friend staying tonight.”
“Ooh la la.” She lifted her long lashes to dart naughty blue eyes between Cam and Jo. “A gift for me, yes? How you say…threesome? Ménage?”
“No! No, not a gift. Not a…” Cam cast a quick glance at Jo’s face, a frown cracking the line of her brow. Lips tightened and displeased. “She’s just a friend.”
“
Mais nous pourrions avoir beaucoup de plaisir
.” Her throaty voice dropped lower, smoking up with a memory Cam would rather forget. “
Rapelle
, Amsterdam, Cameron.”
Jo cleared her throat and took a step closer to Etty. “It’s actually really rude to have private conversations in French when someone doesn’t speak the language. And just useless and silly when they do,” Jo said…in perfect French.
Etty slapped Cam’s shoulder, a delighted laugh gurgling from her throat.
“I
like
this one.”
“Figures.” Cam rolled his eyes and gestured between the two women. “Jo Walsh, meet Etinette Chevalier.”
“This is my family’s hotel.” An impish grin stretched Etinette’s mouth from its usual pout.
“I gathered.” Jo tightened the knot of hair on her head. “I can go to Walsh’s place, Cam. Pierce can come get me.”
“No, please don’t leave.” Etty pressed a hand flat to Cam’s chest. “Cam and I are fine sharing a room.”
Jo swallowed and looked down at the black polish on her toes before looking up and buffing her smile to a high shine.
“Of course. Well, if you don’t mind, I’ll turn in.” Jo walked to her borrowed bedroom and turned at the door, looking from the hand Etty still laid on Cam’s chest to his face. “See you in the morning.”
“How about caramel French toast in the morning?” he asked.
Although he’d been pushing Jo away all night, the chasm stretching between them felt too wide. He could practically hear his own voice echoing back to him she felt so far away.
“I think I’ll get up and run in the morning.” Jo pulled open the door and walked through, giving him one more glance over her shoulder. “We’ll see about breakfast after. Good night, Cam. Um…Etinette.”
“All my friends call me Etty,” the petite French girl said, apparently oblivious to Jo’s
we’ll never be friends
vibe.
“How nice for you.” Jo offered a Sweet’N Low smile before closing the door.
“She is, how you say, a fryer cracker.”
“Etty, it’s firecracker.” Cam’s mouth turned up, his smile involuntary. Etty was a lusty piece of baggage he always had to fend off, but she was entertaining.
“Yes, well, she is that.”
A firecracker. Jo certainly was. But if he wasn’t careful, she was the one who would get burned.
W
ipe that foolish grin off your face.
Jo tried relaxing the muscles around her mouth, so practiced at disguising joy as dispassion. Sorrow as indifference. The muscles that flexed and pulled her lips into a straight line, yielding nothing, just would not obey this morning.
Jo turned down the music in her earphones, focusing on the way her body cut through the stillness of New York’s early summer air. She focused on her feet pounding into the pavement of the park trail, every step stomping out her old nemesis.
Hope.
She had hoped the first time she wore a bikini in ninth grade and caught Cam eyeing her body all night at the pool party.
She had hoped when Cam punched Russell Carrolton for cheating on her in her junior year in college.
She had hoped on Cam’s wedding day, up until the vows were said and gone, that he’d change his mind. Not marry Kerris after all.
She had hoped this morning when she emerged from the bedroom and seen Cam sleeping on the couch instead of in Etinette’s bed.
She had hoped when she stepped close enough to see his lashes brushing his cheeks and her sneaker-clad foot disturbed sketches on the floor.
Sketches of
Jo
.
There’s that foolish, shit-eating grin again.
This would not do. Hope was not her friend. Hope didn’t give it to her straight but fed her the lie that one day Cam might notice she was in love with him. Might love her back. The last fifteen years or so had taught her that hope was a sneaky bitch who sidled up to you, ingratiated her way into your good graces, only to shove a knife in your back when you least expected it.
But the sketches…
They had been sketches of her back, with her hair pulled over one shoulder and the zipper peeled away to reveal her bra and panties. Did a man sketch something like that if he wasn’t interested?
How would she know anymore? It had been so long since she had a man in her bed. The good thing about sexual frustration? If you found a healthy outlet for it, say running your ass off—literally—it wasn’t so bad.
Between running ten miles a day and knitting, Jo had avoided meaningless one-night stands and STDs.
Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing,” the ringtone Meredith had fittingly programmed for herself, interrupted Jo’s running playlist. Jo answered, earphones still in as she slowed and walked into the Chevalier Hotel lobby.
“Hey, Mer.” Jo offered the two staffers at the front desk a warm smile before boarding the elevator and heading up to the penthouse.
“G’morning. How the hell are ya?”
Jo hadn’t had many “girlfriends” through the years, but she enjoyed the easy friendship she and Meredith had developed.
“I’m good. How are Kerris and the girls?”
“Awesome, but Kerris will be a lot better once Walsh is back.”
“I can imagine. Walsh missing the birth…He would have given anything to be here.”
“Seems like he’s been missing a lot lately.”
Jo frowned up at the ascending numbers in the elevator.
“What’s that mean?”
“Just that every time I’ve talked to Kerris lately, Walsh has been working or out of town. I just hope he’ll slow down long enough to enjoy his new babies.”
“Well, of course he will.” Jo’s hackles raised an inch or two in her cousin’s defense. “You
do
understand that Uncle Martin had a heart attack? Walsh is under tremendous pressure from the board to keep investors and shareholders confident Bennett Enterprises won’t skip a beat until his father returns.”
“Don’t get defensive.”
“I’m not, I just think it’s hard for you to grasp—”
“Rich people’s problems?” Meredith’s drawl dripped sarcasm. “So I’m poor
and
dumb?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.” Jo took her time walking to Etinette’s suite door. “I’m just saying Walsh has a lot going on.”
“Is anything more important than those two baby girls? Than Kerris?”
“No, of course not.” Jo blew out a ragged breath, part frustration, part exertion from her run. “Just let up on Walsh. He’s trying his best.”
“You will always defend those guys ’til the end, won’t you?”
“Guys?”
“Walsh and Cam.” Meredith let out a little gasp on the other end. “Wait! You stayed at the hotel. You and Cam finally shared a bed last night?”
“We did
not
share a bed.” Jo rolled her eyes, leaning against the wall, in no hurry to see little Miss La Vie en Rose this early. “We didn’t even share a bed
room
.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I…Well, I’m not.” Jo pushed away from the wall, preferring Frenchie over Meredith’s interrogation after all. “I’ll see you in a couple of hours when I come to the hospital.”
“Will you pay for my doctor’s bill? You just gave me whiplash with that subject change. You can hide it from Cam, but you don’t have to hide it from me. That’s what friends are for.”
“Oh, friends dole out advice loosely based on cheesy Dionne Warwick songs?”
“You can run, but you can’t hide.”
“I’m sure that’s a song, too.” Jo used the keycard Cam had left on the counter for her to open the door. “I’ll talk to you later. Have something original to say.”
“Once you and Cam do the nasty, I’ll have lots original to say.”
Jo caught herself from tripping over her own feet. Cam stood in the kitchen in hanging-low-on-the-hips sweats and a T-shirt with
FRENCH ME
stretched across the muscles of his chest. His grin reassured her Meredith’s big-mouth voice hadn’t carried.
“Gotta go. See you later at the hospital.”
Cam dipped a thick slice of bread in the egg mixture and placed it on a sizzling skittle.
“Good run?” He kept one eye on the toast while he started whisking eggs.
Jo laid her cell and earphones on the counter, settling onto the leather stool.
“Pretty good. I love running in New York.”
“What are you up to now?”
“About ten miles a day.”
“Wow. Well, you look amazing.” He didn’t look away from the eggs he was salting and peppering. “I mean, you’ve always looked amazing. I can just tell—”
“I know what you mean.” She kept her eyes as careful as the slow sip she took of the steaming coffee he’d set in front of her. “Did you sleep well?”
He paused in his whisking but didn’t look up. He poured the eggs into the pan before answering.
“Yeah. I slept fine. I wanted to sketch some and didn’t want to disturb Etty, so I just took the couch.”
As badly as Jo wanted to ask him about the sketches of her she had seen, she didn’t. He held tension in his broad shoulders, as if braced for her next question.
“So how long are you here in New York, Cam?”
She watched, fascinated, as his shoulders lowered a few inches and the firm, beautiful line of his mouth relaxed.
“I’m not sure.” Cam plated her French toast, sliding it to her across the counter. “Sebastian wanted me to scope some galleries for my first official exhibit.”
“That’s great.” Jo said the words around the delicious caramel goodness dissolving in her mouth. “Also great? This French toast! Have you been cooking a lot while you’re here?”
“Nope. First time. Been eating out every day and night.”
Jo slowed her chewing, noting the makings of her favorite omelet on the counter. Shitake mushrooms, spinach, and turkey bacon. Those weren’t items you’d have just lying around in the fridge of a suite like this, even if it was more of an apartment than a hotel room. Especially if he hadn’t been cooking. Jo computed all the information and landed on a conclusion that raced straight from her brain to her never-does-learn heart.
“Did you get all this stuff just for me? This morning?”
Cam frowned, folding the omelet with much more concentration than it should require. He finally turned the burner off and looked at her, eyes guarded.
“It was nothing.”
“But did you have to go out? I could have ordered room service.”
“There’s a grocer up the street.” Cam slid the omelet onto a plate for her. “I wanted to at least give you a home-cooked breakfast.”
“Is that supposed to make up for six months of pretending I don’t exist?” Jo gave her usually checked irritation a little free rein.
“Don’t start.” Cam poured eggs for his own omelet into a bowl, glancing away from the bowl just long enough to narrow his eyes at her. “I told you I needed some space.”
“From me?”
“From everything. From Walsh, from Kerris, Amalie, Rivermont.” He stopped whisking and met her eyes, his still hiding something but more frank than they had been. “Yeah, you, too, a little. I needed to make my own way and live without all the drama for a little while.”
“So are you coming back to Rivermont now?” Jo stuffed her mouth with French toast so her rebel tongue wouldn’t beg him to consider coming home.
“Actually, I had an idea.” He settled his elbows on the counter and leaned forward to stab a square of French toast from her plate and placed it in his mouth. “Hmmm. That
is
good.”
Jo tried to focus on what he was saying instead of the maple syrup and caramel glistening sticky sweet on his full lips.
“What idea?”
“What would you think of me holding my first exhibit at Walsh House?”
Hosting his exhibit at the community center Aunt Kris had built for foster kids? The strain of resisting licking those lips and of keeping a safe distance disintegrated. Jo scurried around the counter and threw her arms around Cam’s neck, heedless of the tension that had been snapping between them.
“Cam, that is so perfect.” Jo blinked back tears against his neck before pulling away to look up at him. “Aunt Kris would have loved that.”
Her aunt had always considered Cam a second son and almost from the first day he’d shown up at the foundation’s camp for foster kids had treated him like family.
Cam grinned down at her, wearing the expression she’d seen him only give her aunt. A fusion of tenderness, reverence, and respect. She recognized that look because even growing up with Aunt Kris and seeing her just about every day of her life, she had felt the same.
Jo rested her hands against Cam’s chest, the thud of his heart pounding into her palms. Second by second, Jo became aware of Cam’s hand molding her back. Of the other hand gripping her hip. Of her softness melting into the hard lines of his body. He dipped his head, nose brushing behind her ear.
“I’m sweaty.” Her words floated out on a husky breath.
“You smell good.” His breath misted her neck and he ran one hand up and down her back in long, slow strokes. Coming closer and closer to her butt every time. She wanted to grab his hand and slide it inside the tiny running shorts that barely contained the generous curves of her backside. She wanted to hop onto the counter, drag him between her legs, jerk his zipper open, hold him in her hands, stroke him, and then…
“Am I interrupting?”
Etinette’s voice splashed and squelched the heated moment like a bucket of icy water. Cam stepped back quickly, cursing at the unattended omelet that had started sticking to the pan.
“No, not at all.” He pulled the pan off the flame, his voice as flat as a two-by-four. “We were just celebrating a great idea.”
Etinette walked into the kitchen, coming up behind Cam and looping her slim arms around his waist.
“What is the idea?” She laid her pink hair against his back. “Smells good. Enough for me?”
“Of course.” Cam plated two slices of French toast and turned in Etinette’s arms. “You love my French toast. Here.”
“Ironic that
you
can cook French toast and I cannot.” Etinette tipped up to her toes and laid a lingering kiss on Cam’s lips. He pressed back, brushing a hand across her vibrant hair.
Jo’s body, so hot moments before, froze over like a pond in deep winter. All her emotions—hurt and hope, fear and disappointment—lay trapped beneath a thick layer of ice. Drowning.
She stood up and scraped most of her uneaten food into the garbage disposal. She loaded her plate and coffee mug into the small dishwasher without looking at the couple whispering to each other in French.
Cam’s hand lay at the base of Etinette’s spine, in almost the exact position he’d held Jo moments before. Jo swallowed around the emotion burning a hole in her throat. He had just transported her back to another time. She was fifteen years old. It had taken all of her courage, but she had asked Cam to the Sadie Hawkins dance. He’d turned her down, saying he was busy that night, but she had known it was a lie.
He has told you in every way imaginable this isn’t going to happen. Where’s your pride?
“I’m gonna go, guys.”
Cam glanced over Etinette’s shoulder, his handsome face an indifferent plane showing no emotion except polite interest.
“Should I call you a cab?”
“Cam, my driver could take her.” Etinette turned bright blue eyes Jo’s way. “I have a driver.”
“So do I.” Jo grabbed her phone and earphones from the counter. “Pierce will take me to the hospital.”
Jo met Cam’s eyes, new resolve squaring her shoulders and straightening her spine. If Cam did want her and she wasn’t imagining it, he didn’t
want
to want her. And he didn’t want to do anything about it. And apparently he was willing to hurt her so she would get the message.
Message received, buddy. Loud and clear.
Jo took her shower and offered a hasty good-bye to the lovebirds. She dared her tears to fall on the ride to the hospital. Posture erect, she sat in the backseat of the limo, watching the city in flashes through the window. She folded her hands in her lap and crossed her ankles. She swaddled herself in composure and blinked until the tears in her eyes got the message and dried up.
She visited with her family, making sure Meredith and Mama Jess were providing everything Walsh and Kerris needed. And then she hopped on the Walsh Foods jet and headed back to Rivermont. She never looked back. And promised herself she never would again.