Crazy About Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3 (The Blueberry Lane Series -The Winslow Brothers)
Authors: Katy Regnery
CRAZY ABOUT CAMERON
Copyright
© 2015 by Katharine Gilliam Regnery
Sale of the electronic edition of this book is wholly unauthorized. Except for use in review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part, by any means, is forbidden without written permission from the author/publisher.
Katharine Gilliam Regnery, publisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
Please visit my website at www.katyregnery.com
First Edition: September 2015
Katy Regnery
Crazy About Cameron: a novel / by Katy Regnery – 1st ed.
ISBN: 978-0-9909003-6-8
for my Englishes and Winslows.
You are the beta reader and
developmental editor
of my dreams.
I am ever grateful to you.
xo
Crazy about Cameron
overlaps the time frames of
Bidding on Brooks
and
Proposing to Preston
.
This story begins in May, a few weeks before the bachelor auction where Skye wins Brooks, and ends in September, at Jessica’s wedding to Alex English.
Cameron Winslow pressed the call button on the elevator, checking his watch as he waited for it to descend. Ten thirty. Yet another fifteen-hour day.
Since his brother Christopher had decided to bail on their financial company, C & C Winslow, to pursue a congressional bid, Cameron had been left high and dry and in charge of the accounts they’d painstakingly built up together. Somewhere deep inside, he knew that he couldn’t continue on like this, and yet . . . they’d inherited the company from their late father and had worked hard not just to respect their father’s legacy, but to make C & C Winslow their own. He couldn’t give up yet. He wouldn’t.
The lobby door whooshed open, and Cameron turned to see Margaret Story step onto the marble floor. The building super, Diego, rushed to take her wet umbrella, and Margaret smiled at him, her lips tilted up in a demure grin. Cameron’s eyes trailed hungrily down her petite body, taking in the short tan raincoat she had belted at her tiny waist and her gorgeous legs in two-inch heels. Sliding his eyes back up, he focused on her dark brown hair, pulled back severely in a smooth bun, and black-rimmed glasses covering her cognac-colored eyes.
He felt his body tighten in response and turned away from her, facing the shiny brass door of the elevator as it dinged softly.
Margaret Story was the unaware star of Cameron’s filthiest naughty-librarian fantasies.
Always had been. Always would be.
And yet Margaret was a lady—someone who deserved his respect and admiration. He had no business thinking about her like that. There were women you did filthy things with . . . and women you married. He knew plenty of the former, but Margaret was firmly the latter. And since Cameron Winslow wasn’t exactly in a position to be considering marriage, his deeply embedded moral code insisted that Margaret Story was strictly off-limits to him.
Not that she was available, he thought, clenching his jaw. She’d been dating some self-important asshole at her father’s company for the past several months. Cameron had had the misfortune of being trapped in the elevator with Shane Olson and Margaret once or twice, and he wasn’t anxious for it to happen again anytime soon. It was hard enough to see Margaret at all—seeing her with her smug, overconfident boyfriend, when she deserved so much better, was almost unbearable.
Cameron glanced back at her quickly, glad that Shane was absent tonight, but hoping that she’d chat with the handyman for a few more seconds so that he could make his way upstairs alone.
“Thanks so much, Diego,” she called as the elevator door opened. He heard her heels clack across the marble floor as she rushed toward the elevator. “I’ll give him a call tomorrow!”
Cameron turned around just in time to see her step inside the suddenly tiny box and give him a careful smile.
“Cameron.”
“Meggie.”
She flinched at his use of her childhood nickname, her pretty lips pursing. He knew she didn’t like it, but using it kept some distance between them, and Cameron needed that distance if he had any chance of behaving decently around her.
She leaned forward to press the eighth-floor button, and the slight movement released a scent of lilac that made Cameron groan quietly. She smelled like spring, and it made his mind switch from rational thought to spring fever whenever he was close to her.
Margaret turned around to face him, lifting her chin. “Honestly, Cameron, I don’t know what I ever did to you.”
This was a familiar conversation. She initiated it at least once every couple of weeks when they bumped into each other, and as much as Cameron dreaded it, he sort of longed for it too. It meant that he mattered to her—on some level, insignificant though it may have been, prim, perfect, pristine Margaret Story cared that Cameron
appeared
not to like her.
Cameron did his best to look bored, glancing at her with half-lidded eyes and shrugging.
“Fine,” she said, shaking her head, her expression just shy of hurt. “Be that way.”
She turned back around, pushing her purse to her elbow and crossing her arms over her chest.
He’d grown up with Margaret Story—their estates separated by the Rousseaus’ house on Blueberry Lane in nearby Haverford. And she’d always, more or less, been the person she was now. Even as a child, she’d been bookish and severe, likely to blow the whistle on any misconduct and get adults running over to spoil the kids’ fun. Cameron really hadn’t paid her any attention until her legs suddenly got long and coltish and her small breasts started to tease him at neighborhood pool parties.
He’d watched her then, studied her, quietly fascinated by her innate serenity. She was more comfortable hanging back, the second of five sisters, perennially in older Alice’s shadow and looking after her younger sisters, Betsy, Pris, and Jane. He had a sense that she liked flying under the radar, which made her his favorite target for teasing: the attention, to which she was unaccustomed, always made her red and flustered, and Cam had savored her reaction to him. He loved pulling her braids—teasing her in an attempt to loosen her up—and when it backfired and she stomped away in a snit, he couldn’t help wishing he could somehow figure out how to be the boy who could make her loosen up, make her smile.
But at thirteen years old, just when Cameron might have mustered up the courage to steal a kiss from twelve-year-old Margaret, whom his barely-teen heart loved desperately, his father died suddenly of a heart attack. His whole world changed overnight, ending in his move to London with his mother, brothers, and little sister . . . and Margaret Story became a dim memory attached to happier days he’d just as soon forget.
Five years later, he moved back to Philadelphia for college, like his brothers, but Margaret no longer lived in Philly, and he heard through the grapevine that she was in finishing school in Switzerland, a tradition for the Story sisters. And from what he gathered over the years from mutual friends, she’d stayed abroad, learning about French and Italian wines from old-world masters.
A few months ago, Cameron ran into Margaret again. While he chatted with Alex English in the lobby of his apartment building, Margaret—Alex’s date—suddenly walked back into his life. She’d returned from Europe, finally, and had just moved into the fashionable Newbury Arms. Of all the places in all the world, the little girl whose braids he’d pulled now lived in the apartment directly over his.
And she was stunning. Sophisticated and charming, beautiful and refined, Margaret Story had grown into a modern-day Grace Kelly, complete with an ever-present chignon and elegant taste in clothes. With not a hair out of place and a voice that never raised beyond the honeyed tones of her quiet speaking voice, she was the epitome of grace and refinement.
“May I ask you a question?”
Jolted from his thoughts, he looked up at her. “Why not?”
“Have you ever had any work done on your apartment?”
He shook his head. “Nope.”
She sighed. “Okay. Thanks.”
The elevator stopped, and the door opened to the fourth floor. Mrs. Stewart took her time getting onto the elevator, her two Pekingese dogs yapping unpleasantly. Margaret moved back a little to accommodate the feisty fur balls, and her elbow brushed against Cameron’s forearm. He knew the polite thing to do would be to move back to give her more space in the tiny, old-fashioned elevator, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to touch her, even if it was through layers of raincoat and suit jacket.
“Push the L, huh, love?” asked Mrs. Stewart in her light Scottish brogue.
“We’re going up, Mrs. Stewart,” said Margaret as the doors closed.
“Oh, dear. I want to go down to the lobby.” She reached forward and pushed the button for the fifth floor. “I’ll get off at the next floor instead.”
That strategy made very little sense to Cameron, but he held his tongue, feeling at once annoyed and secretly thrilled to have a little extra time with Margaret’s arm pressed against his. The top of her head, which just reached his shoulder, was so close that if he leaned forward, he could brush her hair with his lips. Anxious to divert himself from such foolish thoughts, he cleared his throat.
“Are you having some work done?”
“I’m thinking about it,” she said, without turning her swanlike neck to face him.
He wanted to know more, but appearing interested would be at odds with his usually insouciant demeanor toward her. The elevator dinged at the fifth floor, and Mrs. Stewart’s Pekingese pups launched through the door, thinking a walk was imminent, and Cameron felt some sympathy for the fifth-floor lobby carpet.
“So I guess that means it’ll be noisy upstairs,” said Cameron.
As the elevator doors closed again, she turned slightly to face him. “I’ll ask Geraldo to work during the day so I don’t inconvenience you.”
“Very considerate. Thanks.”
“However,” she continued, “since you’re rarely home before midnight, and always out of the building by seven in the morning, that leaves him plenty of time.”
This was interesting. She kept tabs on his comings and goings? Why in the world Cameron found this so captivating, he couldn’t put into words, but his cool facade slipped, and he couldn’t resist teasing her just a little.
“You spying on me?”
She took a step away from him, backing toward the doors as her cheeks turned pink. “N-no. I just . . . I mean, I take a run some mornings and see you heading off, and when I come back from . . . I mean, some evenings when I return late, I notice you . . . you . . .”
“You notice me, Meggie,” he rumbled, letting his eyes rest on hers.
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “Yes, I do. I notice that you don’t say hello. I notice that you wish you were anywhere but trapped in an elevator with me making small talk. I notice that, although you know how much I hate the nickname Meggie, you never miss an opportunity to use it.”
She was magnificent with her flashing light brown eyes and pink, pillowed lips. If she were his, he’d lunge toward her right now. He’d bury his hands in her hair and send her goddamn hairpins to the floor as he pulled her face to his and—
Margaret shook her head in disappointment and turned away from him, as though giving up on his ability to give an appropriate response to her mini tirade.
“Diego gave me the name of his cousin Geraldo,” she said, steering the conversation back to safer waters. “Apparently he does work for other tenants now and then.”
Cameron took a deep breath, wishing away the very vivid images in his head, and heard himself say, “Come to think of it, I do have a project that needs attention. Perhaps I should schedule him too, as long as he’s going to be here in the building.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Oh? I didn’t realize you were considering a renovation.”
“My master bathroom’s too small,” he blurted out.
As she stared at him, her little pink tongue darted out to lick her heavenly lips, and her voice was a little breathier than usual when she finally responded, “Oh, I see.”
The elevator dinged, stopping at Cameron’s floor, but he made no move from where he leaned against the back of the elevator.
What
did she see? She couldn’t possibly see what he saw in his head: her small, lithe body all soaped up, her soft skin pressed against his as she leaned back against him, naked in his bathtub, her back to his front, her hair tickling his bare chest, her legs entwined with his, his hands on her slick, pert breasts as she moaned his—
“I can give you Geraldo’s information. Hold on a sec.” She rifled through her bag, pulling out her cell phone as the doors opened.
Cameron’s cock was hardening by the second. He needed to get away from her. Far away
. At least
a full floor away.
“Text it to me,” he said, brushing her shoulder as he strode past her, through the open doors.
“But I don’t have your—”
Looking back at her buttoned-up beauty over his shoulder, he said, “717-555-7172.”
And the doors closed.
***
Margaret snapped her jaw shut and scrambled to enter the digits into her phone before she forgot them. Not that Cameron Winslow deserved anything from her, but she wasn’t the sort of person who withheld help just because the person asking for it was a bona fide jackass.
As she typed in his name, the elevator doors opened to her floor, and Margaret walked out of the elevator and headed down the hallway to her apartment. She’d purchased it last fall, after moving back to the United States.
Unlocking her door, she entered her dark apartment, placed her bag and keys on the front hall table, and slipped out of her heels. As she padded into the round center hall, the chandelier above sensed her movement and illuminated the room. Like the spokes of a wheel, all the rooms in her apartment opened into this hallway. Her kitchen was through an arched doorway to the far left, another arch led to the dining room, and yet another to the living room. To the right, a final archway opened to a hallway that led to her bedroom suite, guest room, and guest bath. Between the kitchen and dining room, there was a swinging door, and between the dining room and living room, French doors, which could be opened when entertaining.
It was an enormous apartment by Philadelphia standards, but she’d been captivated by it from the first moment she saw it, and her trust fund tidily covered the expense. Still, so much space was almost a waste for one person, she mused, heading into the kitchen. Especially when that one person spent every weekend at her vineyard in Newtown, Pennsylvania, about an hour from the city.