I glanced around at all the faces, my eyes coming to a stop on Cam, who was laughing at something Braden had said. I turned back to her, shaking my head. ‘Never in a million years.’
She smiled, and I was taken aback by the emotion in her eyes as she looked down at the simple diamond engagement ring on her finger. ‘Me neither.’
‘You okay?’
Joss nodded. ‘More than.’
I grinned at her and was just about to crack a joke to ease us out of such seriousness when Braden called, ‘Jo, you need a job?’
I rolled my eyes and shot Cam an impatient look. ‘I was going to ask him.’
‘Well, you were taking your time about it.’
Sighing, I nodded at Braden, my cheeks flushing at having to ask. ‘If you have a part-time position available, I’d appreciate it.’
His light blue eyes searched mine and I felt vulnerable under his scrutiny. Braden had a way of stripping a person bare, as if he could see into the very depths of them. I didn’t know how Joss had withstood him so long before eventually owning up to her feelings for him. Surely he’d known all along. ‘Jo, come to us whenever you need us, please.’
I gulped but nodded.
‘I’ll set something up tomorrow, see if we can’t get you started on Tuesday.’
‘Thank you,’ I whispered gratefully.
When conversation started up again, Joss chortled under her breath. ‘He’s scary, right?’
‘Braden?’
‘Yeah. He sees more than most people.’ She eyed me carefully. ‘Is there something going on with you we don’t know about? Are you and Cam okay?’
I thought of all my insecurities and the fight I was having with them on a daily basis. ‘Just finding our feet with each other.’
‘Sure. Well, I think he’s pretty cool. I mean, before you met him you would never have taken a job from Braden.’
‘Yeah, don’t rub it in.’
‘Jesus C, woman, I didn’t think anyone was as proud or as stubborn as I am.’
‘Well, you were wrong,’ I answered drily.
Joss laughed. ‘Yeah, and now you have your very own caveman to … shake out some of that stubbornness.’
I felt my cheeks warm at the thought of Cameron shaking out my stubbornness tonight. Good times ahead.
Joss snorted. ‘Just keep that thought to yourself.’
23
There are times in life when there is so much going on you may feel as though you don’t even have a chance to take a breath. You wake up, you get washed and dressed, the day is a blur of events, work, activities, chores, and then before you know it, your exhausted body is melting against your pillow and mattress. Then, in what feels like two seconds later, your eyes are forced open at the sound of the alarm clock. That’s how my life was for the next few weeks.
Because there was so much going on, I let go of my neurosis for a night and stayed in Cam’s bed until morning. It was the Wednesday after the weekend with Mick and Olivia. As soon as the alarm went off, I groaned, shoved back the covers, and jumped out of bed.
Apparently Cameron found the way I got out of bed very amusing.
I watched his naked shoulders shaking as he pressed his face into his pillow.
My heavy eyelids and nervous anticipation of my second day working at Douglas Carmichael & Co didn’t add up to a whole lot of patience. ‘It’s not that funny.’
Cam pulled his sleepy, grinning face out of the pillow. ‘Baby, you’re hilarious,’ he said in his sexy, sleep-roughened voice. I wanted to dive back under the covers with him, but I had to get ready for work.
‘If I don’t jump out of bed right away I’ll fall back asleep. What you’re doing … I can’t do that.’
He pushed himself up to look at me, the tenderness in his eyes stopping me in my tracks. ‘You’re f**king adorable. You know that, right?’
His ability to make me blush was ridiculous. No one got under my skin the way he did, or made me feel less like myself and yet more like myself. I looked away as I wandered out of the room to the bathroom. ‘I’m going to be adorably late.’
That was as much one-on-one conversation as we got out of each other over the next two weeks. That first week we’d both started our new jobs (well, Cam had started back at his old job), Mick and Olivia invited us out for dinner, came over to Cam’s for dinner, took the three of us to the cinema, spent alone time with me and Cole while Cam hung out with Peetie and Nate, and generally crammed as much time in with us as they could. I willingly spent that time with them, unsure when they’d be returning to the States. I couldn’t imagine how expensive their hotel bill at the Caledonian was. Mick said Yvonne had inherited money from her grandmother – part of the contention between Yvonne and her family – and that she’d left that money to Mick and Olivia when she passed away. It wasn’t ‘forever’ kind of money, and the trip to Scotland was eating its way through it. I knew Mick well enough to know he wouldn’t want to continue to waste his money on hotel bills.
As much as I found Olivia easy to be around, it was Mick’s company that I craved. Like a real dad, he refused to let me pay for anything, he gave me fatherly advice, and teased me mercilessly, just as he had when I was a kid. Being around him brought back that feeling of safety, security, and of being accepted for who I was. He also examined all the work I’d done in the flat and re-emphasized Cam’s point that I had a talent for it. I’d never been told by anyone that I had a talent for anything and now two of the most important men in my life insisted I did.