She let herself in the back door and looked for signs of him. When she saw none, she walked through the eating area, then stopped short.
Her eyes narrowed on the pair of drawings on the fridge in the kitchen. The same drawings that had been in the guesthouse. Audrey glanced around and did a double take on the flowers decorating the breakfast table.
Why would Cameron get rid of all her stuff, but keep the flowers she’d bought?
She opened her mouth to call his name when he found her first.
And all the accusations she’d wanted to hurl at him faded. Why did he have to look so good? Why did she want to throw herself at him and tuck her head in the curve of his shoulder? Her heart filled with so much love that it almost knocked the breath out of her.
“I wasn’t expecting you back for a few hours,” he said to her.
She shifted her feet and searched for something to say. “I made better time than I thought,” she lied.
“Uh—”
“Where’s all my stuff?” she blurted out.
His eyes widened. “Now, don’t get mad—”
“You removed all my things from the guesthouse and I’m not supposed to be mad? You could have just waited until I got back, and I would have done it myself.”
Cameron took a step toward her. “I wanted to surprise you. Though I wasn’t really expecting you to be angry.”
She laughed, because if she didn’t she might start crying. “Not mad? You’re throwing me out before we even have a chance to talk, and I’m not supposed to be mad?” She jabbed her index finger toward the table. “And, by the way, those are my flowers.”
“That’s why I brought them over here,” he answered her.
Audrey jerked the vase off the table, ignoring the water that splashed on her shirt. “You can’t throw all my things out and keep the flowers I bought. I’m taking these with me.” And why was she so hung up on the damn flowers?
“Audrey…” Cameron gently took the vase from her tight grip. “I haven’t thrown your things out. I just moved them.”
She watched as he set the flowers back on the table. “Yeah, moved them to some storage unit outside of town, probably.”
He blew out a breath and grabbed her hand. She tried to resist as he tugged her along, but he was too strong, too determined.
“Let go. I’m mad at you,” she said as she fought.
“Will you be quiet a minute?” he said without looking back at her.
Dammit, tears started stinging the backs of her eyes. But she fought them because, hey, she had some dignity. “Cameron, please. If you want me to go, just say so. We don’t have to go through this big production of humiliating me.”
One tear fell just as he stopped outside his bedroom and turned toward her. Using his thumb, he brushed the tear away and smiled at her.
The sick bastard.
“Will you just wait a minute and look, please?” he asked her.
Audrey waited a moment before looking into his bedroom, afraid to see whatever he’d wanted to show her. She hadn’t pegged him as the type to play sick games with her, but the twisting in her stomach wouldn’t stop. Another tear spilled as she inhaled a shuddering breath.
Cameron swiped that one away too and stepped out of the doorway so she could see whatever he’d wanted to show her.
She blinked and shook her head. “I think it would be better if I just go—”
The rest of the declaration caught in her throat as her gaze connected with the stack of magazines on the nightstand.
Cameron didn’t subscribe to Cosmo.
Those were her magazines.
“You like to keep them on the nightstand, right?” Cameron questioned.
She swallowed at the uncertainty in his voice. “Um…”
He shook his head. “That’s okay, you can keep them somewhere else. There’s a magazine rack in the bathroom.” Then he gave her hand another tug.
Audrey tried digging her heels in the carpet when she spotted a mess on the bed: a large picture frame that had been taken apart, along with all the Post-it notes they’d written to each other. They were strewn all over the bed. But she didn’t get a chance to ask what that was all about, because Cameron didn’t stop pulling her until they were in the closet.
“I put some old junk in storage to make room for all your things,” he was telling her as he flipped the closet light on. He kicked a pair of running shoes out of the way.
That was when Audrey noticed her things. All of her things. They took up half the closet where half his clothes had once hung.
All her jeans, sweaters, and dresses. Her shoes had been arranged neatly on a shoe rack on the floor, and he even had her belts and scarves neatly organized.
Audrey’s breath held in her throat as she ran her gaze over the clothes, back and forth, trying to make sense of what he’d done. Everything was there, hanging next to his as though they’d been there for years. As though they belonged and fit perfectly.
“Cameron…” she whispered.
“I thought you’d want to go back and rearrange everything the way you want it,” he told her. “I just wanted to get it all in here.”
She finally looked at him and almost choked at the doubt on his face. From the moment she’d met him, Cameron Shaw had been the most confident, cocky man she’d ever met, sure of himself with the way he swaggered and kissed and teased her.
But as he gazed at her as though he expected her to start hurling stuff across the room, Audrey’s heart broke a little.
She licked her lips. “Cameron, what’s going on? Why have you done all this?”
“I think you know, Audrey.”
She supposed, in some tiny corner of her mind, Audrey knew what she was looking at. But years of disappointments had conditioned her always to think the worst, not to get her
