“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.
