For the first time, Cam was going to follow up with one of his partners on something that wasn’t a legal matter and something that he didn’t really know much about at all. Just to be sure Dax was doing it. Hell, Dax wasn’t even a partner in Hot Cakes. If he did the website stuff for their new product, he’d be doing it as an outside consultant.
But yeah, Cam was going to check in. He never did that.
“Hey, guys, hang out for a minute,” Cam said, coming to his feet.
Dax paused on his way to the door, looking back.
Grant kept his seat and Aiden dropped his hand from Whitney’s shoulder and faced Cam.
“Everything okay?” his friend asked.
“Sure.” He was going to make sure everything was okay. “Just need to follow up on a couple of things,” Cam said. His eyes went to Whitney. “Thanks for the presentation.”
She looked flustered suddenly, but she nodded.
He didn’t like her flustered, but right now he needed to deal with the guys.
“Of course,” she said as she gathered her things. She shut her computer and stacked her folder and notebook on top. She lifted them, wrapping her arms around it all. Then she took a breath and looked at him again. “I’ll… talk to you… later.”
“At home,” he confirmed.
He liked how that sounded. He also liked how it made her cheeks get pinker. Surely she knew that everyone in the room was aware of where he was sleeping. And why. But yeah, it sounded intimate and he liked it. He liked the idea of going home to her, with her, at the end of a workday.
“I’ll go check on Didi,” Whitney said.
Cam wasn’t sure if she said it to inform him of where she would be when he was done meeting with his partners, or, possibly to remind him that Didi was waiting for him.
He nodded. “I’m sure she’s happy with Max. They were drinking cappuccino and watching the Game Show Network when I left them.”
By now they were probably playing Ping-Pong on one of the tables Dax had brought in when he’d self-appointed himself in charge of employee morale. Before he’d sold his shares in Hot Cakes. They’d kept the break room with all of Dax’s touches though. He really did know how to make a place one-hundred times more fun.
“I’ll go get her when I’m done here,” he told her. “I’ll take her home and see you later.”
Whitney lifted her chin. In that fucking way she did when she was gathering her resolve.
“Stop by my office before you go get her,” Whitney said.
He gave her a nod. “Okay.”
She nodded in return, then gave the rest of the men a smile. But this smile was forced. Cam felt his eyes narrow.
“I’ll see you all later,” she said. “Thank you for your time this morning.”
Then she stepped around the edge of the conference table and left the room. Her chin still up.
“What the hell was that?” Aiden asked as the door shut behind her and Piper.
Cam turned and realized Aiden was speaking to him. “What do you mean?”
“You were pretty cool with Whitney there at the end. Basically dismissing her like that.”
Cam lifted a brow. “I didn’t dismiss her.”
“You did,” Grant said, sitting back in his chair and smoothing his tie. “You said you needed to speak to us, making it clear that you didn’t want her to stay.”
Cam opened his mouth, then shut it. Well, fuck. “I didn’t want her to stay,” he said after a second.
“Why not?” Aiden took his seat again.
“Because I wanted to talk to you all. About her.”
Aiden gave Grant a look.
“Knock it off,” Cam snapped, scowling at them.
“What?” Aiden asked.
“Looking at each other like you know what’s going on in my head.”
“Okay,” Grant said, in the very annoying I-already-know-what-you’re-going-to-say tone he used. Often.
Which was a lot like the look that said he knew what was going on in Cam’s head.
“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on in your head?” Grant asked.
Fine. He wasn’t going to waste time and breath telling Grant he was being a condescending ass. Grant was doing it on purpose. And Cam needed to get down to Didi and get her home so they could get to yoga on time.
“You need to stop being stoic when Whitney’s talking to you about ideas,” Cam said to Grant.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“You do. You do it to all of us all the time,” Cam said. He planted his hands on his hips. “You sit there, your face completely devoid of emotion or reaction so that none of us know what you’re thinking until you’re good and ready to let us know. The thing is, it doesn’t matter with us. We know that’s how you are. But Whitney… she…” He sighed. “She wants your approval. She wants you to like her ideas. You can’t just sit there like… you.”
Grant lifted a brow. “I told her I liked the idea.”
“After you made her sweat. I don’t like that. You have to let her see you engaging with her ideas.” He shook his head. “She had dealt with enough of that bullshit where people she cared about withheld their thoughts and feelings and left her out. She’s not going to get that here from us.”
Grant gave him an indecipherable look, but, to Cam’s surprise, nodded. “I hear you. I’ll work on that.”
Cam straightened. “You will?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. I know how I feel when Jocelyn is proud of her work. I’ll do better with Whitney.”
Cam wasn’t sure what to say. “Okay. Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
“What about with us?” Ollie asked Grant. “Will you be nicer to us when we bring you new ideas too?”
Grant shook his head. “I doubt it.”
Ollie just sighed.
Cam looked at Dax. “And you—”
“What I’d do?”
“You better fucking pay attention to what’s happening at Sunny Orchard,” Cam said.
“Wow,” Dax said. “Relax.”
“I’m not going to relax,” Cam told
