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Cameron shifts in his seat. ‘No. So I appreciate what it means that you did. But emotional vulnerability isn’t a tit for tat thing.’
She jerks back in her seat and folds her arms over her chest, her gaze flitting off over his shoulder.
Fuck. He’s upset her. This dinner was meant to be about un-upsetting her. How’s he managing to make it worse? ‘Jules. I’m sorry.’
‘I already accepted your apology. I want the explanation.’
Her gaze is flinty and it makes his chest heavy. ‘It’s not easy for me to talk about. I barely told the story to Matteo, let alone my family.’
‘And you think it was easy for me to talk about Todd?’
‘No.’ Fuck. He drags a hand down his face. ‘That’s not what I was implying.’
‘Can you at least give me something? Please?’
‘I—’ He swallows roughly, multiple times. His throat is so parched it doesn’t achieve anything.
Give her something. Okay. How about the fact he’s physically in pain because she hasn’t smiled at him all evening? Or that he saw his ex this afternoon and he’s not sure his brain has returned to full function? That he wishes they were having this conversation over the phone so he wouldn’t have to feel the weight of her stare on him as he fails to give Jules what she wants.
Or what about the other, harsher, more personal realisations he’s been having this week? That leaving Sydney may have been a mistake. That he’s lonely in Canberra. That in moments of weakness he pictures more than a single week with Jules and it scares him shitless.
‘Did it work out at least?’ Jules asks with a dollop of sarcasm. ‘Running away from Cable?’
‘I met you.’
The look she shoots him shrivels his insides. ‘You’re avoiding again.’
He feels like he’s playing that game, what’s it called, Operation, where you have to pull things out of the board without touching the sides. Only the things he’s pulling out aren’t plastic bones, they’re emotions he’s shoved down so far they’re embedded in his bones. And instead of the loud buzz when he fails, he gets a frown from Jules and his own gut twisting.
He clears his throat and yanks the words out as best he can. ‘It worked. I left because my … There was someone who …’ God, why is this so hard? Why can’t he just say the damn words? Spit them out, then move on.
Jules stares at him like she never has before. With narrowed eyes and a shade of doubt. It makes his stomach bunch and he hates it.
‘It wasn’t a comfortable working environment,’ he forces out. ‘I was getting anxious and the quality of my work was affected. Leaving Cable was the right choice for me.’ Leaving Sydney, well, that’s still up for debate.
Jules’s hard stare doesn’t shift from his eyes. He fights the urge to look away from the eye contact.
After several seconds during which Cameron’s heart attempts to break his ribcage from the inside, her arms loosen and drop into her lap.
‘Running from something doesn’t make it go away, you know.’ It’s half resigned, half accusatory.
He begs to differ. Out of sight, out of mind is a foundational pillar of his personality. Look how he tried to handle Jules before this conference.
‘No, it doesn’t,’ he says despite his beliefs, because he doesn’t want to push Jules away when she’s starting to thaw. He needs this distance between them gone so he can appreciate and savour Jules for the final two days of the conference. The Jules from this afternoon, not the one glaring at him across the table. Though even this steely Jules has appeal, and Cameron fears there’s nothing sexual or fling-like about the way her ‘take no shit’ expression affects him.
‘It’s quick, though,’ Cameron adds. ‘Clean.’
She lifts a shoulder, gaze dropping to the tablecloth which she runs her fingers over. ‘Maybe for you, but not the pers—the people you’re running from.’
‘Jules.’ He’d reach for her hand if he thought she wouldn’t pull away from him. ‘This afternoon I made an impulsive, wrong decision. It’s not the same as what happened at Cable.’
The regret was far more immediate this time.
‘Can we …’ He reaches for her hand anyway, aborts at the last moment and curls his fist on the table. ‘Are we good? We’ve only got another two days of the conference.’
Jules stares at him, her blue eyes still holding an edge of anger. As he waits, that icy shard pierces his spine again and twists. What if she says they’re not good? What if he has to give her up? Because of something he did. Fuck.
Yet as the seconds drag on and Jules doesn’t give him her assurance, a deep feeling, bursting forth with painful force from somewhere buried inside, has him speaking again. ‘Okay. You want something? I hate that my actions have hurt you, Jules, because I … I care about you.’
