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He’s got this. He knows his presentation back to front. He’s run through it another two times this morning after breakfast, and he’s triple-checked his slides work on the projector in the conference room.
And Jules will be there in the audience to buoy him.
He hasn’t seen her since their shower this morning and the little tug in his gut can only mean he misses her. Fair enough, since he’s jumped off the platform and is now summersaulting his way into an Olympic-sized pool of feelings for her. An ocean of them, potentially. He hasn’t hit the water yet.
Which steals the breath from his lungs, because what if she doesn’t want him? She did say she was only after a conference fling. She’s said to his face she wanted them to go back to being friends after this. She told him she’s constantly horny for him. It’d be an ego boost if it wasn’t tinged with the bitterness of Braden, plus it’s not exactly the stuff long-lasting relationships are built on.
Shit. Cameron jerks his head side to side. The tie he’s been fiddling with has gone crooked and too tight. He loosens it and smooths it back down, returning to his measured breathing.
He can’t lose his focus now.
Even if there doesn’t seem to be many signs pointing toward a relationship for him and Jules.
Braden and his ex-Cable colleagues are also going to be in the audience. He’s extending an olive branch and reclaiming his professional reputation. He can’t fuck it up because he’s worrying if Jules will want anything to do with him once they’re back in Canberra.
The tightness pulls on his shoulder blades, but he takes a steadying breath and rolls his shoulders back and down like Jules taught him. God, he wishes she were still here in his room, smiling at him from the bed or laughing at his hardcopy colour-coded schedules and scribbling her name into all the blank spaces like she had the other night. He could do with the boost of comfort she always injects in him. Listening to the song they danced to isn’t the same as having her with him, hearing her laugh and seeing her smile and smelling her shampoo.
Fuck. He really does want to be with her properly.
He shakes his head before he can start that line of worrying again, stopping the music playing from his phone and sliding it into his pocket. After his presentation, and after he’s kissed her breathless, he’ll try to figure out if she’s interested in more than a fling.
He pulls his room door shut behind him, feeling ready if not nerve-free. He doesn’t expect to see Braden waiting in the corridor.
She shoots him her mega-watt smile and his stomach starts shrivelling up.
‘Hey, Cam.’
‘What are you doing here? How’d you get my room number?’
‘I wanted to wish you luck before your presentation.’ She slides up to him and he shuffles backwards, flight response thwarted as his back hits the wall. ‘I know how nervous you get about these things.’
‘Ambushing me on my way to give my talk was meant to help?’
‘You’ll be great. You always are.’ She dismisses the question. Her gaze roves over his face. He feels on display in a bad way, like an animal at the zoo. His fingers itch to push her away.
‘I’ve missed you.’
Cameron’s stomach bunches. She’s really doing this now? After saying she remembered how nervous he gets? He doesn’t doubt part of her means that, but his body floods with anxiety like spinning tops, making his hands shake. He crosses his arms, shoving them beneath his armpits.
‘We broke up, remember.’ He keeps it brief. He’s got a presentation to get to and he wouldn’t want to shoot the breeze with her even if he didn’t.
‘I remember. And I don’t get it. We were having fun together, weren’t we?’
‘Maybe I didn’t want just fun.’ The words don’t feel like a lie, but they make a hypocrite of him, considering what he’s been doing with Jules.
Hang on. Back up.
Fuck.
A clear comparison forms from his anxious brain, one that sends his pulse into overdrive.
Is he in that same place again? Wanting something more out of a relationship with a woman he works with? A woman who doesn’t see him as someone worthy of a serious relationship?
Tackiness creeps over his skin, but the thoughts crumble when Braden slides a hand up his bicep to his shoulders. Her fingers land on bare skin at his neck.
Braden tilts her head. ‘Are you sure?’
He shudders. She’s really offering that? Was she even serious about the coffee, or was this her end goal the whole time? Get Cameron between the sheets again. His breath tastes stale.
