CHAPTER 48
‘Lizzy, it’s two in the bloody morning,’ Philly said, opening the door with a very big yawn. One eye was open, but the other looked like it had been sealed shut with sleep. She had a roller clinging to one side of her head and she was wearing a pink robe with faded flamingos on it, tied haphazardly at the side with a belt that definitely did not match the gown.
‘I need to talk, I think. Or something.’
Philly seemed to wake up instantly. Her shut eye flicked open and her entire body stiffened. Gone was her previous sleepiness; clearly me standing in her doorway wanting to talk had aroused some kind of emergency response that now saw her opening the door wide and ushering me inside with a flick of her wrist.
‘Sit,’ she ordered. ‘I think there’s cheesecake in the fridge left over from bridge club. You look like you need cheesecake.’ She hurried off to the kitchen while I sat, returning moments later with two mismatched forks and a slice of cheesecake lying on its side on a plate the shape of a cabbage leaf.
‘All right, out with it.’ She sat next to me and passed me the plate.
I let out a long breath. ‘It’s Cam.’
‘You’re still in love with him.’ She said it matter-of-factly while stabbing the cheesecake and scooping up a forkful. ‘You’ve always been in love with him, blah, blah, blah . . . only man you ever felt this way about, yada, yada, yada.’
‘Huh?’ I looked at her in surprise.
‘One minute you two were playing fake fiancés and the nextminute it felt real.’ She raised one pencilled eyebrow at me, then gestured at the cheesecake. ‘Eat.’
I poked at the slice, but even the lure of sugar and fat wasn’t enough to snap me out of the mood I was in. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to me. I feel . . . I feel . . .’
‘Out of control?’ she offered.
‘Out of control,’ I echoed.
‘Love’ll do that,’ she said, sounding vaguely Sage-like.
‘Well, if that’s the case, I want fucking nothing to do with love at all. I don’t like it, it makes me feel . . . off balance.’
Philly laughed. ‘You know, when Lou and I first started dating, I actually tripped around him. I mean, physically fell, because sometimes it felt like I was floating above the ground. I was so in love my feet didn’t touch the floor. He caught me, of course, caught me every single time.’
‘Well, in my line of work, I can’t afford to trip,’ I said drily, shoving some cheesecake into my mouth.
Philly smiled at me sympathetically. ‘Cam sees you. That’s the problem, isn’t it?’ She didn’t wait for a response. ‘He sees through the sarcasm and the bravado. The way you say you love being alone when actually you just don’t trust anyone to stay.’
A tear decided to leave my stupid eye and slide down my cheek before I even realised I had started crying. Philly passed me a napkin and I wiped my face. I hated crying.
‘I can’t think straight, and every single time I close my eyes, or open them for that matter, he’s there.’
‘And this is bad why?’
‘Because it’s Cam! It’s Cam! That’s why!’ I threw my arms in the air. ‘I don’t know.’ I let them drop to my sides with a thud.
‘You know, Lake didn’t want to fall for Falcon either.’
I let out a wet snort. ‘Oh God, don’t.’
‘She didn’t! He was rude and arrogant, but she loved him anyway. Do you know why?’
‘Because he saved her from her evil twin, who returned from thedead with a new face, a Russian accent and a plan to marry their stepbrother and take over the family empire.’
‘Oh no, that was Sable’s storyline; it was her twin that came back.’
‘I can’t believe I almost got that right.’
‘The reason that Lake finally fell in love with Falcon was because she saw through all of that. She saw down to the real person inside. Saw the worst parts, and the good parts, and still loved all of them.’
‘And Cam’s seen all my parts?’
