‘Call it professional courtesy.’
‘Or maybe you just wanted to make sure it’s working so I get what I came for and you get rid of me quickly.’
He looked around and gestured. ‘Well, it is a small island. Not much room for both of us.’
‘Or you could just undock this little midlife crisis of yours and go sailing off from whence you came.’
He laughed. ‘I think I’m a bit young for a midlife crisis.’
‘Well, whatever it is, I think it would be wise for you to undo that knot over there,’ I pointed at the rope keeping him tethered to the dock, ‘and sail off into the distance.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, Lizzy. Not until I’ve got what I came for.’
I stood up and looked down at him. ‘That makes two of us.’
Cam stood up too. ‘I had a feeling you were going to say that.’
We glared at each other for another long moment before I turned on my heel and started walking away. But just before stepping off the boat, I stopped. ‘Stay out of my fucking way, Cam. Or else.’
‘Or else what? Next time you really are going to compress my carotid artery until I pass out?’
‘Yes.’ I spun back around to face him.
He smiled, a slow, lazy smile that looked like it held a secret. I didn’t like secrets. And Cam had been always been full of them; that was the reason things had ended between us before they’d even begun.
‘I don’t think you’ll do that, Lizzy,’ he said.
And that was it. The words that turned this previously civil interaction into anything but that. I closed in on him. ‘If I were you, I would believe me.’
‘See, I don’t think so,’ Cam said in a calm yet cutting tone. ‘You’ve got too much of a moral compass for that. You only choke out the bad guys, and we’re on the same team here.’
‘Cam,youare the bad guy!’
His face twisted in anger. ‘I’m not the bad guy.’
‘You’re acheat.’
His fists clenched at his sides, and he shook his head. ‘I’ve told you, I did not cheat.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He threw his hands in the air. ‘And here we are. Again.’
‘We’llalwaysbe here,’ I snapped, stepping even closer to him, my fists just itching to smack him in the jaw.
For another moment, he stared at me, and it felt as if his eyes wereboring holes into my skin. But then he broke eye contact, his shoulders slumped and he let out a long sigh.
‘It’s such a pity,’ he said softly. ‘I’d always hoped we could move on from there someday.’
‘You and I will never move on from there,’ I spat the words out angrily before turning and jumping off the boat. I didn’t look back or stop; instead I picked up my pace and jogged away as fast as I could. The entire time, I could feel his eyes still burning into me.
And then she was gone. Boots thud-thud-thudding against the wooden dock as she went. Typical. Lizzy didn’t walk, she thudded.
She jumped off the dock and her footsteps were immediately muffled by the soft sand. I watched her as she jogged away; fuck, I watched her. She wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. Then and now. She was built like the ultimate athlete, all broad and muscular. There was nothing delicate about her . . . well, physically anyway. Because that one night with her, I’d been allowed to see her other side, the side she fought so damn hard to hide from the world. But that night, she’d granted me a glimpse behind the facade, and if I thought I’d been in love with her before, there were no words to describe how I’d felt afterwards. It was as if she was giving me this rare and precious gift, a chance to see past the tough exterior and down to the real her.
I rubbed my hand down the side of my face and stared out over the moonlit sea. I hoped the soothing water might help calm the way my heart was hammering inside my ears. It didn’t. Nothing ever managed to do that when she was around. And certainly not now, because the second I’d seen her here – alive, beautiful, pissed off as hell – I knew my heart was going to be a lost cause.
CHAPTER 15
