‘I don’t dream about you, Cam. You’re so arrogant!’
‘Come on, Lizzy,’ he said, his voice quieter and more serious now. ‘You feel it too. This thing between us. It’s still there. Don’t pretend it’s not.’
My stomach flipped. That feeling that enjoyed crawling up and down my spine was back. I didn’t like it.
‘Tell me I’m wrong,’ he went on. ‘Tell me six years apart is really enough to kill what we had. Because I don’t think so.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t think there’s much that could kill what we had. Because from where I’m standing, it’s definitely still burning.’ His eyes unashamedly traced the lines of my body up and down, up and down once more. ‘Burning hotter than ever.’
I didn’t say anything. Mostly because I couldn’t. Because he was right, and I hated it when he was right. And I especially hated that he knew it too. But mostly I hated what he was right about. Because I did feel the burning, as if I was catching fire from the inside out. Maybe the fire had never really gone away, despite my numerous attempts to douse it. Maybe it had just gone quiet for a while. Smouldering. Waiting for something to ignite it again.
And now?
Now it was burning.
‘Speaking of hot, I could do with a cool shower.’ He walked past me, but paused when he got to the shower. ‘Want to join me?’
I didn’t say anything. I just rolled my eyes at him in the most disinterested manner I could, and hoped I was pretending convincingly enough that the answer was not in factyes.
I really, really did need a shower. I needed to cool myself the hell down. But the moment the water hit my skin, I knew that nothing would cool me.
Because it wasn’t that kind of heat; it wasn’t surface heat.
It was the kind of heat that burned so deeply, all the way to your very bones and bloodstream. To the places that water couldn’t reach. It was the kind of heat that only Lizzy had ever generated in me.
Her smell was still stuck to me, as if I had worn her like my favourite fragrance.
I leaned forward and pressed my hand into the cool, hard tiles. They were no help either. I stuck my head under the water, but still, useless.
I groaned and looked down.
Yeah. I had a problem. A big one.
CHAPTER 35
The room was quiet except for the hum of the ceiling fan going round and round. I had stared at it for so long now that I think I was in some kind of hypnotic trance. Cam lay on the opposite side of the bed, also staring at the ceiling. Perhaps he was also hypnotised.
‘So let’s go over the plan for tomorrow.’ He finally broke the silence. ‘What are you thinking?’
I turned slightly, just enough to look at him out of the corner of my eye. ‘I was thinking I would take Amber aside, start chatting diamonds; maybe Victor bought her a really expensive piece of jewellery recently and she wants to gush about it and show me, or maybe she’s seen something diamond-related. I’ll go in with the whole “girl’s best friend” and all, and see what she lets slip.’
He nodded, like he approved. Not that I needed his approval.
‘And you?’
‘I’ll try and get Victor talking about money. Tell him how crypto is the future – decentralised, borderless, banking is over, blah, blah, blah. But most importantly, paperless and untraceable, not to mention the best way to move funds around invisibly, you know, something like that. See if I can get him talking. Maybe get him to think about diversifying his portfolio. And maybe he’ll think I’m just the right crypto bro to do it.’
I chuckled. ‘I never thought I would ever hear the words “diversify” and “portfolio” coming out of your mouth, ever.’
‘Told you, I’m a changed man.’
I rolled my eyes and rubbed my shoulder. A dull ache had started to pulse in it again. I must have injured it in our latest tussle.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. It’s just my shoulder.’
He turned onto his side and faced me. ‘Rotator cuff?’
I blinked. ‘How did you know that?’
