Page 102 of Effortless

“Didn’t you have classes today? It’s Tuesday.”

“I took a day off.”

“That’s not like you.”

Shit.

Camilla chose the wrong words. She could hear the concern in her mother’s tone already. It wasn’t that she didn’t think her mother could help her, or make her feel better, but this was something she wanted to do alone.

Besides, just coming to her parents’ home and being close to them was a huge help to Camilla’s mess of emotions. Her childhood home, and all the good memories it had, soothed her without barely trying at all.

That’s why she had come today.

Just to be here.

Looking up from her nails, Camilla tried to shrug it all off for her mother’s benefit. “We all need a day or two to recharge sometimes, right?”

“Sure,” Emma said. “Is that what it is, though?”

“Yeah, Ma. That’s what it is.”

“Are you going to stay for lunch?”

“I could eat.”

“Just like your brother—neither of you refuse food,” Emma teased.

“Well, we don’t refuse yours.”

Emma smiled, proud as could be. “That’s very true. By the way, your brother is here. He’s in talking to your father.”

“Where?”

“The office.”

Camilla nodded.

This was a good change. It allowed her to get out of her mother’s sights without Emma prying for too long, and figuring out what was wrong.

“I’ll go say hi,” Camilla said.

“Do that,” Emma called from behind her, “and make sure to talk to your father about whatever’s up with you, too. Don’t think I can’t see it, Camilla Emma Donati.”

And there her mother went using her full name.

Camilla winced, but kept walking.

She should have known better.

Her parents always knew.

Camila had been fooling herself thinking she could come here just to be comforted by a familiar place, and nothing more. But maybe that was exactly why she felt drawn to her parents from the second she woke up that morning.

“Well, look who came all the way to Newport today,” her father said when she walked into his office.

Sure enough, both her father and brother were there. Calisto, sitting behind his large desk as he usually did. Cross, on the other hand, was sitting on the corner of the desk, and looking over something inside a folder.

Camilla opted to throw herself down on the leather couch against the far wall. “Thought I should come over and say hello before you forgot what my face looked like.”