Page 26 of Effortless

Sex ruined friendships.

It always did.

“Anyway,” Emma drawled, setting her book down to the table. “She mentioned you met somebody at a party.”

Camilla cocked a brow. “I’m not telling her anything ever again.”

“Lies. You will.”

Well, it was obvious where Camilla got her nonsense from.

“Probably,” she muttered. “So I met somebody at a party, had some fun, and sent him on his way. Same business, different day, Ma.”

“Tom, right?”

Camilla made a noise under her breath. “Seriously, does she tell you everything?”

“Sometimes.”

“Jesus, August.”

“So, you won’t tell me anything about this Tom, then?” her mother asked.

“There’s nothing to tell, Ma.”

“Am I to assume it’s the same Tom that approached your father about you?”

Camilla hesitated in grabbing the next steak to rub it down, too. “What?”

Across the kitchen, a slow smile grew on her mother’s face. “Oh, you didn’t know about that?”

“Tommaso approached Dad?”

“I guess,” Emma said with a shrug. “But as you said, there’s nothing to tell. Right?”

Well, there wasn’t supposed to be. It was mid-week, now. Camilla hadn’t heard from Tommaso since … well, Sunday morning when he left her place smelling like sex and grinning in that way of his that made her wet.

She had given him her number. It broke about ten of her rules when it came to not doing second dates, or whatever, but he asked. She didn’t refuse because she probably wouldn’t turn away a second round with Tommaso Rossi.

Camilla didn’t know what it was about him—maybe the way he looked at her when he thought she didn’t know—but he made her curious.

That was a dangerous game to play for a woman like Camilla who was hell bent on living her best, and most unrestricted life for as long as she could. Fun was her thing—freedom to have it was her deal.

“So, he approached Dad, huh?” Camilla asked.

Emma laughed quietly. “You said it was nothing, Cam.”

“It kind of still is nothing, Ma.”

“Could that change?”

Camilla went back to work on the next steak. “Even if I were to hang out with him again, it’ll never go further than that, Ma.”

“Never say never, baby.”

She didn’t respond.

Everybody needed to have their dreams, after all. Emma’s dream was for Camilla to find someone—anyone she could love who would love her back—and settle into forever with them.