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Wes’s nostrils flared as he looked everywhere but at Ian.
“Fucking tell me, man. Have you always known? Did she confide in you before she left?”
He shook his head. “I wish she had. I spent five years worried about you, angry at her for you. You played the wounded lover beautifully.”
Ian opened his mouth to reply but had nothing to say. He hadn’t played anything. When Cameron walked, she fucking crushed him. He hadn’t had to fake his wounds.
“You keep tip-toeing around her reasons. Why not be a man and just tell me?”
“The way you were a man and told her you were fucking Mallory?”
Ian’s vision turned red. Fucking Mallory? He’d never touched Mallory. Well except…
Oh shit!
“Where did you hear that?”
“Does it matter? You had everything a man could want, and you threw it—”
Ian wrapped his head around his friend’s neck. “I didn’t sleep with that woman. Who told you that?”
Please let it be anyone but —
Wes twisted Ian’s wrist until his hold broke. “Cameron. She saw you with her in the woods before…”
Ian didn’t hear anything else. He didn’t need to. Mallory had kissed him mere moments before gunshots rang out in the jungle. The gunshots that had killed his child, injured his woman, and demolished his entire world. Turning away from Wes, he sprinted away from the beach, down the worn path he’d learned lead to Cameron’s cottage.
* * *
Cameron stumbled from her bed and down the hall to her cubicle-sized bathroom. Why had she even bothered trying to sleep? All night, whenever she dozed off, she’d jerk awake, sure someone watched her. Ridiculous, of course. No one watched her. But her conscience, the good sense she supposedly had, stalked her, reminding her of how colossally she’d fucked up the night before.
Glancing at her toothbrush, she decided she needed coffee more and padded into her galley kitchen to start a pot. Moving to the island had forced her to give up many things, but coffee hadn’t been one of them. When Keso had presented her with his crazy idea to move here and raise Arabella, coffee had been one of her few conditions. Not pressuring her for more than she could give him had been another.
After starting the coffee, she stood in the middle of her cozy living room, stretching. The hairs on the back of her neck rose and prickles of sensation skated down her back. There was that feeling again. As if someone watched her. Turning, she scanned her home. From where she stood, she could see every room of the cottage. Everything was in its place. Except…
Three pictures sat on a small shelf by the wood-burning stove in the corner. Or rather, three pictures had sat there. Now only one remained. Cameron’s heart sank to her stomach. The picture of Arabella taken at her last birthday along with one of Keso’s sister Keira, were both missing. The pictures had been here before the accident. Arabella had commented that she wanted to have chocolate cake for her birthday again this year and pointed to the picture of her and Keso grinning through icing covered faces.
No one had been in her home since then, except whoever had tampered with the box in her closet. Fear skittered along her spine. The coffee maker whistled, signaling the elixir’s readiness. Screeching, she jerked around.
“Get a grip,” she chided herself.
An explanation for the missing pictures existed. Maybe Keso. But even as the thought materialized, she knew Keso hadn’t tried to get into the safe, and he hadn’t taken the pictures. So, who had been in her home? And had she really only imagined someone watching her?
* * *
When Ian reached Cameron’s cottage, he couldn’t stop himself from marching up the steps and pounding on the door. The scarred, weatherworn wood rattled beneath his fist. From the other side he could’ve sworn he heard a yelp. Pressing his ear to the door, he listened. Footsteps came from within, then the door flew open.
“Ian?” Cameron’s voice rose, then fell, almost as if she were relieved to see him. That thought quickly vanished as she huffed out a breath and planted a fist on her hip.
“While I appreciate the whole five hours you gave me, I had a little longer in mind when I said stay away from me.”
Ignoring her sarcasm, he pushed past her into the cottage. “We need to talk.” His next breath faltered as he got his first look at the inside of her small home. Taking in the wooden futon piled high with cushions and the colorful tapestry hanging in place of curtains, Ian was transported to the first small loft they’d shared almost a decade ago. He turned back to Cameron, still clutching the door, her fingers now white. Her back expanded on a deep inhale.
“Ian, I don’t have time for this. I’m bringing Arabella home today and I—”
“Why did you leave me?” She didn’t have time? Fine. He’d cut to the chase. For too many years, Cameron had kept him in the dark. No more. “Don’t play nice. Don’t be diplomatic. Tell me why you left. Why you decided to leave me before we ever left Africa.”
Her hand no longer gripped the door. Now it trembled. “I don’t think this is the right time to—”
“Damn right it’s not.” Clutching her shoulder, he spun her to face him. “The right time would’ve been six years ago in Africa, when you decided to give up on us.”
Eyes widening, she lunged forward until they stood nose to nose. “Me? I gave up on us? What was there to hold out hope for, Ian? You were with another woman. You told her you didn’t want our child.”
Wait. What? He had, in a moment of insanity and shock, kissed Mallory. But he’d never told her or anyone else he didn’t want his child. When Cameron had first told him she was pregnant, he’d been terrified. They’d been in the middle of some jungle. He’d only recently learned how to be a boyfriend, barely knew how to be a fiancé. He knew jack shit about being a father. But he’d loved Cameron with every piece of his soul. She’d teach him to love their child, just as she’d shown him to love her.
“Being scared and clueless didn’t mean I didn’t want her.”
“Then why did you say it?” No trace of the tears in her voice shown in her eyes. Instead, molten fire burned there.
“I never said that. Cam, I swear to you.”
“Wow,” she whispered. “You really are a good liar. If I hadn’t heard you myself, I’d probably believe you. Now, I don’t feel so bad for falling for all your other lies.”
“I never lied to you.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t tell me you were screwing Mallory.”
“I never touched—”
“Liar,” she yelled. “Ian, do you not hear me? I. Saw. You. I followed you into those woods. I saw you kissing Mallory. I heard you say you didn’t want a child.”
Oh shit.
He had said that but — “That wasn’t what I meant.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. What else could you mean? You’re a smart man, Ian, but you’re no poet. Was this some kind of riddle?”
“I won’t lie to you, Cam.”
“Anymore? Again? Everything we were was a lie.”
“No.” He grabbed her shoulders.
She jerked away. “Don’t touch me. Just because I want you. Just because I love you, doesn’t mean I don’t also hate you.”
Her words sliced like a razor, shredding his already broken heart. Hatred bled into the cracks.
“Well, sometimes I hate you too.” If she wanted the truth, he’d give her the fucking truth. “You walked out on me. You threw away everything we had because of what you thought you saw. You didn’t trust me enough to believe in me. I kissed her, okay? She kissed me and for one stupid moment I kissed her back. I never promised to be perfect. “
“No, but you did promise to be faithful.”
“And you promised to have faith. But you didn’t believe in me, and my love for you. You didn’t even come to me.”
A small cry escaped her. “Because I was shot. Because our child, the one you didn’t want, was murdered and I never even saw you cry.”
He cried now. Tears of pain, frustration, hopelessness. “I wanted our daughter. It was Mallory I didn’t want.”
Her eyes turned to slits, fury shooting between the lids. “You said—”
“I said I didn’t want a child. To me Mallory was a child. She thought like a child and acted like a child. I wanted a woman. I wanted you.”
