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He shook his head, making his unruly blond curls bounce. “You don’t want to hear it.”
“Keso.” Scooting closer to him, she took his hands in her own, forcing him to look at her instead of his fists. “Tell me.”
His eyes met hers, and in the fading light she could just barely make out the pale green ringing the black before he looked away and shook his head.
“Since when can’t you talk to me?” Her voice was almost a whisper. “We’ve always shared everything.”
Finally, he sighed. “Victor Roberts isn’t going to forget about you and Ara.”
Her stomach dropped. She’d known whatever bothered him would involve the other man.
“He’s gone back to the big island. He’s staying at his house for the next week.”
Closing her eyes, she dropped his hands. “And what do you plan to do with that information?” Swallowing, she tried to force back the fear of what he likely planned to do.
“Kill him if I can.” Keso shrugged as if he weren’t talking about the life of another human being. Of course, to him, Victor Roberts was no more human than the sharks that were caught and killed in the sea surrounding their island.
She scoffed. “You can’t kill him.” Her words sounded light-hearted, as if she thought he were joking, but inside, her heart beat like a drum.
Shoving up from the chair, he stalked away from her. “Leave him alone, Doc? Really?” he yelled before catching himself and looking back to the house to make sure Arabella hadn’t heard him. “He’s set his sights on you. On Ara . . . He knows.”
She jumped to her feet. “He doesn’t know anything. Maybe he suspects, but he doesn’t have any proof. There’s nothing—”
“He doesn’t have to have proof. He’s Victor Roberts.”
“Then we’ll fight. But you can’t just go off and kill the man, Keso. You’re better than that. Than him.”
Shaking his head, he turned away from her. “Look where that’s gotten me.”
He spoke so low, she barely heard him. She probably should’ve pretended she hadn’t, but with Keso, she never seemed to do the right thing.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He spun to face her. “It means men like him do whatever the hell they want, and they get everything. Men like me, we get nothing.”
Tears stung her eyes. “Nothing?” Maybe they didn’t have the life she imagined, but she still thought it was pretty good. “You have Arabella. You have friends, your business, me.”
He smirked. “No, I don’t. I’ve never had you, not even when you were in my bed.”
His words hit like a fist to her stomach.
“You’re sleeping with the doctor, aren’t you? The one who worked on Ara? The one who was here this morning?”
“Keso—”
“You said you couldn’t be with me because your heart belongs to someone else, but I don’t think that’s it.”
She crept forward. “Let me explain.”
“Explain? I don’t need you to explain. I might not be a doctor, but I can see the way he looks at you. The same way I look at you.”
She shook her head. No, Keso had never looked at her the way Ian did. What was it Esme had said about that look? That Ian looked at her like oxygen to a man who’d been underwater too long. She completed Ian. He needed her to be whole. Keso had never needed her at all.
“Why didn’t you just tell me I wasn’t good enough for you, Doc? Maybe then I would’ve stopped hoping you’d change your mind.”
Anger replaced the sadness that had seeped in at Keso’s words. “Not good enough? What are you talking about?”
“I’m just an uneducated fisherman. The minute a doctor, and American, sets foot on this island, you sleep with him. I thought you still weren’t over your fiancé, but now I—”
“He was my fiancé, the father of my child.”
Keso’s eyes widened, then narrowed to angry slits. “Him?” He shook his head as if trying to place Ian into the compartment he’d created for the man Cameron loved. A man he’d been prepared to hate because of her love for him despite the pain he’d caused her. “After everything he did, you’re taking him back?”
She lifted a shoulder, then let it fall. “I don’t know. Yes, I slept with him. Once. I didn’t plan it. I haven’t planned to get back with him. I don’t know.”
“So, you’ve just forgiven him?”
“No, but I’m listening to his explanations.”
“His excuses, you mean.”
“Maybe they are,” she conceded. “Maybe everything he’s said to me is a lie. I don’t know. Haven’t you ever done something without thinking it through?”
He didn’t speak for a moment, only watched her as if trying to decide where he’d come across her. “Yeah,” his voice was low, almost a whisper, as he nodded. “Yeah, Doc, I have.”
Lowering her head, she rubbed her arms against the sudden chill his words brought. How many times had he sworn if he’d known he couldn’t have all of her, he would never have touched her?
“So? Are you leaving with him? Are you leaving me and taking Arabella with you?”
“No.” She gripped his forearm tightly. “I will never take Ara from you. I swear it. I’m not going anywhere. I could never live without her, and I would never take her from you. I’m staying.”
“And when he goes?” He swung his arm in the direction of the beach and the wide world that waited beyond.
“Then he goes.” She put her hand on his cheek and turned his face so she could meet his gaze. “He goes. Maybe I’ll fall apart at first. Maybe I won’t, but I’ll be fine. I have too much here. Ara’s my world. I promise you, I won’t leave her, and I won’t take her.”
With his jaw set, he nodded. “She’s all I have left, Doc.”
Giving in to the need to comfort him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close. “No, she’s not,” she whispered against his neck. “We’re a family, Kes. You have me.”
Just not all of me.
* * *
Cameron appeared in the doorway of her office wearing a sundress that skimmed her thighs and a scowl. Ian dropped his feet off her desk and rose from the chair to meet her in the middle of the small room. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“That cottage isn’t big enough,” she mumbled.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It looked plenty roomy enough for you and Ara.”
She raised a brow.
“And Keso,” he added reluctantly.
“Yeah. Unfortunately, with that comes Victor Roberts, you, and every argument Keso and I have ever had. It’s too small for our pasts.”
He understood that. For the past five years, he’d shared an apartment with too many ghosts. Being both alone and crowded was a fucked-up way to live.
“I told him about you. About us.” She blurted the words.
“You mean last night or…”
“Well, I didn’t go into details. He’d already figured out we slept together.”
Probably even before last night. Keso seemed like an intuitive man. No doubt he’d sensed the connection between Ian and Cameron. “You told him about before? About our relationship?”
She nodded. “He already knew all that. He just didn’t know you were… you.”
“And now that he does?”
The corner of her mouth lifted. “I’m pretty sure he wants to throw you into the ocean.”
Smiling, he nudged her chin up with his fist. “That’s okay. I’m a strong swimmer.”
She rolled her eyes, which only made him smile wider.
Sensing she could use a subject change, he asked, “How’s Arabella?”
She blew out a loud breath. “Exhausting. She did not take your advice to listen to her parents.”
“She seems like a handful.”
Cameron scoffed. “You have no idea. That girl is a full-time job. She won’t let a few stitches or injured ribs stop her.”
“Takes after her mama.”
Something sad and dark swept over Cameron’s face, before she shook her head, as if wiping it away. She shrugged. “You’ve seen her. She’s a miniature Keso.” For some reason, her smile had dimmed.
“Physically. But I know you. That girl is a mini Cameron Crawford, if ever there was one.”
Face softening, she raised her gaze to his. “You think?”
His affirmation seemed important to her. As if her literally saving the girl’s life days ago wasn’t enough, she needed to hear she was a good mother.
“I know.” Lifting a strand of her dark hair, he wrapped it around his finger. “The way she talks, the way she laughs, the way she gets crazy excited and her eyes light up, the way she totally has me wrapped around her finger and willing to do anything for her. She gets all that from you.”
Cameron twisted her lips, trying to keep from crying. “Thank you.”
“Of course. That girl adores you.”
Pulling her lip between her teeth, she nodded. “I overheard you two talking today.”
He swallowed, afraid she was about to blast him for discussing her with her daughter. Instead, she surprised him by placing her hand against his cheek.
“She really likes you.”
Emotion rose in his chest. He adored Arabella too and already dreaded leaving her. “She’s a great kid. You and Keso should be really proud of her.” And damn, it still hurt that Cameron shared a child with someone else. The fact that she was Keso’s didn’t affect how much he cared for the girl, but he couldn’t help the jealousy that twisted in his gut that the other man had a piece of Cameron he didn’t have.
Again, something passed over her face, a tightening of her features and darkening of her eyes foreign to Ian. She opened her mouth, but then closed it as if thinking better of what she almost said.
Finally, she shifted. “We are.”
For a moment they stood, neither of them speaking. He itched to pull her close, to hold her like he used to. But although they’d cleared some of the air, they weren’t back to where they’d been years ago. He loved her no less, but in some ways, he no longer knew her.
“I heard what you told her about your almost wife and daughter.” Tears crowded her eyes.
He looked away from her pain.
“What you told me this morning? It’s true?”
“Every word.”
“So, I’m the one who did this to us? I’m the one who ruined everything?”
He should console her, tell her their separation wasn’t her fault, but he wouldn’t lie to make her feel better. “Maybe if I told you about Mallory sooner, you wouldn’t have thought the worst when you saw us.” He couldn’t give her any more than that. The things she’d condemned him for in her head weren’t true.
“I wish we could just take it all back,” he confessed. “I wonder all the time what life would be like if you’d never gotten hurt.”
She wiped tears from her cheeks. “I wake up every day and picture the life we would’ve had. I imagine you lying beside me, and what my day would be like, how many children we’d have now, but…”
Slipping his hands to her waist, he tugged her closer. “But?”
“But I wouldn’t have Arabella.” Guilt shown on her lovely face.
As much as he hated that she’d created a life with someone else, Ian vowed in that moment to never let it come between them, to never let his own jealousy or insecurities cloud his love for Cam or her daughter. “I can’t say I’m thankful for the way things happened with us, but now that I’ve met that little Spitfire, I can’t imagine a world without her.”
A watery laugh flowed from Cameron. “Do you ever think what our daughter would be like?”
God, did he? Only every fucking day. “A lot like Arabella, I’m sure.”
She shook her head. “She’d be worse. With your genes, she’d have everyone eating out of her palm.”
He laughed, a full, from the belly, heartfelt laugh. A week ago, he’d have sworn he’d never laugh again. Especially when discussing the child he’d lost.
“We can always try again,” he offered. “Arabella mentioned she’d like a little brother or sister.”
Hope, fierce and genuine, flashed in her eyes before she stamped it out. “I’ve already told you, we don’t have a future, Ian.”
But she wanted one. The longing was etched on her features. Could he convince her to change her mind? Would it be fair to Arabella or Keso if he did? As much as he wanted to hate the other man, he had no real reason to. And if Ian truly loved Arabella, as he was beginning to suspect he did, he couldn’t separate her from a father who adored her.
Instead of facing his insecurities, he settled for asking, “Can we just have now? While I’m here, can we just be together?”
* * *
Could they?
Ultimately, they’d both be better off if Cameron pushed him away now, before they could somehow become more to each other than they already were. Ridiculous. Ian was already everything to her. She’d been stupid not to believe she’d been everything to him too.
Tenderly, he cupped her cheek with his rough hand. She leaned into his touch, closing her eyes and savoring. When his lips brushed hers, she opened for him, reaching out to loop her arms around his neck and hold him to her.
“Cam,” he whispered against her lips, as if unable to believe he really held her.
Pulling away, she smoothed a hand over the growth of beard on his handsome face.
“I love you,” he whispered, “so much.”
The walls she’d tried so desperately to build around her heart concerning Ian were no match for the desperation in his gaze or the absolute certainty in his voice.
“And I love you,” she confessed. What was the use of not admitting what he already knew?
His mouth split into a wide grin, dimples framing his plump lips, before he shook his head. “I know. Even when you left, I knew you loved me. It’s why I was sure you were dead. I couldn’t figure out why you hadn’t come back to me yet.”
Not for the first time tonight, she wished she could share her secrets with him. Confessing the truth about why she’d stayed away and why she couldn’t come back now would allay some of his worries. But she couldn’t take the risk.
He kissed her again, making her forget her want to ease his fears. Instead, she became consumed with a new yearning. One fueled by physical need. As he gripped her hips, holding her tight against the hard proof of his desire for her, she forgot why she should stay away from him. Instead, she allowed his nearness to consume and overtake her. She crushed her mouth to his. She didn’t bother with slow, leisurely sips of him. If Ian was only here for a short time, she wanted to gorge on him. Maybe if he filled her to bursting now, she could survive the emptiness when he left.
When she slipped her hand between them, cupping and squeezing him, a moan escaped his parted lips. “Cam, there are people here,” he whispered against her lips.
He didn’t fool her though. He couldn’t care less who knew they were together or what anyone heard. If he had his way, he’d probably tell everyone on the island she belonged to him. And she did: heart, body, soul. She was Ian’s.
“Well, I hope you can be quiet,” she warned him, then sank to her knees.
