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“Camille is nothing like your parents,” Fernsby prompted.
You always want too much from people, Dane.
In his experience, people you loved always left. Especially if you loved them too much.
Fernsby said in the mildest tone he’d used yet, “Your parents were rather self-centered, in my opinion.”
He knew that. He’d said often enough that they were bad examples. He’d blamed his siblings’ lack of relationships on them. But even so, somewhere deep inside, he’d always thought that if he’d done something differently, his parents might have been different too.
Dane cocked his head. “Cammie knows how to love.”
Fernsby stretched his lips in a facsimile of a smile. “She showed us that time and again with her devotion to her uncle.”
“Where Cammie’s concerned, there can never be too much love.” Dane said it almost with wonder. As if the thought had never occurred to him before, when he’d actually known it almost from the day he’d met her.
The day he’d fallen in love with her.
Cammie would come back. Absolutely. But she’d only stay if he gave her his heart. If he had the courage to let his love envelop her.
He pounded his fist into his palm. “Damn it, I totally screwed up.”
He loved her with all his heart. But for all he’d told himself he was protecting her, the truth was, he was safeguarding his own heart. “The other day, you told me she was my heart’s desire. And she is. And yet—” He tore his gaze away from the flagstones and looked at Fernsby. “When it came right down to it, I didn’t open my heart all the way for my own selfish reasons.”
Fernsby looked on him now with something that might have been kindness. Which was so un-Fernsby-like it threw him off.
“Camille will always tread lightly upon your heart. She will never stomp it.”
“I know that.” He shot out a determined exhale. “She and I need to be together. She’s my other half.” He remembered her words to him. “She’s the missing piece of my puzzle.”
Fernsby raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Thank the Lord you finally see that, sir.”
Dane didn’t have time to think about it. More important things were at hand. He hadn’t bared his soul to her. But she had given hers to him completely. That metaphor revealed her love for him. He hadn’t said it back. Instead, he’d tried to get out of it by showing her with his body.
“You’re right,” he told Fernsby. “I haven’t been honest. I didn’t tell her everything I felt about my parents.”
Sitting at the dining table last night, Cammie had told him of her fears, how hurt she’d been by the men in her life, how hard it was to put herself out there again. But he hadn’t reciprocated by revealing how hard it had been to grow up with parents who didn’t care. Or how hard it was now to lay his heart in another person’s hands. Even hers.
Yet that was what Cammie deserved to hear.
Standing taller, he vowed, “I’ll tell her everything. I’ll fly out there right now.”
Fernsby opened his mouth.
Dane held up a hand. “But… I know I can’t. She asked me to let her do this on her own. I have to abide by that. But when she’s done, I’ll be right there like a shot.”
Raising both arms, Fernsby seemed to strain forward, almost as if he wanted to waltz around the front hall the way he had in the library. But his hands dropped. And he said with a deep intonation, “A wise decision, sir.”
Dane could swear his eyes twinkled. Almost as if he were a fairy godfather.
* * *
Each minute that dragged by was torture. Dane had never been good at waiting. And every time the grandfather clock in the hall chimed out another hour, he wanted to shout—or punch something.
But as badly as he wanted to fly to her, he couldn’t. For her sake. She needed this. He had to give it to her.
She’d proven to him how well deserved this promotion was, proven over and over again the full scale of her capabilities. She’d had the courage to tell him what she wanted, not just in his bedroom, but that day after the Maverick meeting when she’d asked him to promote her.
Still, he couldn’t help constantly refreshing his phone, waiting for a text to magically appear.
Fernsby brought in a tray of something that probably tasted delectable. Dane didn’t want even a bite as he stared at the screen.
Until Fernsby reached over the desk and tore the phone from his hands. “Sir, you must let her do this. This is what she’s always needed. And she can do it.”
After a harsh exhale that burned his throat, Dane said, “I know. But the wait is killing me.”
As he raised a brow, the corner of Fernsby’s mouth twitched. If Dane didn’t know better, he’d say a smile was trying to claw its way out. Although the man had actually danced.
