Chapter 4 #2
He nodded. “Yeah, it’s always good to see her. She’s visiting from out of town. California. Her husband picked her up.” Cameron cocked his head to the side, considering me in a way that made me feel bare. “And how was your dinner, Natalie?” He raised a brow. “Or should I say, Sunny?”
I shook my head at his usage of the name I’d given him at the pub that night—a homage to finally seeing the light after a too-long divorce process and the dark marriage that had preceded it. It had felt fitting for the occasion.
“Josh and I matched on a dating app, so he knows my real name.”
Cameron looked disapproving. “That man earned your real name, and I didn’t? I’m all for making men work for you, but you need to make them work harder than that, Natalie.”
“I…” I started, but I didn’t really have anything to say to him, because truthfully, he was right. Josh hadn’t proved he deserved any bit of me. “I know. He’s the first guy I’ve tried meeting up with from an app, but maybe I’ll have to adjust my process in the future. Since that was not a success.”
He stared at me for a long moment, and I refused to back down from the eye contact. “Just don’t tell anyone else your name is Sunny.”
“Why?”
Cameron leaned closer, a brief whisper in my ear that tingled my insides. “That’s my fake name,” he murmured.
I was starting to feel more than warm. Once again, something closer to hot, and I knew I needed to take a step back.
But God, it was hard. Especially because I agreed with him.
Cameron could have that name to himself.
I liked that idea, actually. He could keep it—as a memento of a night that I thought about all too often, a reality that I wished I could pursue.
“Can I get you home?” he asked, pulling back like he hadn’t just made me feel more than my date had all night.
I shrugged off the question. “I was just going to walk. I live over on Liberty, so not far.”
“Then I’ll walk with you.”
“I’m more than capable of walking myself home.”
I’d been living as an independent, single woman for longer than he likely realized. Longer than my divorce had been finalized. I was comfortable navigating the world alone.
“I know you are,” he allowed. “But you disappeared on me that night. And I’ve been spending the last six months wondering if you made it home okay, Natalie. Please don’t make me go through that again.”
His husky words made my breath hitch, requiring a second to recover. Or several seconds, longer than it usually took me to formulate responses.
“Well, it won’t be six months until we see each other again,” I pointed out. “You’ll only have to wonder until Monday morning. That’s when our next meeting is, right?”
Cameron just stared at me, his jaw hard. “I can walk you home, or I can call one of your brothers to do it. It’s up to you.”
“When I told Blake I was meeting someone from a dating app, he made me share my location with him. He’s probably sitting at home, wondering what I’m doing standing outside the restaurant.”
Cameron shucked his hands in his pockets with a nod. “See, I knew we’d get along.”
I rolled my eyes and started walking in the direction of home. Without missing a beat, Cameron picked up his stride beside me.
“So you didn’t like him?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Your date.”
“Who says I didn’t like him?”
I had no idea why I was trying to lie through my teeth.
“You said yourself that the date wasn’t a success. But even if you hadn’t, I know how you look when you like a guy, and that wasn’t it.”
My steps faltered, something that seemed like it was becoming a regular occurrence around this man. His lips twisted at my reaction, like he was enjoying it far too much, and then when I opened my mouth to try to protest—a silly idea, really—he cut me off.
“Don’t lie about it, Sunny.”
“I wasn’t going to lie,” I lied.
He lifted a brow.
“Maybe I should call Blake,” I muttered, even though I knew I wouldn’t.
I’d been trying not to bother my brothers as much as possible this week. Blake was in newly wedded bliss, having just returned from his honeymoon, and Noah was in new dad trenches, and I knew that what Cameron had told me the other day was right. I shouldn’t rely on them so much.
Cameron put his hands up in mock surrender. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
I shook my head because I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted him to stop. It certainly would be a good idea if he stopped, but…
“Is Chloe with Blake?” Cameron asked, veering the conversation in a different direction, like he promised.
I shook my head. “She’s at a friend’s house, working on a project for school. I was going to pick her up on my way home. They live just a block over from us.”
He nodded. “Okay, lead the way.”
I did, deciding not to argue with him about it.
The tone he’d used was firm, but gentle, letting me take the first steps, and telling me he’d follow.
Cameron somehow knew how to say things that didn’t bring out the fight or flight in me; he didn’t talk like Korey had, whose commands were snappy and harsh and made me feel trapped in a corner, unable to flee.
If I’d been with Korey that night at the bar, he wouldn’t have let me leave. He would have held on tight, the same way he’d tried to do with our marriage. And the same way he was now trying to do with Chloe.
Control—it was all about control.
Now that I had it in my grasp, I loathed the idea of giving it up.
But I didn’t feel like I was giving anything up while I walked side by side with Cameron until we made it to the Hillsons’.
The birds chirped, a sign of spring blooming into summer.
I loved this time of year, if just for the cherry blossoms that lined this street, filling the air with a sweet scent that carried above the smell of the city.
The Hillsons had a particularly large tree at the bottom of their steps, but most of the pink petals had fallen to the sidewalk.
I stepped over them as I walked up to the door of their brownstone, and Cameron leaned against the railing at the bottom of the steps, waiting, looking effortlessly attractive.
“We’re just around the corner from home,” I said. “You don’t have to stay.”
Cameron’s lips pressed together for a second before he said, “Imagine what your brothers would do if they found out I didn’t make sure their sister and their favorite niece got home safe.”
“Careful,” I said. “There’s another baby in the family now.”
“Oldest niece, then,” he amended.
I shook my head and knocked on the Hillsons’ front door. “Are you afraid of my brothers, Mr. Bryant?”
He lifted a brow. “Did the way I kicked Blake and Noah out of the room the other day make it seem like I’m afraid of them?”
“No,” I admitted.
Korey had definitely been intimidated by my brothers. The reason I suspected he cut me off from them for most of our marriage.
“You haven’t met Sully or Theo, though,” I added.
My two youngest brothers lived in Minnesota, where we were raised.
Theo was a professor at the U, while Sully was a software engineer, and they couldn’t have been more polar opposites.
Theo was a man of few words, while Sully would never shut up, if he were given the option.
But the one thing they had in common? They’d always stick up for their family, especially Chloe.
Even if they weren’t as present in her life as my other brothers.
Cameron was unfazed. “I’d be happy to meet them sometime. And then I could kick them out of the room, too.”
The door opened before I had a chance to respond to him, which was probably for the best.
A woman with silver-streaked black hair and a kind smile opened the door.
Mrs. Hillson, or Jill, was one of my favorite moms on the block.
We met the first night I moved here with Chloe, still a little shell-shocked from the divorce.
She’d brought over dinner and left her number, and sure, sometimes it seemed like she looked at me with a bit of pity in her eyes, but I chose to believe it came from a good place.
That it was more compassion than anything else.
She told me her mom was an ER nurse when she was growing up, so she knew the hardships and the horrors that we saw, and how it could take a toll.
“Natalie,” she greeted with a smile. “You look so lovely.”
I tried to ignore the surprise in her voice, the reminder that I didn’t get dressed up often. Jill’s eyes drifted down the steps to Cameron, her brows rising to match the lift in her tone. She glanced back at me with the not-so-subtle look of a woman telling another woman, Nice catch.
Ah, shit. I’d have to correct her about that one, but it wouldn’t be now.
“Thanks, Jill.” I grinned back at her. “I appreciate you having Chloe over to work on the project. Is she ready?”
Before Jill could answer, my little tornado of a daughter came bounding out of the house, yelling back to her friend inside.
“Bye! See you Monday!”
“I see that she is,” I chuckled and then waved to Jill before trying to catch up with Chloe, who had already made it to the bottom of the steps, stopping short at the sight of Cameron.
“Are you Mom’s date?” she asked without any hesitation, and I wished I could have sunk into the pavement.
“No, honey,” I interrupted before Cameron had to find an answer. “This is Mr. Bryant. He’s Mom’s new lawyer. I met him through your Uncle Noah.”
“Hi, Chloe.” Cameron crouched a bit so he could be more on Chloe’s level. It wasn’t very successful; Cameron was a sizable man, and though Chloe was tall for her age, he still had a lot of height on her. “You can call me Cam.”
“Hi!” She was more of a ball of energy than normal, bouncing on her toes in front of Cameron, and I wondered how much candy she and Mia had snuck when Jill wasn’t looking.
Her brown hair that nearly matched mine was falling out of her ponytail with every movement of her jittery body. “Do you know my Aunt Gemma, too?”
Noah’s girlfriend was one of Chloe’s figure skating coaches, and my daughter adored her. I was well aware that she liked her more than me most days, but I was also okay with it. For the most part. I just felt lucky that Chloe had so many good role models in her life.
Cameron chuckled. “I do know Gemma. I work with her brother and her friend Juniper.”
“Oh, Juniper has the best dresses,” Chloe said enthusiastically. “I think Mom should go shopping with her. She doesn’t have any dresses.”
“I have a couple,” I protested. “I’m wearing one right now.”
I glanced down at the rosy wrap dress I had on, which I’d thought had complemented my complexion nicely. I’d always been told my fair skin had pink undertones.
“Yeah, but…” Chloe gave me a disapproving once-over, and I rolled my eyes.
“I think your mom looks very nice,” Cameron said, his voice warm and soothing.
“Yeah, you’re right. She does.” Chloe shrugged and then turned on her heel, walking off in the direction of home. “So how was the date?” she asked over her shoulder, and then she gave a pointed little look to Cameron and said, “It was my idea, you know.”
“Was it?” he asked with a tilt of his lips.
“Mhm,” Chloe said proudly.
Internally, I sighed.
“It was okay, honey,” I answered. “We can talk about it more when we get home.”
And discuss how it might be a bit before I went on another date after that failed attempt. Dating during the custody trial might not be the best option, anyway. That should truly be my focus.
Chloe nodded and took off, running down the sidewalk ahead of Cameron and me. When she got to our house, she jumped up the steps two at a time.
She’d definitely had too much sugar today.
Cameron and I walked in silence as we followed her, stopping when we reached the bottom of the stairs she’d raced up. I turned to face him with a pained smile.
“Thank you,” I said. “For the escort. And from saving me the pain of ending that date myself.”
He nodded. “Anytime, Natalie.”
He sounded like he meant it.
“I’d invite you in, but I need to get Chloe to bed.”
Somehow. Might not be possible, but I had to try.
I took a backward step onto the bottom stair, slowly edging away from him. Not because I necessarily wanted to, but because I knew I needed to. Before my daughter said something embarrassing again.
Cameron brushed off my words. “Of course. Don’t worry about it.”
Another step. “Can I order you a ride or something?”
“Nah, I’m good.” He gave a reassuring smile but didn’t move.
I was halfway to my front door now. “You’re going to stand there until we’re inside, aren’t you?”
The corner of Cameron’s lips twitched. “I’m nothing if not thorough.”
“Noted.”
His mouth transformed into a smirk, and I tried not to stare at it.
Tried not to remember what it had felt like on my neck, how talented it had been, even for those few short moments.
I wondered, not for the first time, if walking away from him had been a mistake.
Especially now that I knew more about him, knew who he was, that he probably would have been a safe person to rip the proverbial sex Band-Aid off with, even if I told myself that was something I shouldn’t do.
That I shouldn’t be jumping into bed with anyone that fast. But would it have been such a terrible idea if the man were Cameron? At the moment, it didn’t seem like it.
But I’d been fooled before.
And it didn’t matter anymore, anyway.
“It’s a good thing for a lawyer to be,” I added.
Because that was all he was to me.
“And I’m a very good…lawyer,” he said slowly, his voice dropping on the last word, almost like he didn’t want to say it.
“Mom, hurry up!”
I stumbled backward up another step. “Have a good night, Cam.”
His gaze glittered. “See you Monday, Sunny.”
With a shake of my head, I forced myself to turn around and open the door, disappearing behind it and sagging against the wooden interior of the nineteenth-century entryway.
When I peeked out the window to the side of the door a few moments later, Cameron was still standing there, looking at the sky, pinching the bridge of his nose. But it only lasted a second before he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away.