25. Ivy #2
At least he has the decency to look contrite, running a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. But he doesn’t offer any explanation for their silence on the topic.
The mystery of Camden Usher was so enticing, something to unravel and explore, but now I’m just frustrated with his inability to come clean, even when we’re already airing out his dirty laundry.
I fist my hands on the table. “Didn’t he ever want to?”
That kind of secret would have crushed me.
I couldn’t have kept something like that from the man I loved.
“Of course he did, Ivy.” Cam slowly shifts, scrubbing his hands over his face. “He wanted to come clean with you from the beginning.”
But he didn’t.
Drew left me in the dark about something so important—not only to me but to us.
To his family. That night changed everything for everyone he loved, and its ripple effect continues today.
Nancy still doesn’t understand what happened between her sons or why Cam won’t come home to her, and it all stems from that one moment in time.
And in my heart, the fact that Drew kept it from me is just as bad as what Cam did.
“Then why didn’t he?”
I try to keep the anger out of my voice, but apparently, I fail because Cam winces.
He fingers his mug again, drumming his nails along the side of the chipped ceramic. “He didn’t tell you because I made him believe that he would lose you if he did.”
“ What ?”
Cam stares at his coffee, which must be cold by now, unable to look at me, his jaw clenched.
“I told you I was a prick, Ivy. I was so wrapped up in what happened between us that I didn’t think about the consequences for you, for him.
And when he sent me that text, I told you I didn’t apologize, but…
” He releases a troubled sigh, finally looking up at me with regret in his gaze.
“I replied and told him that the connection we had was so instantaneous and real that he would never have with you what I did in those twenty minutes we sat there together.”
I gape at him, unable to reconcile something so vicious with the man who has been so giving and kind to me.
“I was a different person back then, Ivy, and I’m not proud of what I did or what I said to him.
” He rubs his palm across his stubbled cheek.
“He probably believed it. Probably thought that he didn’t stand a chance against me because he always thought I had such an easier time than he did with women.
That’s why he didn’t come clean with you.
It’s why he cut me off. Not only because I did the unforgivable but because he would never risk losing you by telling you the truth. ”
Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes closed and run my hands through my hair, dropping my forehead to the table.
Several minutes pass by with just the noises of the diner—clinking silverware and plates, laughter, voices, orders being called out—floating through the air.
Cam gives me time. He gives me space. He lets me process everything in my own way, even when I don’t doubt he has more to say.
When I finally lift my head again, he’s watching me cautiously. “Do you think he ever would have told me?”
He offers a shrug. “I don’t know.”
“After he died, I knew he had been lying to me about stuff.” I shake my head. “But this?” I release a little laugh that doesn’t hold any humor. “Never crossed my mind.”
“I don’t want you to keep questioning your life with him.” His voice cracks, and he swallows down the emotion. “I told you the other day he never would have cheated on you, and I mean it. The whole love-at-first-sight thing doesn’t happen very often, but it did for him.”
Cam looks at me with so much unbridled passion in his gaze that my breath hitches.
And me.
He doesn’t say those words, and if he did, I’m not sure what I would do with them right now, but they’re still there in the way the blue seems to ripple and heat the longer he stares at me.
“He never would have done anything to lose you, Ivy, even if that meant lying to you. You may not agree with it, you may be pissed at him for it, but he had a reason. And it was because he loved you from day fucking one.”
The vehemence in his statement helps shatter some of the anger I’ve let build up over what Drew kept from me. Because somehow, somewhere deep down, I do believe what Cam says.
I saw it in the way Drew looked at me, felt the way he touched me, experienced the way he made love to me, and just loved me every day.
I saw it.
I felt it.
But I also felt what I did with Cam that night—that electricity, that spark, that undeniable draw that allowed me to throw inhibition to the wind and let him do such decadent things to me right out in the open.
And that thing I felt is what convinced me that Drew was the right man for me.
Would that have even happened if Cam hadn’t been there?
If he hadn’t come along?
If he hadn’t touched me like that?
I suck in a long, slow breath and release it, trying to force myself off that path of thought, because if I go down it, I’m not sure how I would get back.
“Please, don’t ruin your memories of your life with Drew because of something stupid I did. Just don’t.”
“I’m trying really hard not to, Cam, but?—”
“I know.” He nods, sympathy wetting his gaze. “And I’m sorry for that. For ruining what you had with the truth. I never would have told you but…” He swallows hard, looking down at his coffee rather than at me. “But you deserved to know, especially after the other night.”
When we said goodbye to Drew…
And reawakened something that maybe should have stayed dead…
But even as I think that, my body buzzes with memories of the way he held me when we returned from the shore and let me cry, how he touched me and sent me flying because it was what I needed in that moment, even if it was wrong, the way he fell apart with me after and let down his guard.
“Why didn’t you tell me then?”
He works his tense jaw, the conversation clearly getting under Cam’s skin.
“Because you were already breaking after going to the shore. There was just no way I could do that to you. But I wasn’t about to let what happened that night ever happen again…
until you showed up last night and you discovered the truth, until you knew what you were doing. For both of us.”
“What was I doing?”
The corners of his lips curl into a sad smile. “Opening the floodgate…”
Opening the floodgate…
It’s definitely a very good description of what happened both that night and in the last twelve hours.
Because Cam is a force of nature.
Dangerous. Brutal. Destructive. But also staggeringly beautiful in a dark way that threatens to consume me.
And I don’t know how to stop him from doing just that.
Or even if I want to stop it from happening.
“Promise me you’ll stop letting yourself get wrapped up in your head, Ivy.”
The plea in his voice, the strain of so deeply caring and not wanting to see me suffer, proves that he isn’t the horrible person he believes himself to be.
His goal right now isn’t staking a claim on me, nor rubbing in the fact that he “had” me first. He’s worried about my memories of Drew and how he will stay with me for eternity.
His focus is on ensuring I never forget that love.
Something I am desperately trying to do…
I’ve spent months wallowing in my grief over losing Drew, so allowing any other emotion seems like such a relief. And holding on to the anger at few for lying to me for so long rather than that pain is so much easier.
Cam told one lie. A really fucking big one. But Drew told years’ worth.
And that’s something I’m going to have to get past if I ever want to be able to concentrate on all that we did have that was real.
“I’ll try…”
“Good.” Cam glances out at the street through the massive window to our left. “It’s your day off, right?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“I want to take you somewhere today.” His cheeks pinken with an almost embarrassed blush that I have never seen from him. “I want to show you something.”
“Okay…”
He pulls my hand into his, the warmth seeping into my skin, grounding me while it simultaneously sets my heart racing. “I want you to know me, really know me, and that’s hard for me to do with anyone. But you deserve it, Ivy.” His grip tightens. “You deserve so much more than I can give you…”
The pain lacing his words twists like a knife in my chest, and I squeeze his hand, pulling it closer to me. “Don’t talk like that.”
Cam’s lips tilt into a crooked half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “But it’s true.”
It may be.
And Cam may be fucked up in ways I can’t even begin to comprehend.
But I don’t think there’s any way that I can look at Cam and not see his many dimensions.
Like his paintings, there isn’t just black and white.
There are a thousand shades of gray in his art and in Camden Usher.