26. Ivy #2
She quickly turns to Camden. “But now that I’ve seen you and you know that I’m in town, we have to get together for dinner and catch up.”
He nods. “Absolutely.”
Her smile falters slightly, her brow furrowing as she looks him over. “I’ve been worried about you. I called the gallery a few times, and your cell, but never heard back.”
His gaze cuts to me quickly before it returns to her, and he forces a smile I can tell isn’t real. “Yeah. Sorry about that. Things have just been…difficult.”
She frowns. “I heard about your brother. I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do…”
“I appreciate it.” He reaches up and places his hands on her shoulders, then leans in and kisses her on the cheek. “I’ll call you. Same number?”
Roxy nods, then motions over her shoulder. “I need to get going, but I better hear from you.”
She darts away and disappears around the corner, leaving me awkwardly standing beside Cam with my heart in my throat and my stomach threatening to make the few bites of breakfast I managed to eat come back up.
Cam turns back to me—agonizingly slowly—running his hands through his hair as his uncertain gaze meets mine.
“Art school together, huh?”
I don’t mean it to come out so accusatory.
Or to sound so damn laced with jealousy.
But that’s exactly what happens.
I’ve suddenly become that person who turns green with it the moment another woman who clearly has a past with the man I’m?—
I don’t even know what we are, but this heat spreading through my body isn’t a pleasant, warm glow. It’s the kind of uneasy feeling I only ever got before with Drew when I saw the way women flocked to him.
He clears his throat and approaches me, stopping within touching distance but not moving to do it—maybe because he senses my current mood. “We were friends.”
I raise a brow. “Friends?”
He nods.
“That looked like more than just friends.”
Cam releases a labored sigh, his shoulders slumping beneath his leather jacket.
“I wasn’t very careful with my actions when I was using.
Before I went to rehab. We were friends.
Just friends,” he clarifies, “but things went further than they should have, even though I thought we were on the same page and knew what it was. I think she wanted more.” He shakes his head.
“No, I knew she did. Crossing that line with her is something that wouldn’t have happened if I’d been thinking clearly.
I’m not a thoughtless person, Ivy, despite what some of my recent actions might suggest, but…
”—he sighs again and glances toward where she went around the corner—“I definitely fucked up where she was concerned, and I owe her an explanation. And an apology.”
His confession blasts away any green tinge of jealousy and replaces it with embarrassment for the way I acted.
My cheeks heat, and I dip my head, unable to look at him. “Part of the whole making amends thing?”
He lifts my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze as he nods. “Something like that.”
“Is that…why you came to my house?”
His brow furrows. “What do you mean?”
“That night, when you came back to town. Is that why? Because you were making amends?”
Cam watches me for a second, as if he’s unsure how to answer or how I’ll respond to it, before he shakes his head. Those warring emotions that always seem to battle in his eyes continue their melee. “No. That wasn’t why I came.”
“Then why did you?”
He clenches his jaw, a muscle there ticcing as he considers me. “I had to make sure you were okay. To check up on you…”
“So, you came all the way from London to do that? You couldn’t have just asked your mother? You couldn’t have called?”
All those things would have been much easier, especially since he apparently has no intention of letting Nancy know he’s here anytime in the near future.
But Cam shakes his head, his hold on my chin tightening. “No. I had to see you myself. And warn you.”
“That you were back in town?”
He nods.
None of it makes any sense.
The way he looks at me…
These overwhelming feelings that seem to bubble up inside me with a simple touch from him…
All the secrets and lies that have been told to me by Drew and him have left me unable to grasp what’s real without questioning it.
And having to stare into Cam’s eyes doesn’t help matters.
I pull free from his hold, turn, and look at Prometheus again.
At the agony he’s suffering.
His clenched fists.
The eagle’s talon digging into his eye, tearing into his flesh.
This is how Camden sees himself—a victim of unintended consequences.
And my heart shatters for him because of that.
Because he’s proven to me time and time again since he’s been back how caring he is, how kind, always looking out for me, taking care of me even when I don’t want to let anyone.
Yet, it’s right there in the blood spilling from Prometheus—the unintended consequences.
Cam sitting down on that bench with me that night, not correcting me when I thought he was Drew, led to their relationship being destroyed, even as it helped build mine with his brother based on a lie.
A tear starts to blur my vision, and I quickly blink it away, refusing to cry again for a man who still holds so many secrets.
I can see them in his eyes, hiding in those shadows that always consumes them.
He may have come clean about a lot of things, but there are some he keeps locked down deep. Truths he refuses to tell because he’s terrified of the consequences.
Something tells me I’ll never know—not those hidden truths and not the man standing beside me.
Not truly.
He and Drew both had secrets, but Camden’s are undoubtedly far worse if this painting is any reflection of them.