Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Camilla’s lips were still tingling after Marlon’s goodnight kiss when she closed her bedroom door. She wished she had the courage to invite him in.
But if Camilla invited him into her bed—into her heart—would she still have the courage to stand on her own two feet if their budding romance crumbled? She’d spent her entire adult life clawing her way to independence. Refusing her parents’ golden handcuffs meant making sure she could stand on her own. Leaving her first boyfriend had meant promising herself she wouldn’t be at a man’s mercy again.
She’d made a stupid mistake with the loan, but she was nearly free of it. She was so close .
Giving her heart to Marlon was too big a risk. It was like signing up for another high-interest debt right after she’d cleared the last one. She couldn’t do it.
She clung to their silly house rule with a white-knuckled grip, half out of desperation, and half out of desire, and she slept alone, telling herself that oral sex wasn’t sex, and over-the-clothes dry humping wasn’t sex, and having him orgasm all over her stomach wasn’t sex either. If they hadn’t had sex, she could still claim to be making good decisions.
At least within the confines of her delusional mind.
Her ringing phone woke her at half past three in the morning. Pawing at her nightstand, Camilla found the device and squinted at its bright screen.
“Hello?”
“Camilla, you’d better come,” Daniel said, sounding grave.
Camilla was suddenly wide awake. “What’s wrong?” She sat up and flipped the covers off, tucking her phone between her shoulder and her ear. She turned on the lights and squinted at the room. “Are you at the bakery?”
“Someone broke in. I’ve just called the cops. Your office is trashed.”
“ What ?” She stood still in the center of her room just in time to see her bedroom door open. Marlon stood in the entrance, wearing his usual pajama pants and no shirt. She startled at the sight, her mind spinning out.
So he’d been putting the tee on for her benefit in the mornings. If she slept beside him, all that bare skin would be hers to enjoy.
Camilla averted her gaze from his beautiful chest and tried to keep her panic at bay. She grabbed the nearest pair of jeans and tried to hop into them, putting her phone on speaker at the same time. “Are you still there, Danny? Wait outside until the cops get there.”
Marlon went solid in the doorway. His face was a mask of tension, his eyes so intent on her phone’s screen that it looked like he was trying to shoot lasers out of his eyeballs.
“It’s fine. I’ve checked the building. There’s no one here. I’m sorry to wake you in the middle of the night, Camilla. I just thought you should know.”
“Of course. I’m glad you called. I’m on my way.”
She hung up the phone and buttoned her jeans, then cast about the room for a top. She wore her nightie and was too panicked to take it off to get dressed properly. She threw a sweater on and turned to leave the room, but Marlon was still standing in her way.
Blinking at him, she gestured at the hallway beyond. “I have to go.”
Big hands landed on her shoulders. Marlon stared into her eyes as his jaw hardened. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”
Protests crowded up her throat, but one look at Marlon’s face told her they’d fall on deaf ears. She gave him a curt nod. “I’ll wait by the front door.”
“Do not leave without me.”
An impatient huff was the only response he deserved, and it was the only response he got.
His hands were still on her shoulders. He squeezed gently. “Everything will be okay,” he assured her softly.
Maybe it was the tone of his voice that made her eyes water. Maybe it was the panic of the unknown. Maybe it was the warmth of his hands and the heat pouring off his bare chest when her entire body felt ice-cold.
Whatever it was, his quiet assurance nearly undid her. She wanted to crumple like an old piece of tinfoil and let him smooth her out again. She wanted him to coax her back to life and stand by her side until everything was okay.
But how could she trust him to take care of her when she’d never had anyone do it before? How could she lean on him when he could leave her out in the cold like everyone else did?
The only reason she’d gotten to where she was was because of her grit, her determination, and her independence. Within weeks, she’d be free of her past mistakes. She was at the finish line. It was right there .
Marlon just watched her, concern and comfort radiating off him like heat waves rising from sunbaked asphalt.
Gulping her fears away, Camilla nodded. “Okay.”
He brushed his lips to her forehead, then stalked down the hall to his room. A few minutes later, they were both shoving beanies onto their heads and bracing themselves against the cold. Marlon ushered her to the passenger seat of his car and jogged around to take the wheel.
The bakery was lit up when they arrived. A police cruiser was parked along the curb, and Camilla could see two officers talking to Daniel inside. She hurried to the door, but Marlon got there first. He held it open for her, his presence a solid wall beside her.
It felt…good, she decided. It was a comfort to have him there. She’d bask in it, at least until she knew what was going on.
“Vick,” Marlon greeted one of the policemen with a nod. The officer was younger than the one who’d attended last time, here with another youngish partner who was busy talking to Daniel.
Vick and Marlon shook hands, and then Marlon introduced Camilla. He must’ve interacted with lots of cops in his job because he seemed to be friendly with the whole force.
The cop nodded to the back of the building, where the kitchen was. “You get that security system up and running yet? Ricky said you were installing one after the window.”
Marlon’s brow was stormier than Camilla had ever seen it. “No,” he said, and it was so low it sounded like it came from the mouth of a beast. “But it’s going in today.”
“Hold on.” Camilla took a deep breath. “I don’t have the money?—”
“I don’t need your money,” Marlon snapped.
She reared back, blinking rapidly.
Marlon flinched, then brought his hands up to scrub his face. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, contrite. “I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” His eyes met hers as he dropped his hands, turning his palms up in a pleading motion. “Please let me do this for you, Camilla. I won’t be able to rest unless I know you’re safe here.”
Her throat thickened. What could she say to that?
“Okay,” she replied.
After the police were gone, there was lots of clean-up to do. Daniel followed, intending to help until she shooed him away to start making the day’s bread. So, with Marlon murmuring on the phone at the front of the bakery, Camilla stared into her office and took a strong, bracing breath.
Her filing cabinet had been overturned, its contents spilled onto the ground. Her laptop was gone. The desk was pushed into the middle of the room and there was a line of dents in the drywall behind it, like someone had been probing the wall for something.
The safe, most likely. Camilla braced herself and headed into the storeroom. On the far wall, the safe had been installed at chest level. It sat closed, waiting, and Camilla unlocked it with trembling hands.
There wasn’t much in it: the tray from the register with its float of cash, a small reserve of money, and some paperwork. At the end of every workday, she deposited all her excess cash at the bank, so she never had much money on the premises.
But nothing had been disturbed, and Camilla wondered if it was because the intruder hadn’t thought to look in the storeroom beside racks of kitchen implements and spare baking supplies.
She shuffled back to the office, heart heavy, and got to work cleaning up. Marlon helped, silent beside her, and Camilla was grateful. He hauled the filing cabinet up without even a grunt of effort and piled the mountain of mixed-up paperwork onto her desk. The line of dents in the drywall drew a scowl to his brow.
“Did they take anything other than the laptop?”
Camilla shook her head. “Not that I can tell.”
“Hmm.”
Camilla’s mood was dark. She wondered if the broken window had been a warning. Had her ovens been tampered with too? Was this all a message from Frankie?
She couldn’t say any of that out loud, because it would mean admitting she’d taken a loan from a shark. It would mean telling Marlon just how broke and vulnerable she was. She couldn’t do it, and—selfishly—she didn’t want his opinion of her to change.
Would he still look at her with that worshipful expression if he knew how stupid she’d been to sign up for this loan? Would he help her if he knew she was caving to a dirtbag’s extortion?
Camilla wasn’t strong enough to find out. She just wanted her office cleaned up so she could get back to work.
By the time dawn lightened the sky, the office was back to rights, and Camilla was exhausted. Her front-of-house staff were beginning to arrive, and the pastry chef who took the morning shift was already puttering around the kitchen.
Then Marlon’s phone rang, and he strode to the back door and flung it open. After a short conference with the man on the other side, an army of security personnel descended on her space. Marlon clipped out orders like a military general, pointing out areas where he wanted cameras and equipment, clearing space for his people to work. Half a dozen men stalked through her space like ghosts in black uniforms, their gazes serious, their fingers deft as they spliced wires and installed cameras.
“I should be protesting,” Camilla told Daniel, watching the work. “I should refuse his help.”
Daniel finished shaping a loaf with fast, sure movements, tipping it into the waiting banneton. He placed a broad palm down on the lightly floured surface and planted his other hand on his hip. “There’s nothing wrong with accepting help, Camilla.”
She glanced around at the security personnel, feeling lost. “This is too much.”
Marlon glanced over then, and the storm on his brow told Camilla he wouldn’t accept any protests.
Then it was time to open the bakery, and she didn’t have time to worry about it anymore. Customers blew in through the door, stamping their feet against the cold and curling their fingers around warm drinks. She smiled and waved away questions about the Elite Security installers busy putting up cameras by the front door, using the window incident as explanation. It was just a precaution, she said, smiling through her lies.
She thought about Frankie’s eyes following her when she’d left his shop, about the thousand dollars she’d refused to give him, about his threats to tell the whole town about her debts. She wondered again if this was a message. Be careful , the destruction whispered. I can destroy your life .
When Scarlett came through the door with Lucy by her side, Camilla came around the counter and threw her arms around her friends. Once they had coffees in their hands, they huddled around a table in the corner and Camilla filled them in.
Wide-eyed, Lucy shook her head. “Why are they targeting you?”
Camilla hid her startled reaction with a frown. Did her friends suspect she was in trouble? “Who?”
“Whoever did this!” Lucy waved a hand at the window, then at the back of the bakery to indicate the office.
“We don’t know if it’s the same people,” Camilla hedged, but her thoughts turned back to that dark place. She’d goaded Frankie Smith, and now her office was trashed. The message was loud and clear.
“Of course it’s the same people.” Lucy’s brows drew low over her eyes. “I had a bunch of spammy negative reviews on my online store recently, and someone tried to steal parcels I had ready to ship out to customers right out of the back seat of my car. I think someone is trying to kill small business in this town.”
Camilla frowned. “Who left the reviews? Who stole from you?”
Lucy spread her hands. “No idea. But my back window got smashed, and the reviews all appeared overnight afterward. None of them were from real customers. I checked. I’ve been trying to get the reviews taken down, but they’re still up.”
“Sorry, Lucy,” Camilla said, stretching her hand to pat the back of Lucy’s.
Lucy shook her head. “This town is falling apart.”
“You sound like Mr. Petrovski,” Scarlett said, lips twitching.
“Well, maybe he’s right! His neighbor was involved in a ring of thieves, and she abandoned her cat!” Lucy huffed. “Only a heartless monster would abandon their cat.”
“Can’t disagree there,” Camilla mumbled, heart heavy.
Then it was time to get back to work, so she said goodbye to her friends and moved behind the counter again. Marlon was outside, frowning at one of his workers on a ladder, and she found herself unable to look away. He stood in the bitter cold, his breath coming out in puffs, pointing to something in the eaves of the building. The sun was weak, but it still cast his face in a warm glow.
Camilla poured black coffee into a couple of mugs and went outside.
“How long until you get it up and running?” Marlon asked when she opened the door and slipped outside.
“An hour or two,” the man replied, then smiled at Camilla. “So, this is the woman that finally melted the boss’s heart, is it?”
“Elton,” Marlon warned.
Camilla handed them both their coffees and lifted the cream and sugar she’d brought out in question. When Elton shook his head and took a sip of the coffee black, she smiled at him. “Thank you for coming out here so early,” she said, neatly avoiding any mention of Marlon’s heart. If they spoke about that, they might start talking about her own heart, and that was a topic that she’d prefer to keep off-limits.
“The boss snaps his fingers, and I say how high.”
“That’s not how that expression goes,” Marlon grumbled, then frowned at Elton. “You know what? Get back to work.”
Elton winked at Camilla and turned back to the wires sticking out of the wall beside him.
“We’ll have to turn the power off for a few minutes in an hour or so,” Marlon said to her. “Once we have everything installed, we need to turn the power off so we can connect the system up and start testing. Shouldn’t be more than ten minutes without power, and testing will take about an hour.”
Camilla took a deep breath. “Okay. Thank you.”
Marlon moved closer, his hand stroking her upper arm. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Camilla answered, surprised that it was the truth. She tried to imagine how this morning would have gone without Marlon—and shuddered.
She would’ve arrived at the bakery before four in the morning and been a ball of nerves. She would’ve struggled to clean up the mess, and then she would have spun out in her own mind about what to do next. Now, her office was tidy again, she’d have a security system by the end of the day, and she could smile at customers and assure them everything was fine.
All because of Marlon.
Would he still help her if he knew that this was all her own fault? That she’d brought this on by provoking Frankie on Friday?
“Thank you,” she repeated.
Marlon lifted his hand from her arm and stroked her cheek with the backs of his fingers. “We’ll find out who did this and why.”
She hoped not, but all she did was give him a weak smile.
Marlon misread her expression. His gaze grew intent as he cupped her face. “I promise, Camilla. We’ll figure it out. You don’t have to feel unsafe here ever again.”
He had such a beautiful heart. Half of her felt unworthy of him, and half of her wanted to curl up in his arms and never have to face the world alone again.
“Thank you,” she repeated. “I’ve never had anyone do anything like this for me before,” Camilla said quietly, nodding to Elton on the ladder. “I’ve been on my own for as long as I can remember. It’s a little overwhelming.”
Marlon’s gaze softened. “I get it.”
And he did; she knew that. He’d been on his own his entire adult life too.
“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” a shrill voice called out from across the street.
Camilla turned and frowned at the sight of her mother, who glanced in each direction before hurrying across the street. She grabbed Camilla by the shoulders and pursed her lips. “I’ve been worried sick.”
That didn’t sound right. “You have?”
“You will not believe how many people have called asking what’s going on with you, Camilla.”
Ah . So her mother was worried about her reputation, not Camilla’s well-being. How would Georgina react if she knew Camilla had taken money from Stirling’s scummiest loan shark and was now being extorted? Camilla would lose what little family she had.
Her mother huffed. “This has gone on long enough, Camilla. You’ll shut this bakery down and find something worthwhile to do with your life.”
The implication, of course, was that running a bakery wasn’t worthwhile. That Camilla’s life’s work was utterly worthless.
In the whole time she’d been standing outside, the cold hadn’t penetrated, but she felt it now. Her body turned icy as she stood before her mother, a browbeaten child once more.
“Vandalism first, and now a break-in. What else is it going to take for you to smarten up?” Georgina shook Camilla by the shoulders. “Everyone is talking, you know. Is that what you want? You want to bring shame down on us with what you’re doing here? Why can’t you be like Sophia?”
Camilla’s heart withered. She shouldn’t let those words affect her, but all she wanted was a loving family. She’d left home at seventeen and put herself through culinary school. She’d scrimped, saved, and borrowed for the opportunity to have something of her own. She’d done it on her own and thought that reconciling with her family as an adult would have bridged the growing gap between them.
She wanted to be the bigger person, wanted her family to finally recognize how much she’d accomplished.
But now she just felt like a pile of frozen garbage.
Maybe it was the fear that thinned her defenses. Maybe it was the last couple of weeks with Marlon, when she’d experienced being cherished and appreciated for the first time in her life. Maybe it was simple exhaustion. Whatever it was, her mother’s words penetrated like an ice pick, piercing her chest and embedding themselves in her heart. After holding herself together for the past decade and a half, Camilla finally felt herself crumple.
Then a deep voice said, sounding so angry Camilla froze, “No one is ashamed of Camilla. The whole town loves her. Look at how many people are already here to support her.”
When she glanced up at him, Marlon wore a mask of white-hot fury. It melted the ice that had crusted around Camilla’s body, and a wave of relief—of affection, of…of something more—washed over her.
Then her father stomped over to them from across the road. “And who are you? How do you know my daughter?” Dean sniffed, a brow arched in Marlon’s direction.
He was her roommate. Her landlord. Her friend. Her lover. Her new security consultant who happened to be working pro bono for reasons that probably had to do with how many times they’d made each other orgasm. None of those descriptions fit properly, and Camilla scrambled to find something that worked?—
Marlon curled an arm around Camilla’s shoulders. “I’m Camilla’s man. Who the hell are you?”
She blinked at her parents. They blinked at Marlon. Marlon leaned over and kissed her temple. Behind her, Elton slurped his coffee, clearly enjoying the show.
“Well.” Camilla’s mother clasped her hands. “I… Well. We are her parents ?—”
“Camilla never mentioned you,” Dean challenged.
“That’s funny. She’s told me plenty about you,” Marlon answered darkly. “It’s nice to finally put faces to the stories.”
Camilla’s eyes widened. A thrill shot through her at the way her parents’ eyes narrowed. No one spoke to them like that. Not even Camilla when she was a rebellious teenager. Not anyone .
But…it felt good to be defended like that, to have someone to step in front of her when she needed a protector.
Then her mother turned to her where she stood nestled in the crook of Marlon’s arm and said, “We’re having a family dinner tonight. You will be there, Camilla.”
“Can’t wait,” Marlon cut in, though it had been plainly obvious Georgina had tried to exclude him. His arm squeezed Camilla’s shoulders.
Dean bristled, scowling at Marlon, then grabbed his wife’s hand and went back to the car. When they’d driven off, Marlon turned to Camilla. His eyes were downcast, his expression tight. It looked like he was about to apologize. He rubbed the back of his neck and arched a brow at her, opening his mouth?—
Before he could say anything, Camilla launched herself into his arms, wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. Then she crushed her lips to his. Marlon caught her and kissed her back as a low groan rumbled through his throat.
“You don’t have to come tonight,” she said against his lips, then kissed him harder.
“Don’t even start,” he answered, banding an arm across her back so she was plastered to his front. Her legs were squeezing his hips. He buried his hand in her hair and tugged her head back far enough that he could meet her gaze with his own, eyes blazing bright. “I’m not letting you go there alone. As much as I like coming home to chocolate-chip cookies afterward, I don’t want you to look like you’re about to cry while you make them. Never again, sweetheart.”
She kissed him until Elton cleared his throat, then reluctantly slid down Marlon’s body. He curled his finger under her chin and brushed his lips against hers one last time before they both got back to work.
When she went back to the warmth of the bakery, Camilla couldn’t help the smile that curled her lips.