CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Come on in!” I invited her, a bit too eagerly. A chaperone would definitely ensure that I remained on my best behavior.
If I couldn’t keep my traitorous body under control, and my brain wasn’t willing to be polite but distant with Camden, then the only thing left was to make sure that I wasn’t ever alone with him.
Irene entered the room and I couldn’t blame her apprehensive look. Despite what I’d told Camden, the sexual tension between us was so thick that even a machete couldn’t have cut it. She seemed to be sensing it, but only said, “What can I do to help?”
“I didn’t want you to come down here,” he assured her. “I was letting you know where I was going to be for the next few hours in case you needed me.”
Again I wondered why he treated Irene like she was his mom, too.
The one thing I did know was that she probably should be resting. “We’re okay. We don’t need any help.” Why did I like using the word we when it came to me and Camden?
No time to examine that weirdness.
Irene sat down on the two-person sofa near the patio doors. “I want to. I haven’t gotten to contribute much.”
I exchanged a glance with Camden and while we were both worried about her health, neither one of us was willing to take this away from her.
So I walked her through how to make the lei, and I felt Camden’s gaze on me. When I glanced over at him, there was an indescribable expression on his face. When he caught me looking, he shifted to a slight smile, giving me a nod. He liked what he was seeing. It made him happy.
Ignoring the way that his approval made my blood thicken in my veins, I focused on finishing up my explanation.
“Easy enough,” Irene said. “I used to do cross-stitch before the cancer, but given the pain and exhaustion from treatment, I haven’t been able to do it lately. Once I’m cancer-free I hope to take it up again.”
I dragged a bucket of flowers closer for her, bringing over the string and a needle. I sat in the chair next to the sofa, wanting to be close by in case she needed anything.
Camden seemed to have the same thought as he sat in the chair across from me, directly in my line of vision.
“Rachel and I got a chance to chat at the bridal shower,” Irene said to him. “Did you know that she grew up in California, just like you did?”
“California?” he repeated, his “what is your secret?” look back on his face. “But I thought you went to camp with Sadie in New York.”
Did this man ever forget anything he heard? “I did. My maternal grandparents live in New York so I’d visit them for a week and then go to camp. My parents liked the idea of family being nearby and I liked the idea of traveling across the country.” I actually had gone to camp in New York for the reasons I’d just listed. I tried to keep my backstory as close to my real life as possible. It made it much easier to keep track of everything when I pulled it from my actual life.
“Which do you prefer?” Irene asked. “The East or the West Coast?”
My mom was on the West Coast, and so that kind of ruled it out. “I think I prefer living in New York.”
Camden interjected, “I don’t know how much you can trust her opinion. She roots for an awful school.”
Irene’s face dropped. “Oh no, you’re a Wolverine?”
“I tried telling her, but she didn’t listen,” Camden said with a wink that did unmentionable things to certain parts of my body.
“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of our decade-long winning streak,” I said, and it made them both laugh.
“Rachel also started her own business,” Irene added and I wondered what she was up to.
“I heard,” he said and I tried not to let those words affect me, remembering feeling close to him and sharing parts of my life with him.
“And you’re ...” Irene tried to remember. “A wedding planner?”
“Event coordinator,” I said.
“How did you get into that?” she asked.
“I was a bridesmaid for several of my friends that I’d grown up with and realized I was really good at helping to coordinate things. I’m organized and work well under pressure.” Well, usually, when the pressure didn’t involve a handsome man trying to put me under his spell.
“So you kind of fell into it?” she asked. “It’s not what you went to college for?”
“No, I started out in finance.” I realized a moment too late what I had done. From the way Camden’s eyebrows lifted, it was obvious that I’d set off his internal spy alarms. He opened his mouth, ready to ask me about it.
Irene accidentally intervened. “Do you do a lot of weddings, then?”
“It’s what my business focuses on.”
“What’s the worst thing that’s happened at a wedding? Just so we can be prepared,” she said with a little laugh, but there was something behind it. Something she was concerned about.
“I don’t want to freak anyone out, but things always go wrong at weddings. Usually they’re little things, like a bridesmaid’s bouquet going missing or people flubbing their vows. But I think I’ve seen everything. From medical emergencies, to brides and grooms running away, to actual fires and floods. There was the one where the bride and her sister were both in love with the groom and the sister showed up drunk and the bride had her in a headlock and we had to pry them apart. Lots of drunk people messing things up. Animals who were part of the ceremony peeing and pooping in the aisle. Mothers of the groom wearing white to the wedding. We had a best man once who was so drunk and so sick that he passed gas during the ceremony and made one of the bridesmaids throw up. Oh! There was the wedding where the bride, who ran a pet shop, insisted on having bowls with fish on each table, and her mother wanted to put floating lit candles on the top.”
Irene’s eyes went wide. “No.”
“Oh yes. All those poor fish died and one of the flower girls wouldn’t stop screaming when she saw it and had to be taken out of the reception. It was pretty awful.”
She reached over to rap on the wooden table next to her. “Knock on wood, none of that happens with this wedding.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t,” I told her.
“You’re a very good friend,” she responded.
Camden’s phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket to look at it. “Excuse me a second.”
He went out into the hallway and I could hear his muffled voice just beyond the door.
“I told him he works too much,” Irene said, putting another flower onto her lei. “He doesn’t listen, though.”
“Children are funny that way,” I said. “Especially when they’re adults.” And could make their own life decisions and didn’t need a mother telling them how to live. “I feel like parents forget that part.”
“We don’t forget. We’re just, unfortunately, very human. We wish we could be perfect for you, but we’ve got our own strengths and shortcomings, just like anyone else. We make a lot of mistakes, even when we don’t mean to. But Camden does need to slow down. He’s been obsessed with his company going public.”
I wondered if he would have shushed her if he were still in the room. But she kept going. “He’s especially concerned about the money he’s going to get.”
That surprised me. When I’d talked to him earlier, he’d made it sound like he was more concerned with his employees than himself. I found this disappointing. “He wants to be rich, huh?”
“Oh no, I’m afraid it’s on my account. I’m the only parent they have left. Dan’s father suffered a heart attack a few years ago and now this.” She waved up to the scarf on her head. “There’s an experimental trial that’s not covered by insurance and it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and Camden says they’re going to pay for it after the company goes public.”
I immediately felt ashamed for having rushed to the wrong conclusion about him. It might have been due in part to rich men in my life doing their best to destroy me, and I could have used that disdain to keep Camden at arm’s length. Instead he had to go and be all noble.
“I’m so sorry,” I mumbled. About her husband dying, what she was going through, and the bad things I’d thought about Camden.
“They wanted to wait a few years until after their first CPU hit the market, but decided to speed things up and do it now. With Dan getting married, there’s all of these huge life changes happening at once. All I have to do is get Camden settled and happy.” She told me this information like a concerned parent, not as someone who was trying to make me into that person in Camden’s life. It was rather refreshing.
But I was still a bit confused. “Why do you talk about him like you’re his mom?” I asked. It was a relationship I still hadn’t quite figured out.
“That’s not my story to tell.” She reached over to pat my hand.
I couldn’t help myself, even though she’d just politely told me to back off. “Was he living with you when he hurt his knee?”
She blinked slowly. “He told you about training for the Olympics and his accident?”
I nodded.
“He doesn’t share that story with anyone. I think only Dan and I know it. It says a lot about you that he told you.”
I decided not to share that the reason he’d told me was because he assumed I’d be too drunk to remember.
Still, her words somehow managed to make me feel both giddy and stressed. To find out that I was in possession of information that had a high level of significance to Camden, and then to fret over what exactly that meant. Was it part of his ploy? Did he really just think I’d forget? Or did it mean something more?
Something I hadn’t considered during all of this mess was just telling Camden the truth. Not about the maid-of-honor gig, but about the spy thing. The downside was that it might make him angry with Sadie and Dan for having let it slip, but if I told him I knew, that would bring a stop to everything, right? He’d stop trying to seduce me and I’d stop being seduced. Win-win.
There was a knock at the door. Camden wanting to be let back in. Although I didn’t quite feel up to facing him again after the information Irene had shared with me, I got up and answered.
“How was your telegram to the past?” I asked, trying to lighten my own mood.
“Your mom says hi,” he said with a smirk, coming into the room.
A frozen panic wrapped around my heart. Had he really talked to my mom? I followed him back to the sitting room and tried to calm my racing heart. My mother could so blow all of this for me. I’d emphasized many times that she couldn’t say a word to anyone. I probably should have clarified that it also included men she was considering as possible fathers to her grandkids.
There were many things she could have told him. Not just about my job. She had a whole lifetime of embarrassing moments to choose from. Like the Padded Bra Fiasco or the Spray Tan Incident.
Maybe Camden had some of those, too. “So, what was Camden like growing up?” I asked Irene. Even if I didn’t understand their entire situation, it was obvious that she considered him to be like another son.
He made a face, but she either didn’t see it or didn’t care. “He was pretty normal. He read comic books and played video games. He was also terrible with girls.”
“Really?” I asked, delighted.
“Untrue,” he retorted, and his denial made me giggle.
Irene smiled, as amused as I felt. “What was the name of that girl that you had the huge crush on? Lara Croft?”
“Lara Croft?” I repeated. “The video game character with the really big ...” My eyes drifted to Irene and I shifted to, “... desire to raid tombs?”
“You know that game?” he asked.
“You weren’t the only kid with a PlayStation.”
Shaking his head at me, he turned back to Irene. “The girl you’re thinking of was Laura Hoff. And she didn’t give me the time of day.”
“It sounds like she was exceptionally stupid.” The words were out of my mouth before I could even consider whether it was wise to speak.
“Why would you say that?” he asked.
Um, because she wasn’t smart enough to date you?I kept it to myself.
“I don’t like to speak badly about other women, but she was not very bright,” Irene agreed with me. At least someone else in the room got it. “He didn’t figure out he preferred smart women until he got into college. Then after he graduated he got so busy ...” She let her voice trail off with a sigh.
Camden pointed at Irene’s lei. “She’s got a flower backward. Why aren’t you telling her she’s doing it wrong?”
“Now who’s changing the subject?” I asked him. “Irene can do whatever she wants and it is perfect.”
“Yeah, you weren’t saying that ten minutes ago,” he grumbled and I wanted to laugh again.
“Tell me more,” I invited her, and it was all I needed to get her talking. She didn’t explain their situation any further, but told me stories about Camden and Dan growing up, like how they got caught stealing gum from a store when they were twelve and how Dan’s father had marched them back to the store to apologize. He’d made them promise they’d never be dishonest again.
It made me more than a little uncomfortable.
We got around to Dan’s wedding, and how happy she was. “I’ve been trying to get them both married off. One down, one to go. I need some grandchildren.”
“You should meet my mom,” I told her.
“I’m not old enough to get married,” he said and I did not mock him, which I thought was very big of me considering that he thought it was hilarious when my mom was doing it to me.
“Twenty-seven is plenty old,” Irene disagreed with him. “I was twenty when I got married and look how happy I was.”
“Back in the olden days,” was his reply.
Not able to resist piling on him, just a little, I said, “Were those the days you got your phone from?”
Irene’s whole face lit up in agreement. “Isn’t that little flip phone just awful? He never sends me pictures like Dan does. And he doesn’t have the Tweeter or Instagram.”
“You should definitely get an account on Tweeter,” I told him with a wink of my own.
He chuckled and said, “You first.”
The rest of the afternoon passed that way—the three of us laughing and talking. I didn’t get any more details about Camden’s life growing up, but I noticed that as the hours flew by, that fear I’d felt earlier had totally passed. I was feeling peaceful. Happy.
I finished up my last lei, and was grateful for the help. I never would have gotten them all done on time without them.
A knock on the door prevented me from saying as much. Camden answered it, and it was Dan.
“My mom said she was here?” he said, sounding confused. He walked into the room, spotted me, then simmered with obvious annoyance.
Was he mad that we’d put his mom to work? I wouldn’t have blamed him if that was the case.
“What’s going on?” he asked. Definitely irritated.
Camden crossed his arms. “Nothing that’s any of your business.”
Dan frowned at him and reached for his mom. “Come on. We need to do some photos with just the mothers.”
I stood up. “Do you need my help?” Would Brandy need to be wrangled?
“Considering you’re not my or Sadie’s mom, no.” Dan’s reaction surprised me. He’d been nothing but nice to me so far.
I wondered if Sadie had told him the truth about our arrangement and it had made him mad. If he was angry that we were lying to everyone he loved.
Dan helped Irene up, putting her hand on the crook of his arm. I thanked her for her help and she waved to me over her shoulder.
“Any time, dear.”
They left and I was alone with Camden.
“What was that about? With Dan?” I asked—and whether I was trying to distract Camden or myself, I wasn’t sure.
“Dan told us last night he doesn’t want any of his groomsmen trying to hook up with the bridesmaids.”
Since that was my plan as well, I silently agreed with him. “Why did he decide that?” And what was Dan going to do about Mary-Ellen, who seemed totally dedicated to finding someone to have a fling with?
“I think he’s trying to limit the drama.”
I wished him all the luck in the world. “Then he should probably tell his bride to stop trying to set everyone up.”
Camden nodded. “And he’s mad at me because I won’t do what he says.”
His words sent my pulse into overdrive, my nerve endings flaring and sparking, like they were trying to signal to him. Telling him to come closer.
Camden seemed to receive my message as he walked over to where I was standing, invading my personal space. My heart pounded slowly and loudly. Could he hear it? “Sadie is trying to matchmake us, isn’t she?”
The part of my brain that could still think realized that while she’d been whispering in my ear, encouraging me to date Camden, she hadn’t been doing the same thing to him. Even though I’d assumed she was.
That fire was back in his eyes, his voice again low and growly sounding, making the still functioning part of my brain short-circuit. “Now what do you want to do?”
I didn’t ask what he wanted to do. I had a pretty good idea.
The only problem was I kind of wanted it, too.