Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Rachelle practically shrieked through the phone. “You found his ex-girlfriend—and you’re leaving to go meet her today? In France?”
Cameron held the landline away from his ear, frowning. This was Lennon’s doing, without question. The next time he saw that old man, he was going to wrestle him to the ground and put him in a headlock. He needed to learn that there were real consequences to his actions.
“Yes, Chelle. Will you please calm down?”
“But what if she’s single?” she went on, still frenzied and not calming down in the slightest. “What if they lock eyes and fall in love all over again and Thomas wants to stay with her? What will you do then?”
Groaning, Cameron rubbed the space between his brows with his fingertips, his eyes closed. As if he hadn’t thought of this. As if he wasn’t anxious about it already without Rachelle’s hysterics.
If Thomas saw Dawn and they still felt strongly for one another, then…
Cameron would have to accept that, wouldn’t he?
Thomas had loved her before his traumatic experience.
It was nothing like what Thomas felt for Cameron…
which a psychoanalyst might classify as a mild form of codependency.
Cameron would never say that aloud, though.
What mattered was that Cameron had vowed to do anything in his power to make certain that Thomas had a contented and satisfying life. He’d assumed (perhaps hoped?) that that life would be spent together. But if it wasn’t meant to be…
Who was he to selfishly obstruct the pathway to Thomas’s true happiness? Cameron wouldn’t dare. Yes, he’d petitioned for Thomas to be his “on-paper” mate, but unbeknownst to Cameron, the whole arrangement had been against Thomas’s will.
Morally, Cameron had no hold over him. It was all one-sided, and if Thomas wanted to leave, Cameron would not stand in his way.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he told her simply. “Did you call me for the explicit purpose of shouting and being annoying?”
“Yes,” Rachelle said. “And also, Thing One and Thing Two are asking about you—they want to know when you and their new uncle Thomas will visit them again.”
“You told me not to call them that.”
“Not to people they’re meeting for the first time!”
Cameron rolled his eyes. “I don’t know, maybe toward the end of the month? I need to check my schedule.”
“Okay, before or after the bathhouse appointment? Are the two of you going?”
There was a slight pause on Cameron’s end where he was utterly, terribly confused. “What bathhouse appointment? What the hell are you talking about?”
It was Rachelle’s turn to be uncharacteristically silent for a moment. “Did Thomas not tell you about my wedding gift?”
“What gift?” Cameron said, reaching his own level of hysteria and shouting.
“Oh my God,” Rachelle groaned. “I don’t know what the hell you two are doing over there. Talk to your husband. We’ll figure out a date for a visit later. Have a safe trip to France.”
The line clicked. Cameron pulled the receiver away from his face, a deep crease in his brow. “What?”
A soft knock drew his attention toward his office door. He hung up the landline phone perched at the edge of his desk. “Yes?”
Thomas peeked his head inside. “Good morning. Am I interrupting?”
“No, hello…” He was dressed in well-tailored slacks, a navy-blue cashmere jumper and a dress shirt layered underneath, its white collar neatly peeking out just above the neckline.
His dark hair was cleanly swept back and off his forehead in the way he only wore it when he planned to leave the estate.
He looked well rested and stylish in his new garments. Healthy, tall and not gaunt at all. It was a complete turnaround from his visage a little over a month ago and a marked return to his cool greyhound facade.
“I’m all packed and ready to leave when you are,” Thomas said, stepping up to the opposite side of Cameron’s desk. “Miles is in the foyer—with Lennon. I think this is the first time I’ve seen them together in the same space. They’re very charming.”
“Good,” Cameron said, flexing and cracking his knuckles. “I was hoping to find Lennon before we left. He’s due for a spot of violence.”
Thomas’s eyes widened. “You would not hit that elderly man.”
“He has it coming.”
Thomas shook his head in a grin, clearly (and rightfully) disbelieving. Cameron backtracked. “Did you not have bonded servants within your home estate?” he asked. Why was Thomas so tickled by Lennon and Miles?
“Of course not. My elder father would never have allowed any sort of fraternizing among the servants like that—speaking of an elderly man you should hit.”
“He definitely has it coming.” Cameron’s nose upturned as he folded his arms. “Your father is a putrefying bag of maggots and he deserves much worse than a beating.”
“Oh, agreed! I think that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me. Shall we plot his murder together, then?”
Cameron exhaled a weighted sigh. “No, plotting sounds like too much work. I’d rather hire someone to take care of it.”
Thomas placed a palm to his chest. “Ugh, be still my beating heart. It’s as if you’re spouting sonnets!”
They both laughed. Cameron thought it grim of them to be entertained by this, but he was glad for it.
“Rachelle called,” he said, pivoting from the murky subject matter. “She wants to know if we’ll come by at the end of the month and see the boys.” Maybe it was presumptuous to assume that Thomas would still be here with him, and not with Dawn by that time, regardless…
Thomas nodded affably. “I would certainly enjoy that. They were cute.”
Cameron scoffed. “They’re cute for about an hour. Then I get sick of hearing them scream, constantly.”
“Well, my darling, if you’re going to growl at them like a bear, then chase, lift and twirl them above your head, they will scream. You have to do something with them that does not elicit such joyful excitement.”
Cameron’s cheeks warmed from the unexpectedly affectionate moniker. “Like what?” he asked.
“Like…” Thomas flicked his heather eyes to the side, his pale hands on his narrow hips. “Like reading a book.”
“They’ll still scream,” Cameron assured him. “Because that’s what children do. It’s their entire reason for existing.”
Thomas’s smile was radiant, like the sun glaring off the snowy hills on a cloudless winter morning. Blinding. “I’ll wager a bet with you that we can get them to sit calmly with us if we read to them.”
“You’re on,” Cameron said as he lifted his chin. “And what’s this bathhouse gift that Rachelle has given us for the end of the month? Why haven’t you mentioned it?”
Thomas’s smile dropped at that, along with his haughty and teasing posture. His expression shifted, somehow. Cameron wasn’t sure. As if Thomas had been caught with something stolen behind his back. “I…” Thomas began, faltering.
“Out with it,” Cameron said playfully, his eyebrow raised in curiosity and his arms still folded over his chest.
“She gave us a gift certificate to attend the local Roman bathhouse—do you know of it?”
“I do. Of course.”
“Okay, so I was… I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, given that bathhouses require things like nudity. The certificate is such that we will be the only patrons in the men’s baths, but still…”
Cameron frowned, confused by his hesitation. “If no other vampires are there, why should I object? I’ll have you know I’m nude all the time—at least once every day, in fact. Sometimes twice.”
A rosy flush spread along Thomas’s high cheek bones. He straightened his posture. “Yes, Cameron, I understand that, but you’re always alone, correct? You’ve never been nude with me.”
Understanding struck Cameron like a lightning bolt. Thomas standing across from him, elegant and long-legged in his smart jumper and trousers. But what about Thomas without all of that? Naked and wet from a bath and with his hair disheveled.
The heat behind Cameron’s eyes came on so quickly that it startled him, and he had no idea what to do with it.
“Ah, there,” Thomas said, a little smile gracing his lips. “He is enlightened.”
“I am… so sorry—”
“You needn’t be.”
Cameron unfolded his arms and lifted a palm to the back of his neck, massaging. What the hell? This was happening to him increasingly and without warning, and it was disconcerting to say the least. He closed his eyes. All he could do was wait it out.
“Cameron…” He heard Thomas moving around the desk and toward him. His eyes sprang open as Thomas stood over him. “Please don’t be ashamed of this.”
“I am not accosting you.”
“I know you aren’t.”
“But this”—Cameron gestured toward his eyes—“makes me feel as if I am! Like some perverted creature—”
“No, please, I…” Thomas lifted his hands so that his palms hovered on either side of Cameron’s face. “May I?”
“May you what?” Cameron asked nervously.
“Just…” Thomas’s cool palms rested against his skin, gently cupping his face.
Slowly, Thomas’s eyes brightened to their silver-blue luster.
“I don’t want you to be ashamed of this or feel perverted, because it’s natural, Cameron.
It’s beautiful and it… it gratifies me deeply.
I’m very, very pleased that you respond to me this way.
” He swallowed and took a breath. “I love it.”
“You do?” Cameron said, feeling the warmth and effervescence of his nature shifting and climbing up his spine. He felt as if he were falling into a trance while staring into Thomas’s eyes. A soothing and curious rapture sweeping across his being.
“I do,” Thomas said quietly, brushing his thumb over the soft swell of Cameron’s bottom lip. “Close your eyes for me, please?”
Cameron did as he was told, letting his lids flutter closed.
“Take a few deep breaths,” Thomas instructed. “To control the burn behind your eyes, breathe slowly and think about pinching out the firelight from a match. Or maybe snuffing out the tip of a cigar.”