Chapter 25
Sunny woke to the sound of bagpipes.
She thought for a moment that she’d fallen through a dodgy patch back to the Middle Ages, then she realized she was lying in bed in an horrendously expensive suite being paid for by a man who had wept over her the night before, and it was just her cell phone singing to her.
She peered at the numbers on the clock, then groped for her phone and answered it.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?” she said sleepily.
“’Tis seven o’clock, Sunshine. Half the day is gone.”
“Didn’t you just leave a few minutes ago?”
He laughed. “I think so, but come let me in anyway. And hurry, before they throw me out for picking your lock.”
She wasn’t about to ask any questions about things she didn’t think she would want to know. She hung up on him, borrowed the Ritz’s robe to put over her nightgown, then stumbled out into the sitting room and over to the door. She opened it and looked at a disgustingly perky Cameron mac Cameron.
“Restrain your enthusiasm, please,” she grumbled.
He kissed the end of her nose, then bounced into her suite. “Breakfast?”
“At this hour?” she asked incredulously.
He shut the door, then picked her up off her feet and swung her around. He let her slide back to the ground and held her tightly.
“Thank you,” he whispered intensely. “Thank you for staying.”
She only had to blink a couple of times to stop her eyes from burning. She steadfastly refused to think about anything but the fact that the man she loved was holding on to her as if he never wanted to let her go. He loved her. It was enough.
She smiled up at him as she pulled out of his embrace. “Thank you for wanting me to stay. Now, go order the saturated fat that you’ve probably been dreaming about all night and let me go to the bathroom.”
He walked over to the phone. “What would you like?”
She smiled on her way to her bedroom. “Just you. But I’ll settle for juice.”
“I’ll get you juice and work on the other.”
She nodded, consciously chose not to think about when that other might happen, then retreated to the bathroom to at least brush her teeth.
There was no hope for the rest of her, so she settled for dragging her fingers through her hair before she walked back out toward the living room.
She had to stop in the doorway of her bedroom and just admire the view.
Cameron was dressed in a beautiful dark gray suit, with a crisp white shirt and patterned tie.
He had taken off his shoes and his suit coat and was reading a newspaper spread out on her coffee table while chatting on his phone about some sort of business that seemed to please him.
She watched him for quite a while and felt something in her heart give way.
He was so much as he had been before. Intense. Restless. Full of good humor.
And watching her as he continued a conversation that she couldn’t hear anymore.
He smiled.
She smiled back, because she couldn’t help herself.
She could hardly believe where she was or whom she was with.
She couldn’t believe what she’d willing volunteered for either, but perhaps that was something better left for contemplating in the middle of the night when she could cry if she needed to.
Cameron had been willing to give up peace, comfort, and safety to brave the journey to the future with her.
Surely she could give up a little bit of her own comfort and pride to be his refuge while he dealt with whatever he was facing.
Especially given that she was in part responsible for his finding himself with a life he hadn’t asked for.
He rose and held out his hand. She crossed over to him and let him pull her against him. She closed her eyes and rested her head against his shoulder as he finished his conversation, then hung up. He tossed his phone onto the couch, then put his arms around her.
“I missed you.”
“You were just here.”
“I wish I’d never left,” he said honestly. “But since I had to, I wanted to return early to satisfy my heart—and to catch you still warm from sleep without your hair combed.”
“You’ve seen me without my hair combed before. And quite recently, if memory serves.”
“Aye, but I didn’t dare hold you then,” he said seriously. “And I wouldn’t have dared kiss you.”
“You probably don’t dare now, either, since that’s your breakfast at the door.”
“Is there no DO NOT DISTURB sign anywhere in this place?” he asked with a half laugh.
“It could be worse; it could be people with swords.”
“The saints preserve us, love,” he said with a shiver. “I’ll take breakfast any day over that, I daresay.”
She sat down on the couch and watched him as he retrieved his breakfast from the porter and brought it back over to set it on the coffee table. He sat down, then looked at her.
“Will you mind if I eat? I think better when I’m not hungry.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” she said with a smile. “I’ll just watch.”
“Are you afraid this will ruin your chi?”
“Ruin doesn’t quite describe it,” she said, waving him on to a breakfast that should have clogged his arteries just by being in the same room with him.
She watched him for a moment or two, then couldn’t help but touch.
It was like having a treasure she’d dreamed about but never thought to have sitting right next to her.
The temptation to make sure it was real was too strong to resist. She rubbed his back for a bit, then reached up and threaded her fingers through his dark hair that was still disreputably long.
He shivered, more than once. She understood completely.
Sunny was tempted to ask him how in the world he thought they would survive the limbo they were in but decided there was just no point. He was probably making it up as he went, just as she was.
She sighed silently. She could find ways to keep herself occupied by herself for the foreseeable future.
There were worse places to be enjoying an unexpected vacation from life than in a hotel where the suite rate would have bankrupted her in less than a week.
If that vacation included the odd hour and unhealthy breakfast shared with an utterly gorgeous man who wasn’t quite hers, who was she to argue?
She took a deep breath and put on her best smile. “What are you doing today?” she asked. “A little cattle raiding? A skirmish with a neighboring business?”
“You, my love, have a unique perspective,” he said with a smile. “And we don’t take over companies; we invest.” He paused. “Well, I suppose there might be a little raiding involved now and again.”
“Old habits die hard?”
He smiled. “Aye. As far as today goes, when I can drag myself away from you this morning, I’m going to be assaulted by some nutter from Artane Enterprises who wants me to pour money into a group that restores run-down historical buildings.
I’ll likely spend most of my time keeping his hands out of my company’s coffers—without a sword at my disposal. ”
“That sounds a little like Jamie and the leisure center.”
“Aye, it does, though ’tis my own money with Jamie—and he’s going to beggar me if I don’t get some sort of control over his plans. I think it may be that yoga studio that pushes me hopelessly into the red.”
She gaped at him, then realized he was teasing her. “You’re not funny.”
He smiled. “I just like to watch you scowl at me. As for this business this morning, I thought that perhaps Zachary Smith might like to be involved.”
“Zachary doesn’t have any money.”
“But he does have talent,” he said, “and that counts for a great deal. And he has a good eye for old things, which will suit those Artane lads. Perhaps Zachary will persuade them that there are worthwhile structures north of the border as well.”
“One could hope,” she agreed. “So, what are you doing after you survive that part of your day?”
He didn’t answer right away. “I have a social thing,” he said finally.
It took her a moment or two to realize what he meant.
“Oh,” she managed. She wondered why in the hell she’d thought it wouldn’t be all that bad to stay; she realized then just how much she’d underestimated the difficulty.
It shouldn’t have surprised her, or bothered her, but there was something about sitting with the man on her couch and knowing that he would be sitting with someone else later that was particularly dreadful.
Especially when it was the man she loved.
She didn’t like being the other woman.
Patrick didn’t like her being that, either.
She had talked to Madelyn last night before she’d called Cameron.
Madelyn had made all the right comments in all the right places.
Patrick on the extension had been stone silent.
She had told them she would call them when she was ready to come back to Scotland and assured Madelyn that she was happy.
He’d best be careful with you, had been Patrick’s only comment.
She could have sworn she’d heard the sound of him sharpening his sword in the background.
“Sunshine, come here,” Cameron said, tugging on her hand.
She let him pull her to her feet, then down onto his lap. She curled her feet up under her robe and put her head on his shoulder.
“I’m all right.”
He tipped her face up and looked at her solemnly. “Please trust me.”
“Please distract me.”
He smiled faintly, then sought her mouth with his. She was fully prepared to have him kiss her socks off, but he didn’t. What he did was almost worse.
His kisses were like sunlight on a meadow, sweet, tender. She felt tears well up in her eyes and spill down her cheeks, and she couldn’t stop them. She wanted him in her arms, in her heart, in her life every hour of every day until she got him out of her system—in sixty or seventy years.
After all, those Phillips women did live extraordinarily long lives.
She felt his fingers on her cheeks, heard him make a sound of distress low in his throat, then escaped his mouth and put her arms around his neck.