25. Cameron
— ? —
Cameron
My wife is in my shirt, drinking coffee in her kitchen, and she hasn’t changed her mind.
I keep waiting for it. Keep bracing for the moment she looks at me and realizes she made a mistake. That the rain and the desperation and the torn papers were just adrenaline, just emotion, just a temporary madness she’ll regret in the cold light of morning.
But the morning light isn’t cold. It’s streaming through her windows in golden stripes, catching the steam rising from her mug, turning her hair luminous. And when she looks at me, there’s no regret. Just warmth. Just wariness. Just what looks almost like peace.
“You’ve gone quiet,” she says, not looking up from her mug.
“Still half convinced I’ll look away and you’ll be gone.”
She snorts into her coffee. “Not disappearing.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.” She stretches, catlike, and the hem of my shirt rides up her thighs in a way that short-circuits my brain. “But you still have to earn this. One night doesn’t erase three years.”
“It doesn’t.” I cross to her, take the mug from her hands, set it on the counter. Pull her against me until her back is flush with my chest and my chin rests on the top of her head. “Whatever it takes. However long it takes.”
“Good answer.” She tilts her face up, lets me kiss her softly. “Now give me my coffee back. I haven’t had nearly enough caffeine for whatever you’re scheming.”
“What makes you think I’m scheming?”
“Because you’re you.” She retrieves her mug and leans against the counter, watching me over the rim. “You’ve had that look on your face since you woke up. The one that means you’re three steps ahead and waiting for everyone else to catch up.”
Guilty as charged.
“I have a proposal,” I say.
“You proposed last night. I told you to earn it first.”
“A different kind of proposal.” I lean against the counter beside her, close enough that our shoulders touch. “I want to formally apply for a position at your company.”
She chokes on her coffee. “Excuse me?”
“The advisory role. It’s been informal up until now. I want to make it official.” I pull out my phone, open the notes app, and turn it toward her. “I even wrote a résumé.”
She takes the phone, scrolling through what I typed at four in the morning while she slept with her head on my chest and I stared at the ceiling trying to figure out how to deserve her.
“Core competency: obsessive attention to one particular founder.” She reads aloud, her mouth twitching. “Notable achievement: successfully groveled for months straight without giving up. References: available upon request, but they’ll all say I’m an idiot who got lucky.”
“It’s accurate.”
“It’s ridiculous.”
“Also accurate.” I take the phone back, toss it on the counter. “But I’m serious. I want to work for you, Hannah. Not just show up and hover. Actually contribute. Use whatever skills I have to help you build something incredible.”
She’s quiet for a moment, studying my face like she’s looking for the catch.
“You ran a billion-dollar company,” she finally says. “You want to be someone’s employee?”
“I want to be YOUR employee. Or partner. Or coffee-fetcher. Whatever you need.” I turn to face her fully, leaning one hip against the counter.
“I spent years building something that was never really mine. It was my father’s legacy, my mother’s expectations, my family’s name.
I want to build something that matters to ME now.
And the only thing that matters to me is you. ”
Her eyes are bright. She blinks rapidly, looks away.
“You’re going to make me cry again.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s an ‘I’ll think about it.’” She sets down her mug, moves into my space, hooks her fingers through my belt loops. “But I have conditions.”
“Name them.”
“You report to me. Not the other way around.”
“Obviously.”
“You don’t get to override my decisions because you used to run an empire.”
“I would never.”
“You absolutely would. You’re constitutionally incapable of not having opinions.”
“Fine. I’ll have opinions. Quietly. To myself. In a journal that no one ever reads.”
She laughs, that full, head-back laugh I’ve been starving for. “And you make the coffee. Every morning. Non-negotiable.”
“Done.” I pull her closer. “Anything else?”
“One more thing.” She goes up on her toes, brings her mouth close to mine. “The interview for this position is going to be very thorough.”
“I’d expect nothing less.”
“And it might take all day.”
“I cleared my schedule.”
“Good.” She kisses me, soft at first, then deeper, her teeth catching my lower lip. “Because I have a lot of questions.”
We don’t make it out of the kitchen.
I lift her onto the counter, her counter, in her apartment, the first space that’s ever been truly hers, and she wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me closer. Her hands slide under my shirt, nails dragging lightly across my back, and I groan into her mouth.
“Question one,” she murmurs against my lips. “How committed are you to this position?”
“Extremely.” I trail kisses down her jaw, her throat, the sensitive spot behind her ear that makes her shiver. “Fanatically. Obsessively.”
“Demonstrate.”
She pushes me back and slides off the counter. “On your knees.”
I drop without hesitation, right there on her kitchen floor. She lifts the hem and I help her pull it off. Her shirt, my shirt, ends up on the floor. Then she shoves her leggings and panties down and steps out of them, bare in front of me.
“Use your mouth,” she says, voice low and commanding. “Show me how committed you are.”
I lean in and taste her, slow at first, then harder when she grips my hair and pulls me closer.
She tastes like everything I’ve missed. I suck her clit, tongue flicking, and push two fingers inside her, pumping while I work her with my mouth.
Her hips rock against my face and she moans, thighs starting to shake.
“Good,” she breathes. “Don’t stop.”
I don’t. I eat her like it’s my job, fingers deep, tongue relentless until she comes with a sharp cry, pussy pulsing around my fingers. She holds me there through it, then tugs me up by the hair.
“Question two,” she manages, breathless, as she turns and presses her back against the refrigerator door. “What’s your biggest weakness?”
“You.” I hitch her higher, line up, and push inside her in one thrust. “Always you.”
She laughs, low and satisfied, then wraps her legs around me. “Now fuck me like you mean it.”
I do. I thrust up into her, deep and steady, her back against the cold metal. One hand grips her ass, the other slides up to palm her breast. She reaches between us and rubs her own clit, directing the pace.
“Harder,” she says. “Right there. Don’t you dare come until I tell you.”
I obey, hips snapping, cock driving into her while she controls everything. She comes again around me, clenching tight, and only then does she nod.
“Now. Come inside me.”
I groan and let go, buried to the hilt, shuddering as she takes every drop she asked for. She keeps moving slow through it while I kiss her neck, her shoulder, her mouth.
After, sprawled on her kitchen floor, her head on my chest and my hand resting warm on her hip, she sighs contentedly.
“You’re hired.”
“Really?”
“Probationary period. Six months. Then we reassess.”
“I’ll take it.” I press a kiss to her hair. “I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.”
She’s quiet for a moment, her fingers drawing patterns on my chest.
“Cameron?”
“Mm?”
“I need to tell you something.” She pushes up onto one elbow and looks down at me, her face doing something I can’t quite read. “About the house.”
My stomach tightens. “What about it?”
“I drove by it. After the broadcast, before…” She waves a hand vaguely. “Before everything.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Masochism, maybe. I wanted to see if it still felt like ours or if it just felt like a crime scene.” She takes a breath. “Your car was in the driveway. It was two in the morning and every light in the house was on.”
I remember that night. Sitting in our kitchen at the table we bought together, surrounded by photos I couldn’t bring myself to take down, drinking whiskey and staring at the door like I could will her to walk through it.
“I couldn’t sleep there,” I admit. “After you left. I tried, but every room smelled like your shampoo and every silence sounded like you not being there. So I just… stayed awake. Most nights.”
“Cam…”
“I’m selling it.” The words come out before I fully decide to say them. “I should have told you last night, but there wasn’t exactly time. I called the realtor yesterday morning. Before the rain. Before I knew if you’d even let me in the door.”
She stares at me. “You’re selling our house?”
“It’s not our house anymore. It’s a museum of all the ways I fucked up.” I sit up, pulling her with me so we’re facing each other on the cold kitchen floor. “But there’s one thing I want to keep. If you’ll let me.”
“What?”
“The kitchen table.”
Her breath catches. “The one from the kitchen where you burned the pasta.”
“The one that sat there watching while I made you a promise I spent our marriage breaking. The one you ate at alone a thousand nights while I broke it and never even noticed.” I take her hands.
“I want to put it in our next house. Wherever that is. So I see it every day and remember what I almost lost.”
She’s crying now, silent tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Our next house?”
“If you want one. With me. Eventually.” I wipe her tears with my thumbs. “Blank walls we fill together. No history except what we make from here.”
She kisses me. Hard. Desperate. Her hands fisting in my hair, her body pressing against mine like she’s trying to climb inside my skin.
“Yes,” she says against my mouth. “To the table. To the house. To all of it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She pulls back, laughing through her tears. “God, we’re a mess.”
“The best kind of mess.”
We eventually make it off the floor. Shower, separately, because she insists we’ll never leave the apartment otherwise, and she’s probably right.
I’m making actual coffee, the kind that requires a French press and patience, when she emerges from the bedroom in jeans and a sweater, toweling off her hair.
“My mom texted,” she says, grabbing her phone off the counter. “She’s at a hotel by the airport until tomorrow. And I finally read the note she left last night. She says you still owe her a porch conversation, and this time she’ll let you past the door.”
“I’ll take her to lunch tomorrow,” I say. “Somewhere with pie.”
“Mail came while we were… interviewing.” She picks up a stack of envelopes from the counter by the door, sorting through them absently. “Bill. Bill. Junk. Something from my lawyer, probably more divorce paperwork that’s irrelevant now. And…”
She stops. Holds up a cream envelope with gold edging and familiar calligraphy.
“What is it?”
“Your parents.” She turns it over, examining the wax seal like it might bite her. “Looks like an invitation.”
My stomach drops. “That’s my mother’s stationery.”
“I figured.” She breaks the seal, pulls out the card inside, and reads aloud. “Mr. and Mrs. Jack Jasper request the pleasure of your company at a celebration of their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
“Let me see that.”
She hands it over. I scan the details, tonight, their estate, black tie, the usual ostentatious bullshit, and notice what she might have missed.
“This was addressed to both of us.” I show her the envelope. “Mr. and Mrs. Cameron Jasper.”
“So?”
“The postmark is three days old, but look at the RSVP date. The originals went out three months ago, back before everything fell apart, addressed to the house.” I turn the envelope over. “Someone had this one re-sent. To your new address. This week.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning she made sure it found us. After everything.” I set the card down slowly. “That’s not like her. Prentiss Jasper doesn’t forget to cancel things. She’s pathologically organized.”
“How did she even get this address?”
“She’s Prentiss. If she wants an address, she has it by lunch.”
Hannah picks up the invitation again, studying it like it’s a puzzle. “You think she wants us there?”
“I think she wants to see if we’ll show.” My jaw tightens. “It’s a test. Classic Prentiss. She’s probably assuming we won’t have the nerve.”
“Then we should go.”
I stare at her. “You want to walk into my mother’s anniversary party? After she tried to bribe you? After everything she’s said?”
“I want to walk into your mother’s anniversary party WITH you.” Hannah’s smile turns dangerous, the kind that makes my blood heat. “I want every person who laughed at that interview to watch me walk in on your arm. I want your mother to see that she didn’t break us. That she CAN’T break us.”
“It’ll be a nest of vipers.”
“Let them hiss.” She steps closer, hooks her fingers in my belt loops again. “I’m bringing the mongoose.”
I laugh despite myself. “You’re sure about this?”
“Cameron.” She tilts her face up, all fierce determination and terrifying beauty. “I’ve survived your family’s worst. I’ve survived yours. Tonight, I want to do more than survive. I want to win.” Her eyes gleam. “Don’t you want to watch me win?”
God help me, I do.
“Then we need to go shopping,” I say. “Because you can’t burn down the patriarchy in jeans and a sweater.”
“I have a dress.”
“The red one? It’s still hanging in that closet across town.”
“Then we have an errand to run before tonight.”
I groan. “You’re trying to kill me.”
“I’m trying to kill your mother. You’re just collateral damage.” She pats my chest and steps away. “Now finish the coffee. We have a war to prepare for.”
The gala starts at eight, which gives us three hours. And for the first time in years, I’m not afraid of my own family.