Chapter Sixteen
After Beth topped everyone’s mug off with a heavy splash of peppermint schnapps, Amelia was certain their late-morning meeting would leave her shell-shocked.
She had prepared to hear details about Hailey and Jonathan that would make her question everything, and that still might happen.
The peppermint schnapps hadn’t been to soften blows.
It had been to manage an insufferable bureaucracy.
The only thing she learned that day was that even spies had to do paperwork.
Their meeting took hours, and for most of it, the three of them snacked on pastries while requests were made, questioned, and parried. To Beth’s credit, the treats were very tasty and appreciated.
Not until Amelia climbed back into their SUV and the seat warmers kicked on did the gravity of her request become clear. She and Camden were approved to do something that no one would explain. She didn’t know when or where, just that they had a green light. Both Camden and Beth seemed surprised.
Amelia shivered as something akin to adrenaline pumped in her blood.
The windshield wipers and tires on the rain-slicked road were the only sounds for several miles.
Camden checked his mirrors and merged onto the interstate.
He was so casual. Then again, this was his day job.
He didn’t need schnapps. The conversations and negotiations were his norm.
“What do you want to do when we get back?”
“Take a hot shower and decompress.” She glanced at the casual way he drove, alert but at ease.
She hated driving in the rain. She hated wondering if the drivers around her were paying attention to the road and conditions—a car accident could easily upend everything. “Your boss—Boss Man—he sounds intense.”
“Jared Westin?” Camden snorted. “He is.”
“Brock and Parker, not so much?”
“They are in their own ways. Brock’s real quiet.
Does his job. Disappears. I don’t see him much, but Parker is always available.
He’s a magician with technology and ammunition.
” He slowed for traffic. “They’re mostly based in the US.
Though Jared and Parker spent a lot of time setting up our headquarters in Abu Dhabi. ”
He’d mentioned the Middle East before. “That’s where you live?”
Camden nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you like it?”
He gave a pointed glance out the window. “We don’t have forty-degree days and rain all the time.”
Amelia pulled her coat over her chest. Just thinking about the cold made her shiver again. “Do you like your job?”
His jaw worked back and forth. “It has its moments.”
“That’s vague.” Though she could say the same thing about running Events and Occasions.
She liked working with Veronica and enjoyed chasing deadlines with logistical challenges.
Despite the fact that she detested the ins and outs of running a business, the sense of accomplishment that came from a completed checklist was always nice, and nobody on Earth would complain about taste-testing samples from potential menus.
Events and Occasions used to be lots of fun.
Now? She didn’t know if what happened with Hailey and Jonathan had changed things at work or if that simply changed her perspective on her own life.
“I’m never bored,” Camden explained, raising a shoulder. “The pay and benefits are hard to compete with. It works for me. What about you? You like what you do?”
“No,” she admitted. Thinking it, much less saying it aloud, was a shock. But it was the truth. How hadn’t she noticed that before?
Eyebrows up, Camden glanced her way. “Really?”
She shrugged as though she were indifferent, but really, the revelation still reverberated. “I’m good at it.” She could hear the hesitancy in her own voice, as if she were listening to someone else. “Strong repeat business.”
“Having your own company, building something out of nothing, that’s impressive.”
“Maybe…” Compared to what? He probably saved people’s lives.
Compared to him? Not impressive. But it did show that she could bust her ass until she got what she wanted.
That was how she intended to find Hailey: nonstop, dogged work.
Amelia watched the cars pass as they slowed for an exit ramp.
“Hailey had an entire adventurous life, and I didn’t realize it. ”
“You knew the important parts of her.”
“She loved family and teaching. She loved talking about art.” Amelia chewed on her bottom lip. “But there was more than I realized, I guess. She really loved life.”
“What do you love?”
“I guess just my sister.” Amelia wasn’t passionate about anything the way Hailey was. She didn’t know why she hadn’t noticed that before. She thought about work a lot. It wasn’t her world, but it definitely fulfilled a need. “You know what I like about my job?”
“What?”
“I like being in charge and having a surefire way to provide for myself. I started my company when Hailey was getting her master’s and doctorate.
We flipped roles for a while. It was like I became the big sister.
My company offset a lot of costs. Our apartment.
Groceries. I’d felt so out of control when our parents died, and when I finally had that taste of control…
” The right words wouldn’t come. “I could breathe better.”
But life was out of control again, and she suddenly remembered asking Camden to just tell her what to do.
The idea that he could take over was nearly an aphrodisiac.
A blush rose to her cheeks and down her spine.
Never in a million years would that have come out of her mouth.
But sharing life’s responsibilities would be so liberating, even for a moment.
Amelia watched him drive for longer than she should have.
After his dark-brown hair dried, it had a mussed, haphazard style that she wanted to touch.
It looked soft compared to his harder features.
A five-o’clock shadow darkened his chiseled jaw.
He was the poster boy for tall, dark, and handsome, and the more she tried to ignore it, the harder it became.
“What?” he asked.
Nothing I would admit to. She quickly stopped staring. “I think I’m hungry.”
He laughed. “Well, let me know when you’re sure.”
She snickered. One second, Camden was smoldering simply by existing.
The next, he made goofy jokes. She liked him more and more.
His laughter rumbled quietly in his chest and made the corners of his eyes crinkle.
Why was she noticing this when she needed to focus on Hailey? “Maybe I just need a nap first.”
“You can do both.”
That could be true about many things. Amelia chewed on her bottom lip.
They found another tiny parking spot near the safe house.
He was able to magically finesse the oversized vehicle into it.
The rain had died off again. Grateful for the reprieve, Amelia buttoned her coat and fell into step with Camden.
The wind had picked up like it had the night before.
She shivered. Wind chimes dinged, and artisan wind spinners danced in yards.
“This neighborhood is adorable.” She would love to live somewhere that had so much more personality than her condo complex.
Amelia didn’t even want to go back home. Everything she’d found comfortable—the easiness of condo living, the repetitiveness of her day job—had become tedious.
A restlessness overtook her body. Her legs wanted to hurry inside. Her chest ached with a drumbeat that picked up in tempo as they closed in on the safe house. She swallowed away a wave of anxiety. Camden had taken her back there, but he could just as easily have driven her back to her condo.
The idea made her dizzy. She didn’t want to go there. “Cam—”
He had inserted the key into his front door and looked over his shoulder.
Panic—dread?—pounded in her ears. Her lungs felt cold, empty, as if she might not be able to catch her breath if she wasn’t careful. “I can’t go back to my place tonight.”
“Then don’t.” Camden turned back to the door and twisted the key like the conversation had been decided.
She couldn’t walk and process the simple solution at the same time.
“Amelia?” He crooked two fingers and pulled her inside as though she were tied to an invisible string.
The house was warm. The lights were off.
He reached behind her and shut the door.
Her eyes shut for the moment he leaned close.
He smelled familiar to her. A wild twenty-four hours had passed.
It actually felt like it could have been days, and during that time, she had hugged him, lain by him, even dragged him by his arm.
She knew the way he smelled, and it melted away her anxiety.
He towered over her, and for a delirious, dreamlike second, she imagined him closing their distance, pressing her against the door, and erasing every trouble.
He could kiss her, touch her, do whatever he wanted to her, and she would bask in his attention like a woman starved.
“Doing okay?”
Oh my God. No, she wasn’t. Her heart stopped beating. She tucked her chin, embarrassed. Fantasizing about this man would lead to disaster. Beth would never work with Amelia without Camden, and Camden would never work with her if he knew what was continually plaguing her imagination.
He touched her chin. “Eyes on me, sweetheart.”
Why did the quiet rasp of his words have to roll over her like that? Amelia steeled herself and raised her face. He looked at her as though trying to read her soul. The intensity made his dark, smoldering eyes shine. “What’s bothering you?”
Her lungs weren’t getting enough oxygen. “The day’s just catching up with me.”
He scrutinized her a moment longer then nodded and tossed the house keys to himself. “You sure?”
She nodded.
Camden let out a long breath and hung the keys on the hook by the door. “I gotta take a shower.”
He hurried into the dark living room and scooped up the football from the couch.