He just doesn’t have the desire to rule and nurture a business and I do, so I’d taken it up and turned it into my own personal toy. I love wheeling and dealing. The thrill of acquisition is my greatest pleasure and something that kept me from going mad after—
“Cam, lad.”
“Sorry, got lost there for a minute,” I say, waving at the chairs by the hearth and joining him with two snifters of Scotland’s finest. “You here to chew me out as per orders from her majesty?”
“Not hardly. Just wanted to make sure you know what you’re doing. That girl is not what you think, lad, and we both know it,” he says, stretching his legs out toward the fire and sighing at the heat.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I can’t forget that she had a chance to prove her case and refused it.”
“You can’t tell me you were okay with having some quack shove a foot long needle into her and her unborn child. It’s barbaric and completely unnecessary. At worst she’s lying, which yes, I won’t deny could be the case. But just look at what her arrival has done for Margie. The woman stopped crying into her pillow at night. I can tell you I am just grateful that I didn’t have to watch my wife go batty with grief.”
That’s Dad. The man adores Mum to the point of obsession, and he makes no bones about loving her even more than his precious Louis the Fourth collectables. I’d always wanted a love that strong until I’d been shown the error of putting that much of myself into a woman.
Treacherous creatures the lot.
Except Mum, but that goes without saying.
“Just don’t be so…brutal is all I’m asking. She’s not in a condition to be upset, and your mother gets so unhappy I end up cuddling my bleeding pillow. Give your old man a break won’t you. Some of us like having a soft, happy woman.”
“Unnecessary.”
He laughs at my grimace and raises his glass.
“That episode with Letitia shouldn’t color your every move. She hoodwinked us all, and we’re lucky to be rid of her. Don’t let your bitterness push away something that has the power to make us all happy, Cam. Please.”
I snort and sip my drink, staring into the flames but seeing Lettie’s face the day I caught her and Rob playing tonsil hockey. Worst day of my life finding my very pregnant fiancée sucking the lips off of my brother.
And then I’d discovered something worse, worse even than having been betrayed by my own flesh and blood and I’d sworn never to put myself in that position.
Dammit.
I wish I could do what Dad wants and trust Shaw, really I do. But I can’t because I know that the moment I do, I will do everything in my power to be over and inside her and that would just be wrong.
I’m going to have to do something about the constant arousal though before I do something that I’ll regret.
“Well, I think I’ll go out for the evening,” I say, making up my mind and standing with a weary stretch.
Dad gives me a knowing look and shakes his head with a sigh.
“You’re not going to get what you’re looking for, lad, but go ahead and fool yourself if you prefer. Just don’t do anything that will make matters worse for you. That hole you’re digging is getting too deep for you to crawl out of unscathed.”
“Goodnight, Dad.”
“Night, lad. Tell Sophie I say hello, and that she needs to find a man who’ll marry her.”
I ignore his laughter and make my way outside and to my car, the hair at my nape rising uncomfortably. Sophie has been my go-to since the days of chaos when I’d been trying to shake my anger and hurt.
She’s not serious about me, and I’m not anywhere near serious about her, but she provides me with something I need, release, and that’s good enough for me.
Especially now when no amount of self-pleasuring will take care of the need I have for that infernal woman.
Chapter Eight
Shaw
This is awful. Horrible. A disaster of nightmarish proportions, and all I can do about it is plaster a smile on my face and pretend that I don’t hear, see, or feel the veiled comments flying my way.
No one knows who I am, save for my closeness with the Stones and the fact that I’m living in their home. They’ve been speculating since I walked in, my belly preceding me, and haven’t stopped since.
Nothing is said in front of Marge, of course, and the dear darling is flitting around the room in her element, taking great pleasure in avoiding the subtle questions and the outright curiosity.
We’d agreed not to tell anyone that Robert is the father of my child because as she put it, it’s none of their bloody business, and also she doesn’t want me subjected to their brand of concern.
I rather suspect she’s afraid that people will put two and two together and realize he knocked me up and flew the coop before the seed had even taken root, and I can’t blame her.
It’s one thing to know that your son was a light-skirt and another to have people gossiping about him post-mortem.
“Sooo, this is proving to be even worse than that time Fanny Cartwright put worms in my punch.”
I snort and giggle when Molly levels a glare at a stuck up blonde across the way, her green eyes shooting sparks that should have set the woman’s extension ablaze long ago.
“As far as I’m concerned, they should all be taken out and shot. Bloody snobs.”
I giggle again and toast her with my orange juice, liking her brand of conversation, and the fact that she’s asked me not one thing about my belly and the sower of my misfortune. She’s a cute little redhead with a curvy figure and the sarcastic female equivalent of John McClane.
I smooth out the flowing skirt of the lilac dress I’ve worn and avoid looking across the room where Cameron is engaged in a conversation with another one of the vapid zombies like Fanny and her crew.
How he can even breathe with the cloud of perfume permeating the air is beyond me, but that’s not my business. And no, it doesn’t bug me at all that he seems to be enjoying her attention, and it definitely doesn’t chap my ass that he hasn’t even bothered to say hello to me.
“God, he’s so bloody handsome I can’t stand it. How a woman like Lettie could ruin things after landing him is so beyond me,” Molly says, giving Cameron a not so subtle once over.
I don’t know what she’s talking about and hold my tongue even though I’m dying to know who Lettie is and what the hell happened there.
“She was pregnant you know, and I thought poor Cameron would combust with joy. And then everyone found out that she’d been fooling around with his best mate, Jonathan, and that the baby was actually his. Terrible scandal that.”
Huh.
Is it a coincidence that his ex had hoodwinked him like a pro and that he’s torturing me this way? Not fucking likely. And that knowledge only serves to piss me off. Not enough though because instead of stalking across the room and kicking his finely muscled ass, I find myself feeling terrible for him.
It must have been so humiliating for the guy to walk around like a proud papa only to find out that your woman has been growing squash instead of your prestigious, award-winning asparagus.
Yeah, I know that I’ve chosen a phallic looking vegetable for Cameron. I’ll think about that later.