Giving her one last quick kiss, he stepped out of the bathroom and started down the hallway and toward the stairs, only to come up short when he saw Mia's brother, Joel, waiting there. He was leaning against the railing, arms crossed over his massive chest, looking way too intimidating in his black T-shirt and black jeans.
Cameron wasn't about to give anything away and tried to act casual, though he had a sinking feeling in his stomach that didn't bode well at all. "What are you doing up here?"
"The downstairs bathroom is occupied." Joel pushed off the railing, but before he could head down the hall, Cameron stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
Shit. The gig was so up with this Wilde brother. "You can't go in there."
Joel lifted a dark brow. "Why not?"
Cameron knew Joel wasn't going to make any of this easy on him. Joel knew, and now he was going to use every tactical maneuver he'd learned in the military to kick his ass just as soon as Cameron admitted the truth. And then Joel was going to tell his brothers and cousins what was going on, and the entire family was going to castrate him.
Ignoring the twinge in his groin, Cameron 'fessed up, because lying to Joel wasn't an option for him, not if he wanted to earn the man's respect in the end. "Mia is still in there."
Joel smirked. "I didn't realize you needed someone to hold your dick while you took a piss."
Cameron cringed at the sarcasm edging the other man's words, because it was so obvious that Joel was baiting him. Cam kept waiting for a spark of outrage, but Joel remained calm, and that actually worried him more than an outward show of anger.
He'd come this far, so Cameron figured he might as well spill everything. "Mia and I… we've been seeing each other privately."
"I can't say I'm surprised."
"You're not mad?" Cameron asked cautiously.
"Why in the hell would I be mad?" Joel looked genuinely perplexed. "It's about damn time the two of you hooked up. We all knew it was bound to happen. Besides, I'd rather see my sister settled with someone like you than some schmuck who can't handle her."
Except Mia wasn't looking to be "settled," and therein lay the rub to their relationship, and the situation.
"By the way," Joel said, an amused grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. "When I made the bet earlier that Mia would get the best of you before the day was over, I didn't mean like this. However, a bet is a bet, and the way I see things, you lost."
Cameron wasn't about to argue logistics with Joel. Reaching into his back pocket for his wallet, he pulled out a twenty dollar bill and slapped it into Mia's brother's hand, hoping the payout would work as hush money, as well. "Look, I'd really appreciate it if you didn't say anything to anyone about Mia and me just yet. She's still playing hard to get about all this relationship stuff, and I've learned that she's got to come around in her own good time." Never mind that she was being stalked and he'd yet to find out by whom.
"Fine," Joel said, nodding in understanding as he tucked the cash into his front pocket. "I'll keep this to myself for now. However, if you hurt her in any way, I'll be the first in line to rip your nuts off."
Cameron didn't doubt that for a minute.
LATER that same night, Mia unlocked her apartment door and turned to Cameron, who was standing behind her, his hands tucked into the front pockets of his jeans. Because it was Saturday night and neither one of them had to work tomorrow, she really didn't want to spend the rest of the evening alone. Not after the wonderful day they'd had together at her niece and nephew's birthday party.
"Care to come in for a little bit?" she asked, smiling up at him. "I wouldn't mind having the company. We can watch a movie or just talk," she said, wanting him to know she wasn't inviting him in for the sole purpose of jumping his bones. She honestly, truly, just wanted to be with him tonight, without any ulterior motives in mind.
"Sure, I'd like that," he said and followed her inside the apartment.
She set her purse and keys on the foyer table. "Are you hungry?"
He laughed lightly. "I can't believe I'm saying this after everything I ate today at the party but yeah, I am kinda hungry."
"You're a big boy with a big appetite," she teased, her voice laced with a sexy underlying innuendo. "Come on, let's go see what we can find to fill you up."
She led the way into the kitchen, with Cameron following behind, and was surprised to find that Gina was there. She was standing by the stove making herself a cup of hot tea. As they walked into the kitchen, she cast them a quick, cursory glance.
"Hi guys," she said but didn't turn around as she stirred cream into her tea.
"Hey there." Mia was glad to see Gina was safe at home, instead of at Ray's for the weekend, which had been the norm for the past month. "I didn't realize you were here."
Gina shrugged and lifted the collar of her long-sleeved terry robe so it covered her neck, which immediately tipped off Mia and put her on alert. "I came home from Ray's early," Gina said and finally faced them. "He had some things to do this weekend, and I didn't want to stay at his place by myself."
Mia noticed right away that Gina had been crying. Her eyes were puffy, and her nose was pink. And Mia didn't care for the way she was clutching the thick material of her robe at her throat, as if Gina was trying to cover up something she didn't want them to see. Like new marks or bruises courtesy of Ray.
Gina picked up her mug of tea, and her hand trembled slightly. "I'll just take this into the bedroom so the two of you can be alone."
"You don't need to go," Mia said quickly, hating the thought of Gina sequestering herself in her room when it was obvious something was wrong. "We were just going to make something to eat. Why don't you sit out here with us?"
"It's okay, really." Gina forced a smile. "I'm really tired. I'm going to drink my tea and then go to bed."
Mia watched Gina go, and as soon as she heard her bedroom door close, she released a frustrated sigh. "He's still manipulating and abusing her."
"I agree. All the signs are definitely there." Cameron came up to her, his gaze searching her face. "Do you want me to leave so you can talk to her?"
"No. I've said everything I can, and most of the time she doesn't want to hear what I have to say, anyway." Mia dragged her fingers through her hair. "I'm just grateful she's here at home, where she's safe. I'll spend some time with her tomorrow, just the two of us. Maybe take her to a movie."
"Okay, if you're sure you want me to stay."
"I do." She opened the refrigerator and grabbed the lunch meat, mayo, lettuce, and tomato, and set everything on the counter. "Besides, I just don't trust her excuse that Ray was busy this weekend, and I feel much better having you here. At least for a little while."
"Not a problem, then." He helped her make his sandwich, spreading the mayo on the bread and then layering on the sliced ham and turkey while she rinsed off the crisp lettuce leaves. "If I don't find out something on Ray, and soon, I'm going to have to set up surveillance on the guy."
She cut up a small tomato and added those slices to his sandwich. "I hate for you to have to do that. I know how busy you've been lately."
"It's gotten to the point that I'm determined to find out who and what he is, and what's in his past that he's trying to hide from."
"I can only imagine." She opened a can of chilled fruit cocktail and poured it into a bowl and then filled two glasses with lemon-lime soda. "Come on, let's take this into my bedroom where we can watch TV and talk while you eat your snack."
In her bedroom, Cameron propped her pillows against her headboard, toed off his shoes, and made himself comfortable on her bed with his sandwich in hand. Mia gave him the remote for the TV so he'd be right at home, and he automatically switched the channel to a cop show. Thinking he was such a typical guy, she grabbed her nightclothes from her dresser drawer and went into the adjoining bathroom to change. Ten minutes later she emerged, wearing a pair of soft cotton drawstring pants and a matching camisole top, both of which were designed more for comfort than seductio
n.
Still, Cameron's chewing slowed, and his hot, dark gaze raked over her as though she was wearing a provocative teddy instead. After a lengthy and very appreciative perusal, his eyes finally came back up to her freshly scrubbed face, free of any cosmetics.
A warm smile eased up the corners of his mouth. "You look nice without your makeup on."
"Oh please," she drawled, and rolled her eyes as she laid her blouse and skirt over a chair to send to the dry cleaners next week. "We're already having sex, so flattery at this point isn't necessary," she joked.
"I'm being serious." He took a drink of his soda, his expression earnest "You've got beautiful skin and a great complexion. Even without all that stuff you women wear on your face." Finished with his sandwich, he set his plate on the nightstand.
"Well, thank you." Accepting the compliment, she settled in beside him on the bed, crossed her legs, and picked up the bowl of fruit cocktail. "Judging by pictures I've seen of my mother, I definitely get my looks and complexion from her."
"Thank goodness, because I don't think you'd look very pretty as a female version of Joel."
She laughed as she fed him a slice of peach from her fork. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah, I do." He reclined against the pillows and laced his hands over his now full stomach, content to let her feed him the fruit. "If you get your looks from your mother, she must have been gorgeous."
A warm blush swept across her cheeks, and she picked out a cherry half, her favorite part of fruit cocktail, and popped it into her mouth. "I don't remember much about her, just what I know from photos and from memories that are faded or even imagined at this point since I was only five when she passed away." She felt that familiar pang of sadness that always accompanied thoughts of her mother and the pain of losing her. "I miss her, yet I don't think I ever really knew her, if that makes sense."
"It does," he reassured her and accepted the chunk of pineapple she put to his lips. "What about you and Amelia? The two of you aren't very close, are you?"
His question startled her, and she stiffened defensively before she could catch herself. "What makes you say that?"
"You keep forgetting that my job is to study people, to gauge their actions," he said with a casual shrug. "I find I just do it automatically."
He'd obviously spent way too much time watching her at the party, and that thought made her bristle. "Well, you can stop analyzing me."
"I'm not analyzing you," he said, unfazed by her dismissive tone. "I'm just curious about your relationship with Amelia. Did you consider her the wicked stepmother?"
"Of course not!" Amelia had always been nothing but kind to her. If anything, it was Mia who'd been the wicked, difficult one. And that admission, even quietly to herself, evoked a wave of guilt that nearly smothered her.
"Then why do I sense tension between you two?" he asked in that gentle, coaxing way of his. "Not in a bad way, but it's clear the two of you don't have the kind of close relationship a mother and daughter normally would. I was just wondering why not."
Mia knew she had two choices: blow off the conversation and Cameron's personal questions, or tell him what he wanted to know. Her first instinct was to be stubborn and clam up, but she knew that would be the easy way out. She wondered if she shared that private part of her life with Cameron, a part that still caused her grief when she thought about it, that maybe it would help ease the many regrets she harbored about her relationship with Amelia.
The sweetened fruit no longer appealed to her, and she set the bowl aside and then exhaled a deep breath. "I don't even know where to begin," she said truthfully.
"Do you remember when your mother died?" he asked, helping her along.
The answer to that was very complicated, and she attempted to explain the best she could. "The last thing I remember about my mother was her leaving to visit her sister in Honda, and I never saw her again after that. It wasn't until at least a month after she passed away that my father finally told me she'd died in a car accident while visiting her sister."
A slight frown creased his brows. "You didn't go to the funeral?"
"I didn't know about the funeral," she said and saw shock register on his face. "I was so upset when she left for Florida, nearly hysterical because I didn't want her to go and we'd never been apart. I remembered kicking and screaming and throwing tantrums every night my mother was gone. I missed her so much."
"That's understandable," he said quietly. "You were just a little girl."
"I was a little heathen, even back then," she admitted with a small laugh. "The first night I threw a fit, my father should have put me over his knee and given me a good spanking, but being the only girl with three older brothers, I don't think he knew what to do with me, or how to handle my tantrums."
Cameron laughed, too, and she knew that was his way of silently agreeing.
"Anyway, my father told me that when my mother died, he didn't think I would be able to handle the news and he made the decision not to tell me about her death right then or take me to the funeral." She swallowed past the growing lump in her throat that always accompanied thoughts of missing her own mother's burial and service. "He said it was his way of protecting me from the pain of losing my mother, and I know he was so engulfed in his own grief that he probably wasn't thinking straight or logically."
Cameron rolled to his side, closer to her, and propped his head against his palm. "He had to tell you eventually."
"And he did, about a month after the fact." Her voice had grown raspy, and the back of her eyes stung. "And of course I didn't believe him, no matter what he or my brothers said. I was in complete denial."
"I'm sorry, Mia," Cameron said, placing his hand on her knee in a show of comfort.
"I know my father did what he thought was best for me at the time, but he made the wrong decision." She couldn't stop the sob that made her voice crack, or the tears that filled her eyes. "Because I never went to my own mother's funeral, there was never any closure for me with her death. I believed for years that she was coming back, that it was all just a bad dream and one day I was going to wake up and my mother was going to be there for me again."
The first drop of moisture trickled down her cheek before she could stop it, and it was Cameron who reached up and tenderly wiped the tear away with the pad of his thumb. She glanced down at him, so grateful for his silent understanding and the warmth of his soothing touch that was like a balm to the pain she'd carried in her heart for so long.
She gathered her composure and continued, because there was a whole lot more to the story to tell. "So now we fast forward three years, when my father has married Amelia and I'm eight years old. I've become this rebellious hellion who is always getting into trouble, mainly for attention, and now I'm feeling as though I've lost my father, too, because he has a new wife."
She drew a shuddering breath to ease the pressure in her chest, but it did no good. "Even worse, I'm this little girl who is afraid Amelia isn't going to love me the same way my mother did, so it just became safer for me to keep up those emotional walls between myself and Amelia. I didn't want to set myself up for the kind of hurt I went through when I lost my mother." Biting on her quivering bottom lip, she met Cameron's gaze. "How horrible is that?"
"It's not horrible at all, Mia. Being a little girl, it was a way of self-preservation for you."
She agreed, but she was also coming to recognize that her actions as a young girl had carried through to her adult years and had affected so many aspects of her life. Including the ability to let anyone get too close emotionally. That had cost her dearly with Amelia.
"It's my fault I never bonded with Amelia," she said, confessing the painful truth. "She tried in so many ways to be a mother to me, but I rebuffed every one of her attempts until she just stopped trying."
"It's never too late to make things right, Mia."
But Mia didn't know how to make it right, or how to bridge nearly twenty years of what had been a strained relationship b
etween herself and Amelia. And there was always the possibility Amelia wouldn't forgive her for being the selfish, self-centered stepdaughter she'd been. That thought made her feel so empty deep inside, because she knew she'd missed out on a relationship that could have been priceless and precious.
The realization made her feel so ashamed, and having just poured her heart out to Cameron, she felt so exposed, so vulnerable, and she tried to cover it up with a light, airy laugh that lacked any real humor. "I bet you're sorry you asked about Amelia, huh?"
"Not at all," he said, his tone as sincere as the matching emotion she saw in his eyes. "It's a part of who you are, Mia, and it's something I wanted to know, or else I wouldn't have asked."
He reached over to the nightstand and turned off the light, so the only illumination came from the TV across the room. As if sensing exactly what she needed, right when she needed it the most, he patted the empty space next to him on the bed.
"Come here," he murmured.
His low, coaxing voice drew her, and the tenderness she witnessed in his gaze made her heart ache for things she'd denied herself for so long. But tonight, she didn't want to refuse the simple luxury of being held, to feel safe and secure in Cameron's embrace, and to know that she wasn't alone as she'd been for years. By choice.
She stretched out by his side, and he gathered her close so her head was resting on the solid warmth of his chest and their legs were entwined. She breathed in his scent and could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath her ear. So rhythmic. So comforting. So real.
Closing her eyes, she relaxed and let the burden of her painful memories drift away as his fingers threaded through her hair and massaged her scalp and his other hand stroked along her side and over her hip. Their embrace was intimate but not sexual, and it was so nice just to be held, without expectations of anything more.
Content and strangely fulfilled with his arms around her, Mia fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. When she woke in the morning, he was gone, and she realized that at some point during the night he'd slid from her bed, tucked her beneath the covers, and left her apartment After her emotional night, he was giving her space, and while she appreciated his thoughtfulness, she hated more that she'd awakened in a cold, lonely bed without him in it.
Too Wilde to Tame Page 21
