by Gina Ardito
Regardless of the hard feelings she’d nursed over his abrupt departure, she had immediately flown to Texas to help him in any way she could. Hospital security had refused to let her in.
Then, she spotted Paris Redmond glide by the front desk with a smile and a wave in the guard’s direction, and her heart sank. Without a word passing between them, Cam knew exactly where she stood, physically and romantically, in Jordan’s life. By putting her on his no admittance list, he had tattooed his ambivalence directly onto her heart.
Now, bad enough he was back in New York with a new career, a new look, and a new way of getting around in the world. Even after the flowers and the phone calls he’d left with Val, she never thought he’d have the nerve to show up here. To pitch his property, face-to-face.
Another thought struck her, this one razor-sharp. Was Paris with him?
Did it matter? she asked herself.
Not really.
On a deep sigh of regret, Cam removed her shoes and flexed her aching toes, then let her body go limp, boneless. She flung one arm over her head to shield her eyes from the overhead lights. God, she was a mess tonight! Wired as she was after the annual homage to her dad, toss in Jordan’s sudden appearance in front of her building, and no wonder her skin felt electrically charged and too tight for her frame. She needed a hot bath, an enormous glass of wine, and a friend to talk to.
Problem was, she didn’t have the energy to move. She dug into her teeny silver evening purse to grab her cell. Only one person she could call right now, and she didn’t hesitate, regardless of the hour.
The phone on the other end rang once before his cheery voice said, “What took you so long? I’ve been waiting for details all night.”
“Feel like popping over for a while?”
“That bad, huh? Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m on my way.”
“Thanks. I’ll see you in ten.” Cam disconnected the call, dropped her phone on the cushion beside her, and closed her eyes. Without moving, she announced up toward the ceiling, “Call front desk.”
A buzz sounded in the room, and the familiar voice of the overnight manager, Tommy, intoned over the loudspeaker recessed in the ceiling’s corner. “Good evening, Ms. Delgado. How may I help you?”
“Hi, Tommy. Mr. Wallace is coming over. Send him up right away when he arrives.”
“Yes, Ms. Delgado.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome. Enjoy your evening.” The speaker clicked off, and Cam sat alone with her thoughts again.
After several minutes of blissful silence, the bell dinged, announcing the elevator’s arrival on her private floor. Rousing her tired synapses, she pushed herself to her bare and aching feet. That one action sapped what remained of her dwindling energy, and she stayed rooted to the floor.
The steel door whooshed open, and a grizzled bear of a man lumbered inside, arms extended. He reached her in half a dozen strides and swooped her into a hug.
“There’s my beautiful lady,” he crooned in her ear as he squeezed the breath out of her lungs. “Was it that bad?”
“No worse than usual.” She wriggled out of his embrace to restart her respiratory system. “The same people, the same conversations...” On a huff of expelled air, she flounced back onto the sofa. “You know how this shindig plays out.”
For several years, until his divorce from her mother, he’d been an active participant like her. After the divorce, vindictive Mom made sure he never again made the guest list—despite his position as Daddy’s best friend and head coach of the team they once both carried to so many game wins. He probably could’ve attended the annual fete anyway. The team would have backed him up, but Bertie, the peacemaker, would never publicly humiliate her mother that way. He always saw the best in everyone, even his ex-wife.
“Well, something’s got you wound up tonight,” he remarked. “What is it? Did your mom start in on you again?”
“No. She was too involved with Mr. Ellison to notice me.” Mr. Ellison. Husband number...four?... five?... since Daddy died? She couldn’t keep track. Only Bertie mattered to her. Husband number two, the man she’d always consider her only stepfather, no matter how many men married her mother in the coming years.
Bertie gave her a meaningful once-over from head to toe and snorted. “Looking as gorgeous as you do in that outfit? How could anyone ignore you?”
Despite her mangled emotions, she mustered a smile. “Ha. Easy, with perfect-size-two Mom in the room.”
He skimmed an index finger down her nose, the way he always did when she was an insecure child with a gorgeous mother who judged her too harshly. “There’s more to you than a dress size, beautiful. Remember that.” He emphasized the reminder with a poke on the tip of her nose.
She wriggled on the couch, folding her arms over her chest to camouflage the bit of bulge at her waistline that no hydraulic underwear could hide.
“Stop that,” he growled, pulling her arms apart. “You’re perfect, Cam. A real man likes a woman with curves.”
A block of tears clogged her throat, and she swallowed them back, then patted the space beside her. Her palm slapped the slender chain of her evening bag, and she wrapped her fingers around the cool silver links before flinging the accessory over the back of the couch. A clink-thud erupted when the purse hit the polished wooden floor.
“Sit,” she said, her voice rough as sandpaper. “I need your shoulder.”
“Uh-oh.” He settled next to her, his bulk sinking the cushion so that she rose a tick—no small feat, considering her own meatiness. She frowned, and Bertie wrapped a brawny arm around her to bring her closer. His every inhale and exhale echoed against her ribcage, a soothing tempo she’d enjoyed since childhood. She let the rhythm calm her frazzled nerve endings, snuggling closer, her ear pressed to his chest until his vibrato broke the spell. “So... what’s up?”
On a weighty sigh, she straightened again, mentally scrambling to figure out where to begin. “Okay, so you know how I’ve been trying to find a new space for the midtown center?”
“Uh-huh...”
One of the many things she loved about Bertie, he never pressed her or interrupted when she needed to talk. He always let her move at her own pace.
“Well, there’s a building about five blocks from our current site that looks perfect. Plenty of space for our growing pains, convenient to bus and subway stops, and in our price range.”
“But...”
She uttered the statement in one breath, without a pause. “But the real estate agent is Jordan Fawcett.”
Bertie gave a curt nod. “Ah.”
“Yeah.” She grimaced.
She didn’t have to say anything more about her feelings. Without additional details, Bertie understood how painful this situation was for her. After all, he’d been the one to fly to Texas to help gather up her shattered pieces when Jordan rejected her at the hospital. Not her mother—never her mother—whose only advice was the constant, “If you’d only lose some weight, you could have your pick of men.” Like she could fight the genetics that made her build more like Duke Delgado’s instead of the frail-bird-stature of her mother’s family.
“Why do I sense you’ve got more to say?”
Good old astute Bertie. She tangled her hands in the fabric of her skirt. “Because I do. Guess who was waiting for me outside the building when I came home tonight.”
His lantern jaw unhinged and hung open. “No.”
She nodded.
“How’d he look?”
“Wet,” she retorted. “He must have hung outside here for hours, waiting for me.”
“Well, that’s interesting.”
“Ya think? I find it idiotic. He could wind up with pneumonia.”
He quirked a brow. “Would you care if he did?”
“Of course I would.” She punched a fist into the throw pillow beside her. “Do you have any idea how much damage a diagnosis like that could do to a man in his physical condition?” He gave her a scrut
inizing look, and heat crept into her cheeks. “Yeah, okay. I looked it up.”
His eyes bored into her over-exhausted brain. “Uh-huh. Care to tell me why?”
She waved her hand, partly in dismissal, but also to cool her face. “It was ages ago. When he was first injured. I wanted to know more about his condition, what changes he had to make in his life.” God, she sounded like a stalker. “I was worried about him, okay? He and I were close for years. We almost got married. I can’t just turn off my concerns because he ditched me. I mean, I’m not as heartless as my mother.”
“Your mother’s not heartless. She’s had to be strong her whole life. It’s made her...” He paused, searching for the right word. “...tougher than most people take her for. She’s got a soft, gooey center—like you, and some cretins have taken advantage of that. So she’s learned to hide that part of her. You haven’t, and she dreads the idea you might be hurt the way she was.”
Yeah, right. Cam sniffed. The only softness in Mom came from the finest skin care regimen money could buy. “I will never understand how you can continue to defend her.”
“We all have our flaws, sweetheart.” He poked her nose again. “Including you. But we’ve gotten off-topic. We were talking about Jordan. I guess he really wanted to see you, so he must’ve thought it worth the risk of pneumonia. I mean, he could’ve called the corporate office if it was about showing the property. But, no. He hung around here in the rain.”
“Yeah.” She gazed up at the ceiling, unable to look him in the eye. “About that.”
“Ah,” he repeated with the same realized inflection. “He did call the corporate office. I take it you initiated the correspondence about the building before you knew the identity of the agent in charge of the property. So, how many times after that initial interest did you pass him off onto Val?”
She shrugged. “Val took the original call. I’ve had no contact with him at all. As soon as I realized he was the selling agent, I told her to forget it.”
“Okay, let me get this straight. He’s got a property that’s ideal for your needs, a property that could make a helluva commission for its agent, but once you discovered Jordan was the agent, you had Val go radio silent on him. Did you think he wouldn’t try to follow up?”
Realizing this was a rhetorical question, she didn’t answer. What could she say?
“Well, if you refused to take his calls, it’s no wonder he tried to talk to you here. You should’ve expected it. What’d he say when he saw you?”
The message on the card from this afternoon’s floral arrangement, burned into her memory, came to her lips unbidden. “He said I shouldn’t let our ugly history affect Daddy’s legacy.”
“Hmm...” He scratched his temple. “Not exactly the apology I would’ve expected from him.”
“Why would he apologize? Nothing’s changed. I’m still the fat girl he ditched for a beauty queen when he realized dating Duke Delgado’s daughter wouldn’t propel his career into the stratosphere. Now that he’s no longer playing ball, he thinks he can bounce back into my life and use me to up his real estate creds. Like I’m some kind of big-girl trampoline.”
See? She wasn’t as soft and gooey as Bertie thought. She saw right through Jordan’s game.
Bertie shook his head. “I can’t believe I was so wrong about him. I always thought better of Jordan.”
“So did I—once. Now, I know he’s a user and a creep.” Her voice cracked on the last word as the pain pierced her heart yet again, as it always did when she thought about the man she’d once loved. Despite her exhaustion, she tightened her frame as if braced for battle.
If Bertie noticed, he didn’t remark on her sudden stiffness beside him. “At least tell me you got in the last word with the bum.”
“I did.”
He gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. “That’s my warrior woman. Now, you listen to me. No matter what you decide to do about the midtown center, your dad’s legacy is safe in your hands and always has been. If you really like the space, go for it. Unless your bitterness won’t be happy until he’s penniless and sleeping in the street...”
“That’s not it at all! You know me better than that.” She dropped her gaze to her hands, wringing them in her lap. “The truth is, I don’t think I relish sitting across a board table from him, Bertie. I mean, when I saw him tonight, trapped in that chair, I felt so bad I wanted to cry. I don’t think I could work with him and maintain my composure.”
“I’ll do it if you can’t. Frankly, I’d welcome the opportunity to give him a piece of my mind. Despite your history, he owed you better than what you got in Houston. Say the word, and I’ll take over the acquisition.”
“And let him think I’m still so hung up on him that I can’t face him over a business deal?” God, wouldn’t that be humiliating! “No, thanks. I’ll handle him, and I’ll get that property. By the time I’m done with him, he’ll wish he’d stayed in Houston. If I have to, I’ll kick his ass back there.” She mimed dropping a ball and kicking it over the goal posts.
With a low chuckle, Bertie kissed her cheek. “I know you will.”
JORDAN HAD PLENTY OF time to review the evening’s events when he returned home. After a hot shower, a warm towel, and dry clothes, he would’ve expected sleep to overtake him easily. But, no. In bed, he stared at the ceiling, reviewing the mistakes he’d made in trying to reach Cameron. He’d really underestimated the power of his charms. Why was she so mad at him anyway?
Okay, so maybe they hadn’t parted under the best of circumstances, but he would have always lived under her father’s shadow if he’d remained with the Vanguard. Regardless of his success on the gridiron, the whispers that he only had his position because he was dating Duke’s daughter—his coach’s stepdaughter—had grown too loud to ignore. So when the Houston Privateers sought a veteran quarterback to provide leadership for their group of young, talented but inexperienced players, Paris pitched him as the perfect candidate. Lucky for him, the Privateers agreed, and he signed on the dotted line without consulting Cam.
As soon as she heard, she shut down, broke off all communications, and cut him out of her life. He should have realized her loyalty would always remain with the Vanguard. Daddy’s girl, Daddy’s team.
God help him, he still wanted her. Seeing her had been a big mistake. Bad enough he’d ceded home court advantage, but then she looked down on him from her dressy sky-high heels, making him feel vulnerable and small with one glare. A devastating fall when she was the one person who’d always looked up to him in the past...
Once again, as Marcus had predicted, the what-ifs invaded his thoughts. If he hadn’t signed the Houston contract, how would their lives have turned out?
Would he have taken the hit that destroyed his pro career during a different game? And if he had been injured while still playing for the Vanguard, would she have cared enough to come back to him? Or would she have kept him on her cut list, the way her mother treated Bertie? Persona non grata.
He shuddered. Big mistake, he chided himself again, going to her apartment building tonight. Huge, honking mistake. She was always brittle after the annual awards dinner, primarily because Bertie couldn’t attend and Bertie was her primary shelter from most storms. Jordan should’ve remembered how, whenever he’d accompanied her to the yearly fete while they were dating, she’d cling to him all night, and then, at the end of the evening, she’d collapse in his arms and weep herself dry. Why hadn’t he remembered that?
He spent most of the night mentally kicking himself for his lack of empathy, for forgetting how fragile she could be. Had he imagined that haunted look in her eyes? Recalled it from some past evening when he’d been the man to soothe her tumult after a similar event? Had she really laughed, or was the sound he’d heard before she disappeared inside been more a bitten-back sob?
Sleep evaded him, refusing to allow him any respite from his conflicting thoughts.
The next morning, bleary-eyed and irritable, he rolled into his
office only to spot his boss waiting at the reception desk, wearing a grin wide enough to eat the Cheshire Cat. Susan veered around the desk, clapping in short bursts. “Congratulations, Jordan.”
“For what?” he grumbled. Was he about to get the boot for not earning that double commission she so prized?
“We just got a call from the Delgado Foundation. They want to set up a time to meet and discuss the acquisition.”
Shock jolted inside him. “Is this a joke?”
She shook her head and held out an index card. “Cameron Delgado asked to speak with you specifically. No one else.”
He grabbed the card and stared at the numbers and letters written in the usual felt tip marker. As the words infiltrated his muddy brain, he looked up at Susan. “That’s Cam Delgado’s direct line?”
“Uh-huh. She called first thing this morning. I didn’t even have a chance to stow my purse before I was writing down all the particulars. How’d you convince her? Was it the roses? I told you. No woman can resist three dozen red and white roses.”
He left Susan to prattle on and take credit for his breakthrough while he pushed himself into his office. The truth was, he had no idea what made Cam change her mind, but he doubted a thousand flowers would have affected the ice princess he saw last night.
For God’s sake, she’d ruffled his hair—like he was a street urchin in a Dickens Christmas play. Tiny Tim, all grown up and still a lame beggar. A ball of bile rose in his throat, and he swallowed hard while closing his office door. The bitter aftertaste made him grimace. He removed his jacket, hung it on the low hook set on the coat rack in the corner, then made himself comfortable behind his desk, leaving the index card atop the folder with the building’s info at the side of his keyboard and monitor. As he stared out the window at the traffic on the avenue five stories below him, a sharp rap sounded on his door. The office receptionist, Rachel, swept in with a steaming mug of coffee.
She placed the white ceramic mug on his desk next to the folder.
“I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do that,” he said.
