“Sure. At this time, he’s probably in his office. Second floor—hey, wait!”
But she didn’t bother to let him finish, and instead, stomped toward the elevators to take her to the second floor. Of course, she realized she should have asked Daniel which room, but it only took her three tries before finding the correct one.
“Cam Spenser, where the hell are you?” she announced as she burst through the third door.
Someone shot up from where they had their head down on a desk piled with papers and envelopes. “What the—” Cam stopped, rubbed his eyes, and grabbed his glasses to put them on. “J-J.D.?” He blinked. “What are you doing here?”
She clenched her jaw. “What am I doing here? What am I doing here?”
He harrumphed. “You don’t have to repeat it to me, I asked you the question.”
“I thought you said you had a family emergency.”
“I said I had to deal with a family matter,” he pointed out. “It was you who concluded it was an emergency.”
Was he for real? “Seriously? You’re playing semantics with me right now?”
Getting up to his feet, he combed his fingers through his loose hair, then tugged down at his rumpled shirt. “I don’t understand why you’re in a snit. I told you I had to deal with something and that I would call you once it was all sorted out.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw, which was normally clean-shaven but now sported a stubble.
“But why are you here?” she asked.
“Why not?” he shrugged. “Work helps me think. And I wasn’t really planning on having any days off after Thanksgiving, so I thought I’d drive back here and do some cleaning up and work so I can start afresh on Monday.”
“Start afresh on … Cam, it’s Monday.”
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“It’s. Monday. Today,” she fumed. “You haven’t called me in days.” The way her voice trembled uncontrollably and her heart twinged made her even more furious. The only man who ever made her cry was her father, and that was because he had left her when he died.
He stared at her, mouth gaping open. “I … I didn’t mean to. But this … this is how I am, I’m afraid. My work sometimes consumes me, and I don’t always know which way is up. There was this time I was in the bogs of Stirling,…”
She waited for him to explain further. To tell her what his family emergency—matter—was and to ask for her forgiveness. But he only went on and on about bogs and fens and other shit she didn’t know or care about. “Cam!”
“I—yes?”
“What’s the real deal here?”
“Real … deal?”
Oh, he tried to sound innocent. He probably droned on and on about mires and moss to distract her. But, looking into those blue-violet eyes, she could tell he was hiding something. “Yes. What’s really going on? If you didn’t want to decorate our—the tree with me, then you should have just said so.”
“You and that damned tree,” he grumbled. “And bloody fucking Christmas.”
A pain slashed at her chest, and her cat reached out wanting to swipe at him. “You … Scrooge!”
“Why is it always about this damned season? I can’t fucking wait for it to be over and—wait.” Panic struck his face. “That’s not what I—”
“You know why this means so much to me!”
“J.D., please!” He rounded the table. “Please, I didn’t mean that … I’m just so goddamned exhausted … I know your mum …”
“Don’t!” she hissed. “Don’t you dare even think about her!” Motherfucker, she was going to lose her shit if she didn’t get out of here. Spinning on her heel, she raced out of the office and down the hallway, heading toward the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.
If he did call her or chase after her, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. She raced to her truck like fucking Satan was on her heels, then peeled out of the parking lot as fast as she could.
Her body felt numb throughout the entire drive home, her mind refusing to accept what had happened. If he needed a few days to figure things out or if he just didn’t want to decorate with her, she would have understood. But he fucking lied to her and that, she couldn’t forgive. Her cat, too, seethed with displeasure.
Her phone was blowing up the entire drive down, but she ignored it. But it kept ringing and ringing, and so