Something About You (FBI/US Attorney #1)(39)

“What happened to Max?”

Surprised to hear the voice, Cameron looked over and saw Jack standing at her table.

Fate was so clearly mocking her.

Cameron frowned. “What are you doing here?” Perfect. Just the man she wanted to run into right then.

“You haven’t been answering your phone. Are you having problems with it?” Jack looked displeased. Big surprise there.

“It seems to be working fine.” Cameron reached into her purse and pulled it out to check. She realized what she’d done. “Oh . . . I turned the ringer down. I must not have heard the calls over the noise of the restaurant.” She peered up at him. “Were you trying to call me? Is something wrong?”

“Collin called. He couldn’t reach you, got nervous, and called me. Then we couldn’t reach you or get through to the restaurant, so here I am,” Jack said.

Cameron ran her hands through her hair, feeling very tired. It had been a long day—she’d gone one round with her opposing counsel in court, another round with Silas, and then had been ditched by her date. From the look on Jack’s face, he was gearing up for another sparring match and she wasn’t sure she had it in her right then.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t thinking when I turned down my phone. I apologize that you had to run all the way over here for nothing. Glower at me all you want—you’ve earned it this time.”

Jack took a seat in the chair across from her.

“That being said,” Cameron continued, “I would like to point out that Officer Zuckerman has been over there at the bar, watching me all night, so it’s not as though I had any reason to believe I was in danger. And I’d also like to state, for the record, that there was never any discussion about me keeping my cell phone on at all times. If that was something you expected as part of this surveillance, you should have stated it clearly up front to avoid exactly this type of scenario.”

Okay, so maybe she had just a tiny bit left for one last round.

Jack rested his arms on the table. “That has to be the worst apology I’ve ever heard.”

“I’ve had a chance to think things through. Seeing how I was only about thirty percent at fault here, you get thirty percent of an apology.”

“I see.”

Cameron waited for him to say something further. “That’s it? I expected there to be a lot more. You know, with the growling and scowling.”

“I could add a few curse words to that, if you like.”

Cameron checked her grin just in time. “Not necessary, but thanks for the offer.”

They sat in silence for a moment, each one studying the other warily.

“So you never said what happened to your date,” Jack led in.

“He had a last-minute conflict with work. For the third time in three weeks.” Cameron had no idea why she’d added that last piece of information.

Jack’s dark eyes studied her. “I hope you had better luck picking out shoes that day.”

He never ceased to amaze her. “How do you know how I met Max?” Cameron asked.

“Kamin and Phelps are a wealth of information. They seem to be having a blast being assigned to your detail.”

“Shockingly, some people actually find me charming.”

“I once found you charming, too,” Jack said quietly.

It was as though the proverbial record had skipped to a stop, silencing the room.

For the last week, she and Jack had danced around this very issue, never actually discussing the past. But now that he had launched the first salvo, she could either retreat or face him head-on. And she wasn’t a retreating kind of girl.

“The feeling was once mutual.”

Jack mulled this over for a moment. “Now that we’re working together, maybe we should talk about what happened three years ago.”

Cameron took a sip of her wine, trying to look casual. She chose her words carefully. “I don’t think there’s anything that could be said that would do us any good.”

Jack surprised her with his response. “I was wrong to say those things to that reporter. I knew it right after I said it. That was . . . a rough time for me. I was going to apologize to you. Of course, I never got the chance.”

It was as she’d expected. He blamed her for his transfer, never realizing how close he’d come to being dismissed from the FBI. Part of her was tempted to tell him the truth and just get it all out there. But he was so angry with her about the Martino case—about everything—that she didn’t know how he’d react. Logically, there was no good reason why she should trust Jack. So she continued dodging the issue. “I appreciate your apology,” she said matter-of-factly, hoping that would end the conversation.

His face hardened. “That’s it?”

“There’s not much more I can say about what happened back then.” Without taking a risk that the information would get back to Silas.

“You can tell me why you did it. I know you were pissed off about the things I said, but did the sight of me really offend you so much that you needed to have me thrown out of the entire city?”

Cameron knew it was time to end this conversation. “This isn’t a good idea, us talking about this.”

Jack leaned forward, his dark eyes glittering in the soft light coming off the candles in the center of the table. “I saw you come out of Davis’s office that morning, Cameron.”