Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(32)

“You could hire someone,” she suggested.

He shrugged. But that someone wouldn’t be Chris. He didn’t want to work with some anonymous stranger. He liked working with someone he cared about—that’s what made it so rewarding.

“You could cut back on some of the business. Roll it over to another firm.”

Cameron reached for his wineglass and took a sip.

“Do you love it?” she asked, leaning forward. “I mean, do you love it enough to figure out how to make it work?”

He stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “No, I don’t. Not anymore. When it was me and Chris, I liked it a lot. I loved working with my brother. Now? Trying to keep it afloat all alone? It’s an albatross. I hate it more every day.”

“Then why don’t you sell it and do something else?”

“Why don’t you do something else?” he asked, feeling a trifle defensive. “Or would you rather work for Story Imports than spend your time at The Five Sisters?”

“No . . . but my father . . .,” she started.

“But my father,” he echoed, reminding her who had started C & C Winslow.

“Yours is gone,” she said softly.

“So I should turn my back on his legacy?”

“Would he want you to be unhappy?”

“Would yours?”

Her eyes watered unexpectedly. “I don’t think he cares.”

“He’s your father,” said Cameron gently. “Of course he cares.”

***

Margaret shook her head, her vision blurring with tears as she articulated feelings that she’d never shared with anyone except her sisters. “Actually, I don’t think he does. In fact I’m quite certain that my happiness is irrelevant to him.”

Unable to look Cameron in the eyes, she took off her glasses and laid them on the table, then reached for her crystal glass and pulled it closer, blinking miserably at the dark red wine. She was about to take a small sip when Cameron’s chair scraped across the floor. Even though she didn’t look up, she knew that he was circling the table, a fact confirmed when his hands landed softly on her shoulders. She placed her glass back on the table, and he slid his hands from her shoulders to the back of her chair, shifting it away from the table and turning it so she faced him. Then he squatted down before her, placing his palms flat on the bare skin of her knees.

“Meggie,” he whispered tenderly, and she raised her bleary eyes just enough to find his looking back at her, searching her face like he couldn’t bear the sight of her pain. “It’s not irrelevant to me.”

She lurched forward in her seat, into his arms, sliding onto his lap as he sat down on the floor and cradled her against his chest. She wet the front of his starched shirt with her tears—tears she’d kept mostly bottled up since that terrible night at Forrester.

I don’t care if she’s lovely or not. I don’t care if she’s fat or thin, fair or foul, beautiful, plain, or downright ugly. I don’t know if she’s smart or stupid, interesting or dull. I don’t know, and I don’t care.

She cried for the father who didn’t want her.

She cried for the girl inside who desperately wanted to please him.

She cried because she hated going to Story Imports every day.

She cried because Cameron Winslow was holding her so tightly, she knew he was giving her permission to be as sad as she needed to be—without judgment, without condemnation—and it humbled her that this man, who’d been a trial to her life just weeks ago, was quickly becoming one of her most cherished friends.

“I hate to see you so sad,” he murmured, pulling the pins from her hair until it tumbled from its chignon, falling around her shoulders and down her back. He stroked it gently, soothingly, and her tears slowed to a trickle.

“I’m sorry,” she said, burrowing into his shoulder and closing her eyes. He smelled like soap and starch, clean and masculine, and she savored the warmth of his arms, the strength of him, the compassion and care.

“Don’t be.”

She slowly became aware that he was kissing her hair, his lips landing gently on her head, pursing and releasing over and over again, the light sounds making her breathing shallow and fast. She arched closer to him and leaned her neck back to look up at him.

His eyes flashed, green and wild, for just a moment before his lips landed flush on hers, coaxing hers open beneath his. His tongue slipped into her mouth, seeking hers, and tangling with it once found. She moaned, turning in his arms so that her breasts, puckered and tight against her thin, sheer bra and silk blouse, pushed into the hard wall of his chest. He lifted her bottom, urging her to straddle his lap and, once she had, pulled her closer to him as he bit her bottom lip, pulling on it gently before releasing it. She wound her arms around his neck, finally plunging her hands into his thick, black hair and savoring the feeling of the soft strands between her fingers, loving his groan as she sucked on his tongue before letting it go. She guided his lips to her throat, leaning her neck to the side as they touched down on her hot skin, kissing and blowing, raising goose bumps of pleasure all over her body. She let her head fall back and her eyes close as he kissed a trail from her throat to her ear, taking the sensitive lobe between his teeth and biting gently as she whimpered, then sighed.

“Cameron,” she panted. “What are we doing?”