Consequence of His Revenge(19)
He looked like their intimacy was the furthest thing from his own mind, staring at her with a flat, hostile stare that silently conveyed, I told you to wait for me.
The sweet excitement of seeing him again drained away before it had fully formed, leaving her hollowed out by his disapproval.
“Dante said you decided to stay in Whistler and wouldn’t be coming to Vancouver with us. He didn’t say you were staying at our hotel.” Bernadetta looked questioningly to her grandson.
He took a sip of his coffee, which struck her as buying time.
Cami’s blush turned to one of indignation, then scorn, as it impacted her that he was having breakfast with his relatives and not only hadn’t invited her, he didn’t want them knowing she’d spent the night with him.
“I’m staying with a friend,” she provided, turning her attention to Bernadetta, even though she suspected Dante would consider her words a lie. They weren’t “friends.”
The old woman introduced her niece and husband. “Cami is the young woman who was so kind to me the other day.”
Cami brushed that aside, saying, “I’m glad I could help, and it’s very nice to meet you. Thank you again for the day of skiing, but I’m sorry. I’m on an errand. Safe travels.” She leaned to return Bernadetta’s light embrace and got the hell out of Dodge, so humiliated she could hardly bear it.
* * *
Dante caught up to Cami at the gift shop cash register, about to pay for a bottle of extra-strength headache caplets. She looked spectacular in curve-hugging jeans. The legs were tucked into her tall boots, accentuating the slender thighs that had hugged his hips last night while she gasped and moaned beneath him.
Her hair, that cloud of silk that had erotically grazed his skin and imprinted the scent of almonds and crushed flowers in his psyche, fell in shiny waves down her spine, drawing his eye to how narrow and delicate her shoulders were.
Leaving her this morning had been a struggle. It took everything in him now not to set possessive hands on her hips and draw her into his front, so he could shape her breasts as he molded her back into his frame.
He was obsessed, which was exactly why he’d made himself sit with his cousin and grandmother when his mind had been several floors up, making love to Cami all over again.
Yanking his libido to heel, he took over her purchase, signing it to his room.
“What are you doing?” she asked stiffly.
“What are you doing? You could have asked the concierge to deliver these.”
“Hardly.” She pried open the cap as they walked out of the shop.
“What do you mean?”
“Hotel staff are run off their feet. I’m not going to play prima donna and ask for something I can get for myself.” She glanced toward the dining lounge. “Where’s Bernadetta?”
“They’ve left.”
She detoured into the buffet and helped herself to a glass of water, washing down two tablets, before dropping the medicine into her handbag.
“Would you like breakfast?”
“Bit late for that invitation, isn’t it? No, thanks,” she pronounced with disdain. “I’m going to the bank.”
“The phone didn’t wake you,” he pointed out. “You seemed to need the sleep.” He could have used another two or three hours himself. They’d bordered on debauchery. Every single minute had been fantastic.
“You didn’t ask me to join you once you knew I was up. In fact, you were horrified that I happened by. Sorry to be such an embarrassment.” Her heels clipped loudly across the tiles.
“Quit being so dramatic.” He paced alongside her. “It was the opposite. Noni is so smitten with you, she didn’t stop talking you up over breakfast. She wants me to continue seeing you.”
“So then why—? Oh.” She halted as they exited to the covered portico.
He handed his ticket to the valet, then pushed his hands into his pockets. Judging by the way Cami paled and stared stiffly ahead, she was connecting the dots.
“You don’t want her to think we have a future,” she summed up after several long, fuming minutes. “Because we don’t.”
“She’s very anxious to see me married,” he confirmed. “But I have no desire to tie myself down. It’s not personal.”
“I’m sure,” she muttered, stepping forward as his vehicle came to the curb.
He didn’t owe her explanations, but spoke once he was behind the wheel, pulling away. “I’ve never met a woman I trust enough to even consider marrying her. I can’t bring myself to risk the family fortune again.”
“It’s one bludgeon after another with you, isn’t it? Now it’s my fault you can’t fall in love and marry? My father’s betrayal means you can’t make your grandmother happy and produce an heir for everything her husband built? I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry I ever wanted something as useless as a gold medal. Turn left at the next light.”
He signaled and changed lanes. “I didn’t say it was your fault.”
“You implied it.” She stared out her side window, but swung her head around a moment later. “And somehow, I’m supposed to be so good in bed that you get over that? Exactly how many orgasms will it take to open your heart enough that your one true love can walk in?”
“I don’t know, Cami. How many until you quit acting like a martyr? Is this your bank?” He recognized the logo from the bank transfer she had shown him that first night.
“Yes. And what is that supposed to mean? I’m not being a martyr!”
“People are allowed to want things for themselves.” He swung into a parking space. “I wanted to be on the cutting edge of a new technology. That doesn’t make me a bad person who deserved to have his work stolen. You keep acting like wanting to ski competitively is a crime. No. It’s just a dream, and people are entitled to go after their dreams. You think I don’t respect you, but I’ll tell you something. The way you skied yesterday was badass. It takes guts to send yourself down the side of a mountain at those speeds. Quit apologizing for being good at it. For liking it and wanting to prove how good you were.”
She flinched at the word were.
“You do blame me, though.” Her fingers picked at the stitching on her handbag. “You fired me.”
“I did. But how I let the past affect me is my choice.” Not that he’d consciously faced that before it came out of his mouth. He’d let Stephen’s betrayal eat away at him, only becoming aware of how destructive it was since meeting her. “Your desire to ski didn’t make me the way I am. You’re not that powerful,” he concluded dryly.
She was powerful enough to have him reassessing his reaction to her father’s theft, though. He absorbed that while watching her thumb work against the stitching of her bag.
“I just really miss them,” she said in a very small voice. “I know it’s backward logic, but if I believe that making a wrong decision can cause someone’s death, then making the right choices will keep others alive. Like Reeve. I don’t want to believe death is just random bad luck. If that’s how things work, how could I stop it from happening again? I don’t want to be that powerless.”
He sighed and reached to cover her hand, stilling her twitching fingers and weaving his between them. “It is a terrifying fact that life is nothing but shaken dice.” He hated that particular reality himself.
“Thanks,” she muttered, extricating her fingers and reaching for her door.
He felt the loss, the sense of having disappointed her, acutely. His reaching out in comfort, offering a hand-holding, had been the least sexual, yet most intimate act he’d ever shared with a woman.
And she’d rejected it.
* * *
The bank meeting was even less fruitful than Cami had expected, and she had prepared herself for heart-wrenchingly low results.
The manager was nice enough. She sat with them for about ten minutes, took Cami’s information, but told her the file would have to be referred to the bank’s fraud department. Someone would be in touch.
She stopped future payments and very helpfully printed out the history of Cami’s transfers to the Benito account, which subtotaled to a sickening amount. Cami could have financed her brother’s bachelor degree by now.
She didn’t know if she was supposed to feel foolish or vindicated as Dante glanced at it, but mostly she felt disregarded. He’d spent half the meeting texting.
Was she playing the martyr? Not consciously, but in case he had forgotten, he had taken her apart and put her back together last night. Several times. A tiny bit of regard this morning didn’t seem like a big ask. He was flaying her to bits.
“Are you serious about my staying in Whistler?” she asked as they exited the bank. “Because there’s clearly no point.”
His head came up from his phone, distracted frown sharpening. “What do you mean?”
“You couldn’t care less what the bank is doing and don’t want to be seen with me, so—”
“I’m talking to the bank right now. Not this one, but the head office of Benito’s bank in Milan. I know one of their VPs. I sent him an email this morning and didn’t expect to hear from him because of the time change, but he’s visiting his wife’s family in America, so he’s already started checking into it. He does not look kindly on the family bank being used as a laundry by criminals. He’s established that the account is owned by a numbered company and says these transactions are often hidden by bouncing them through a few channels, trying to dodge detection. He’ll keep digging.”