He wanted me to stop avoiding him and he’d succeeded at that, only to start avoiding me.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of signing up what seemed like a million copies of the deal documents. I didn’t even skim what was placed in front of me. I knew I should’ve been more vigilant, but at this point, I didn’t care. I wanted to get out of this room so I could go find Cameron. I needed to apologize to him. I could salvage this.
I made it out of the conference room, my mind still in a fog.
Lily caught the elevator down with me. “Congratulations, Dylan. We did a good deal today. We’re all heading to dinner to celebrate.”
“Oh.” I didn’t want to celebrate. Cameron had dropped a huge deal just to get away from me. Did that make me a monster? What had I done?
“It’s a very nice Italian place on Second and Fifth. It takes ages to get reservations, but we got lucky with a last minute cancellation and Charles knows the owner.”
They were going to the same place Cameron had taken me for dinner that first night. It had to be the same place, except Lily had just said it took months to get reservations. Cameron hadn’t mentioned having any trouble. That either meant Cameron had some very good connections, or he’d been planning that date.
He must have found out that I was the one working the deal. My name was sent to George months ago. Cameron might have noted the date of the meeting and made that reservation, hoping I’d say yes.
“Oh, fuck,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Lily looked shocked.
“Sorry, I have to…” There was no way to escape the elevator before it stopped. And what would I do if I could? Run to Cameron and beg him to forgive me for this morning? I hadn’t thought this through.
It was over. Whatever we had, I ruined it. He made that clear when he sent someone else in his place.
“I’d rather just wait at the airport. I’m not in the mood for dinner, if it’s all the same to you.”
Lily pursed her lips. “We’ll see you at the airport, then.”
I sat on my suitcase with my head buried in my hands. I was going back with the senior partners on their private jet, but I’d gotten to the private airfield an hour too early since they were out at dinner first.
I scrubbed the backs of my hands against my eyes as their car pulled up.
I wish I could’ve just waited on the jet, but I was stuck in this overly posh waiting room. I probably could’ve begged to board early … but something held me back. Maybe I didn’t really want to go. Maybe I was waiting for a miracle.
I managed to put on a strained smiled as Charles walked toward me.
“Hope you found a way to entertain yourself while you waited,” he said.
“It wasn’t a bad wait,” I lied.
He looked me over with disapproval. I was never going to fit in at this company, no matter how kind they’d been to me early on. Not after George’s little stunt.
Leaving my job was unthinkable. I’d worked hard for it. Leaving would mean walking away from everything I’d worked for. All those late nights and missed holidays with my family because I was trying to prove myself.
But staying would mean working with people who apparently thought I’d pulled some kind of shady scheme to win myself a promotion. And staying meant Texas—and no Cameron.
I tried rationalizing it away. I was due for the promotion anyway … but the partners hated being pressured into decisions. I wondered if they could ever look at me without remembering how I’d gotten the promotion.
The rest of the partners began climbing the stairs to the plane while I waited to go last.
My phone buzzed with a text. Don’t get on that plane. It was from Cameron. My heart pounded so hard I could hear my pulse in my ears.
Cameron Richmond, my every dirty fantasy come to life. The man who’d broken my heart twice, was telling me not to get on the plane.
I stood up. I took a step toward the plane, then a step back.
“Aren’t you coming?” Lily called over her shoulder.
I opened my mouth and didn’t speak.
A Mercedes pulled into the lot. It was black and its windows were so darkly tinted I couldn’t see inside. It pulled up right beside me and the back window rolled down.
Cameron Richmond looked up at me.
“You,” I said.
“I’m not waiting another ten years to make whatever happened this morning right with you,” he said.
Chapter 11
Cameron
Dylan’s face was frozen in shock and her eyes were far too wide. “But you were mad at me,” she said. “You handed the deal off to someone else.” She bit her lip, her eyes welling with tears.
“Dylan.” I wanted to wrap my arms around her and physically pull her into the limo. I wanted her to choose to not get on that plane so badly, but I had to give her space to make the choice. “There’s a lot I need to tell you. If you get in this car now we can go back to my apartment and begin to sort it out.”