Cameron swallowed. "I got Sienna’s blood on me when she killed herself."
Olivia blinked, startled. "You were with her?"
He nodded, his eyes going distant as he glanced over her shoulder. "She didn’t seem to care either. She just looked up at me and said, ‘Let me go.’ Can you believe that? She didn’t apologize for the hell she was putting me through, for the mess she’d made of everything. She didn’t tell me she loved me. She just told me to let her die."
Olivia leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his throat in a show of consolation. "How’d it happen?"
Cameron closed his eyes again, but it didn’t do anything to block out the memory. "I walked into the bathroom one day and found her overdosed on all sorts of pills, hacking away at her wrists. That...that’s why I overreacted so badly after you broke the mirror. When I walked into that bathroom and saw the pills everywhere, the blood on your wrist, it was—"
He shook his head. Olivia buried her face against his throat. He turned toward her, and when she wrapped her arms around him, he shuddered.
"I’m so sorry," she said, running her fingers through his hair. "I didn’t mean to scare you like that in the bathroom. I shouldn’t have slammed the cabinet so hard."
"It wasn’t your fault. It was just an accident."
"I wasn’t trying to kill myself."
"I know. I..." His words broke off. "I wasn’t thinking. Forgive me, Livy."
"There’s nothing to forgive. You’re reaction was natural."
Her easy reassurance was hard for him to swallow. It made him think of his family.
"I think your dad cared about you more than you know," he murmured, stroking her hair.
He felt her body go tense a moment before she pulled back to look up at him. "What?"
"When Sienna died," he explained. "There was a part of me that was so mad at her. I couldn’t understand why she’d done this to me, why she hated me that much. But these days, there’s moments where I actually get it."
He thought of his parents, of Boston. How many times had he apologized to them for holing up inside himself and been forgiven without thought? How many times had guilt eaten at him for hurting them over and over again?
Licking his lips, he tried to explain. "Sometimes, when emotions get the best of you, you know your pain is hurting others, but you can’t seem to function past wallowing in your own misery. You start to think the solution is to get away from them, so you can stop their pain too. Sienna didn’t mean to hurt me, just like your dad probably didn’t mean to hurt you. They just couldn’t see past themselves."
Olivia let out a quiet sigh and rested her face against his neck. After a moment, she said, "That still doesn’t make what they did right."
"No," he agreed, closing his eyes and sinking against her warmth and support. "But it might keep us from hating them for it."
~ ~
Time passed.
Olivia nuzzled against Cameron until she grew warm and responsive. She loved this man, and she wanted to show it.
Leaning up, and making sure her body rubbed against his, she cupped his face and kissed him. Her insides glowed when she heard his low groan of approval. Her bare breasts slid against his taut chest, and his body shuddered.
One moment, she was sure he was going to roll her onto her back and crawl on top of her. The next, he pulled away and politely kissed her brow.
"Get some sleep," he murmured kindly. "You must be exhausted." Then he slid out from under the covers and clicked off her nightlight.
In the dark, she listened to him pad from the room. Frowning, she pressed her hands to a couple of different aching body parts and let out a low moan of distress. She knew what he was doing. He was trying to sever all ties between them. He’d started the annulment and this was his way of saying goodbye.
He hadn’t been so considerate before, thinking they could still enjoy each other’s bodies until the papers were signed. He hadn’t cared how having sex and then splitting abruptly would affect her. That knowledge right there told her how things had changed. He’d changed.
He must be starting to care. He must be conscious of her feelings, not wanting to take her body and then cut her loose. He was trying to ease away gently because it mattered to him.
Either that, or he really didn’t want anything to do with her.
She snorted. Okay, that was unlikely.
But there was only one way to get herself an honest answer. Tomorrow, she’d take drastic steps to get him back. And however he responded, well, then that would be that.
~ ~