One and Only(51)

The opening strains of “Your Song” started pouring from the speakers, and Elise and Jay shared a tender look as they got up from the table and walked to the small dance floor.

“When you’re ready, we’ll dim the lights and then I’ll say, ‘Please join me in congratulating Elise and Jay on their first dance as husband and wife.’”

Jay took Elise’s hand and pulled her against his chest with a ferocity you didn’t generally see from him. Cam knew it was there, underneath the applique of the mild-mannered accountant. Apparently Elise did, too, because she looked at him with what could only be called bedroom eyes. Watching them felt intrusive, like they were witnessing a private, intimate moment. But it was impossible to look away.

The DJ must have shared his sentiment, because he kept the song going. Cam would have thought that they were just running through the cues. But the entire song played out as Jay and Elise swayed under the spotlight, seemingly oblivious to their surroundings.

As the final notes of the song ran out, it was like the bridal couple came to and suddenly remembered that they had an audience. Embarrassed, Elise buried her head against Jay’s chest for a moment before she reemerged, smiling sheepishly.

“Elise and Jay wanted to do something a little different for their second dance,” said the DJ. “So I’ll be making this announcement tomorrow at this point in the program.” He looked down at his notes. “In lieu of a lineup of dances with their parents or with the wedding party, Elise and Jay invite all the lovebirds out there to join them for the next dance. Old love, new love; it’s all welcome. So if you’re under Cupid’s spell, grab your beloved and get out here.”

“Oh, that’s cute,” said the minister. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Gia, who was standing next to him, snorted softly. “Well, that leaves everyone here out, except…oh.”

He followed her gaze.

There was a goddess walking toward him.

Oh, fuck.

“Oh, fuck,” Gia whispered, echoing his thoughts so quickly and perfectly it was like she had heard them.

His first impulse was to agree with her, but he couldn’t because everything started happening to his body all at once. All the stereotypical shit: his stomach dropped even as it felt like a herd of mini-elephants was migrating through it; his mouth dried up; his skin prickled with the pressure of a thousand tiny needles; his throat closed.

That last one was why, when Jane reached her hand out toward him and said, “Dance with me?” all he could do was stand there mutely, staring at her.

She was so beautiful. Objectively so: her fair skin contrasted with the burgundy of her dress and her lips. Her hair was piled loosely on her head with strands of it coming down from its updo. And those curves, covered in a second skin of lace. It almost hurt to look at her. But it was more than that. It went deeper. It was the way she looked when he told her about Eric and Haseeb. About Becky. And, bastard that he was, it was the way she looked when she came, surprised and delighted in equal measure. The whimpering sounds she made as she begged him to fuck her. He was pretty sure he was the only one who had ever seen that beauty. Hell, he was also the only person who knew what she looked like hanging off the CN Tower.

But that didn’t mean he should be the only one to see her like that.

Just because he was the one who’d been around when she came out of her shell didn’t mean he was the one for her. That was assigning him too much agency in the equation. She deserved someone who could give her everything. Someone without a Boeing 747 full of baggage. Someone who didn’t disappoint everyone he loved. An actual angel, not a fallen one.

Someone like Andy, or, eff him, even Kent the Ken Doll. And once he was out of her hair, she’d be free to find that someone.

He was waiting too long to speak. Though her hand was still outstretched, a shadow was starting to pass over her eyes.

He couldn’t speak; that was the problem. Not around the massive lump that had formed in his throat. If he’d been able to, he would have said, “See? That shadow is me. That’s what I do. I take something bright and beautiful and hopeful, and I dim it as I pass by.”

And he couldn’t do that to her. No fucking way.

So he did what he had to do: he shook his head.

He wanted to do it gently, to infuse that “no” gesture with all the regret in his heart. So he only shook his head a little—the slightest amount, really.

It was enough.

Tears rushed to the corners of her eyes, and she clamped a hand over her mouth.

He wanted to crush her to him, to soothe away the hurt he had caused. But that would only be self-serving, would only prolong the pain and complicate the untangling. The best thing he could do for her was cut her loose as kindly but decisively as possible.

So he dropped his gaze from her gorgeous face to the ground—where it belonged.

Somebody gasped.

The square pattern in the parquet flooring at his feet blurred.

He swiped his hand over his traitorous eyes, and, keeping his gaze squarely on the floor, he turned and walked out of the room.





Chapter Twenty-Three



He ignored them all. Jay’s insistent pounding. His mother’s gentle pleas. Even Elise had come by and knocked and yelled at him through the locked door of his room.

Eventually, they gave up. He heard them whispering in the hallway, wondering if he had actually left somehow, though they noted his car was still in the lot.

“If you’re in there, I need to talk to you,” Jay shouted.

Yeah, that was not happening. No one was going to tell him anything he hadn’t already told himself. Nothing that came out of their mouths would shame him more than he already was. He had fancied himself a fallen angel before? He’d had no fucking idea how much farther there was to fall.

“The end.”

He read the words aloud because they applied to so much more than just book one in the Clouded Cave series, didn’t they?

He set his Kindle down on the bed beside him and closed his eyes.

What a book.

He allowed himself one moment of…happiness wasn’t the right word. Pride maybe? Gratification? To think that the person who had written such an amazing book had, for one moment, deluded herself into thinking she wanted him. It was astonishing.

He could see where all her bravery came from, too. It was all right there in her book. In her characters. It was like she was trying out those feelings, playing with different permutations, in her story. As the main character emerged into the alternative world through the cave and her eyes were opened to the injustices of that world, she could have gone right back through to her own world. The universe of the book allowed that—it was a two-way portal.

It did not seem to him a mistake that the woman who had leaped off the CN Tower despite her intense fear—and who confronted her sick father—had also written this book.

He picked up the Kindle again and downloaded book two. Since she was writing for children—on the surface of things—her books weren’t long. It had taken him only two hours to read the first one. And he was going to spend the whole goddamned night torturing himself with the rest.

He was halfway through book two when the pounding started again.

“Cameron MacKinnon, open this motherfucking door, or I will break it the hell down!”

Gia.

He almost laughed. The doors in this place were old and the locks so flimsy as to be almost decorative, but the idea of the tiny wisp of a model breaking down his door was incongruently amusing.

She broke the door down.

He bolted to a sitting position. “What the fuck, Gia?”

“That’s my line, Cameron!” she shouted, stalking toward the bed and grabbing the tie he still wore and using it to haul him up to a sitting position. Once he was upright, she let go of him, put her hands on her hips, and said, slowly, “What. The. Fuck.”

Then she slapped him.

The commotion drew Jay, who was next door.

He walked in, shaking his head. “God, man.” The disappointment radiated off him in waves, but Cam was used to that.

“What’s going on up here?”

Fuck. His mom. He was used to disappointing her, too, but after their unspoken reconciliation, it was hard to face her.

And bringing up the rear was Elise. The one who’d stuck Jane with him in the first place. The one who hadn’t trusted him not to ruin things. The smart one.

“Where’s Jane?” he asked through the hands he had buried his head in.

“As if you have any right to know,” Gia said, and he nodded because she was right.

“Wendy took her to a motel in town for the night,” said Elise with an eerie calm, given how particular she’d been about making sure all things wedding related were perfect. “She didn’t want to spend the night here. They just left.”

Which explained why Hurricane Gia had descended with such force just then.

Elise, who’d been standing closest to the partially unhinged door, fit it back into place. There was a soft click as it closed, but he heard it like the slamming of a jail cell, sealing his fate.

They all started talking at once. Gia was screaming about how she’d specifically warned him not to hurt Jane. His mother kept saying she thought he had changed, she hoped he had changed. Jay was trying to get everyone else to stop talking.

Cam sat there and let them come at him. Let the ocean of recriminations wash over him, but instead of scouring him clean, the current left a pile of algae and sea trash in its wake.