Page 42 of His to Seduce
My cheeks puffed out and I blew out a breath. There was nothing I could do to help Harold, but hell if I could walk away.
“Find her,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and gritty.
The clanking of the stretcher being lifted snapped my focus back to the task at hand, and I moved back to Milly.
“Just tell her I can explain.”
“Would help,” Aidan replied, “if you would have told us what the hell was going on for the last five months, you know. Secrets have a way of getting out and it never turns out well when they do.”
“Not really the time for that now, is it?” I snapped. Of course I could have told my friends what had happened in Chicago. Of course they’d understand, or at least be supportive.
Aidan took a step back, reaching behind him and taking Chelsea’s hand in his. His lips tugged downward, and he ran a hand over his face. “I know. Not the time, but some fucking honesty would have been nice for all of us. You didn’t let me hide when I needed you.”
Memories licked my skin, making me shiver. I couldn’t handle it. I resisted the overwhelming urge to run and jump off the pier, straight into the sea, and hide from all of it. Death, deception, the pain I saw lashing through Camden’s features as reality clicked together.
God, I was an idiot.
“I gotta go.”
I clapped Aidan’s hand and he murmured, “Keep us posted, yeah? We’ll deal with the rest of this later. It’ll all work out.”
“Yeah.” I dropped his hand and gave Chelsea a pleading look. “Chelsea.”
She shook her head and looked at the pier where Camden had disappeared. “This is Camden, David. You know that and you know her.”
It was a warning. A statement of truth. One that made me know how completely royally I’d just fucked up.
“She’s not the kind of girl that gives second chances.”
Tyson’s voice rang clearly in my head, making it pound against my skull.Damn it.Fuck!
“I know.” I said goodbye to everyone else and hurried to the ambulance where Milly was still standing, staring at the now closed doors.
“Fifty-two years of marriage. He just wanted to see Jamaica, always did. Harold can’t go like this. Not on this night.”
“He won’t.” I draped my arm over the woman’s shoulder and pulled her toward the front of the hotel to find a ride so we could follow the ambulance. “Come on. Let’s get you to the hospital, and I promise I’ll be there to help you with anything I can.”
“You’re a good man,” she said, turning to me and giving me a tight smile.
I was an incredibly stupid man. I was a broken man.
And if Camden ever found it in her to hear me out, I’d prove that I wouldn’t be so epically idiotic ever again.
—
Chelsea hadn’t lied earlier. Camden was gone, and I was the idiot who watched her walk away. I was the idiot who stood by and did nothing, all in a vain attempt to be helpful. To somehow be who I was supposed to be.
It was never enough.
How wrong I was. Again.
Lungs burning from tearing through Camden’s bungalow and then my own, just to make sure she hadn’t changed her mind, all I’d found was both of our places exactly how they’d been left. Camden had run off the island with only the purse she’d been holding.
I was still breathless when I reached Aidan and Chelsea’s bungalow.
After knocking, I waited a few moments and cursed myself. It was the middle of the night, way too late to be showing up unannounced.
A pale light flicked on and the door flung open.
