Page 53 of His to Seduce
Chapter 17
David
From the moment I’d handed my credit card to a private charter company, waking up the pilot from a middle-of-the-night deep sleep and begging him to get me off the island, I had planned every word I wanted to say to Camden when I saw her again. Once we hit Miami at the private plane terminal, I’d done the same thing to another pilot. It took a lot of money—thousands of dollars—but it had been worth it.
It had given me time to put all my thoughts in order, everything I thought she’d need to hear to forgive me. Seeing the visible pain I’d inflicted on her yesterday made me hate the way I’d handled all of it. Intellectually, I knew I’d been running from the last five months through no fault of my own.
How exactly did you explain to someone who always seemed so strong and confident that you walked away from your lifelong dream because you were too big of a pussy to deal with it?
As I sat in Camden’s living room, feeling her irritation from across the room, hating that she was balled up like she needed to protect herself from me, I knew I had to start.
And the only way to do that was to go back to the beginning.
“I told you my dad died when I was in college.” I took a large swallow of my beer and cringed at the heavy flavor.
Camden watched me, smiling slightly at my reaction and then looking at me. “Yes, you told me.”
Fuck.I hated this. Hated reliving any of it. I would, for her, but already I was feeling pulled apart at the seams.
“I didn’t tell you that I was the one who found him.”
Her lips parted on a gasp, forming a perfectly shapedO.“What?”
“I was interning at his office that summer, filing and handling mail. He’d always wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but insisted I worked from the bottom up and learn everything about the company like he’d had to do.”
“David—”
I shook my head and stopped her. Whatever she wanted to say, she needed to hear the rest first. “I was supposed to meet him for lunch and his assistant was expecting me, so she didn’t even buzz into his office or let him know I was there. She waved me through, and when I walked in, I saw him collapsed on the floor, still holding onto the phone he’d been using just minutes before.
“My mind transported back to being young and excited, looking forward to being a part of something my dad had always loved. I loved that the McGregor dynasty was going to be passed on to me someday, had grown up hearing about it. Then I walked into the office to find my dad—a man I’d always respected and admired, had looked up to and wanted to be like—collapsed, unconscious, and I could do nothing to help.
“He was still warm,” I said, not even realizing where I was, but lost in memories. “EMTs came in, swarmed him. Security had to pull me off him, and someone called my mom. But I didn’t need anyone to tell me he was already gone.”
I squeezed my eyes closed and focused on Camden. Her pale skin, paler from the shock of my story, tears streaking her cheeks. “I rode to work with him that morning like I’d done every morning that entire summer and then I watched, stood there helplessly while they wheeled him out on a stretcher, zipped in a plastic bag.”
My throat burned and I drained the rest of my beer in a swallow. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and cleared my throat. “After that, I walked away from the family business. The day of his funeral, I swore to myself that I would never feel that helpless again. That I would never, ever let anyone feel what I had felt and I’d do anything I could to stop it.”
She sniffed and wiped her nose. With a wobbly voice, she concluded, “So you became a doctor.”
I nodded. “So I did.”
She pressed her lips together and I waited, tried to figure out how to explain everything else, when she said, “I don’t understand. Being a doctor—that takes a hell of a lot of work, and money and time and commitment. Why would you hide it? Why would you lie about it?” Her auburn brows furrowed.
I wanted to jump across the room, smooth out all the tension in her features. I wanted to run my hand through her hair that was tied back like it had been every other time I’d seen her until Jamaica. Pulled back tight. Like she couldn’t stand the thought of a single strand touching her. Seeing her buttoned up in her suit and in heels, all that tightly wrapped and primly dressed sexy-as-hell woman, I’d had to force myself to keep my hands in my pockets so I didn’t ruffle her up as soon as she’d slid out of her car.
God, I loved how she’d been so wild and free on the island. Seeing her like this, like I’d been the one to rush her back behind walls, made me want to punch something.
“It’s not that simple.” I pulled in a breath and tried to get to the point. “Have you ever done something in your life, lived your life in such a way that you start to wonder if there’s any point in it at all? Or you forget why you began it in the first place?”
Her lips pushed together. “No. Not really.”
I laughed softly. “Yeah, somehow I have a feeling you’ve always planned everything for a reason.”
She flinched. I hadn’t meant it as an insult.
“I know exactly why I’ve always lived the way I do. It doesn’t mean my choice was any better than yours.” Her voice was soft, tender. Almost pulled from her against her will, like she was now the one admitting something she didn’t want to talk about.
We’d get to her later. Because just as I was hiding and running, I knew she was doing the same thing. Forcing myself to face all my bullshit only made me want to help her, too.
