“Of course.”
“You said you threw your time and energy into building a company.”
I watched his shoulders tense before he continued throwing together my pizza. “I did.”
“What kind of company did you build?”
“Real estate,” he said. “It’s always been my passion. I got my real estate license but went to school for business.”
“So you owned your own company.” It made sense. He must’ve had an extremely successful one to offer me millions for surrogacy services. Something in me relaxed. It seemed I’d had some worry in the back of my mind somewhere about where he’d earned so much money, considering his ties to organized crime. Though the cabin was huge and richly appointed, it had seemed strange for someone that wealthy to do seemingly nothing in the middle of nowhere. I could admit the agency background check process had lulled me into a sense of security that might not have been reliable, especially given Cameron had successfully snuck an alter ego past those checks.
“Owner and CEO, yes,” he said.
“Do you still own the company?”
“I sold off my controlling shares when I went off the grid with Audrey.”
“Do you think you might want to go back to it one day? Resume working at your company?”
“No. I left Silver Lining Real Estate, and I don’t intend on going back to it. That life feels like nothing but a distant memory.”
“Wait.” My eyes flew wide when I recognized the name. “You owned Silver Lining Real Estate? You built Silver Lining Real Estate?”
“I did. Are you familiar with it?”
“I don’t think anyone who tries to open their own business doesn’t know who they are. I used their coaching services to help me make decisions when I first opened my bakery.”
He stared at me and then a grin broke over his face. When he sat the pizza in front of me, I was almost embarrassed by how quickly I devoured it. And it tasted phenomenal, much better than putting some sauce and cheese on a tortilla and microwaving it. Between the two of us, we finished it off, sitting at the kitchen table in the darkness of his mountaintop cabin. Neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I had so much more to learn about him.
It occurred to me this little bit I’d learned about him hadn’t been something he’d lied about like his identity. We simply hadn’t talked enough about ourselves. There was so much we hadn’t talked about, so much I found I wanted to learn. If I was going to be staying with him until the dust settled, I might as well attempt to get to know the man who got me pregnant.
“Thank you for this,” I said.
“As good as it was in your dream?” Cameron asked.
“Better, if that’s possible.”
“Anything’s possible if you want it badly enough.”
The way he looked at me, it made my heart leap. I didn’t know if his gaze had darkened or if that was simply the look of his eyes when thick shadows played on his features. Either way, I needed space between us. I got up from the table and gathered my things, promptly making my way to the kitchen sink. But I heard him quick on his feet before his arm came around my shoulder and took my plate away from me.
“Go relax,” he said.
“You cooked, I clean. That’s how that trade-off works.”
“Not with me. Now go sit down.”
“Cameron, I’m just rinsing it off and then putting it in the dishwasher. It’s not a big deal.”
I pulled the plate away from his grasp, but my napkin fell to the floor. I set the dish in the kitchen sink and reached down for it, trying to set up some sort of equal dynamic between the two of us. I wasn’t going to freeload off him. We were going to split the cleanup of his home equally. I didn’t need someone doing everything for me. All I needed was my own space and the freedom to sit and think.
But when I came back up with the napkin in my hand, his face was inches away from mine.
His hand slipped into mine, taking the napkin from between my fingers. His breath pulsed against my lips, the heat of his body beating against my skin like a battering ram knocking down a door. I moved to stand up, but he moved with me, keeping in time with my movements.
“Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” Cameron said.