Swink (Landry Family 5)

I grab a piece of paper towel and pat under my eyes. It comes back black, stained with the mascara I applied so carefully in case I saw Dominic again today. I just didn’t expect it to come off like this.

“Cam . . .” His voice is lower now, the tenderness I’m used to most days buried not quite as deep as before.

“Shut up.”

“I won’t shut up.” He stalks around the island, his eyes set firmly on mine. “This is why I don’t want you at the bar. This is the reason I tell you to stay away from the gym.”

“Because I might loan everyone money?” I crack, feeling my moxie dissipate as he reaches me.

He almost smiles. “No, because you’re too . . . you’re too nice for your own good.” He touches my chin and tips my head back so I’m looking up at him. The anger in his eyes fades and in its place is a concern that makes me want to burrow my head in his chest. “Your family has fucked you over by sheltering you so much.”

“They’ve given me a giver’s heart.”

“What they’ve given you is a rose-colored version of the real world and have been there to scoop you up from every problem you’ve ever had,” he sighs. “You rest on your laurels. You absolutely could walk into a room and take care of yourself, but you don’t. And that drives me insane. You’ve let them make you weak, when all I see when I look at you is a damn strong woman.”

A smile tickles my lips. As he takes it in, his posture softens.

“You don’t bother to analyze things sometimes, because it’ll all be okay because it always is,” he says. “You know what? Sometimes it’s not.”

“This will be.”

“It will be,” he acknowledges. “But you have to start being the woman I know you are all the time, not just some of the time, Cam. You just see the good in everything and I’m afraid . . .”

“What?” I whisper.

“The world isn’t like the gated community you’ve lived in your whole life. My world specifically isn’t the one you’re used to. If something happened to you because of me . . .” He reaches for me. I’m in his arms before he even gets them extended.

Nuzzling my face in his white t-shirt, I breathe in the smell of linen mixed with cedar—something so unique and so Dom.

His hands run up and down my back, his cheek pressed against the top of my head. We stand in the kitchen, holding one another.

“Are you still going to go with me tomorrow?” I ask, my voice crackling.

“I have to now. If I don’t, they’ll think we took the money and ran.”

“They will not.”

He pulls away, his eyes now brimming with an anxiety that is contagious. “I’ll be honest with you. If this was anyone else, I’d call it quits right now. I’d be looking at this like it’s a fight between two different weight classes.”

My hand trembles as I play with my earring, trying to hold on to the if this was anyone else part.

“I gotta go. I’m working a shift at the bar tonight for Nate.”

“I’ll call Ford and tell him we won’t meet for lunch tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t,” he says, shaking his head. “We’re going.”

“Why?”

“Because if he’s going to judge me, I’d at least like him to have met me once. I don’t want my complete reputation with Ford to be based on two interactions with my brother.”

Looking at me over his shoulder, he heads to the front door. With his hand over the knob, he gives me a sad smile. Sunlight pours in the room when he pulls the door open and steps onto the porch. “I’ll pick you up at eleven. See ya, Cam.”

For moments longer than I should, I stand in the foyer and look at the closed door. I wait for him to come back in and kiss me goodbye. Then I hear the Camaro fire up in the driveway and my heart sinks.

With tears flooding my cheeks, I hope beyond all hope he’s wrong. That this isn’t the start to the end of us.

Camilla