I couldn’t afford to be more vulnerable right now.
30
JUDE
C ameron walked away like she’d just left an R&D debriefing. I could imagine her strolling calmly to her office to catch up on emails. Maybe taking her laptop out to the upper balcony so she could sit in the shade of an umbrella and get some work done.
Like she didn’t care.
Like I was just another employee.
An employee who’d been dismissed.
Fuck this.
For the first time in five years, I was quitting a job. I didn’t need this shit. She was the one who’d kept information from me. And she had the audacity to get defensive? I was trying to keep her safe—keep someone from screwing up her life, or worse. So much worse.
And she wanted to argue about who was keeping secrets. Who was being guarded.
Yeah, I was fucking guarded. I kept secrets. A fuck ton of them. But that was the nature of my life. I didn’t say the actual words very often because it tended to freak people out, but I’d been a spy. A spook. People thought they knew what that meant because of movies and spy dramas. But they didn’t know. They had no fucking idea.
I went inside, ignoring the prickly sensation that crawled across my skin. Grabbed my motorcycle helmet from where I’d stashed it in a closet. Walked out the front door.
I still stopped and made sure it locked and the alarm set.
But that was it. I was done.
My bike was out front. I jammed my helmet down—why did it feel hard to put on?—gripped the handlebars, and swung my leg over. Turned it on and the engine roared to life.
The muscles in my back knotted and my chest ached. I felt hollow and raw. But I pushed it all aside and tore down her driveway.
Because fuck this.
I skidded to a stop at the first golf cart crossing. It was empty, but I didn’t want to hit anyone on my way out. I paused, checking right, then left. Making sure it was clear.
There wasn’t anyone there. No group of seniors in bright tracksuits doing their walking jazzercise routine, complete with a peppy trainer carrying a boombox on his shoulder. No Mrs. Montecito swerving in her golf cart after too many margaritas down at Bluewater’s beach bar.
I accelerated again, driving by the canal, but slowed, wondering if anyone had fed Steve recently. With all the chaos, Cameron might have missed her turn.
Why the hell did I care if a three-legged alligator missed a meal?
I groaned and pulled to a stop. I shouldn’t care. But if Dr. Whittaker let Schnitzel, her miniature dachshund, too close to the water, and Steve hadn’t been properly fed…
I flipped to my calendar—I’d synced the Bluewater events calendar to mine—but Cameron’s turn wasn’t for another few weeks. Steve probably had a belly full of rotisserie chicken. Schnitzel the wiener dog was safe.
My neck prickled uncomfortably, and I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. A delivery van drove by, reminding me that I was sitting in the middle of the road. What the fuck was wrong with me?
Cameron was what was wrong with me. I never should have taken this job.
I kept going, well aware of how slow I was driving. Took a right I didn’t need to take. Cruised toward the marina, not the Bluewater gate. Because if I left, then what?
She’d be alone.
My stomach was doing uncomfortable things, and it wasn’t like that time I’d gotten some questionable tacos down at the beach. The ache in my chest grew with every inch of ground my motorcycle ate up beneath me.
Maybe we should have kept it professional.
I’d said that. Thrown it in her face when she’d said things had gotten complicated. I still wanted to know why she hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me about the sex tape. But saying that had been a dick move on my part. No wonder she’d walked away.
And that cool businesswoman thing she’d done? I knew that act. It was as fake as her friend Daisy’s turquoise wig had been the other night. She hadn’t walked away from me all calm and collected because she felt that way. She’d done it because she was trying to convince me—and maybe herself—that she was fine. But I knew her. I didn’t need to know why she turned her blender into a jet engine or where she’d grown up or whether she had any family to know her.