Gerald pulled a business card from his coat pocket and handed it over. “The offer stands, should your circumstances change.”
He clearly had more faith in her business capabilities than in the love side of this equation.
Pocketing the card, she bid Gerald farewell. As he drove away, Norah waited for the panic, the second guessing of her impulsive decision. But she felt only a rock-steady certainty that this was where she belonged.
Grinning to herself, she headed for her car. She’d go find Cam and apologize for being distant the last couple of days. Maybe they could go out to Tosca for dinner to celebrate. Because she was going to stay. Really and truly. Better yet, maybe they could get take out from Tosca and celebrate at home.
Her phone rang. She was still smiling when she dug it out and answered.
“Oh thank God. I’ve been trying to reach you for two weeks.”
Her brain took a few moments to shift gears. “Cecily?”
“I was going to email, but I realized I didn’t have your personal email, and your company email was already blitzed from the system, and—”
Instinctively wanting to soothe the panic, Norah interrupted her former intern. “Cecily, slow down. Take a breath.”
“I’ve been calling, but you haven’t answered. I couldn’t even get voicemail!”
Norah realized she’d never unblocked the Chicago area codes. Too late she wondered if Philip had taken any of his frustrations out on her staff. “You’ve got me now. What’s going on?”
“I’ve been trying to tell you so you could do damage control.”
A sick feeling began to brew in the pit of her stomach. “Damage control for what?”
“For Philip. He blackballed you.”
~*~
The loft was empty when Cam got home. Hush raced inside, making a beeline for the back, then coming back looking confused when she didn’t find Norah hiding in the bathroom.
“I know, girl. I miss her, too.”
Since the Council decision, Norah had withdrawn into a funk. Cam was working hard not to take the distance personally. Miranda assured him she was just licking her wounds. He was willing to bet Norah had spent at least twenty-four hours afterward wracking her brain for something else to do, some last stand. Given the email she’d sent out to the coalition, she hadn’t found it. And that had just led to more silence. The little voice that nudged at him, wondering if she had regrets, if she was going to run, had been silenced by a lot of hard, sweaty labor.
It hurt him that she was so hard on herself. How the hell did anybody make it this far through life without having failed at something? Without being able to accept that sometimes your best wasn’t good enough, and it wasn’t the end of the world? And it wasn’t just a matter of perception on Norah’s part. Her track record was irrefutable. She’d more than earned the nickname he’d initially given her in jest.
No amount of logic on his part was going to make her believe she hadn’t failed. So Cam figured some redirection was in order. He wanted to focus on the positive to come out of this whole mess—Norah was here. She was staying. And he wanted to take a step forward with their relationship now that every waking second wasn’t full of GrandGoods. At least it shouldn’t be.
But what step?
For all that he thought they were on the same page, Cam didn’t want to scare her off by pushing too far, too fast. It was hard, so hard, to hang on to his patience since she’d finally admitted she wanted to stay and he began to let himself think of their future. After so many years of waiting for her, he was eager to get started.
She already had a key to his place. That had just been expedience. She’d needed workspace and it was easier to trade off Hush duty. Cam loved having her in his space, loved seeing her dainty girl shoes lined up neatly next to his work boots, loved, too, the myriad of little reminders that she was in his life—like her pens and the favorite wine he kept stocked just for her.
Would asking her to move in scare her off? Would she recognize what he was really saying?
Norah, I love you.
She had to know. It was in every look, every action, every touch. But he hadn’t given her the words. Maybe he should just start with that, see where they took him.
As if conjured by his thoughts, she popped up on the caller ID.
“Hey Wonder Woman. I was just thinking about you. Ready to come out of your cave?”
In the beat of hesitation before she answered, Cam felt the tension reach out and grab him by the throat.
“Hey.” Her voice was hoarse. As if she’d been talking for hours. Or crying.