She fell silent, and I wanted so badly to see her. But I’d made a deal, one I couldn’t cheat on. There was no camera capability in our bedroom or bathroom.

When I’d received the notification from Timothy that she’d returned to our bedroom, I’d clicked on the audio and popped an earbud into one ear while I listened to a new ad campaign pitch with the other.

Her first labored breath had punched me right in the stomach, and when she’d said my name? I’d walked right out of the meeting and to my office. My secretary had given me a blank look when I’d instructed her to tell the ad company to wait for my return, then I’d slammed my door, locked it, and turned up the volume. Her sounds had almost killed me. And the way she’d said my name? If she did that in person, it would bring me to my knees. It already brought me to climax in my fucking washroom. A first.

She’d gone silent after I let her in on the audio secret, so I’d returned to the meeting. They resumed as if nothing were amiss. But if I’d been mentally absent before, I was on a mental vacation now. My thoughts circled Camille like vultures around a kill. She couldn’t deny she wanted me, not anymore. I had so many of the necessary ingredients to convince her to stay, but I was still missing the main one—trust. What would it take to get it?

The room had gone silent, and with the way everyone was looking at me, it had been that way for quite some time.

I stood. “I’ll consider it and get back to you within the week.”

The lead ad man—a pudgier Don Draper sort—smiled and rose along with me. “Thank you for the opportunity.”

Link stood as well and opened the door, an expectant expression on his dumb face as he watched me.

I strode past him, heading for my corner office.

“Sebastian.” He dogged my heels. “Can I have a word?”

No, but you can have a pen in your eye. “What would you like to discuss? I have a full schedule this afternoon.” I did. It was true. But I intended to cancel everything and fly home to Camille. I could beat her orgasm by a mile with just my mouth, and she knew it.

“Mr. Lindstrom, Graffine called to confirm your reservation for Saturday evening?” My secretary held the phone to her ear.

“Cancel it. I don’t have time.” I was supposed to meet Dad, but he’d understand I was too busy for an evening out, not when Camille was waiting for me at home.

“Fine.” She turned back to her desk as I entered my office.

“Graffine? That place is tough to get into.” Link was still at my heels.

“What do you want?” I didn’t bother hiding my irritation.

“It’s about my girlfriend.”

I continued my brisk stride to my desk, though I wanted to grab him by his suit coat and throw him through my window. “What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, there’s this kid who’s been bothering me about her, and he’s sort of getting into my head. And now he’s gone and got a couple of her friends worried, too.”

“I’m sorry, where is your girlfriend in all of this?” I slid off my suit coat as I listened intently to each syllable the imbecile uttered.

“She’s on this expedition to the Amazon to study plants, but she’s been acting weird in her texts and I can’t get her on the phone. I tried calling the leader of her group via satellite phone, but he said she couldn’t talk because she was up a tree, and—”

“What does this have to do with me?” I sat at my desk and opened my emails.

He sank into one of my chairs, unbidden. “Nothing, really. It’s just I know you have ways to get things done, and I was hoping maybe you could pull a few strings—”

My eyebrows rose, and I gave him what I could only call a stony glare of imminent death.

He hurried along, “There are two Lindstrom operations in Brazil, so I figured—”

“You figured that I would use valuable company resources to track down the girlfriend who doesn’t want to talk to you?” I leaned back in my chair, giving him my full, withering attention. “And just how long has she been gone?”

“She left Saturday morning, and it’s Thursday, so—”

“Six days? You’re in my office asking for favors when she’s only been out of your sight for six days?”

He pulled at the knot in his tie as his cheeks blanched. “You know, you’re right. That kid just got into my head, and then Veronica started asking questions.”

“The blonde?”

“Yeah.” He did his best to smile, though it turned out sickly at best. “You want her number?”

“No, thank you.” I swiveled back to my computer. “If that’s all, I have work to do, and I suspect you do, as well.”

“Yes.” He rose and walked to the door.

I did a rapid calculation and erred on the side of getting as much data as possible. I tried for a compassionate tone. “Hang on a moment. I didn’t mean to be harsh. Look, if more time passes and you still have these suspicions, let me know. I’ll see what I can do about it.”

I smiled.

He flinched.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” He gave me a curt nod and hurried out of my office.

The moron was still in the dark, and I’d gotten a direct line to any suspicions he may develop. I needed him to calm down, though he didn’t seem to be the real problem. It was that brat from her class. He was the one raising a stink. But if Veronica had become suspicious too, I needed to do damage control.

I logged into the cell account for Camille’s phone. She had a dozen texts from Veronica, each one more frantic than the last. On top of that, there were a couple more from Mint. And finally, the dipshit managed to text, “Is everything okay?”

Was I so bad at mimicking a normal human being? Clearly, I was. Given the alarmist tone of Veronica’s texts, which included a threat to call the American ambassador in Brazil, I needed to do something, and I needed to do it quickly.

My phone beeped, and my secretary’s voice cut through my musings. “Mr. Lindstrom is here to see you.”

Dad wasn’t on my calendar, but it wasn’t as if I could turn him away. Damn, I didn’t have time for him.

He walked in and shut the door behind him. I’d seen him on the weekend, but he seemed to have aged even more in the five days between then and now.

His tired eyes surveyed me as he took the seat the cretin had vacated. “Have you let her go yet?”

I stifled a sigh. “No, and I’m not going to.”

“You have to.”

“Dad, I appreciate you coming to talk to me about this, but nothing has changed. She belongs with me.”

“Son, please.” He leaned forward, his eyes carrying some of the same intensity I saw in the mirror every morning. “You can’t do this to her.”

“I’m helping her.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You aren’t. You’re helping yourself.”

Frustration crept along the edges of my voice. “Nothing you say is going to changed my mind.”

“Don’t you trust me anymore?” Pain, the identical sort I’d seen when my mother died, bloomed in his eyes. “After everything?”

“I do.” I wrestled with my thoughts and tried to put them in the most logical order. “I always do. You’re the one person who’s never let me down, the only one who has my best interests at heart. But this is different. Camille is different. I can’t explain it.”

“I can.” He scrubbed an age-spotted hand down his face. “You love her.”

I scoffed. “I don’t even know what that is.”

“You may not, but that heart you’ve got inside you, it does.” He leaned back, though the strain in him didn’t lessen. “If you don’t let her go, you’ll never have her. She’ll slip through your fingers like sand.”

What was he talking about? “I already have her. She isn’t slipping through my fingers at all.”

My phone started buzzing on my desk. I snatched it up and entered the code. Fuck. I had a full camera view of Camille jetting across the lawn toward the tree line.

“Son, you have to look deeper. You want her, but you want what’s inside her. Her heart. You’ll never get it while she’s in a cage.” His sigh was bone deep, exhausted.

My palms broke out in a sweat. “Dad, I have some work to attend—”

“No, you’re going to listen to me.” His tone brooked no argument. “The two of you.” He pointed at me. “You belong together.”

Where the fuck is Timothy. My phone buzzed harder as she passed the next security level. I wanted to bolt, to fly to the house and catch her, but I couldn’t.

“Son!” Dad slammed his palm on my desk—the first time I’d seen him this agitated in a long while. Then his expression softened. “When I talked to her in the library, I could see it all, maybe even the same way you do. Her personality, her likes and dislikes, her light to your dark. I—” He stopped and swallowed thickly, then swiped at his eyes. “I even had this brief fantasy of grandchildren—the two of you making a family and being so happy together.”

“Exactly.” He was finally catching on. Movement from the edge of the screen caught my eye—Timothy on an ATV. Relief coursed through me. She wasn’t going to make it to the woods.

“But this is wrong. What you’ve done won’t work.” He shook his head. “I want all those things. You two together. Grandchildren. Happiness. I want all of it for you. But this is not the way to get it. You can trap her and hold her all you want, but you’ll never have her until you set her free.”

“That’s not true.” I had everything under control. Timothy circled her, and she stopped. Before long, she’d climbed on the ATV with him, and they were both headed back to the house. I set the phone down, but kept peeking at the screen. “You’re wrong.”

“No.” He labored to get to his feet, and shuffled to the door. “I’m not. And that’s the saddest part of it all.” He didn’t look back as the door clicked closed behind him.