Chapter3
Saturday came and Cameron showed up exactly on time to pick up Jasmine. She had chosen to wear a pretty summer dress in a buttercream yellow, and dressy sandals. She knew that the color of the dress looked good on her and the flowing style of it would be perfect to wear for the concert.
Cameron was in a button up shirt, dress pants, and a sport jacket. He looked handsome in his casual way, and she liked it. He came to her door to get her and walked at her side back to the car, helping her in and closing her door behind her. She smiled about it, feeling a little spoiled by him, and enjoying it.
They talked about possibilities for her flower shop and different things about the pregnancy on their way up to San Francisco. They were lucky to hit a slight break in traffic, just before rush hour started, and they made it to the city in good time.
He took her to a restaurant in Japan town and they enjoyed a relaxing and quiet meal there together. She had been curious about something, and she hadn’t thought she’d ever actually bring it up to him, but as they sat there talking about everything under the sun, she began to feel more and more comfortable with him, and the curiosity she had about the one question at the back of her mind kept at her so much that she finally decided to ask it.
They were walking from the restaurant back to the car to head to the symphony, and she looked over at him and gave him a shy sort of smile.
“I was wondering, and you can definitely stop me if this isn’t any of my business, but… you’re a handsome, funny, thoughtful, sweet, intelligent, well off guy. Why are you hiring a surrogate? Why aren’t you having a family the traditional way?” She had figured out that he wasn’t gay, and she didn’t want to mention to him that she had discovered he had hired more than one woman to be a surrogate, so she kept that part silent, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out what a guy like him was doing being single and hiring women to have children for him.
He sighed long and deep, sliding his hands into his pockets. He looked away from her, studying the city around him with narrowed eyes as they walked, while he considered how to answer her. With a low voice, he told her the truth behind it.
“So, I was always one of the really smart kids. I figured out pretty quickly that most of the other kids didn’t like that too much. Most of the other kids wanted to blow school off, but I was fascinated with it. I loved learning. I wanted to learn everything that I could as fast as I could. So much of it made sense to me, and it came really fast and easy to me. There wasn’t a challenge. The teachers and my parents started putting me in classes where I could be challenged more, and that ended up accelerating me through a lot of my school years. I wound up graduating early and I went to college young. It was the same thing at college that it was in school. I aced the classes and wound up graduating with four degrees really early.” He chuckled a little in an ironic way, rather than in a humorous way.
She watched him, her heart feeling sad for him as she realized what a secluded childhood he must have had. She knew that no one in school liked a nerd who truly knew it all. She could see where his story was going as he told it.
“So, as you can imagine, with all of that school work being done, there wasn’t really much time for socializing, and I didn’t make socializing a priority, so I wound up not really learning how to talk to girls or women, and I wound up not dating very much. I was shy around ladies. I didn’t know what to say to them. I’m still shy around women.” He mused and shrugged.
Jasmine frowned. “You’re not shy around me.” She looked at him with an encouraging smile.
He stopped in his tracks and looked right at her in surprise, his eyes widening. “You’re right! I hadn’t realized that at all. I’m not shy around you. It feels very… natural with you. I feel comfortable with you, and I can talk to you about anything. Even tonight, I think we’ve hit every subject that could possibly come up to discuss, at least on some level.” He laughed then, a happy and carefree laugh.
“You’re sweet and friendly, and I can be myself around you. It’s nice… almost a relief. I can’t be myself around many women. I’m guarded… I guess. Before I was a student with not much money and I had no time to date because I was working so much.
Now I’m well off, as you put it, and I have time to date, but it seems like the women I meet are only after the money, rather than being with me for who I am. That’s why I’m still single, and why I am using surrogacy to become a father. I have a legacy to leave now, and I want to be sure that there is a future heir to leave it to. I want a son… someone to carry on my name and to inherit all that I’ve built up. I made my money fast, from college to now. I happened to come up with the right ideas at the right time, and definitely in the right place, and because of that lucky combination, fortune smiled down on me.
Now I’m getting a little older and I’m beginning to worry that I’m running out of time. I do want a family, and I want to have one while I’m still young enough to raise my children and be a part of their lives for many years… you know, see my grandchildren and god willing, my great grandchildren if I can. I know that if I don’t get started soon, those years at the other end of my life will be too short, and time will pass too quickly.” He sighed and turned to face her.
“I haven’t met anyone who I know that I want to spend the rest of my life with. I had to make a tough decision, and I chose to have kids without the wife so that I didn’t miss out on all of it, and instead I’m only missing out on the marriage.” He shrugged a little and gazed at her, and in some part of his heart, he hoped that she understood.
She smiled at him. “I’m glad that you’re starting a family, but I think perhaps you may still have a chance at love too. You’re a good man, and I know someday there’s going to be a lady who doesn’t make you feel shy, who is a good partner for you, and with whom you’ll find someone that you could share your life with. At least, I hope you find that person, for your sake and for the baby’s sake.”
He saw that she meant it earnestly, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude that she was there with him, doing so much to help him and make his life better, not only by carrying his child to give him a family, but by being his friend as well. He swallowed and gave her an appreciative look. “I don’t have many real friends, but I would count you among them. Thank you.” He leaned over to her then and hugged her, and she hugged him back just as warmly as she would have hugged Kelly.
He didn’t let go right away, and she knew that he must have needed the hug. When he did let her go, he kissed her cheek gently and smiled at her as he stepped away from her. “Well, Jasmine, I think we’d better get to our show before they start it without us.” He gave her a wink. “Come on.”
She slipped her hand through his arm and walked with him the rest of the way to the car.
***
Cameron raised his arm and wiped his sweat band over his forehead as he looked at the high hill above him and all of the towering redwood trees that surrounded him. The trees were so tall that they created a dark canopy hundreds of feet above him, and where he was, there was little light other than patches of it that filtered through to the forest floor. There was a stillness in the woods where he and his best friend Justin Leonard were hiking. A stillness and a timeless feel, as if time did not pass in the place where they were at the same rate that it passed everywhere else.
The trees were ancient and slow growing. They made their way upward over decades that became centuries, and the rush and bustle of man outside of their small world meant nothing, and had no real connection or reach with them. The narrow and dusty worn paths that wound long miles through the trees had been made there by men who had come during the gold rush, men who had been explorers, searching for land, searching for fortune and a new world, and searching for whatever lay behind the next hill. Those men had trod the earth where Cameron walked, and he thought of them as the soles of his feet stepped where they had stepped, so many years later.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Cameron called out ahead to Justin who was a fair distance in front of him as they went up the side of a steep incline. “Because, I just want you to know, you’re not inheriting anything. There’s no benefit to you if you do me in.”
Justin turned around and looked back at him. He had thick light brown curls that framed his long face. His eyes were blue and his smile was narrow. His nose was long like his face was, and with his longer hair curling around his head, he was sometimes told that he looked as if he could have been one of The Beatles when they were in their rebellious long haired phase.
“I’m not trying to kill you, I’m whipping you into shape, and there is a benefit to me. I get sadistic pleasure out of knowing I’m causing you some small amount of pain. It makes me feel better about you graduating with a higher grade-point average than I did,” Justin called back to him.
Cameron laughed as he made his way up closer to Justin, who was waiting for him. “You have to get over that, Justin. You really do. You can’t hold on to that forever. It was over a decade ago.”
“I can hold on to it. We’re going to be two grumpy old men and I’m still going to be bitching about it. So, get your wornout butt up here and let’s hike this together.” Justin chuckled as Cameron finally caught up with him.
“Okay, I’m here.” Cameron breathed out heavily, trying to wheeze.
“I’ll let you catch your breath. I don’t want you dying on this hill because then I’ll have to drag your ass back out of here again.” He laughed and took a drink from his water bottle.
“You can’t kill me, I’m an expectant father. At least let me see my offspring before you ruthlessly torture my life from me.” He laughed a little at his own joke and then took a long drink from his water bottle as his body began to slow down.
“Speaking of which,” Justin eyed him curiously, “how’s that whole thing going?”
Cameron sighed and put his water bottle away, looking around him at the landscape. They had gotten up far enough on the side of the hill that the trees were a little shorter and the sunlight came through a little stronger. It felt warmer to him, but he wasn’t sure if that was because there was more sunlight around them, or if it was because he had worked up a sweat getting to where Justin was. He could see more blue sky from where they stood, and that was encouraging to him.
“The whole thing,” he said as his thoughts shifted to the future and him becoming a father, “is going very well. So, Jasmine, who is the girl I hired to do the surrogacy, is actually a really great woman. I’m surprised, actually. I hadn’t expected her to be quite so good at what she’s doing, and it makes me feel a lot better about it all, and about her.”
Justin tipped his head to the side slightly. “What do you mean… good at what she’s doing? She’s pregnant. So, are you telling me that she’s good at being pregnant?”
Cameron lifted a brow as he thought about what Justin had said. “Yeah, actually, now that you say it that way, I guess that’s exactly it. She’s good at being pregnant.”
“How so? Doesn’t she just have to carry the baby and that’s it?” Justin asked, frowning slightly in confusion.
“See, that’s what I thought too. Find someone healthy, who has a healthy family background, and hire them to carry a baby, and that’s it. It’s just a pregnancy, right? Well, that’s not what she’s doing. She came to see me at my office and I offered to help her however I could, and she told me that she was eating organic food, all organic food, so I told her I’d pay for it. She says she’s not eating anything processed or high in sodium or high in fats… she’s really watching her diet, eating only the best, because of the baby.
She’s going to maternity yoga so she can relax and they can both be healthy and strong. She asked me to get her a machine that she sets on her stomach and it plays classical music like Beethoven and Mozart, and Bach and Handel. All of that classical music-” he was going to continue, but Justin beat him to the mark.
“All that classical music is good for the baby. Stimulates brain functions and critical thinking areas of the brain…” Justin trailed off and nodded. “You’re right. She is good at being pregnant.”
“Yeah!” Cameron smiled at his friend. “She’s good at it. She is really taking this thing seriously, and she’s doing all that she can to make sure that the baby is healthy and happy and doing well. She’s taking care of herself, and of the baby, and it really blew my mind when she came to me with those things. I thought, if she’s taking it so seriously right now, then I need to be right there side by side with her, taking it just as seriously as she is. So, I bought tickets to take her to the symphony.” He beamed happily.
Justin raised an eyebrow as he looked at Cameron. “You took her on a date?”
Cameron’s cheeks warmed and turned a little pinker than they already were. “No… no, not like that. Remember I just said that she asked me for the machine that plays classical music to help the baby. Well, I got the machine for her and while I was at it I thought that if recorded music was good for the baby, then live music has got to be even better, right? So, the San Francisco Symphony had a concert and they were playing Mozart. I took her to that, you know… for the baby, to help the baby.”
Justin narrowed his eyes as he considered Cameron. “You took her to help the baby.”
“Yes.” Cameron answered, looking away from Justin as Justin’s eagle eyes regarded his face and his expressions closely.
“Is that the only reason that you took her?” he asked coolly.
“Of course, it is! What other reason would I have for taking her out to the symphony?” Cameron scoffed at it, but his heart rate picked up and he began to feel a little apprehensive.
“You didn’t take her at all because you like her?” Justin asked quietly.
Cameron shook his head and looked down. “No, nothing like that. She’s just there to have the baby, and she’s doing a great job. I mean, sure she’s… she’s beautiful and smart and sweet, and she’s got a great sense of humor, and she loves old things like I do, and she’s determined… She has this dream to open a flower shop and she wants to open it in downtown Palo…” he trailed off and looked back up at Justin.
Justin watched him silently. “You don’t like her?”
“I’m doing it all for the baby. She’s really nice, and I like her as a friend, but everything that I’m doing, I’m doing for the baby.” Cameron said seriously.
Justin nodded slowly. “Okay.”
“So… how’s it going over in your new building?” Cameron changed the subject as he headed up the trail again, hoping to dissuade his friend from any further conversation regarding Jasmine. He hadn’t considered that he might like her, and he didn’t want to consider it. He wasn’t in the market for love or anything like it, no matter how amazing she was.
***
In recurring moments over the following days, Cameron found his mind drifting to Jasmine, thinking of something she had said, or the way her laugh sounded, thinking of how much she cared for the baby and how dedicated she was to making sure that the baby was getting the absolute best possible food and care even before it was born.
He found himself thinking of her warm and welcoming smile, and the way she looked so lovely and graceful as she walked along near him. When she crossed his mind, he would pause in what he was doing for a moment and enjoy his thoughts of her, and he would find himself smiling.
Cameron began to feel that perhaps he should try to do more for her, that he should try to take better care of her and show her his appreciation for the things she was doing to care for his child. Near the end of the week after he had taken her to the symphony, he had made up his mind that he wanted to make dinner for her. He called her, and she was less surprised to hear from him than she had been when he showed up at her door with the music machine and the symphony tickets.
“Hello Jasmine, how are you doing?” he asked with a grin as he heard her voice on the phone. It seemed to brighten him from the inside, bringing with it its own happiness.
“I’m doing wonderfully, Cameron, how are you?” She smiled, glad to hear from him. He sounded as sweet on the phone as he was in person.
“I’m very well, thank you. How’s the baby doing?” he asked, curious as always about his child.
“The baby’s good. It’s growing and I’m beginning to show a little more,” she said with a trace of excitement. “I’m beginning to really feel more pregnant than I have up until now.”
“That’s wonderful!” She could hear in his voice that he was beginning to feel a thrill about it as well. “Listen, I was thinking that I’d like to make dinner for you, you know, as a thank you for all that you’re doing. I just… I really appreciate everything and I’d like to do something good for you.”
He hesitated and then added with a laugh, “It’ll be all organic, I promise, so you’ll be sticking to your healthy diet. I’ll make sure of that. I want to take care of you and the baby.” He chuckled again and found that his heart was beating a little faster in his chest as he waited for her reply.
Jasmine blinked and looked around her room in surprise. “Dinner? Well that would be lovely, thank you. You really don’t have to, you’ve done so much for us already, but if you want to, I’d enjoy that! Thank you!”
It was a touching gesture and she knew that they would have fun talking and sharing each other’s time and company. She smiled, thinking what a nice friend he was turning out to be.
“Would Saturday work? I can come and pick you up, and bring you over to my place.” He realized that he wasn’t feeling any anxiety about it, but rather a sort of thrill, a happy buzz as he worked out the details with her and they said goodbye. He would have a week to think about their upcoming time together, anticipating it and looking forward to it, and the thought of that brought him a good amount of joy.
He planned the meal and stopped for fresh flowers on Saturday, preparing for her visit. His home was spotless thanks to the staff that worked there for him, but he arranged a cozy dinner setting for them in his dining room.
Saturday afternoon came and she took a little more time dressing herself in an ivory colored dress and sandals. The material was soft and light, flowing when she walked almost as if she was moving through a cloudy mist.
He arrived on time as he had for the symphony, and smiled widely when he saw her. “You look lovely,” he said, feeling his heart begin to beat faster. She didn’t make him nervous, she made him happy, but there was something about her that sparked many things in him, creating a hum of excitement and joy, and it was that that coursed through him like electricity moving through cables.
She gave him a smile and hugged him. “Thank you, you look good too!” She noted his button up shirt and dress pants. He always seemed to look as if he could have stepped off of the cover of a gentleman’s fashion magazine. He made have been a computer whiz in college and not had time for dating and girls or any kind of a social life, but since he had made his fortune, he had definitely found time for learning some great fashion sense.
He walked with her to his car and a short while later he pulled up to his house. It was tucked away on a street set back from the main roads.
She wasn’t entirely sure what she had been expecting, but it wasn’t what she saw when he parked the car in front of his house. There was a wide circular drive and a parking area in front of the house, so that at least five or six cars could have been parked there. It was light concrete, so it looked almost more like a patio.
In the center of the circular drive was a garden with rose bushes and carefully trimmed grass. Around the outside of the circular drive were immaculately groomed gardens carpeted with a beautiful green lawn, flowering bushes, tall shady trees, fruit trees, and there was a medium sized hedge around the entire property at least as far as she could see.
The house itself was two and a half stories, made of darker wood with a Tudor style. There was a small front porch where pots of flowering plants stood. She realized that she must have imagined in the back of her mind that he lived in a mansion of some sort, simply because he was a billionaire, but as she thought about it, walking with him along a side path through a garden gate around the house to a sliding glass door that entered into a big open kitchen, she realized that she couldn’t have been more wrong.
His office in town was simple and old fashioned. It was a classic sort of style; it wasn’t loud and garish, or large and luxurious, it did not bespeak wealth and grandeur. It was instead something much more true to who he was without all of the money that he had.
It occurred to her that he must still be the same down to earth man that he had been all of his life, and that becoming a billionaire in a decade and a half hadn’t changed him. He hadn’t gone out and splurged and flashed his money around; he hadn’t grown shallow and lost his soul to the fortune he had made.
He was just as happy being who he was as he had been before he became wealthy. The money was just a side note to him, and a way to allow him to help others when he found smart investments that he could grow his money in while benefitting others.
The interior of his home was designed around wide open spaces and lots of light. The living room encompassed both the first and second floor, giving it enormous area, while the kitchen had high ceilings and opened up into a formal dining room with slightly lower ceilings. All of the furnishings were modern and the kitchen had the most up to date appliances.
There was hardwood flooring in the kitchen, along with marble countertops and oak cabinetry, which matched the floor. The living room had a soft thick carpet and a rock stone fireplace which stretched up the entirety of the wall to the ceiling two stories above.
It was a comfortable looking home. There were a few tech magazines laying on a table beside the big sofa in the living room, and an old wooden desk in a little side office off the living room where she saw that he could work from home when he wanted to.
The kitchen surprised her a little, in that she could see that it was so up to date because he used it often. There was a walk-in pantry which had a sliding door that was pushed all the way open, and from the look of it, it stayed that way all the time. The pantry was filled with shelves of dried goods in labeled Tupperware containers, from spices to pasta, rice, cereal, and dried fruits to nuts and baking needs such as flour and sugar.
The counters had containers with an array of utensils to cook with, and there was an elevated pot and pan rack that hung in the air above the space in the pantry. With as much as he had in his kitchen in the way of foods and gadgets and appliances, she could see that he was no stranger to a kitchen, and that surprised her.
“Do you cook often?” she asked, wondering at all that was around her.
He nodded and smiled. “I do. I love to cook. It’s my creative outlet away from computers. I started cooking when I took home economics in high school and I found out that I was good at that as well, though no one else was surprised.
I probably couldn’t change the oil in my cars, and I won’t try to, but I can create a good meal, and I really enjoy doing it. I guess my kitchen is outfitted enough that it shows. I could walk into a kitchen supply store and be in there for hours. I’m a sucker for creating all kinds of things with food.”
She noticed that there was a moderate sized flat screen television extending down from the bottom of one of the cabinets. “Do you watch cooking shows on that?” she asked as she walked around his kitchen, running her hand along the cool white and gray marbled counter top. There was an island in the middle of the kitchen where a sink and cook-top were set, along with a clear work space. Bar stools were set up on the end of the work space, so someone could either use the area to eat, or use it to prepare a meal.
“I do watch cooking shows, and now you know that I’m even more of a geek than you thought I was to begin with.” He laughed and she shook her head.
“I think it’s great that you have taken such an interest in it. I like cooking, but I’m just not good at it. I guess I haven’t spent too much time at it, but I do make really good banana pancakes and I like to do that on the weekends when I’m being lazy and indulgent.” She laughed a little.
He watched her, studying her and grinning as the vision of her walking around her kitchen on a sunny weekend morning making banana pancakes formed in his mind. “What’s that like for you?” he asked curiously, almost wishing that he could join her in that indulgence.
She shrugged as she rested her hands on the counter of the island and faced him where he was standing across the island from her, leaning his back against the other counter with his hands slid down into his pockets.
“Oh, it’s peaceful and fun. I play old jazz music, you now, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Satchmo, Duke Ellington… and I make fresh ground coffee and open up the windows and the curtains when it’s nice, and I take my time making banana pancakes from scratch. I enjoy the effort and time I put into it, and when I finally get a plate of hot buttery pancakes, it’s absolutely worth it. I love it.” she laughed again and saw that he was enraptured by what she was telling him.
“That sounds like the perfect weekend morning to me.” He shook his head and smiled widely.
She shrugged. “Well, I’ll have to have you over for pancakes one of these weekends. With the warm weather coming up this summer, we’ll have time to enjoy it outside. I have a patio by my garden that’s really sweet. I think you’d enjoy it.”
“I’m sure I would.” He watched her happily, lost in the moment they were sharing, and her wide smile slowly brought him back out of his reverie and to the present with her. “Well, we’ve missed pancakes this morning, but we’re ready for dinner tonight!” he chuckled softly as he turned to the stove.
“It smells amazing in here. I’m not sure what you cooked, but I can tell you right now that I already like it!” she closed her eyes and breathed in the scent.
“It’s braised beef tips with fresh vegetables in a savory broth. I cooked long grain wild rice and mushrooms to go with it, and I made a salad. The salad came from the garden in the back. The garden is by the hen house.” He nodded out of the back windows and she looked over to where he was indicating and laughed out loud.
“You have chickens?” she gasped in delight.
He nodded. “I have chickens. I like fresh eggs, and they’re very sweet.”
She couldn’t begin to wrap her head around him. A good looking, single, sweet, thoughtful, billionaire computer genius who loved to cook and had chickens in his backyard. “You are an anomaly, I think.” She smiled as she shook her head, thinking of it all together.
He looked up at her curiously. “Do you think that’s a good thing?” It almost felt to him as if he was holding his breath while he waited to hear her answer.
“I think it’s a very good thing. This baby is going to have a wonderful home with the best father. You’re perfect for this. You really are.” She gave him a sweet and earnest look and he blinked and had to look away from her, feeling emotion rise up in him.
“I’m glad to hear that. Taking on the role of fatherhood on my own is going to be a big enough challenge. I will hire a nanny to help me, but still, choosing to be a single father is one of those things that takes a serious commitment, and I’m willing to make it, but I have no doubts whatsoever about the sacrifices that I’m going to be making with that choice.” he took a breath and turned his attention to the dinner in the oven, pulling it out carefully and setting it on the stove.
“Is there anything that I can help you with?” she asked, watching him.
“You could take the salad out of the refrigerator.” He suggested as he lifted the table ready ceramic pan from the larger pan that he’d been cooking the meat dish in.
She opened the refrigerator and gasped with a smile at what she saw. “This looks almost exactly like mine… I mean, as far as what you buy. Don’t you love goddess dressing?” She looked over her shoulder at him and he nodded.
“I do, would you grab it please? And anything else in there that you’d like.” He carried the ceramic dish to the dining room and set it on the dining room table.
She walked in with the salad and he went back to the kitchen for the rice and mushrooms. “Can I get you anything to drink?” he asked. “I have everything.”
She asked for lemonade, and he was delighted that he had some of the best lemonade that she had ever tasted. They enjoyed their meal, talking and laughing, and sharing each other’s company. She told him that his cooking was incredible, and he replied that he couldn’t wait to try her banana pancakes.
When the meal was over, she helped him with the dishes and just as they were finishing loading the dishwasher, she stood up and gasped, her hand flying to her belly as she stared straight ahead of her.
His eyes grew wide and he went right to her. “What is it? Are you alright?”
She lifted her eyes and looked up at him in amazement. “I’m not sure, but I think the baby just moved!” she whispered.
He gaped and laughed, looking from her face down to her belly where her hand was set. “Really?” he whispered in reply, and she nodded slowly.
“Yes… it’s still… yes! It’s moving!” she laughed and smiled in wonder as she felt the butterfly turning beneath her palm. “Give me your hand!” she said without hesitation.
He did, and she took it and placed his palm snugly against her belly. They waited a few moments, and to their wonder and delight, the little one beneath his hand moved and turned, and he felt it lightly under his touch.
“That’s… that’s amazing!” he laughed and gasped, as he looked up at her. “I can’t tell you how excited I am that it happened here with both of us tonight. It… it means so much.”
“It does to me, too. I’m so glad that you were able to be part of that.” She smiled at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
He hugged her tight in return, and when slid his arms away from her slowly, he paused to kiss her cheek. Her skin was warm and smelled again of spring, and as he moved his mouth from her cheek he found that her lips were so close and inviting that he wanted to kiss them as well. Without a thought to it, he brushed his lips against hers gently, and then pressed them there again, softly and slowly, feeling her kiss with his.
She kissed him in return, stunned that he was kissing her at all, but discovering to her surprise that it was sweet and warm, and she wanted to kiss him back. He closed his arms around her, bringing her to him as their kiss grew deeper, and for a moment they both lost themselves in each other, but then something in the back of his mind clicked, and he remembered that she was hired to have his child, and their business relationship should not experience anything beyond friendship. He was worried that he was taking advantage of her, and taking his liberties a bit too far.
Cameron pulled away from her and released her from his embrace, lowering his arms to his side as he looked away from her and spoke quietly. “I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have done that. I guess I got caught up in the moment.”
She caught her breath and tried to slow her heart from its fast pace. “I understand. Don’t you worry. It was a special moment, and that was a nice way to see it past. We’re fine.” She gave him a smile and a nod, and he smiled back at her in earnest.
“We really are.” He agreed whole heartedly.