Camden

The room was still dark when I awoke. I was exhausted from the night before, and by all rights could have slept till noon, but my thoughts were troubled this morning. Kate was still spooned tightly against me, but for whatever reason, I felt uneasy. We had had the most mind-blowing sex last night, but I couldn’t help but feel as though we had merely swept things under the rug for the evening. There were still volumes left unspoken. Moreover, I hated staring at the shards of her ripped dress on the floor next to the bed. I hadn’t liked how I had been with her last night. I had lost control.

As good as things were between the two of us, I think I knew in my heart that I didn’t entirely have her yet and that killed me. I had plainly come undone when we had arrived back in our room the previous night, and that had been the first confirmation of what I had always suspected: if I lost Kate, it would destroy me. She just meant that much to me now.

In only a few short weeks, she had become this unbelievable force in my life that suddenly made everything make sense for me again. My heart had grown so full of her, that it ached just to be with her. Even now, I knew that I needed to go and clear my head for a bit, but I didn’t want to leave her…to jeopardize the few quiet moments that we had alone together during the day.

That was it, though, wasn’t it? As much as I wanted to be patient and wait for Kate to be ready, I didn’t want to steal moments here and there with her. I wanted to have our big, messy, beautiful relationship out in the open for the world to see because I was so proud of what we had found together. If she didn’t feel the same way, where did that leave me?

I could feel my anxiety rising. It was only 7:00 am, but I couldn’t lie there any longer. I kissed Kate’s shoulder gently just before I slipped out of bed, carefully trying not to rouse her. I padded back into my own suite and threw on a pair of sweats and my trainers and slipped out the door. A run would do me good, I had decided. Tony would likely kill me for not taking him with me, but I needed to be on my own. I needed to think.

---

I walked with purpose through the hotel lobby, praying that no one would notice me. I couldn’t deal with fans or paps this morning. Little did I know, that would be the least of my worries.

“Oy! Cam, is that you?” I heard a familiar voice yell just as I reached the front door.

I froze in my tracks, willing myself to turn around. When I did, I found myself several feet away from a face that I had hoped not to see while I was in London—my brother, Ethan.

His face wasn’t unlike mine, though everyone had always said that his features were less deliberate. I hadn’t seen him in over a year, and he had filled out quite a bit in the middle, his eyes now carrying a hint of baggage beneath them.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, skipping over the niceties as I moved away from the door.

“I wanted to see if my little brother would have a coffee with me and made up my mind to wait for you down here in the lobby until you agreed to it. Had a feeling I might be able to catch you before you headed out on one of your runs,” he laughed. “Looks like I was right.”

I wanted nothing more than to tell Ethan to leave—that I didn’t have time this morning, but I knew how he’d spin this back at home—that I’d been too busy to see my big brother and had gone off to workout rather than reconnect with family. He would say that he tried and that I was the dick. I wouldn’t dream of letting him have the satisfaction, though.

“Brilliant idea,” I said, feigning indifference as I led him to the hotel café a few steps away.

Ethan rather presumptuously slid into a booth against the wall, leaving me to sit in a comparatively uncomfortable chair across from him. It had been a power move. It was important for Ethan to feel like he was in control, that he was holding court. I knew how his brain worked. Putting me in my place had been his favorite pastime his entire life. When the waitress came to our table, I ordered a cappuccino, and he ordered a black coffee with milk.

“Cappuccino, huh? Very fancy!” he said smugly.

“Not really. It’s still just coffee and milk,” I said, unfazed, which seemed to irritate him a bit as he swept his gaze around the room, searching for something else to pick at.

“How much does this place set you back a night?” he asked crassly, drawing a grin from me.

“I really wouldn’t know. Studio pays for it,” I said, boredom just dripping off my tongue.

“Well, must be nice.” He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know why you’re still mad at me, little brother—especially when you’ve got all of this happening for you,” he said, crossing his arms defiantly.

“I wouldn’t say that I’m still mad at you. I just find you to be a startlingly shitty person and sometimes it’s hard to fathom that we’re even related,” I said calmly as the waitress set down both of our coffees, trying to pretend that she hadn’t heard that last comment before she rushed off.

“Oh, I’m a shitty person?” he laughed humorlessly. “I read OK Magazine. I see the lot you surround yourself with: whores, drug addicts, Hollywood scumbags. You should be so lucky.”

“Ethan, why are you here? In case you haven’t picked up on it, this isn’t going very well,” I said with little emotion as I stirred a lump of sugar into my cappuccino.

“I’m here because neither Lizzy nor Mum even told me you were in town. Did you know that? Lied right to my face. Mum even sent us off to Windsor with free passes to take Maggie to fucking Legoland so she could have a progressive dinner with her baby boy without the likes of me hanging around. Then I had to see her on the fucking evening news last night on the red carpet with you, didn’t I?”

I couldn’t help but laugh. Mum was good. Almost sounded like the sort of scheme that Kate would have cooked up. My enjoyment of her little farce was, of course, doing nothing but aggravating Ethan, which made me laugh even harder.

“You think this is funny? I’m sick to death of you putting a rift in this family, Cam.”

This conversation was just getting more ridiculous by the second.

“You realize how moronic that sounds?” I said, crossing my arms and sitting back to regard his stupidity. “You’re the one who impregnated my fiancée, and I’m the one who’s put a rift in the family? I mean, that makes absolutely no logical sense.”

“Cam, you have to get over this shit. I got Jules. The rest of the world loves you, okay? Isn’t that enough for you?”

“I really couldn’t give two shits about Jules at this point, Ethan.”

“Oh, that’s right!” he said, sitting back in his own seat, now mirroring me. “Mum just told me you had a new piece of ass. And where was she on your big night? Had to take your dear old mum instead, huh?”

Siblings always seemed to instinctively know just where to hit you, and that one smarted a bit.

“She was there, you asshole. We’re…just keeping a low profile for the time being.”

I knew that my brief hesitation had emboldened him. I could see the sick little smile on his face as he prepared to turn the knife.

“What, she doesn’t like the glare of your fucking overbearing spotlight, Camden?” he said as he took a very pleased sip of coffee. “It’s not for everyone. In fact, I can think of at least one other woman who didn’t want to deal with that shit for the rest of her life.”

Fuck! There it was. That little seed of doubt that had been growing at the back of my brain, unattended for days. The possibility that the real problem wasn’t Kate’s job but rather me and the complicated life that I’d be thrusting on her just as her mother had. Ethan had just watered and fertilized that seed, and I could feel it taking root and feeding a twinge of fear in my gut. I hated his irritating face. I wanted to end him.

“I see. Jules prefers the life you provide, does she? I can understand that, I suppose. But then again, it’s not really you who’s providing that life, though, is it?”

Ethan nearly choked on his coffee. “What the fuck do you know about it?”

“Come on, you can’t be that daft?

“I said, what the fuck do you know about it?”

Menacingly, I leaned into Ethan. “Where do you think the money comes from, you arrogant piece of shit?”

Ethan just stared at me, seeming legitimately confused as reality slowly washed over him.

“You?”

“What, you think Mum suddenly became independently wealthy? Use your brain. I’m not the one destroying this family. I am holding it together by its threads like I always have, because unlike you, family fucking means something to me. So, before you decide to come at me like this, next time do your homework and know what the fuck you’re talking about.” With that, I laid a twenty-pound note on the table. “That should cover it. I’ll just add it to your tab,” I said as I walked away from the table, leaving a startled waitress in my wake.

---

Taking a run was now out of the question. I didn’t want to risk Ethan trying to continue this outside, so I climbed back into the elevator and headed back up to my room. The damage had been done on both sides, and now I was even more troubled than I had been when I woke.