“So there I was, shoveling food down my throat, and he was introducing me to his best friend, Jeremy. Like I was something special,” Camilla shouted from the bathroom while she washed her face.
My hands were shaking, and my eyes tingled with unshed tears from my spot under the afghan on the couch. I could see out the holes in the fabric, but it acted as a cloak for my emotions.
“Mm,” I mumbled, barely loud enough to mean anything, but it was enough for Camilla. She was on a roll about Levi, and she didn’t really need my participation. All she needed was a willing listener—and I was doing a good enough job of pretending to be that.
“Jeremy is so nice, by the way. So is his wife, Liza. Apparently, Levi babysits their kids—daughters—sometimes.”
I smarted at the knowledge she had of him—knowledge I barely had; knowledge I’d only garnered by mistake.
My emotions were all over the place as I tried to lessen the violent turmoil inside.
Levi wasn’t mine to claim. He was a jerk and a con and a fucking opportunist. He’d played on my weakness and the innocence of my sister today, and that made me want to cut off his air supply.
But Camilla was on a high from the royal tenderness with which he’d treated her, and the irrational part of me was jealous. Jealous of the unclouded joy she felt, as blameless as it was, and jealous of the man he’d been with her.
It was obvious by the way she spoke that it wasn’t all an act. He’d given thought to her feelings and her comfort in a way that spoke to experience. He’d offered her a hand to get down from her stool at the bar, and he’d walked slowly with a mind to the length of her legs. He’d opened the door to the banquet hall to aid in her exit, and he’d held her hand to ease her journey over the slippery ice outside.
I’d fumbled my way behind them, Sam and Mary looking on with concerned eyes. I knew I’d looked sad, but I’d done my best to give them a smile anyway.
“He asked me all these insightful questions about my job and what it was like to be the woman behind the scenes,” Camilla continued, completely unaware of my suffering.
Which was good.
None of this was her fault, and I had no interest in bursting her bubble. It didn’t hurt anything for her to think Levi was good in all the ways that counted, and she didn’t owe me anything. Levi and I weren’t a couple, despite what all of the physical contact we’d managed had made it seem, and we weren’t destined for one another. If anything, we were two peas in two very separate pods, better off without each other.
I just had to convince my heart to get on board the reality-bound train along with my brain.
Camilla exited the bathroom, flicking out the light behind her and plopping down on the couch next to me. I used the blanket as a shield—whether it was more active trying to keep her words out or my black mood in, I wasn’t sure.
“So then he tells me about his mom and how she was this really proud, sure woman. Apparently, she left him and his dad when he was pretty young, intent to make something of her life. I don’t know. I guess Cold was too small for her.”
My head popped out of the blanket like a fucking groundhog at the shimmering, unheard news.
I knew next to nothing about Levi’s family life after weeks of time together, but my sister had a whole fucking backstory after a single afternoon.
“Where’d she go?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
Her eyes got big and her voice, dramatic. “Get this. Hollywood. She wanted to be a star, he said.”
I reeled, metaphorical arms whirling in an effort to stop myself from falling clear on my ass.
“Holy shit.”
She nodded. “I know. There’s so much irony. But he was pretty circumspect about it.”
My eyebrows drew together, trying to picture Levi being cautious about anything. He certainly wasn’t ever careful with my feelings.
“He went to the bathroom after that, but Jeremy’s wife Liza filled me in a little. Evidently, Levi’s dad was some big guy in town. Big money, big plans, that sort of thing. But he didn’t give much attention to the wants of his wife. No one was really surprised when she left, trying to find other things.”
“But she left her kid?” I snapped, disgust ripe in my voice. I couldn’t stop myself from picturing a little version of the raven-haired, blue-eyed man I knew. He had to have felt so alone.
“I know,” Camilla agreed, shrugging. “I guess some people mostly see themselves.”
I nodded, but to say I was disengaged as a listener would be an understatement. I was too busy reshaping my view of the man I knew, all over again. Every time I stopped to breathe, it seemed like something else came out in his defense.
“Anyway…Levi came back, so we shut up about it then. We kept it light, and he asked me about how my time had been in Cold and if I missed home at all.”
She sighed dreamily.
“He really cared what I had to say. I haven’t had a conversation like that…you know, one that truly cared for my needs emotionally and physically…in a long time. God, probably forever, actually. Guys in LA are always such egocentric pricks.”
I nodded again, swallowing back the vomit in my throat. Levi Fox had capabilities I never even expected. He had the power to be the kind of man a woman wanted forever. My body rebelled again, threating to hold my rational brain hostage in the emotional cage my little obsession with him had created.
But I fought. I wouldn’t let the emotional nausea win. I refused.
I just had to face the facts.
Levi Fox, it seemed, was a gentleman.
He just had no interest in being one with me.