Flirting With Forever by Gwyn Cready (books for 20 year olds TXT) 📗

“Er, wel , it is stil half your condo after al ,” Cam said, more for Jeanne’s benefit than for his. “You’re finalizing your stuff for the exhibit. Offering you the guest room seems like the least I could do, right?”

“Stil …” He gave her a smoldering look.

“Yes,” Jeanne agreed with a look for Cam that far out-scorched Jacket’s. “Still.”

“I, uh, gotta run. The spare keys should be in my purse.

Jeanne can give you hers if you can’t find them.”

Jeanne gave him a bland look. “She means for her apartment, by the way.”

“Hang on.” Jacket touched Cam’s arm.

She felt a twinge of the old familiar foolishness as wel as a tinge of the old familiar despair.

“Can you stay for a minute?” he said.

“Um …” She tried to avoid Jeanne’s eyes. “Yeah, sure. A minute.”

Jeanne found the keys and dropped them into Jacket’s hand. “Careful,” she said. “One of them unlocks when it shouldn’t.” She gave Cam a look and marched out.

Cam immediately wished she’d worn a different outfit.

Nothing screamed needy like navy gabardine and Wite-Out. “What’s up?”

“I meant what I said.” He pocketed the keys. “That was real y nice.”

She could smel the faint scent of his skin. She could also smel the Kleenex into which she’d wept half her body weight last June.

“I brought something for you. I’d cal it a peace offering, but it’s yours, so it’s not, real y, but stil , I’d like it if you thought of it that way.”

He opened his palm. In it was the ring she’d designed, the ring that had been their engagement ring. Blue-black enamel; a flat, round pearl like the moon and a spattering of diamonds across the wide band like the night sky.

She held up a hand. The last time she’d seen the ring was when she’d cracked his tooth with it that fateful afternoon. Those sorts of memories she could do without.

“No thanks.”

“Please,” he said. “You loved the ring. I feel bad enough about what happened. Take it back. Enjoy it. Consider it entirely desanctified.”

She had loved that ring. And if she hadn’t found him in bed with the artist who’d designed it, she would have never let it go.

“I had the guy who repaired it add an extra diamond.” He turned the band to show her.

“Repaired it?”

“Tooth mark,” he explained. “Oh, right. Sorry about that.”

“Yeah, wel …” His eyes went to his boots, then back to her. “I deserved it.”

“That’s for sure.”

He laughed and lifted a finger. The ring dangled from a sparkling chain, the way she’d always worn it. Guess he’d had that repaired, too.

“May I?” he said.

Cam considered, then nodded. He came behind her and she lifted her hair. Suddenly the room felt much smal er. He brought the chain around to the front, then clasped it behind her.

“Thanks.”

He made a low rumble, a cross between a laugh and a sigh.

“I gotta run,” she said. True in so many ways.

“What’s up?”

“Woodson Bal .” Jacket knew him as wel as she did.

Bal col ected a lot of modern art, and Jacket’s famous Lucite, fruit and everyday object assemblages had been very col ectible once.

“Buying or sel ing?”

“Giving, I hope. A fantastic Van Dyck. Two-point-one mil ion, at least. That is, if I can reel it in. And in time for the appointment of the new executive director.”

Jacket lifted a brow. “Packard’s out?”

Lamont Packard had announced he’d be retiring in six months. The board had just begun the process of interviewing candidates. Both she and Anastasia were being considered. Which is why she needed to sel her manuscript and bring in the biggest gift to the museum this year.

“Yep. Retiring.”

He looked at her and smiled. He wasn’t tal , but he had the bearing of a double-O spy. Taut, chiseled, ready to act.

And, of course, as an artist, that came with an ego the size of the Louvre.

“You’l get it,” he said. “You think?”

“You’d have my vote.”

Whoa! Who knew the room could get so smal ? He was about one tablespoon of nitroglycerin away from blowing the top off a Pandora’s box that had been nailed shut and dipped in steel six months ago. She touched the chain, flustered. “Okay, wel , good luck with the condo—”

“Cam?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think, I mean, would it ever be possible for us to try things again?”

Boom! A mil ion feelings exploded in her head and heart. Sorrow, anger, lust, forgiveness, fear—and hope.

Anger, her ego said firmly.

Hope, her heart replied.

“Jacket …” Her face burned. “I-I don’t know.”

“I know.”