They were by the table with all the alcohol, and he poured her a glass of wine as his eyes searched the living room and the connecting patio. The doors were open, and guests were mingling inside and by the pool. He saw Darryl talking to Nolan and waved, but his gaze didn't linger until he finally found Mina. She was standing by the pool chatting with Easton, a local lawyer who was a regular at The Fix and, Cam knew, did work for her father's company.

As if she'd felt his gaze on her, she looked up, her eyes finding him immediately. He saw a flash of heat in her eyes, then her brow furrow as if in question.

He looked away, his heart pounding, and offered the wine to Tiffany.

"She says she doesn't do commitment, and I can live with that."

"You can?"

"In a way." He'd thought about it a lot. He wanted to try and start something with her; he knew that. He wanted to go slow and see what grew. To twine their lives together even more than they already were and see if they ended up being a fit.

They already had so much in common. Both focused on their educations and careers. Both with successful siblings. Both trying to prove that they could make it on their own. Him, despite growing up with no money and no parents. Her, despite a physical frailty and a father and brother who couldn't seem to believe that she'd left those weaknesses behind.

He saw all that with the same clarity that he saw a story from the past play out in his mind as he pored over ancient documents. But those same documents also told him that sometimes the end was inevitable. The pieces on the chess board set in a way that no other outcome was fathomable.

And with Mina, she always set the board up for failure.

"But that's not anything you can change," Tiffany said after he'd laid it all out for her.

"No, but Mina can." He nodded across the room to where Jenna stood, her back to Reece's chest, their arms entwined. Gently, Reece tilted his head and pressed a kiss to Jenna's hair. "They were friends," he said. "Now look at them."

"Jenna's pregnant, you know," Tiffany said.

He'd suspected as much; she'd stopped drinking alcohol during her off hours. "Did she tell you?"

"She glows. Plus the water."

"They fit. And you can damn well believe neither one of them went in thinking that it would be over by Christmas. Because they both wanted the other one too bad."

Tiffany turned away from Jenna and Reece to look up at him, her eyes wide. "You devil," she said. "You're making her jealous."

"Nah," he said. "I just want her to notice. I just want her to want. Not the fling. Me. At the very least, that might get us past Christmas and all the way to Valentine's Day."

He thought the comment would make her laugh, but instead, she just looked thoughtful. Then she stepped closer, until she was mere inches from him. She set her wine aside, then took his and put it down, too. "Don't even look her way," she whispered. "But I think now would be a very good time for us to go."

Chapter Eight

"Are you looking for my Daddy?"

Mina turned away from Brent's living room window to find Faith's big blue eyes staring back at her. "Oh, no honey. Your daddy's working all day. I was looking for a friend."

"Aunt Jenna and Uncle Reece?" the five year old asked, bouncing in her footie pajamas.

"No, sweetie. I think they're at work with your daddy. I was looking out for my friend Cameron. You know Cam, right? He works with your dad? And he'd said he was going to help me sit with you."

Faith clapped her hands. "He plays fort with me."

Despite her melancholy, Mina couldn't suppress her smile. She had vivid memories of Cam engineering all sorts of forts in the vacant lot down the street from where he'd lived with his grandmother and sister, Kiki. He'd spend hours poring over books filled with pictures of medieval castles and forts, and then he'd try to recreate them out of abandoned building material, discarded furniture, and soggy cardboard boxes.

Once the forts were up, he and Darryl would round up the neighborhood kids, and Cam would assign all their parts. Never did the two opposing sides just attack; no, for Cam, their neighborhood battles rose to the level of historical re-enactment.

She bit back a smile, remembering what a nerd he'd been. Still was, she supposed. But a damn sexy one.

With a heavy heart, she reached down for Faith's hand. "I don't think he's coming," she said. "Come on. Let's get you changed. And then maybe we can go do something. What do you think? Want to go on an adventure?"

"Puppies?" Faith asked, jumping up and down. And since Brent had forewarned her that one of Faith's favorite places was the nearby Brentwood Neighborhood Park because so many of the locals brought their dogs out to play, Mina nodded in agreement.

"We'll get changed and go see if there are any puppies, and then maybe we can get some lunch, okay?" It was already after ten, but Faith had been watching cartoons in her PJs when Mina arrived. Now, the little girl rushed off to find some clothes, and Mina lingered more slowly behind, feeling lonely and melancholy.

Tags: J. Kenner Man of the Month Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net