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She took my hand, and moving all in a blur, she pulled me into a kiss. I tumbled a little, lips pressed against hers, my heart soaring, and I caught myself on her—suddenly kissing her like I’d suffocate without her on my lips. The all-consuming awareness that it hadn’t been just me—and then feeling it all slip away through my fingers.
It was for the best. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t kiss Cameron like my life depended on it right now.
She pulled away, a distant light in her eyes, and she brushed a thumb over my cheek. “Let’s see the rest of this place. I might just like it. We’ll see, though.”
I had to hope she wouldn’t. I’d burn Queen Pearl to the ground for her if she asked. Compared to that, selling her a twelve-million property instead of a sixty-million was nothing.
Chapter 16
I kneeled by the door, stopping to make sure Earl didn’t trip me as he wove between my legs trying to send me stumbling face-first into my own front door, and I scratched him behind the ears as he let out a pitiful yowl.
“Yeah, yeah, can it,” I said. “Ruth will give you dinner tonight. No matter how much I adore you and your whiny self, you’ll survive if someone else feeds you, okay?”
He yowled plaintively again, dropping onto his side.
“Mom’s got a conference to headline,” I said, standing up. “And I can’t bring you, or they’d think I’m weird.”
Apparently dissuaded from harassing me, he folded onto himself in cat origami and started licking his butt.
“Case in point.” I turned to the door, hoisting up my shoulder bag. “See you tomorrow, little baby.”
I opened the door, and suddenly Earl licking his butt and whining was hardly the worst thing in the world, because here was fucking Miguel, at my apartment again, giving me that look like I was the weird one.
“Fuck’s sake,” I muttered, pushing the door closed. The asshole actually stuck his foot in the door.
“London. Will you hold on? I’m concerned for you.”
“Concerned, my ass.” I opened the door and stepped out, shutting it carefully behind me to keep Earl inside. I knew what I had to do—he wouldn’t change his behavior from getting yelled at, and all I could do was try to coax him towards some decent behavior by making him think it was his own idea—but fuck it, I didn’t want to do the right thing right now. I kept finding myself aching wondering what Cameron was doing, and Miguel was hardly a sight for sore eyes. “I told you to forget where I live. And you’re just concerned you can’t steal my spot at the conference—”
“You think you’re so fucking smart just because you’re María’s favorite, huh?”
“I’m María’s favorite? Me?” I snorted. “That woman’s been letting you do whatever you want for the past two years like you own the place—”
“Are you fucking stupid? You haven’t noticed once you’re the damn precious child, little sweetheart who can’t do any wrong? And you don’t think anything is wrong there?”
“I don’t have to listen to your bullshit, Miguel. Tell me what you’re so concerned about and get the fuck out.”
He shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit jacket. “You know? Maybe I don’t give a shit anymore. I try to help you, and all you do is spit at me, just because I closed a job you couldn’t finish up with—”
“Oh, that’s creative. How long did you spend workshopping a better way to say stole your credit for a job you—”
“Maybe you deserve what you get, bitch. Lose your job and land on the street, see if I care. Maybe you can fuck Cameron Mercier and stay at her place. I don’t fucking care anymore. You know what? I’ll see you in hell, you—”
He turned, stomping towards the stairs, and his keys flung out of his pocket with the harsh, drastic way he moved, and he tumbled, face-first, falling down the stairs. Not too bad a fall, just… incredibly undignified, landing on his side on the landing half a flight down.
He groaned. I inched closer, raising an eyebrow.
“You, uh… you okay there, Mr. Tough Guy?”
He cursed me out in Spanish, standing back up and brushing himself off, and then I swear to god, he shoved his hands in his pockets, marching towards the rest of the stairs, and his phone tumbled out, and he fell face-first down the next flight of stairs.
Some days the bad luck was a blessing.
I just wondered what the fucking Cameron Mercier part meant—if it was just him taking a shot at me because he’d blamed me as the representative for the lesbian community when our one-time coworker he’d been ready to die for had rejected him saying she was gay, or… Ruth wouldn’t have tattled about her suspicions. Were people just gossiping about me in general around the office?
It didn’t matter. I had to move forward. Queen Pearl was counting on me.
I hoisted my bag up on my shoulder, and I started down the stairs, a bit more carefully than Miguel had gone.
