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“What… about me?” I said, and she gestured idly without looking back at me.
“You tell me. What sort of person are you?”
The air in here felt tense, tight, like I was breathing through a cloth. I leaned against her desk, grounding myself on the solid feel of the hard wood. “Aside from being a bad luck charm? Don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you don’t want to know?”
I frowned. She tipped back the last of her coffee and, with an exasperated sigh, crumpled the cup and tossed it into the trash, turning back to me. She looked like she’d aged ten years as she sank into her desk chair.
“I’m needed at an event in half an hour. I don’t have all day here.”
Everything in me told me to shrink away. I gripped the desk tighter. “Are you telling me to leave?”
“I’m telling you to get to the point, London. Why are you here?”
“I told you—”
“So you did. Now tell me the truth.”
I bristled. “Just because you’re stressed doesn’t mean you need to be cryptic about everything. What are you saying?”
She tented her hands on the desk. “I’m saying I don’t believe you—that you’re here just to see me as Cameron before you leave. And I’m asking for you to tell me the truth.”
I pursed my lips. I had no way of conveying to her that it was the truth, regardless of what… what she might have wanted. What I might have wanted. Was it true?
I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. What I was thinking anymore.
Cameron softened. “For you to tell yourself the truth,” she said, gently. I squeezed the desk tighter, my hands aching now from the strain.
“Why don’t you believe me?” I managed, but it came out small, thin, reedy. Cameron looked down, searching for words, before she met my gaze and gestured me back to the armchair. Limply, I sank back into it. “Cameron…”
“I let myself move… too quickly, perhaps,” she said, delicately considering each word. “With you, that is. And I did the same with him, years ago. Generally, I think it’s a strength of mine—that I move intensely once I have my sights set on something, and I don’t back away from what I want. But perhaps the years… teach me caution, as they always do.”
I took a long breath, folding my hands on my lap. “Are you saying you regret what we—”
“Not for a second.” She stopped me with a hand up. “But now that I’ve had this time… to sit with your disappearance and his betrayal. I can see the two of you at once, and from where I’m standing, you don’t look that different.”
I felt a sickly surge of something in my chest, heat flaring out to my fingertips and tightening my throat. Still, I schooled my reaction. “I could think of a few differences.”
She smiled lightly. “Too true. No, you’re right. You’re completely different. And yet alike in one fundamental way. Neither of you will be who you are.”
It hit me like a wet slap, a gut punch that left me sinking slowly back against the chair. I wanted to ask what she was talking about, but… as if I needed clarification?
No wonder he’d pissed me off. There was a saying—we hate in others what we hate in ourselves. Kevin Farmer in my office had felt like I was talking to a wax model, everything he did fake, an affect, something put on to appear a certain way. Trying to put on an image. Be something so the world would perceive him how he wanted.
He had the same black cloud Garcia had seen over me.
I pulled in a shuddering breath, and I made myself relax in the chair. “Bold words from the one with a professional alter-ego…”
She laughed lightly. “Ah, see? This is why I like you, London. You challenge me not because you want it, but because I need it. Maybe I’m no better. Maybe that’s why I gravitate towards people who do the same thing.” She stood up. “London… I’m glad you came. I was of half a mind to find you. I needed closure. I have… really enjoyed our time together. But as long as you’re still like this, as much as it pains me to say—you could only ever hurt me.”
I stood with her, a sick feeling churning in my stomach. “Like this… like what?”
She gestured airily as she came around the desk, not looking straight at me. “Like… how did you put it? So many ways?” She let out a soft breath. “A salesperson.”
I stopped, watching as she walked past me, pausing with her hand on the door handle.
“Take care, London. Earl of Westlake too.” She smiled—distantly, strained, not looking at me. “You’re going to do well in Vegas. I’m sure you will.”
