Page 30 of Ruin

“Of course it is. Just wait a minute, and I’ll grab them.”

I rise to my feet and move past Zeus. He catches hold of my hand, and I freeze. His big hand is engulfing mine. I used to love the feel of his fingers around mine. Now, I just feel confused and hurt. And a million other things I shouldn’t be feeling.

“Cam,” he says softly.

I stare down at him. His eyes are searching and soulful as they look into mine. And it hurts like a bitch.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently, carefully. “For everything.”

I shrug like it doesn’t matter. But it does. Because his apology only opens up old wounds, and it doesn’t change the fact that he chose to have sex with another woman while he was supposed to still love me. Or maybe that’s the point I’ve always been missing. Maybe he’d already stopped loving me.

“It’s in the past,” I tell him, slipping my hand from his and edging away. “I’ll just get those photos.”

I go over to the sideboard at the other side of the room, my heart beating up a storm in my chest. I bend down, get Gigi’s baby albums out, and take them over to Zeus.

I hand them to him, ensuring not to touch him again.

Zeus’s touch always had a way of frazzling my brain, and it seems that some things don’t die over time.

I sit back down on the sofa but a little further away this time.

I pick up my coffee and take a sip as he opens the book and starts to look through the pictures of Gigi’s first minutes in the world.

“She had so much hair,” he muses.

“Like you,” I say, remembering his baby pictures.

He glances up at me and smiles that smile of his, and my chest constricts with long-ago hidden emotion.

“How much did she weigh?” he asks, looking through the pictures.

“Eight pounds.”

His smile expands. “Big girl.”

“She was all legs,” I tell him. “Still is.”

“She gets it from you.” He nods at my jean-covered legs.

“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly small,” I infer.

He chuckles.

He goes quiet as he stares down at the pictures that Aunt Elle took of me holding Gigi not long after she was born.

“Elle was with you when you gave birth,” he says, but it’s not a question.

“Yes.”

He closes the photo album and drives his fingers into his hair, exhaling a harsh breath. He tips his head to the side and looks at me. “I’m so fucking sorry that I wasn’t there, Cam. That I haven’t been here for the last five years.”

“I don’t know what to say, Zeus. You want me to say it’s fine. It’s not. But I managed.”

“You must’ve hated me.”

“You really want me to answer that?”

He moves his hands from his head. “The coward in me wants to say no. But I deserve everything you want to throw my way.”