Page 59 of Things We Tell Ourselves

And what did she do when she came face to face with the handsome Mr. Bloom?

She fell head over heels.

Camille takes one more scan of the two-thousand-square-foot second-floor guesthouse before heading for the door. She knows that she has everything, but the thought that she may leave even one item of hers is unbearable. The last thing she needs is to give him a reason to come after her. Not that he would.

At the door, she takes one more look around, hearing her best friend’s voice echoing in her head, don’t forget to take pictures for me. She begrudgingly digs her cellphone out. One panoramic photo of the apartment’s meticulous beauty, and then she flings the door open. She steps out onto the exterior stairs, turning to shut the door behind her. She catches sight of her reflection of the door’s window. In the reflection of the yard behind her, she could swear that she sees the silhouette of someone tall standing at one of the main house’s ground-floor windows. She looks at herself, pulling her thick shades down to cover her eyes. She hasn’t allowed herself to cry yet. She would sooner die than let any of them see how they’ve gotten to her.

She does her best to keep her face void of emotion as she trudges down the stairs with her luggage. Catching herself about to turn and look in the direction of the house, she shakes her head.

“Nope,” she murmurs out loud.

She isn’t going to look back. She stops at the gate between the guest and the main house. Out of sight from anyone who may or may not be in the living room, she holds her phone up to snap one more picture of the slightly obscured but still magnificent backyard view of Los Angeles from the hilltop compound.

Whatever fantasies that played in her mind are nothing but a distant memory now. If she wasn’t so angry, she would laugh at herself for her childish daydreaming. He may have been charming, but there’s no happily ever after with someone like him.

Nineteen

“He could’ve been talking about anyone,” Evelyn mumbles, sounding groggy.

The voice of reason is the last thing Camille wants to hear. It’s bad enough that the earliest flight to Texas isn’t for hours. Camille lowers herself into the first empty black terminal chair with an armrest. She presses her cellphone closer to her mouth so she won’t be easily overheard.

“I am pissed, heartbroken, and stuck at the airport. I really need you to be mad with me right now.”

“Oh, I’m pissed. I’m pissed that I didn’t get to go. I could have been the one screwed over by some handsome millionaire.”

Despite her frustrations, Camille smiles and sits back hard, sending vibrations down the row of connected chairs. She’s pretty sure he’s a billionaire, but she isn’t going to correct her. “I don’t need you trying to make me laugh. I’m not in the mood.”

“Aw, come on. In spite of it all, did you not have fun with Mr. Money Bags?”

Camille lets a silence fall over their conversation. The sound of the airport traffic fills her line. Hospital machinery beeps on Evelyn’s side. Thinking about last night causes her grin to fade. Last night was great, but she’s not going to admit it. Not when it had been a set up to make her sign lord-knows-what kind of contract.

“Okay, fine,” Evelyn secedes, “we don’t have to take their offer. I wasn’t going to tell you this until you got back, but one of the Lichtenstein brothers reached out to me personally. I think it was the older one. Anyways, he wants to meet with us via computer conference this time. He swore that a better offer is on the table if we would hear him out, and now we can bring Bloom and Bloom’s offer in to show him what their competition is proposing.”

“That’s great,” she says, feeling anything but at the thought of having to deal with no doubt another misogynistic know-it-all. “Set up a meeting.”

“Already did,” Evelyn chirps. “It’s scheduled for Monday. I figured I’d at least hear him out whether the Bloom’s offer was good or not, and if it was another joke of an offer, then I would have the pleasure of hanging up on him.”

Camille’s frown deepens. “But what about you being the hospital?”

“Don’t worry, they have internet here,” Evelyn says nonchalantly. “My laptop is on the list of things for my mom to bring up here. I need a fresh pair of underwear and warm socks like it’s nobody’s business. Worst case scenario, you can handle it. You handled L.A. well enough.”

Camille cringes internally at the reminder of just how well she handled things. She could tell her that there was no way she would handle any more business meetings alone, but after everything, what’s the worst that could happen by hearing them out? She hadn’t turned down Leah’s offer, and as much as she hated to admit it right now, she would sign a deal with Bloom and Bloom if this so-called better offer wasn’t up to par.

“You sound like you’re feeling better.”

Evelyn exhales loudly over the phone. “I’m not if we’re being honest. The pain doesn’t stop, my whole body breaks out in sweats when it gets really bad, but they’ve upped my medicine. You should see the blisters covering my arm. I try not to do anything that requires me to move it.”

“Knock, knock,” a woman calls from Evelyn’s side of the phone.

“That’s the nurse with my pain meds.”

“Okay,” Camille sighs, hearing the relief in Evelyn’s voice. “I’ll come by to see you as soon as I get in town.”

Camille crosses one leg over her other. Her foot bounces uncontrollably, and her mind replays the events of the last twenty-four hours, each time making her feel more like a fool for what happened in Sacramento. Toronto—Sacramento—no more going places that end in -to.

An hour later, she finds herself standing at the terminal windows, staring out across the tarmac to where she can just make out the private airport. She squints to see the small planes parked a mile away but turns from the windows, refusing to let her mind drift back to the jet with him.

Two hours later, she’s back in the hard seat, reclined with her legs straight out. She stares up at the ceiling, bored out of her mind, wishing she had a place in one of those hangers across the tarmac. The hard realization that she’ll never be able to wait patiently for a commercial flight again is as hard to swallow as sparkling water.

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