Page 32 of Until I Find You

“There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Yes, there is. Me and my stupid idea. We could be staying in a fucking hotel, in our own rooms, and we wouldn’t have to do all of this bullshit” He runs his hands over his face and groans, frustration gurgling in his throat.

I chew on the inside of my cheek. “Jack, no. This isn’t ideal, sure. But I don’t want you to be mad at yourself.”

He turns to look at me.

“What I mean is…” I draw up my stuff in my arms and hug it tight. I need the comfort as I go to the bathroom door. Probably for the best I keep this conversation short. “You shouldn’t have had to convince your mother to see you. That’s so unfair.”

Jack’s face softens.

“Just because you’re an adult doesn’t mean you aren’t still her child. And–” There’s a lump at the back of my throat.

My own mother, the one I’ve never met, but whose blood runs through my veins, has been on my mind all day.

I take a breath. “And she totally sucks for putting you in the position where you have to beg for her to see you. So, I’m sorry I forced you to call her.”

He shakes his head. “No, Camilla, it’s not–” He sighs. “Look. Let’s both agree to not apologize anymore and we’ll just do what we came here to do, okay?”

Damn him for making me want to hug him. “Okay.”

I run to the bathroom and close the door behind me.

We are in bed by ten o’clock, earlier than we’ve gone to sleep for the past weeks since we’ve been up working late into the night on plans for the company. There aren’t enough pillows for a whole barrier between us, so we prop one up between our hips.

And though I am exhausted, sleep does not come for a while. I think for Jack too.

The room is so quiet, I can hear every small sound, including Jack’s breathing, which is shallow for far too long for him to be sleeping.

I lie on my side, eyes on the wood paneled wall, wondering if I should say something and, if I did, what I would say.

There is nothing to talk about. It’s just business.

But “just business” doesn’t usually involve one single bed, a business partner I don’t want to admit is sexy, and my growing desire to call him Daddy just to see if he keeps his promise.

This week is going to be way more complicated than we originally anticipated.

7

JACK

I’m already burnt out.This is our third walkthrough. Two yesterday. One today. One more after this. I want to go back to the house and take a nap. No, scratch that, I want to ditch the house and get a hotel room and take a nap there.

I’ve barely slept the past two nights. It’s not the quality of the mattress and it’s not even the fact that my mother is playing her usual exhausting games with me, the ones where she acts like she loves me unconditionally and then reminds me how my father treated her all those years ago as if that is somehow my fault.

No, it was lying beside Camilla that kept me awake all night with half an erection I was too scared to touch for fear she might feel the bed creaking beside her. Not to mention, it’s so fucking inappropriate to be stroking off to my business partner when she’s right beside me.

Being around her is starting to make me feral. The pretend touches and looks don’t feel that way to my body even though my mind is perfectly clear on the boundaries that exist and have been drawn.

Still, though, Camilla is intoxicating, like the smell of coffee, how you take one breath and need to take another, inhale deeper because you can never get enough. The longer I’m around her, the more I can’t get enough of her.

Which is not helped by the fact she’s doing a great job of keeping her distance from me.

I’ve let her take the lead on this tour because the last one, I was bumbling over every question I asked to the point I almost cut the tour short before we even saw the processing facilities because I was so antsy from lack of sleep.

Camilla kept me on course, thank god. Which is why she’s the one probing about soil fertility today.

“And have you done testing on the uncultivated land?” Camilla nods in the direction of a plot of land beyond the coffee plants that is overgrown with natural flora and fauna. The owner of this plantation has been trying to pawn it off on us as an addition to our purchase.

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