Page 4 of Be Mine Forever

“What do you mean you’ve always known the deal with Jo?”

Dog. Bone.

“Never mind. I gotta go.”

Cam pushed off the wall and started toward the gallery exit, back onto the charming street, bustling with more hipsters than Cam had ever seen in one place. Like a flock of skinny jeans and man scarves had migrated to this one neighborhood.

“Hey! Before you go…” Walsh cleared his throat again, and it seemed even deeper and more shifty this time. “I have a favor to ask.”

“I’m not picking up your dry cleaning, Bennett.”

Cam grinned, enjoying that they could tease each other again. It wasn’t what it used to be, and maybe it never would be again, but it was closer than anything he had with anyone else. Sad when the only guy you’re close to steals your wife.

“Yeah, my assistant Karma can do that, I think.” The hesitation in Walsh’s voice stopped Cam in the street, a quick frown settling onto his face even while the summer day went on without him.

“What is it, Walsh?”

“It’s Kerris.”

Yeah, he’d had Christmas dinner at Walsh and Kerris’s house. He and Walsh talked a few times a month. They’d even done lunch a time or two when Walsh was in Paris. But they didn’t talk much about Kerris. It just made things easier. For Walsh to bring her up…

“Is she okay? The pregnancy going all right?”

“Things were fine when I left New York two days ago, but now I’m not so sure.”

“What’s up?”

“I called her and she just didn’t sound right. Something’snotright, but she didn’t want to worry me. I could tell.”

Emotions wrestled in Cam’s chest. Concern for Kerris and the twins she was carrying. But pinned to the mat was lingering resentment and pain that the family of his own he’d been so close to having now belonged to Walsh. Cam never knew from one moment to the next which emotion would come out on top.

“Can’t you have Trisha check on her?” Cam knew Walsh’s former assistant and Kerris were friends.

“Trish is in London. Her new position has her flying high and not home as much.”

“Soooooo…you want me to do what?”

Surely not…

“I know this is awkward, but my dad is still recovering from the heart attack, which is why I’m here in Hong Kong in the first place.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Better.” Walsh blew out a weary breath. “It was touch and go there for a while, but he’s out of the woods. Still, the doctors say it could be months before he’s back full steam.”

“I bet he hates that.” Walsh had inherited his locomotive drive from his father. Mr. Bennett would hate being hamstrung.

“I hate it, too, because I’m pulling double duty. I’m away from home even more. Not how I saw the last trimester of Kerris’s pregnancy going.”

Back to that…

“Cam, there’s no one else I’d trust in New York. Could you—”

“Man, I don’t think so.”

At Christmas he hadn’t even known Kerris was pregnant. They’d revealed it later, after he was back in Paris. Thank God. That would have made awkward impossible. And to see Kerris pregnant again…like she’d been with his daughter Amalie before the car accident. Too much. That wound, even two years later, was still too fresh. Still barely staunched by the things Cam busied himself doing to stay sane. The most beautiful thing to ever enter the world, and he had killed her himself. As if with his own hands. If Kerris hadn’t been chasing him that rainy night, Amalie would be alive.

No, he couldn’t see Kerris pregnant.

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