Page 9 of My Sweetest Agony
Cam rubs his hand across a lightly stubbled cheek, his gaze drifting to the box on the mantle like he can somehow tell what’s inside it even when it doesn’t have any visible labeling.
My stomach pitches, the tears burning in my eyes threatening to fall. Because the longer I stare at him and see the differences, I also see all the similarities. Every little feature that matches. “I just didn’t expect you to…look so much like him.”
He gives me a grim half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, which I now see have dark rings under them, as if he’s as exhausted as I am. “That’s the thing with identical twins. Someone else always has your face.”
Until they don’t…
Anger flashes hot through my veins, my hands fisting in the blanket.
Because Drew is gone now.
But his brother is here.
“What are you doing here, Cam?”
He shifts restlessly at my question, clenching his hands together in front of him.
“I thought you were still in London.”
Settling back in the chair, he nods slowly, his intense gaze locked on me, like he’s trying to memorize my face when I’m the one who is struggling, seeing his. “I was. And now I’m not. I wanted to let you know I was back in town, so it wasn’t a surprise if you saw me somewhere.” He releases a little sardonic laugh. “Not that it could have gone much worse than that did.”
What the hell did he expect?
Given his absence from Drew’s life during our entire relationship, and even after his death, him simply appearing on my doorstep on my wedding day couldn’t have been on my bingo card.
“Why now?” That bubbling anger shifts to something even hotter. “You didn’t even come back for the funeral. So, why now?”
His lips press together into a firm line.
A muscle in his tense jaw tics.
Camden doesn’t like me calling him out, but he deserves it—the anger, the scrutiny, the discomfort at having to face his actions.
Nothing should have kept him from coming to his brother’s funeral.
Nothing.
Yet, I was the one there holding his mom while she sobbed during the service. I was the one accepting condolences from friends and strangers. I was the one helping Nancy make all the difficult decisions when all she wanted was her other son here.
When he should have been here.
He dips his head to avert his gaze, and his hair flops forward again, hiding his eyes—either because he can’t or won’t look at me. “I know you’re angry about that, and you have every right to be. My relationship with Drew was…”—he releases a heavy sigh filled with so many emotions they seem to fill up the room as much as Cam’s presence does, and when he lifts his head again, the pain filling his gaze matches my own, maybe exceeds it, which I didn’t think was even possible—“complicated.”
“Complicated?” My voice cracks on the word, emotion getting the better of me. “That’s all you’re going to say about it? That it was complicated?” I lean toward Cam as my anger rises. “He was your brother. You shared a damn womb. You share the same face. And you weren’t here for your mom when she lost him. Does she even know that you’re here now?”
The look he gives me answers before he does. Pure guilt floods his darkened gaze as his hands tense on the armrests. “No…” He shakes his head, and the steely set of his shoulders grows, until he looks like he’s about to snap. “She doesn’t know, and I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please, don’t tell her.”
“What?” I shift forward on the couch, mouth gaping as my entire body trembles. “You-you can’t be serious.”
Cam shoves to his feet and grabs a wet leather jacket off the back of the other chair, shoving his arms through the sleeves. It settles over him like it was cut for his body, perfectly molding to his shoulders and chest as he zips it. “Coming here was a mistake. Again, I’m sorry…”
He starts to make his way toward the front door but pauses beside the end table next to the couch, flipping the photograph I laid down up. His gaze rakes over the image, the corner of his lips turning up ever so slightly, but it doesn’t take away any of the pain in his eyes. “He really loved you.”
My breath catches, a sob crawling up my throat.
His hand trembles as he sets the frame back down, the photo facing me. Showing me what will now be the happiest moment of my life. When I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Drew. When I had everything in my grasp and was clinging to it so tightly that I thought I’d never lose it.
But somehow, it slipped through my fingers…
