I wanted to walk toward her and demand she look at me. I wanted to kiss that bottom lip that she constantly worked with her teeth when she was anxious, and I wanted to remind her exactly who we were.
Want, want, want. That was all I could see. My want for her. My need.
My want for her to have more than this life had afforded her.
It was the only thing I thought about as I distractedly grabbed the papers from the manager and walked back out of the kitchen. She glanced up at me just as I pushed through the door, and I swear that one look was enough to cut me. It was enough to make me bleed open and bare everything in front of her.
I closed the door behind me and leaned against it as I tried to catch my breath.
She was so damn beautiful, even when she was mad at me, and I knew that I wouldn’t get a chance with a girl like her again. Josie was my lucky shot. She was my one real chance at something pure and good and beautiful, and I would never have her.
Not now. Not when neither of us had any real control over our lives.
And I couldn’t help daydreaming about what it could be like after this chapter. When Josie moved away and I took over my dad’s business. Would she ever come back? Would she ever give me another chance after she had already given me so many already?
I shook my head and pushed off the door. I couldn’t afford daydreams like that. I couldn’t afford to wish and wonder and hope.
Because even if I wasn’t being forced to push Josie away, she would be leaving. I was staying here and she would leave, and I knew that would be the end of us.
Even if no one else had a hand in it, the two of us would end.
Sometimes people were only meant to be in your life for a short fleeting moment, and I had to believe that was what Josie was. But these small moments, these small things I loved about her, they weren’t small in any way.
And I knew the effect of her would never be small. But I tried to convince
myself that it somehow made what we had even more precious. These fleeting moments, rushed encounters, and broken hearts. Everything about us had been quick and unrealistic.
We were never meant to be more than we were, but God, I was so glad that we had been.
Even if it was over now. Even if she hated me.
I watched my feet as one footstep after the other led me away from her, and I focused on each and every one of those steps to force myself not to turn around. I was so focused that I barely noticed the door to one of the conference rooms near my father’s office was cracked open just slightly, and it wasn’t until I heard Cami’s voice float through that crack that I stopped in my tracks.
"What do you expect me to do? I’ve done everything you wanted from me. I’ve been exactly what you wanted." Her voice was desperate and broken, and I knew that if I looked inside that door I would probably see her father being the asshole he was.
And I didn’t know if I could handle him today. I didn’t know if I could fake another smile to that man after everything I knew he had done.
He was a regular at the country club, a lucrative regular who was a huge contributor to the success of my father’s business, and I knew that I shouldn’t do anything here. Keep business and pleasure separate. It was something my father had always instilled in me, but I couldn’t walk away from that door knowing Cami was in there with him.
I couldn’t just hurt them both and walk away. Because despite what I tried to convince myself, I did love both Josie and Cami. Not in the same way, not even close. But Cami had been my friend for a long time. She had been one of my closest friends, and even though I knew that she had done shitty things to Josie, I couldn’t just abandon her.
I took a couple steps back and looked through the crack in the door. But she was all I could see. She was standing there at one end of the large conference table that took up the room, and her fingers were digging into the wood as she argued.
"Please don’t do this."
I could just barely see movement on the opposite side of the table, and it wasn’t until he laced his fingers into her blonde hair that it hit me that her father wasn’t the other person in the room.
He pulled her toward him with a roughness that told me he was as eager
for her as she seemed to be for him, and I had never seen that look on her face before. She had never looked at me like I was the one who could change everything for her. I had been a temporary solution, but the way she was looking at him was like he could make every part of her life that she hated disappear.
This man what her knight in shining armor, and I could barely breathe as I watched Mr. Vos lean forward and capture Cami’s mouth with his.
What the fuck?
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t begin to understand what was happening right in front of me.
I took a step back to make sure he couldn’t see me just as he spoke. "This is getting reckless, Camille. We can’t keep doing this."
I fumbled for my phone in my pocket as his talking stopped, and as I peeked around the corner, they were kissing again. Cami was holding onto the lapels of his jacket like she never wanted to let go, and even though I hated her for what she was doing, I still felt guilty as I lifted my phone and hit Record.
My hand was steady as I recorded the two of them. It was perfectly clear on camera who they were. He was a man that no one in this town could ever mistake as anyone else, and she was a girl who had no business being anywhere near him.
She was a girl who had fucking lied to me and made me be a part of helping cover this sick little affair that the two of them were having. An affair that she knew I would hate. Because I hated him.
She knew that.
She fucking knew it better than most people.
But she was still here, clinging to him like he was the only thing in this world that could save her. She clung to him like she had no idea the monster he was.
Like she hadn’t helped my sister cope with the destruction he and his son had caused.
She had looked her in the face, the both of us in the face, and acted like she had hated the man as much as we did. She acted like she actually gave a shit about what Lucas and Mr. Vos had done and all the while she was leaving my house and going back to him.
Acid filled my throat as I watched them through my phone.
Fuck Cami and fuck Mr. Vos.
Any loyalty or fucked-up relationship I had with Cami was so fucking over. I could barely stand to look at her or the way she pressed her body against his.
Cami was nothing but a whore, and she had used me so perfectly in her fucked-up lies. I had been the one to help her keep her affair with Mr. Vos a secret. I was the one who had allowed her to lie to everyone while thinking she was this perfect girl with the perfect life that everyone else wanted.
But she was none of those things.
Mr. Vos gripped her thigh in his hand and lifted it to bring it around his body. Neither one of them noticed as I quietly slid the door open and slipped inside, and I could tell that neither of them cared about anything other than each other as I pushed the door back just to the latch.
I watched them for a few more moments before I forced the door closed behind me with a loud thud.
Mr. Vos dropped his hands from Cami so quickly you would have thought she was burning him, and I was so damn happy that I was still recording when his gaze met mine and the look of shock and terror filled his hazel eyes that matched Josie’s.