Wilde for Her (A Wilde Security Novel) (Entangled Brazen) (16 page)

Chapter Twenty-two

Eva left Maguire’s with the sense that her entire world had just imploded, and it only got worse when she drove home to find Preston’s car waiting in her driveway. He shut off the engine and got out when she parked beside him.

Exasperated, she shoved open her door and climbed out, meeting him at the gate to her yard. “You have to stop doing this.”

His smile of greeting faded into a scowl. “I can’t stop by my girlfriend’s house?”

Christ, how could a smart man be so fucking clueless? “Okay, one: I’m not your girlfriend.” She held up a finger, ticking the points off as she made them. “And two: I saw you less than four hours ago. What gives? You never used to be this clingy.”

He sputtered. “I’m not clingy.”

“Four hours ago, Preston. And, no, I haven’t decided to take you back, so if that’s why you’re here—”

“No. No, that’s not—I just—I missed you.” He leaned in, and she could have avoided it, but the beginnings of an epiphany niggled at the back of her mind, and she had to know if it was right. His lips touched hers, soft and cool—and she felt nothing. Not the slightest stirring of desire. She wanted hot and hard. A command, not a request. As Preston’s hand slid down her arm, everything in her revolted.

He was not Camden Wilde.

She broke away from him and reached for the gate before he had a chance to recover. By the time he scrambled through, she’d already crossed the yard and was halfway up her porch steps.

“Eva, wait.” He caught her hand and tugged her to a stop. “What’s wrong?”

She shrugged out of his grasp. “We’re not right for each other anymore, Preston. If we ever were. You must see that. I’m not your type.”

Something dark flashed through his eyes. “You don’t know crap about my type.”

“Maybe not,” she admitted, found his ring box in her pocket, and handed it to him. “But I know you’re not mine. I’m sorry. My answer is no. It’s just not going to work out between us.”

His hand closed around her arm again, and he jerked her around when she tried to continue up the steps. “Is it someone else?”

“Let go of me.”

For a startling second, she didn’t think he would. And in that second, she caught a glimpse of violence, the kind she’d seen in the eyes of murderers who felt no regret for their crimes. She yanked against him, and he released her, then backed off.

“Camden,” he said. Not a question, but a disgusted statement.

She didn’t bother confirming or denying. Frankly, it was none of his business whom she chose, because it was not him.

His face flushed a deep red, and his hands curled into fists at his sides. In all the years she’d known him, she’d never seen him angry—and now he looked like he was going to blow his top. A trickle of fear sent her heart rate up a few beats per minute and she took a step backwards before she caught herself.

“Do what you want with it,” he said, throwing the ring box back at her, then stomped to his car. Tires squealed on the wet pavement, and he leaned on the horn as he peeled out.

Shelby came to the front door with a package of Twizzlers in hand and peered through the screen. “What the fuck was all that noise?”

“A childish tantrum.” Man, she wished she’d seen him get angry years ago. You could tell a lot about a person from the way they handled anger, and what she saw in Preston just now made her wince in embarrassment for him.

Shelby stared after his car. “Preston threw a tantrum?”

“Like a three year old.”

Shelby snorted before ducking back inside. “And you say
I
have bad taste in men.”

Poe squawked a greeting from his perch in the living room. Eva walked to him and ruffled the feathers on top of his head with one finger. “You have
horrible
taste in men, Shel—except for this guy.”

Shelby waved a piece of licorice at her. “Need I remind you, none of my past boyfriends have ever thrown a temper tantrum on our front lawn?”

“Because Poe has a higher IQ than any of your past boyfriends. You might as well have been dating vegetables.”

“Ooo, good one.” With a grin, Shelby bit into her candy and sketched a point in the air. “Big sis, one. Shelby, zero. And, sadly, you’re right. But only because I have the smartest birdie in the world.”

“Can’t argue that.”

They both cooed over the bird for a moment. Poe flapped his wings and puffed out his chest, soaking in every bit of the attention.

“So,” Shelby said as they settled on the couch together. An Asian horror movie played on the TV, and Shel used the remote to pause it. “Preston’s out of the picture?”

“After that? Yeah.” Eva sighed and stole a piece of licorice. “Way out.”

“Good. BRB.” She bounced up from the couch and vanished down the hallway.

“Did you really just say BRB?” Eva called after her. “You’re spending way too much time online. Maybe it’s time you find a job.”

“I have one.”

Eva stared as her sister reemerged from the hallway with her hands behind her back. “You do? Where?”

“The coffee shop where I met Cam’s brother. The one I’ve been going to for breakfast? I like it there, so I applied for a barista position. They called today.” She lifted her shoulders. “It’s no big deal.”

Oh, yes it was. Shelby had never before taken the initiative and done something responsible like find herself a job. Maybe there was hope for her yet.

Eva wanted to hug her—oh, what the hell. She moved around the coffee table and pulled her sister into her arms. “Good for you, Shel. I’m really happy for you.”

“Didn’t believe me when I told you I’m turning my life around?”

“No. But can you blame me? We’ve both heard that line so many times from Mom, and it never happened.”

“Mom’s not well. We both know it.” Grief strained Shelby’s usually bright smile. The purples around her eye had faded in the week since their mother’s visit, leaving the bruise several ugly shades of yellow. “And I don’t want to end up like her any more than you do. We’re not so different, Evie. We’re just taking alternate routes to the same place.

“And, okay,” she admitted before Eva could form a reply, “I went a little too far trying to prove how I’m not Mom, only to realize I was turning in to a punk rock version of her.” She stepped back and pressed a picture frame into Eva’s palm. “But you? Evie, you haven’t gone far enough. You’ve played it safe, dating wimpy, passive-aggressive men like Preston, the exact opposite of the asshole boyfriends Mom brought home.”

“I know.”

“And then there’s Cam.”

“No, we’re not talking about him.”

“Yeah, we are. Think about it. Who did you call as soon as we had Mom under control the other night?”

Dammit, did she have to acknowledge it?

Shelby nudged her when she stayed silent too long and she muttered, “Cam.”

“And that’s not the first time you turned to him. Who do you call whenever you’re sick or sad or lonely?”

“Of course I call Cam. He is—
was
my best friend. Now, I don’t know.” And that killed her. She missed what they used to be, but at the same time, she didn’t want to go back to plain old friendship. She’d gotten too comfortable with Cam as a lover. “Dammit. Having sex with him was such a huge mistake.”

“Oh, God.” Shelby rolled her eyes, the gesture highlighting her fading bruises. “You’re such a dunce sometimes. He’s not your best friend. Honestly, he never was. He’s the guy who’s wild for you, who would do anything for you. He’s
nothing
like Mom’s boyfriends, yet you pushed him to the back burner. And still, he stuck. He’s always going to stick and everyone with two eyes—hell,” she gestured to her bruises, “with
one
eye—can see how much he loves you. So why can’t you see it?”

Eva moistened her suddenly dry lips and looked down at the framed photo from her dresser that showed her and Cam after a Tough Mudder event, arms looped around each other. They were both soaked head-to-toe in mud and grinning at each other.

“Look at it,” Shelby told her.

“I’ve seen it before.” She’d had this photo for three years, had seen it every morning as she readied for work.

“But you’ve never really looked at it. Look at his expression.”

She did and saw exactly what Shelby wanted her to see, what Shelby had probably seen all along. Love. His eyes were soft and crinkled at the corners, and his smile was one of complete adoration. She thought of Cam’s ring in her pocket, the vibrant red gems speaking of the out-of-control fire and passion they shared in the bedroom. And, if she was honest with herself, out.

“He scares me,” she admitted, stroking a finger over his face in the photo.

“Why, because you can’t control him?”

“Because I can’t control myself around him.”

Shelby gave a soft laugh and poked her in the ribs with one finger. “You ask me, Evie, that’s a really awesome problem to have.”

…

He’s the guy who is wild for you, who would do anything for you.

The truth of her sister’s words bounced around in Eva’s skull all night, until she finally gave up on sleeping and settled on the couch to watch TV with a box of old photos. In every single one, she saw the same thing as in the picture on her dresser: Cam loved her. And as the photos progressed, she started to see that adoration reflected in her own eyes and smile.

Oh, hell. Why had she never noticed it before?

Shelby joined her around 2:00 am, but said nothing more about Cam or Preston or any of it. She just snuggled in beside Eva like she had when they were kids and entertained them both with snarky commentary on the late-night infomercials. Her imitation of the 1-900 phone sex commercials was eerily spot-on.

Eva narrowed her eyes at her little sister. “Shelby, you didn’t ever…”

“Some things are better left unknown, sis.”

“You’re shitting me.”

Shelby shrugged. “You do what you gotta. And it’s not as risqué as you think. Those women? They’re mothers and sometimes grandmothers, sitting at home in their pajamas with the TV on mute tuned to a sappy Lifetime movie, and their dogs or cats—or in my case, bird—snuggled up next to them.”

“While a pervert gets off to your voice on the end other of the line?”

“For the most part, they’re not pervs. They’re just lonely and…” She shrugged again, this time with less sass in the movement, and focused on the TV screen. “Well, I know a thing or two about being lonely.”

“Aw, Shel.” Eva wrapped an arm around her shoulders and squeezed. “I’ve been thinking. The house is gonna be very quiet when you move out.”

Shelby sat up, eyes wide. “Really?”

“Yeah. So…maybe you’d want to stick around.”

With a sound that could only be described as a
squee
, Shelby tackled her to the couch in a hug.

“Thank you! I’ll pay rent this time,” she promised. “As soon as I start at the coffee shop, I’ll help with the bills and buy groceries. I’ll make you proud of me.”

Eva nodded, afraid that forming a verbal response would end in a sobbing fit—and unlike her mother, she did not cry prettily. It was all red eyes, blotchy face, and snot, and once she started with the waterworks, she found it hard to stop.

As gently as she could, she peeled Shelby’s arms from her around her neck and then cleared her throat. “How about a movie?”

“Ooo, good idea. I recorded
Sharknado
. Sharks and tornadoes in a
SyFy
original movie…you can’t go wrong.”

“Yeah,” Eva had to admit, “sounds pretty awesome.”

“I know, right? Awesomely horrible. Which calls for hip-widening junk food. And wine. White for you, red for me. We might as well class it up.” Full of boundless energy, even in the middle of the night, Shelby sprang up and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Let Poe out so he can bask in the B-horror movie glory with us,” Eva called after her and, a moment later, Poe flew out to perch on the arm of the sofa. She smiled and scratched the bird’s chest. “You have a pretty good mama, you know that, buddy?”

Poe squawked as if in agreement.

Eva succumbed to exhaustion half way through
Sharknado,
and her dreams swirled with images of Cam. They were both in the movie, covered from head-to-toe in mud, running from the horrendous CG animation, and he threw himself in front of an attacking shark while shielding her from the winds of a tornado.

Then in the twisted time warp of dreamland, they were at Maguire’s, and he gracefully bowed to her superiority in the game of darts before trouncing her in a pool match.

At his condo, in his shower, his mouth set fire to her nerve endings as his body took hers to new heights of erotic pleasure.

And then, she again saw the stark betrayal in his eyes when she’d admitted she was actually considering Preston’s proposal….

Eva jolted awake early in the afternoon to an empty house, and every cell in her being demanded she find him. She’d apologize. Hell, she’d grovel if that’s what it took. Because she’d come to a stunningly obvious realization somewhere between Shelby’s come-to-Jesus talk and the shark tornadoes: she never would have chosen Preston over Cam.

Never.

Cam made her laugh. He took away her control. Made her body sing with exquisite pleasure. Tied her up into jealous knots. Made her trust him. Alternately relaxed her and riled her up with just the sound of his voice. Made her happy in a way that nothing else in her life ever had. And she loved him to distraction. It was terrifying—a free fall, and she had no control of the parachute—but it was past time she told him what he meant to her.

If it wasn’t already too late.

She hurried through a shower, tossed on some clothes, and was in her car before she remembered his ring. Leaving the engine running, she ran back inside and found it where she’d left it the night before on her dresser. She slid it onto her finger and, yeah, it belonged right there.