Recognition struck me. The woman in a purple bikini top raised her head and her beautiful blue eyes shone with amusement as they landed on me. She tossed her blonde ponytail off her shoulder with a single shake of her head.
“Madam Winters,” I said out loud. My heart nearly strangled me because it hopped around in my chest and tried to fly out. My throat squeezed until it almost closed. She’d become a boogeyman in my head, someone I never expected to see in day-to-day life. As far as I was concerned, she was like The Phantom of the Opera, and only haunted the Courtesan Hotel. It didn’t seem fair that she could walk around in the rest of the world. Yet here she was, sitting in broad daylight with someone I could only assume was Cam’s mother.
She laid down a card on the tabletop. “Mr. Fenson.” Her lilting Southern accent was unmistakable. She knew me. This wasn’t an odd doppelganger.
My mind blanked and it was like a car crash occurred in my brain. Nothing happened to my body, but I was shaken up the same as if I’d just hit a wall at ninety. I took a few steps closer on autopilot.
“You did a piss-poor job of covering those bruises, sweetie. Camden did say he enjoyed that type of thing, but oh my.” She tittered, and the woman with her turned to look at me, her eyebrows raised. My face heated, and an embarrassment I was sure could kill me had my stomach turning. This was Cam’s mother, and I’d only ever talked to her for a few minutes on the phone. I backed away slowly.Why is Madam Winters here?I stopped and glanced at the girls. I didnotwant to leave them here with her. Every protective instinct I had screamed at me to get them, and myself, safe.
“Addy, Eloise! Grab your things,” I called to them.
“Mark!” they shrieked happily and scrambled out of the pool. They came over dripping wet to fling their little arms around me, and not even that coldness could shock me out of the odd malaise that had drifted into my mind. Slowly, anger replaced it.
Did Cam know Madam Winters was here? Would he leave his children in a place where she would be? Was he like Vane and Jaxson and Ross? Did he think she was a good person at heart? I had another fucking thought on that. I hugged the girls and glared at her, but all she did was laugh.
Fear slithered down my spine, and not the sexy, fun kind that happened when Cam was chasing me and I wanted it to happen. No, the sensation that coiled in my gut was the same fear I’d gotten the time someone pulled a gun on me at the ATM on Bar Row, and it was the same fear that smacked me when I didn’t know what the fuck was going on.
“Let me get the girls’ things!” Cam’s mother smiled at me. “So nice to meet you.”
Say something back.But I couldn’t stop myself from glaring at Madam Winters, who ignored me—completely. Cam’s mother seemed nice, but I was so upset I could barely speak with her more than to hum in acknowledgement she’d spoken.
“Are you sure you want to take the girls?” she finally asked, resting a hand on my shoulder, which snapped me out of my spiral as she passed me a bag of their clothes with a cartoon unicorn on the front. “Do you want them to go change first?”
“No, they’re fine. They can change at home,” I murmured. “My car can handle some pool water.”
She smiled, and I was able to see bits and pieces of Cam in her. The lines around her mouth were soft and friendly, and her eyes sparkled with the same bright energy he had. “You should come to dinner with Camden sometime. I’d like to get to know you. He must trust you a lot. He’s never had anyone else come pick up the children here.”
I nodded stiffly and couldn’t smile back, and she frowned between me and Madam Winters. Spinning on my heel, I snagged Addy’s hand along with Eloise’s and hustled them back out of the gate toward my car, my heart hammering a mile a minute. They waved over their shoulders.
“Bye, Grandma,” they chorused together. I felt even more outraged. It should have been nice to meet Cam’s mother. I should have been able to sit down with her poolside and tell some sort of story that would have had her laughing, and then promise to spend time getting to know her.
Before this very second, in my head I’d seen Cam and I doing this… maybe indefinitely. My parents were out of town, and it would take a trip to meet them. This should have been fun. Iwantedher to like me. But I couldn’t even speak I was so fucking upset. Hell, I didn’t even know her name. My hands shook as I helped Eloise and Addy get their seat belts adjusted on their booster seats in the car.
I hated that Madam Winters scared me, but she did. I hadn’t been prepared to see her at all.
Once I had the girls situated, I got behind the steering wheel and slammed my door shut. “Are you mad, Mark?” Addy piped up. “Someone mean to you? I’ll pop ’em for you.”
My eyes teared up. “I’m sure you would, sweetheart, but no. I’m not mad.”
And I wasn’t. Not really. I was something quite beyond that. The feeling ground away in my guts and made my shoulders hunch. I took out my phone and texted Cam with sharp jabs of my finger on the screen.
Madam Winters is at your mother’s house.
Nearly no time passed, and his reply had me shaking my head.
Yeah, she does that sometimes. They’re friends. I told you that.
My stomach churned and acid bit at the back of my throat. I trusted Cam, somehow, after everything, but this was a wrinkle that had never occurred to me. Would I be expected to interact with that woman after what she’d done to me? How could he be so blasé about this?
I liked Cam now, maybe evenmorethan just liked him, but I’d been terrified that night. I’d never been so scared in my life. And seeing her… brought a weird cascade of emotions to a boil inside me. I was feeling raw after our rough play last night, and all I wanted to do was go home and hide.
Things could have gone horribly the night we’d met. If Cam was a slightly worse person, I could have been very hurt. And everyone, everyone, seemed to think it was fucking funny. I wiped a few tears off my face.
“You okay, Mark?” Eloise asked in her small, serious voice, and I laughed, turning to give her a smile.
“What was your mommy doing today?”
“Cleaning,” Addy said. She shoved her wet dark hair off her forehead. “Mom likes to clean while we’re not there. She says it makes her feel better to see it all clean for five minutes.” Addy raised her hands and shook her head as if to ask why in the world those few minutes mattered.
