‘Erm. I – er – will have to check my diary. And – er – ask her.’
‘Great,’ Jenna said dully.
‘Jenna – are you sure you’re OK?’
‘Yes ... Just, you know ... this may sound silly, but do you ever question yourself? I mean, question the whole basis of your life? What you’re doing? Where you’re going?’
‘Often.’ He nodded. ‘We all do from time to time. Especially when a big life change happens – it shifts the ground under your feet.’
‘It does,’ Jenna agreed. ‘So you know how it feels – to wonder ...’
‘I do. I thought I had my life all sorted out – great job, head of marketing for a big tech company. They even offered me a promotion in London and I wanted it, badly. But then I couldn’t, because of the sacrifices I’d have to make. My sister was struggling to bring up Lachlan, even with my parents’ help and me coming home from Edinburgh as often as I could ...’ He stopped short of the other reason he had changed his whole life. It wasn’t fair on Jenna to lay that sort of trauma on her.
‘And?’ she said, chin on hand, now completely engaged.
‘The job offer made me question everything about my life, how I wanted it to be, and that’s when I decided to do the craziest thing ever. I left, set up in freelance marketing, landed End-to-End as a key client and moved back here to JOG.’
‘Do you regret it?’
‘Of course, sometimes. But the times I regret losing the salary, the kudos, the instant access to tapas ...’ He smiled sadly. ‘Those are outnumbered a hundred to one by the times I step out of my house and feel the salt stinging my face, or when I’m on a beach with Lachlan looking for dolphins or the perfect pebble.’
‘And what about Iona?’
‘Sorry?’
‘And you met Iona too?’
‘Yes, um. Yes, that too.’ Cam felt sick.
Jenna nodded. ‘Well, I – um – am so glad you did move, otherwise we’d never have met.’
‘No ...’ Cam said, momentarily thinking that if he’d never known Jenna, he would have avoided the pain he was going through now. In the next heartbeat, he knew it was infinitely better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.Even if he felt he’d suffered a double loss in different ways: Rachel and Jenna.
‘OK, I’ll send a proper invitation when they’re back from the printers.’ Jenna had snapped back into almost normal perky Jenna mode.
‘I’ll look forward to that,’ Cam said and ended the call.
Slumping back on the sofa, he let out a groan of anguish and frustration. Why was the world like this? What ill-fated star had he been born under?
He mustn’t wallow in self-pity. Rachel’s death had been a terrible and unavoidable blow, but this situation with Jenna was all of his own making.
He couldn’t keep lying about his fake ‘girlfriend’, but telling the truth meant telling herwhyhe’d lied. Unless he could say that he was just embarrassed to be single ... Damn.
However jokily he framed his ‘confession’, he would sound like a sad loser and weird to boot. Which he probably was – which was why it was even more important than ever that Jenna never got an inkling he was in love with her. Iona was spot on: she would definitely never want to work with him again or have him within 874 miles of her wedding.
Chapter Seven
Jenna
Cam!’
Cam blinked at the screen. He had no top on and appeared to be in his bedroom. Jenna instantly regretted her panicked WhatsApp video call. She wouldn’t have dared if Nate had been in, but she’d been so shocked by the news she had to call.
‘Um ... Jenna. Are you OK?’
‘Yeah. Fine. I’m so sorry. Oh no, were you in bed?’
‘No. I’d just had a shower after my run. Hold on, let me put a T-shirt on.’
