Jenna grew cold. ‘You won’tletme?’
‘I – I didn’t mean that to come out like it sounded,’ Nate said. ‘I can’t stop you from leaving but if you think you’d be happier with someone else, you’re wrong and I know you’ll regret it.’
Despite feeling shaky, Jenna stood firm. ‘I might be wrong about a lot of things, but I know this: you’d definitely be happier with someone else.’
Nathan’s jaw dropped.
Jenna hoisted her bag on to her shoulder. ‘We really tried, but it isn’t working.’
‘No,Itried!’ he exploded. ‘I did everything – for you, for your family. I tried to make a home and future for us. I did it for you. But nothing I do is good enough. You demand too much of me, Jenna.’
She fought back tears. ‘Nate. Nate – I never asked you for anything. Only—’ She was going to say ‘love’, but stopped. Nathan had loved her, he did, but he just couldn’t love her in the way that she needed to be loved.
‘Only I think ...’ she murmured, clutching her car keys until her fingers hurt. ‘We’ve moved too far apart. Maybe we always were too far apart.’
‘What kind of bullshit is that? Got it off Saint Cam, did you? I just heard on the radio the idiot fell off his fecking bike. Typical. He’s a loser and if you’re rushing off to help him, it’s the end of the road for us. You choose.’
Chapter Fourteen
Jenna and Cam
I’m h-here to see C-cameron M-munro,’ Jenna half said, half sobbed to the hospital receptionist. ‘He’s doing a John O’Groats to Land’s End challenge and he’s fallen off his bike.’
‘We know,’ the receptionist said kindly. ‘I’ll find out where he is.’
A tall man walked into reception and Jenna instantly recognised him as Cam’s driver, Lorenzo.
‘Hello! I’m Jenna from the Land’s End branch of End-to-End. I work – remotely – with Cam and I heard he had an accident.’
‘Ah. Jenna. He’s been asking for you.’
‘Hehas? So he can speak? How is he?’
‘You can come and see for yourself. Come on, we’re just waiting for the results of his scans.’
In no time, Lorenzo was pulling back the green curtains of a hospital bay and there was Cam in all his magnificent bruised and battered glory.
‘Cam!’
‘Jenna!’
‘Whathaveyoudone?’
‘Ididn’tknowyou’dcome.’
‘Sorrysorryyoufirstnoyou.’
‘I think I’ll leave you to it,’ smirked Lorenzo, closing the curtain behind him.
With a smile that melted her heart, Cam pointed at Jenna. ‘You first.’
‘I – I—’am speechless, she thought, because here he was, finally. After a whole year, she was finally in the same room as Cam. Sure, she’d never expected their first meeting to take place in a hospital, with him sitting up on the bed, a massive bruise on his forehead, a cut across his cheek, grazes all over his chest and legs, a pad on his shin and scratches everywhere. He looked thin, exhausted, wrecked, and yet her heart did a hundred somersaults. He was even handsomer than she’d ever imagined he would be.
She wanted to fling her arms around him and then remembered that he was a colleague, a friend at best – and in a relationship with Iona ...
‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ she said finally, sitting on the chair. ‘Areyou OK?’
‘I didn’t think I was going to be,’ he said. ‘But nothing is broken and I don’t have a concussion. I fell asleep on the bike and the next thing I knew I was in a ditch. Luckily for me it was full of brambles, hence the impressive scratches.’
