“But then, he texts me the night before he was set to leave—not even a phone call—but a text saying that he can’t do it. To tell Tyler that he’s sorry but he’s not going to be there. I called him right up and laid into him hard. Told him a few choice things I’d been dying to say over the years. That he didn’t have anyone but himself to blame for his misery. That he was throwing away a gift that could change his life.”
James pressed a hand to his temple and sighed. “I was on a roll, so I just kept going. Told him it was his fault we weren’t as close as we used to be.” James sent her a look. “We’d drifted apart over the months leading up to his death. Then I told him that if he wasn’t going to Cincinnati, he’d have to tell Tyler himself. I refused to do it for him. That was our last conversation.”
Camila’s heart dropped.
“He was discovered by his housekeeper the next morning. Since I was the last person who’d called him, she called me even before the police. I think she was in denial at first because she didn’t believe he was really dead. I drove out there, saw him before the ambulance took him away. It was obvious.” He shuddered, and Camila couldn’t hold back any longer.
She leaned in, slipped her arms solidly around his chest, and pulled him in tight. “I’m so sorry,” she breathed. A mean pain ripped through her as she imagined how hard it must have been. From dealing with his brother’s addiction, feeling responsible for his recovery. Allowing himself to hope—after so much heartache—that he might finally change. And then waking up to that phone call. Seeing his brother. Witnessing, for himself, the gruesome grip drugs had on his life.
All of it brought on such a storm of emotion she could barely hold it in. “I can’t imagine,” she said in a whisper.
James pulled back to look at her, moisture glistening at the corners of his eyes. “This is what I mean,” he said. “Most would agree that what you’ve been through is…far worse. I just want to heal already. Forgive myself, maybe. Or at least,learnwhat it was I did wrong.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “And pray I never have to go through something like that again.”
The wordswhat I did wrongstood out like a sharp edge. She didn’t like James taking the blame for his brother’s actions. “We all go through life doing our best, and even still we make mistakes all the time. I’m sure you know this already, but let me just…make it clear, in case you don’t. Winston was the only one who could save his life. It sounds like, to me, that you guys did all you could. The rest was up to him.”
James dropped his hand from the side of his face. “Yeah, but what if he just would have made it pastthatnight? What if he wouldn’t have overdosed that night and shown up in Cincinnati instead? What ifI’mthe one that set him off and—drove him to—”
“Drove him to what?” Camila interrupted. “To making his own choice about how he’d deal with a brother who loved him? Wanted to help him? That’s not your fault.”
James held her gaze, his expression shifting to a near plea. Between the tension around his blue eyes and the tight set of his jaw, it seemed as if he were begging her to convince him she was right.
“I have his journal,” he said. “I’ve had it since he died. It was on the coffee table, just a few feet away from where he’d…” He broke off there and shook his head.
“I know that if I go through it, I might find something about our conversation. That it’s what drove him to his last reckless act. Or even if it doesn’t, Winston might point a finger right at me in a bunch of other pages. Say, I don’t know, it wasmyfault he ended up the way he did. He was sick of being compared to me. My mom compared the two of us a lot.”
Camila let that sink in for moment, putting herself in his shoes as best she could. “So you haven’t gone through it yet?”
James shook his head.
“If you’re like me,” she said, “things like that journal can really cripple you. It seems like it’s holding some sort of power over you.” She thought back on a tactic her grandmother always used on her. “Imagine that you read through it, and it’s as bad as you can possibly imagine. He’s blaming you, your family, whatever.”
James nodded. “Okay.”
“Now tell me this. What’s worse: reading it once and for all and dealing with whatever’s in there, or spending another month or evenyearworrying about what it might say? Right now, an inanimate object is holding you captive. Don’t let it. Take the power back by reading it already.”
His shoulders dropped a bit. A sigh fell from his lips. “You’re right.”
“Who knows,” she added, “you may even find a few gems in there.”
He nodded some more. “True.” Quiet took over as he drew circles onto her other hand, a seemingly absent action. “We’re going to be heading back to the villa tomorrow,” he said after a while. “You can say no to this if you’d like, heaven knows I might, but would you go through it with me?”
A new gush of emotion flooded over her. Filling her with so much heat, both heavy and sweet, Camila felt she might cry. “Of course.”
Chapter 14
Well, that hadn’t gone how he’d thought it might.
James shuffled into the restroom and splashed water on his face. Camila, who was waiting for him in the hammock swing upstairs, had surprised him yet again. He might not be anyone’s pet, but James would eat out of her hand any day. Everything she offered was just so…good. It went far beyond the food she made.
Her words, her kindness, her wisdom.
Their emotional connection had grown deeper than he thought possible. The trouble was, he hadn’t been planning to work on their emotional connection so much as their romantic connection. If they didn’t kiss again soon, he might get pushed right into the friend zone.
Sure, he might have rushed things when he kissed her on the beach, but James needed to kiss those lips before another chance passed him by. He snatched his toothbrush from the drawer, piled on the paste, and gave himself a pep talk while he brushed. Three minutes later he was ready to go.
He moved through the yacht quickly, not wanting Camila to wait too long for him. But as he approached the hammock swing once more, the cage-like structure lighting her up like an angel, a bit of nerves crept in. Like walking-a-girl-to-the-door type of nerves. Or that spin-the-bottle type of tension tightening his chest as if he was back in middle school.
“Sorry about that,” he said while settling back into the chair beside her.
