He swam closer, treading water next to me. ‘Okay, but seriously . . . I’m glad we got this.’
‘This?’
‘This time together,’ he said, more softly now. ‘Even though we were almost killed by an assassin, drugged and locked in a cupboard. It’s been fun. I’ve missed this. I missedyou.’
‘I suppose I sort of missed you a bit too,’ I said, glancing away.
‘I’d forgotten what it feels like to just . . . be around you. To laugh. To fight. To fuck.’
‘Well, I’m glad you enjoyed it so much, because it will be over soon. Now that this job is finished and we’re going back to our normal lives, we won’t be seeing each other again, obviously.’
Cam burst out laughing. Wait, this was not the reaction I was expecting.
‘What’s so funny?’ I demanded. His gaze zoned in on me in a strange and probing manner. ‘Cam, stop looking at me like that!’
‘Like what?’ he asked innocently.
‘Like, I don’t know, like you’re up to something. Like you know a secret, like you’re the smuggest person in the world right now when you have no reason to be smug.’
‘It’s just that I knew you were going to do this.’
‘Do what?’
‘This. Precisely this. I could have predicted we would be having this exact conversation at some point. Word for word.’
I brought my hand down and sent more water flying into his face. ‘Did you predict that too?’
‘Yup.’ He wiped his face and smirked. ‘I predicted you’d do something dramatic, but I didn’t think we’d be in the water. I’m afraid my powers of prediction are notthatgood.’
‘Just what is it that you think you predicted anyway?’
‘I predicted we’d get to the end of this mission, and the second it was over, you’d tell yourself that everything that happened between us meant nothing. That it was all pretend, or if it wasn’t pretend – if you were at least going to admit that much to yourself – then it was just a fling. Super-hot island sex with an ex, easy to walk away from. I predicted you’d decide to go home and act like none of this ever happened. Like we didn’t just get handed a second chance on a silver platter – one that wetotallyscrewed up the first time. And that you’d try to throw it away again. You’d go home, go back to normal life, and try to forget me and what we had. But you won’t be able to, no matter how hard you try, I’m going to be there in your thoughts, and this time you won’t be able to get rid of me.’
I was floundering. Blinking. Trying to come up with some kind of rebuttal to all of that, but failing miserably.
‘And of course Sage predicted it too; she told me after you left.’
‘You talked about me after I left?’
‘We still had an hour of our session, and I didn’t want to waste the thoughtful gift.’
‘You talked about me for an hour?’
‘Maybe a little more – you are quite complicated after all.’ He said it so casually, when this was anything but casual.
‘And were your discussions fruitful?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘Very. I figured out a lot of things about you, about us.’
‘And what are those things?’
Cam smiled at me, that dumb, knowing smile he’d been throwing around so liberally of late. ‘Well, like I said, we predicted this. Predicted that when I told you I loved you, you would run away again. Which I suppose you sort of did when you passed out in the cupboard after I said it, although you did start saying it too before you fell asleep.’
My heart suddenly banged in my chest. ‘I . . . I don’t remember that.’
‘I know. But I do.’
I swallowed.
