I narrow my eyes at him. “Do you mean to tell me you were screwing some chick when you were supposed to be working?”
He swallows and I smack a hand on the counter. “Did you at least lock the front fucking door first?”
Another bob of his Adam’s apple and I curse as I stomp over to the register, not surprised to only find a few coins in the bottom. I slam the drawer back shut and whip out my phone to call the police.
This day started out so well, too.
Cambria calls Atlas to help and between the two of them they manage to get the busted pipe taken care of. All the while I force Nick to stick around to help me mop up while waiting for the police to arrive to take the report. I also put out a call to the insurance agent, dreading the cosmic fuck ton of paperwork I’m about to be buried in. After Nick is done with his statement and admits to turning off the cameras for privacy, I fire his sorry ass and throw him out.
The rest of the day is a blur of cleaning, salvaging, and phone calls. I lock up that night having to post a sign about being temporarily closed for repairs with a heavy heart, but there isn’t much I can do until all of the insurance agent signs off on the report and get an inspector in to attest it’s safe to reopen. There’s just so much damage I’m not even sure if they’ll allow it without massive renovations.
“Maybe Luce will hire you as my co-maid,” Cambria tries for humor to pull me out of my depressed state.
“I don’t think I could pull off the uniform nearly as well as you do,” I reply with half of a sad smile.
“As household chef then,” she amends and I snort.
“I think we were all pretty surprised to see that was not one of your many talents.”
She laughs and steals my hand, mirroring my habit and stroking her thumb across my scar. “It was a valiant effort though.”
Shaking my head, I pull into the driveway and turn off the car. “You set thediningroom on fire. Not even the kitchen. How did you manage that?”
She climbs out and laces her fingers in mine. “A girl has to hold ontosomeof her mysterious nature, Dorian. If I spilled all of my secrets, what would keep you intrigued?”
Pulling her to a stop, I place a lingering kiss on her lips. “Trust me, Cambria, you don’t need any tricks to keep me interested. Just keep being you.”
She thumps her head on my chest. “It’s hard though,” she admits. “I’m putting a lot of effort into pretending things are okay because I saw how much it fucked with Atlas and Lucien’s heads during our trip to the castle. I don’t want them to worry any more than they already do. I’m used to this sort of routine, but they aren’t.”
I tug her down to sit beside me on the steps leading to the front door. “It screwed with all of us, Cambria, let’s not pretend otherwise. But I know I speak for the others when I say we would prefer you to be honest than lie and say you’re okay for our benefit. It’s okay to not be okay all of the time.”
She braces her hands behind her and looks up at the night sky, her fingertips brushing against mine. “I don’t think I know how to handle it any other way,” she admits. “There’s the Cambria that’s afraid to speak without being spoken to, the one that loves to sing and dance with the humans. And there’s the one that likes to play pretend, to throw my entire self into any role and forget who I am for just a little while and be happy. There are so many versions of myself depending on where I’m at and who I’m around, that I’m not sure I know which one is the real me and which ones are just faces I hide behind at this point.”
The door creaks open as Atlas comes out to sit behind her and she leans back into him without hesitation. “You’re making things too complicated, angel. Everyone’s that way, and I mean everyone. We act a certain way based on the situation we’re in. Even Luce is a different man at work than he is at home.
“Don’t worry about sparing our feelings and pretending to be alright if you aren’t. You’re stuck in a shitty situation that seems endless, but nothing’s permanent. We’ll figure something out eventually and until then, take the moments where you can find them. You’ve spent enough of your life miserable without ruining any trace of happiness by overthinking too.”
She tilts her face up to him and he bends down to kiss her forehead. Lucien pulls up to the house, slamming his car door and I jolt from the sudden hostility, internally cursing myself and trying to settle my reaction. He comes storming up to the house with hard eyes and a clenched jaw. I see Atlas wrap his arms around Cambria’s collar from my periphery, so I imagine she startled in a similar way.
“Get in the house, please,” Lucien deadpans and I look up to him in confusion.
“What’s going on?”
He turns to glare a little ways down across the street. “That car was here the last three days and I had an associate run the plates. Sure enough, the car belongs to someone that works at Victor’s company.
I blanch, realizing how careless we were. Luce warned us after the party to be careful, but that was a couple of weeks ago and we’ve been falling back into old habits.
“I thought you were mostly worried about him catching you with me and turning it into a scandal?” Cambria asks softly, rising to her feet with the rest of us and heading into the house.
Once inside, Lucien rubs his temple. “It’s more than that, love.” He gently tugs her away from Atlas and embraces her. She’s stiff for a moment before melting into him, relaxing. “He hasn’t let this go. He’s been digging into death records, trying to find out who your family was and my ties to them. The lack of information is only making him that much more interested. He can’t find any trace of you which makes him think he’s onto something big that he can use to destroy my reputation and my business.”
Cambria bites her lip. “I’m so sorry. If I had realized how much backlash would come from it, I never would have said a word that first day in your office.”
Lucien bends down to kiss the top of her head before ushering us further into the house. “I don’t blame you, what’s done is done. But it means I’m going to need to call in a few favors, get you some paperwork and a plausible explanation as to why your information was concealed.”
Cambria’s eyes fly open as an idea strikes her. “I was joking before, but it could completely work. Witness protection! Faked my death, new name, new life.”
I blink a few times before shrugging. “That...actually has some merit.”
