Page 49 of Bad Situation

Me: Quit sexting me.

Eli: It all comes back to my cock, doesn’t it?

Me: Stop.

Eli: I’m catching the first flight back in the morning.

I lick my lips and it has nothing to do with the lemon and dill sauce with capers.

Eli: Be ready.

I turn off the phone completely because he’s right. I’m wet but I’m also surrounded by Carpinos.

Damn the man with the badge.

*****

“You should get to bed. You’re getting married tomorrow.”

Cam texted me and told me to meet him by the pool since Paige fell asleep as soon as they got to the guest house. He’s changed into sweats and is sipping a bourbon as I drown myself in sauvignon blanc.

He looks over at me. “At this point, you should grab a pillow and hit the sofa. It’s late and you shouldn’t drive.”

I sigh and pull my blanket tighter around me. Cam’s right. I have no business driving and it’s too late to call Donny, plus he has the weekend off for the wedding.

It’s been a rather uneventful week since my hearing. Besides a few meetings with Lehmans and a secret meeting with the private investigator who had questions for me about some employees in our IT department who would have no reason to frame me, it’s been business as usual. I took today off to spend it with Cam, Paige, Jordy, and Cara before tonight’s rehearsal.

What my week did not consist of was late night visits from my secret special agent. He’s texted me daily but has never mentioned what he was doing and I haven’t asked. That doesn’t mean I’m not curious as hell, though. And, if I’m honest with myself, I miss his visits and smorgasbords of food he brings me. I’m back to hunting down snacks in my barren refrigerator. If I were as diligent about ordering groceries as I am clothes and shoes, I wouldn’t have that problem.

But right now, I roll my head to look at my big brother. Cam has always been larger than life in my eyes. He was a football star in our small-town high school and went on to make a name for himself as a wide receiver at the University of Nebraska.

It wasn’t an exaggeration the other night when I told Eli that Cam was the one who helped me feel safe in my own skin again after the incident on our property. That’s when we became close and have stayed that way even though he never returned to Texas. I respect that about him more than anything. He’s always gone his own way and has never bent to our parents.

Our mom and dad are used to getting their way and I had a feeling it was always the plan for Cam to take over Montgomery Industries. He’s the oldest and the only boy. My dad gave up that idea only because Cam decided it wasn’t for him. He wanted something different. He has his trust and shares in the company but, after the way we grew up, I love the fact he wants a quiet life.

Cam had it tough for a few years when his first wife, Bekki, went off the rails. She was a bitch. Ellie and I never liked her. But now he has Paige and, even though they had a rough patch, he finally figured his shit out, knocked her up, proposed, and somehow put the wedding of all weddings together in record time.

I take a sip of my wine. I lost count a couple hours ago how many glasses I’ve had about the same time I gave up trying to remember the names of Paige’s family members. Cam told me how many Carpinos there are and, once they arrived, it felt like they kept coming out of the woodwork. If the rehearsal dinner is a prequel to the wedding itself, tomorrow will be off the charts.

“I’ll sleep on the sofa in the study and get up early. Mom will never know.”

“Good. What’s up with Ellie?” he asks and takes a sip of his drink.

“What do you mean?”

“She’s quiet. Quieter than she was the last time I was here. I could tell, even through all the chaos. You’re closer to her than anyone.”

I shift sideways in my lounge to face him. “She told me last week she’s bored. I told her to come and work for me, part-time, but she’s like you. She wants nothing to do with MI. I even offered her a job to work in philanthropies and community outreach, which she’d be good at. She shot me down and said she wants to teach.”

“Really?” Cam sounds more surprised than I was. For someone who loved her art so much, she became bitter to it.

“I really hope she goes through with it. With Robert reporting to me now, I feel bad that she’s lonely even though I shouldn’t. I don’t demand the hours he puts in. I think things have gotten worse for her since he started with MI. She rattles around that house of theirs. She’s lonely.”

Cam’s face tightens and he looks back to the property in front of us that’s lit by the swollen moon hanging high in the sky, casting an eerie light through the clouds. The land, that’s usually wide-open, dipping and curving with the Texas hills, is now decorated with enormous white tents, a custom altar my dad had crafted just for tomorrow, and antique pews from a dilapidated church in the Hill Country. “Robert’s an asshole. I don’t give a shit if he’s good at his job—I’ve known it from the first day I laid eyes on him. Now my baby sister is suffering because of it and Griff’ll probably have an absentee father. Dad built that company and was still around to teach me how to throw a pigskin. It’s not impossible to do both.”

“Calm your muscles there, big man. You and I will never know why she married Robert the Robot. Lord knows I did everything I could to stop her.”

Cam ignores my sass because he’s used to it and takes another drink. “I hate seeing her like this, that’s all.”

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