Page 57 of Be Mine Forever

“How did you feel?”

“The way I feel now.” He looked down at their hands clasped together. “Like you deserve better.”

“Why?” Jo dipped her head, trying to catch the eyes he had shifted. “Why did I deserve better?”

Cam gave a quick shake of his head, releasing her hand to pick up his jar with its flickering lights and roll it between his hands.

“Last one, I promise.” She swallowed her trepidation. “This is current. Real time. Not even a week ago.”

Cam’s fingers slowed on the jar and he looked at her. The fireflies strobed the concern on his face.

“What happened?”

“I know Aunt Kris’s death has been hard for everyone.” Jo pulled a clump of grass from the ground. “Especially you and Walsh and Daddy, but it’s been a little different for me.”

How to put this? Jo had never tried to articulate how Aunt Kris’s death had leveled her.

“It was like losing my mom again. That’s what she was to me, but she was also my bestie. My partner in crime. My mentor. She prepared me in every way she could to do the things she did.”

Jo had been afraid to voice this to anyone else in case they thought she couldn’t handle the responsibility. Wasn’t ready. Wasn’t capable. Wasn’t enough.

“But I’m not her, and some days it is so obvious to me that I never will be. And I know everyone else knows it, too. And kids all over the world depend on the foundation. On me. They’re the ones I don’t want to let down.”

Jo paused, glancing back at Cam so there was nothing hiding the rare vulnerability she wanted to gift to him.

“And sometimes I feel the weight of it, and it’s like I’m having an anxiety attack but nobody knows, so nobody helps. From the outside, it looks like I’m breathing and smiling and in control, but inside my head is spinning and I can’t breathe. And I just want to scream. I want someone to know that it’s too much, but there’s no one to tell.”

Cam reached around and set his hands on either side of her face.

“Tell me. You are brilliant and ambitious in all the right ways and passionate about what you do. Don’t let other people convince you what you do isn’t enough.”

“Some days it’s other people, and some days it’s just…well, it’s just me.” Jo pulled away, hunching forward until her chest touched her knees. “And when it’s too much, I do the stupidest thing, but it makes me feel a little better.”

She let the quiet simmer for a few seconds before he gave her side a gentle finger poke.

“What do you do?”

“I know this seems unrelated, but follow me for a minute. On my sixteenth birthday, Aunt Kris and I went to—”

“Paris.” She couldn’t see him, but she heard Cam’s grin.

“Yeah, Paris. We flew on the Walsh Foods jet for the weekend. We went to the Louboutin flagship store and sipped champagne. I was so adult.”

“Walsh and I were mad you guys didn’t take us with you.”

Jo jerked around, rolling her eyes in the dark.

“Like we wanted to hear you complaining while we shopped.”

“Oh, we would have gone our separate ways for sure.”

Jo narrowed her eyes at him even though he probably couldn’t see her.

“I just bet we’d have gone our separate ways. You two would have been in some strip club.”

“That’s neither here nor there.” Cam cleared a laugh from his throat and pulled her head down to his shoulder. “You were saying.”

“So Aunt Kris told me to choose my first pair of Louboutins. Any shoes in the whole store, and I chose chartreuse glittery crazy red bottoms that I have worn only once or twice in my whole life in public. They were the price of a small island, but Aunt Kris didn’t mind.”

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