Page 23 of Sophia & Cameron

Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head in exasperation. Mark glanced over at him after noting her attention. He lifted a brow. “He seems… nice.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Real nice.” Then she smiled at Mark again. “Tell me how it goes. I want details.”

Mark nodded. “Of course.”

When she was back on her horse, she wasn’t surprised that the remainder of the ride continued in silence. Cameron was in a sour mood, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nor did she care.

“What do you mean,you know him?” Emma said into the speaker.

Sophia stared at the ceiling, her phone pressed to her ear. Emma had finally convinced her to spill the truth about Cameron after the ridiculous night that had been the country club outing. “I met him five years ago when I went to a conference in Texas.”

“And?” Emma urged. “What happened?”

Sophia pressed her finger and thumb into her closed eyes. “Nothing happened. We flirted. He wore me down, and I told him I’d go on a date with him. Then another.” She groaned, detailing what had happened after that. The whole thing was still just as heartbreaking.

Emma let out a whistle. “Okay, now it totally makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” Sophia asked. “The fact that he can still make me jealous?”

“Well, to be fair, he looked pretty jealous, too.”

Sophia snorted. “No. He’s just… I don’t know… controlling.”

“You sure about that?”

“That’s the only thing that makes sense. If he was jealous, then he wouldn’t have let that girl put her hands all over him. And that girl in Texas? It’s the same thing. He’s got the attention of any girl he wants. He doesn’t have to be jealous about me being with guys.”

Emma was quiet for a moment. “I don’t know, Soph. Maybe you should corner him and demand he explain himself. He was supposed to go on a date with you, and you said yourself that he showed up at the club you were at. Maybe there’s more to this story.”

“There isn’t. Thanks for trying to make me feel better, but honestly, I think it would be better if I forget about him and move on. I don’t need this kind of drama. You should have seen the way he was glaring at me today. It was like I’m not allowed to be friends with a guy because I didn’t fall to his whims or something.”

“Sounds like jealousy to me.”

Sophia rolled her eyes. She knew jealousy. That wasn’t jealousy.

“You know what they say. If you want to move on, then the best thing to do is clear the air. So talk to him.”

“Maybe,” Sophia muttered noncommittally. She definitely wasn’t going to do that. She didn’t need to see the triumph on his face when he realized that she had been hurt by his philandering ways.

10

Cameron

Lungs burning, Cameron lurched to a stop and hunched over as he drew in oxygen with gulps of air. He rose upward with a hand on his hip as he wiped the sweat from his brow. He used to run a lot when he was in high school. When he was younger, it was for the endorphins he gained from the exercise.

Now, it was to rid himself of the emotions that threatened to take away his control. The way Sophia let down her walls around the men who worked for her brother was eating at him. Those smiles she gave them weren’t anything like the guarded ones she offered him, and it was driving him crazy.

Yesterday, she’d hugged that cowboy—Mark was his name—and she’d laughed with him for a few minutes before she’d finally returned to their ride. He’d refused to bring it up because he knew it would only start a fight. He didn’t want to admit that the way she treated him was eating at him. If she knew just how frustrated he was, she’d definitely use it against him.

The optimistic side of him wanted to believe that she was opening up to him, but after seeing her interaction with Mark, he knew that was laughable. Sophia was a different person around him, and he wasn’t getting any closer to making her see him as anything other than her enemy.

Her voice drew his attention, and his head whipped around as he watched her climb out of a truck and head for the house. There was a man closing the passenger door that she’d just vacated. He waved at her, then climbed back in the truck to drive away.

Cameron narrowed his eyes at the cowboy. The guy didn’t work for Mateo, and he wasn’t the same guy who had been dancing with Sophia’s friend at the country club.

The poisonous jealousy that urged him to go after Sophia and demand to know who she’d been with threatened to overtake his self-control. She didn’t belong to him, and he wasn’t going to push her away more than he already had.

He turned on his heel and nearly collided with a young woman. She gasped and her lashes fluttered. Her deep blue eyes darted from him to Sophia and back, then a slow smile touched her lips. She was Sophia’s sister, and according to the ramblings of the other cowboys, she was the beauty of the three. But not to Cameron. No one was more striking than Sophia. He hadn’t spoken to this sister, even after being here for several weeks, and he couldn’t recall her name.

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