Page 58 of Worth the Wait
“I have meetings?—”
“Amanda can handle the meetings. Can’t you, Amanda?”
“Absolutely,” Amanda agrees immediately. “Most of them are preliminary consultations anyway. I can do the initial screenings and reschedule anything that needs your personal attention.”
Maya stands. “Go do something that makes you feel like yourself again. Whatever that is—go to a bookstore, walk on the beach, buy groceries like a normal human being. Something that reminds you who you were before you let this job consume your entire identity.”
After they leave, I sit in my empty office surrounded by evidence of professional triumph that feels hollow without someone to share it with. The Sterling Industries folder sits on my desk, representing both my greatest success and my most devastating misjudgment about where I stood in Cameron’s world.
Maybe Maya’s right about needing to do something normal, something that exists outside the professional fortress I’ve built around myself. Maybe returning to routines that existed before Cameron became part of them will help me remember how to exist independently again.
Maybe then, I can remember that I was whole before him, and I can be whole again—with or without him.
Tuesday afternoon arrives with that particular Los Angeles haze that makes everything feel slightly unreal. I drive to Santa Monica alone, my stomach twisting with anxiety about returning to a place so loaded with recent memories but determined to reclaim routines that belong to me.
The weekday afternoon farmers market is smaller than the weekend version, more intimate, with fewer crowds and a different energy. Vendors call out daily specials to the mix of locals doing midweek shopping and tourists discovering fresh California produce. The sweet scent of strawberries and the organized chaos of people selecting ingredients should feel comforting, but instead it feels like visiting the scene of a crime.
“Lianne!” Mrs. Chavez’s voice carries across the strawberry stand, warm and welcoming. “I was wondering where you’ve been. And your handsome boyfriend—is he parking the car?”
The question hits me hard, confirming exactly what I’d feared about returning here. I force a smile and approach her stand. “Just me today, Mrs. Chavez. Cameron’s busy with work.”
“Ah, business, always business with successful men.” She shakes her head sympathetically while selecting the ripest strawberries. “But he’ll be back next week, yes? Such a lovely couple you make.”
I nod noncommittally and accept the berries she insists on giving me, my throat too tight to explain that there won’t be a next week, that the lovely couple she’d been watching develop over three Saturday mornings has dissolved back into separate lives.
I move away from the strawberry stand before I can embarrass myself with tears, heading toward the organic vegetable vendors where I can regroup without well-meaning questions about missing boyfriends. The herb vendor who’d explained different oregano varieties to Cameron and me. The honey stand where he’d insisted on buying three different types. The artisanal bread baker who’d recommended the perfect sourdough for French toast.
Every stall carries memories, but gradually I start to remember that I’d loved this market before Cameron became part of it. That I’d been shopping here for years, building relationships with vendors who valued my business and appreciated my interest in their products.
Maybe Maya’s right about reclaiming normalcy. Maybe returning to routines that existed independently can help me remember who I am outside of failed relationships and professional success.
I’m examining heirloom tomatoes when I become aware of someone watching me. The feeling starts as a prickle at the back of my neck, the sense that I’m being observed with focused attention.
I turn, scanning the crowd of shoppers, and my heart stops.
Cameron, standing near the entrance of the market, his gaze locked on me with the kind of focused determination that suggests he’s been searching. He’s wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt, casual clothes that make him look younger, more approachable than the polished businessman in tailored suits.
But it’s still him. The man who spent three weeks sharing my bed and planning our future, who let his mother position Isabella as his dinner companion while expecting me to coordinate their perfect evening.
He starts walking toward me, weaving through the crowds with the kind of purpose that suggests this meeting isn’t accidental. That he came here specifically to find me.
Every instinct screams at me to leave. Turn around, walk back to the parking lot, drive away before he reaches me and turns thisreclaimed space into another battleground between what I want and what’s realistic.
But something in his posture stops me. He looks tired, rumpled, like someone who hasn’t been sleeping well. His hair is messier than usual, and there’s something almost desperate in the way he’d been scanning the crowds before he spotted me.
He’s carrying flowers—not expensive hothouse roses, but a simple bouquet of sunflowers and daisies, the kind of cheerful arrangement that would come from one of the market vendors.
Cameron stops a few feet away, close enough to talk but far enough to give me space to leave if I choose to. The flowers in his hand look almost ridiculously hopeful against the afternoon light.
“Hi,” he says quietly, his voice carrying none of the confident charm I’m used to hearing from him. Instead, he sounds uncertain, vulnerable in a way I’ve never associated with Cameron Judd.
“Hi.”
“I was hoping I’d find you here,” he continues, his eyes never leaving my face. “I know you probably don’t want to see me, but I need to tell you what really happened Saturday night. What I should have told you weeks ago.”
I clutch the bag of tomatoes tighter, using the mundane weight of groceries to anchor myself against the storm of emotions his presence creates.
Cameron holds out the flowers. “Mrs. Garvey at the flower stand remembered you liked sunflowers.”
