Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
From her expression, it wasn’t enough.
And I was going to lose her for good.
24
Katherine
“Let’s say that I believe you,” I said in a way that meant that I really, really didn’t believe them. Because, right now, I had no idea what to believe. Fiona was pregnant, standing in Camden’s apartment. What was I supposed to think? “If it’s not your baby, whose is it?”
“That… is not my story to tell,” Camden said with a glance to Fiona.
“Don’t look at me,” Fiona said. “She has no right to know anything. I didn’t even want her to know that I was pregnant.”
“She won’t believe me unless you tell her.”
Fiona shrugged. “That’s not my problem, Cam. I don’t owe her shit.”
I cringed at the nickname she’d used. Camden was not the kind of person who had a nickname. He was only ever Camden. Not Cam. I hated that she’d called him that. That it felt so unlike him, and he hadn’t even flinched.
“No, but you owe me,” he said evenly.
She gritted her teeth. “She has a huge fucking mouth. She’ll tell Harmony.”
“She will not,” he told her. “They don’t get along as it is.”
“Wait,” I said in confusion. “Wait… I know who Harmony is dating.”
Fiona’s eyes went wide. “Shit.”
“The father is Kurt Mitchell?”
“I did not say that,” Fiona said, backing up a step.
“Jesus Christ, that guy fucks every girl on the Upper East Side, doesn’t he?” I said with a shake of my head.
Harmony had claimed that Kurt was cleaned up and working for his father. I’d even joked and said bad boys were more fun. But I hadn’t meant this.
“Yes,” Camden replied, “he does.”
Fiona glared at him. “Don’t say a fucking word.”
“What? That you should have known better?” he asked with cool malice in his voice. “That you should have expected a guy like Kurt Mitchell to fuck you and leave you?”
“Someone needs to tell Harmony that he’s still a sleazeball,” I interjected. “Obviously, he had no qualms fucking you while he was with Harm.”
“I didn’t know they were dating when we met,” Fiona fumed.
“Oh, please, as if that would have stopped you,” I spat. “You clearly have a type—unavailable men.”
“Pot, meet kettle.”
“Whatever.”
She wasn’t wrong. Not exactly, which made it all the worse. It wasn’t that I’d had a thing for attached guys. It was that I’d always had a thing for Penn. Whether or not he was with someone didn’t matter much to me. But… that wasn’t reality anymore.
“The important thing here is that you believe that the baby isn’t mine,” Camden said. His eyes burned through me. He seemed adamant about this, which was so unlike him. It almost made me believe him. “Who the father is and all the rest… doesn’t really matter. Just that you believe me.”
Fiona huffed.
“So… say the baby is Kurt’s. Say you knew about this at Thanksgiving and she called you on New Year’s because she couldn’t go through with an abortion,” I said, laying out the facts. “What the fuck is she doing here now?”
I gestured to Fiona, who stood nearby, protectively hugging her stomach, as if she thought I might lunge at her or something. They were both silent for a minute. I watched them exchange a long look. One I didn’t particularly care for, but I could see they were having a conversation in that look. Deciding what to tell me.
“She’s here for me to deal with it,” he finally said.
I scrunched up my brows. “Huh?”
Fiona looked like she was going to explode. “Camden!”
“Just tell her, Fiona. I’m tired of this charade.”
Fiona turned away from us both, as if his words hurt so much that she couldn’t even look at him. “I don’t have to do this. I’m leaving. Just… take care of it.”
Then without another word, she disappeared, rushing toward the elevator. I didn’t move or demand she stay. I was so confused. I didn’t know whether or not to even believe anything that they’d said. I wanted to believe that they weren’t together and that the baby wasn’t his, but it felt too good to be true. I was willing to take them at their word.
“Kurt won’t take responsibility,” Camden told me. “He won’t help, and he’s calling her a liar. He called her a whore.”
I shrugged. “What are you going to do about it?”
“What I do best. I handle shit, Katherine.”
I couldn’t argue that. Camden did handle shit. I’d seen him do it on multiple occasions. Of course, I didn’t know what that meant here. Was he going to threaten Kurt? Did he have some kind of blackmail on the guy? How far would he take this for Fiona? And why?
But I didn’t ask any of those questions. Instead, I sank into a chair and put my head in my hands. “How did we get here, Camden?”
I waited for him to say some smart-ass response, but after a minute, he came and sat on the couch across from me. “Because we’re both strong-willed and stubborn.”