Grabbing one of the pillows from under my head, I moved it against my chest so that I could hold on to it. “I’d been so eager to please, wanting everyone’s approval, because I was determined to succeed. To make my parents happy, I suppose. He took advantage of that. Lots of late nights and things that I now understand were entirely inappropriate and we had an affair. He preyed on my inexperience. It was such a cliché that it feels ridiculous that it happened to me.”
It was the first time I’d ever seen Camden look truly angry. That it was on my behalf was a little thrilling. “Did he get fired?”
“No, I did. He was married, something I didn’t know. And when evidence of our relationship came to light, he threw me under the bus. He’d been very careful the entire time. He told the firm that I was harassing him. When the partners reviewed the footage, it was me going into his office, sitting on the edge of his desk. They didn’t know that he was the one who called me in. They didn’t see our emails, which he got someone in IT to destroy. There were no texts or anything that I could use to prove my innocence. I looked like the aggressor, and they fired me.”
Camden somehow managed to look even angrier, but he stayed quiet.
“It just about destroyed me. I had spent four years in college working toward this goal, getting internships every summer, and one man’s lies made everything go away. There were a rough couple of months, but then I decided that I was never going to let someone else dictate my career. I wanted to go into business for myself. Some friends had asked me to do events for them and I realized that I had a talent for it. I had a high demand right from the beginning and was worried that I couldn’t do it all alone. I had started doing volunteer work, because my mom was always saying that the best way to get over your problems is to help others, and that’s where I met—” I had very nearly said Krista’s name, which would have been so bad. He had no idea she worked for me. “My first employee. She had just gotten out of an abusive marriage and couldn’t find work. I hired her and now, here I am.”
“That must have been really hard, but good for you for finding a way forward,” he said, and I appreciated that he hadn’t jumped into my story with all the things I should have done differently, like my father had. I knew my dad had been trying to help me, but the situation couldn’t be retroactively fixed.
“I also promised myself that I’d never date anyone from my workplace. It was such a stupid mistake and I wanted to make sure that I’d never make it again.”
“And since you mostly work weddings, that’s why you don’t date wedding guests,” he correctly surmised, even if my reasons why were a little bit different than what he imagined.
“Pretty much.”
“I can see why you’d be afraid to trust men,” he said. “I don’t blame you.”
That made tears well up in my eyes, and I wasn’t sure why. Maybe because I felt understood?
“I know I should be past it. I have dated, but like you said, my trust was so thoroughly violated that I find it hard to give it again. But it’s not the worst part. The worst is how hard it is to trust myself. When someone else makes you question everything—your judgment, your decisions, your intuition—that’s hard to recover from. He undermined my belief in me.”
At that Camden reached out his hand, resting it on top of mine. He squeezed gently. “I would like to be a man you could trust.”
“I’d like that, too,” I confessed.
“And if I were a different type of guy, I might ask you for this lowlife’s name and address so that I could invite his face to meet my fist.”
That made me smile. “And you’re not that kind of man?”
“Not one that would go searching for him, but if we just happened to accidentally run across him someday by total chance and coincidence, yeah, I’d enjoy punching him.”
“I think I’d enjoy that, too.”
He took his hand away and I almost reached for it, wanting his warmth and support back.
The look in his eyes made me think he knew exactly what I was feeling. “You did trust me, you know. Last night. When you asked me to stay.”
“I did. But that’s because you’re . . .” I trailed off, trying to think of the right word to explain why I’d done that.
“Amazing? Good-looking? The most intelligent and impressive man you’ve ever known? Hilariously funny?”
“You’re different.”