A Christmas Bride - Susan Mallery Mills & Boon M&B

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To share her feelings and to take what she offered. To touch her and taste her, to let her the rest of the way into his life.

      He couldn’t risk that, but maybe he could keep the part of her that mattered to him most.

      She turned to him. “What?” she asked in a whisper.

      “Later,” he promised.

      After the program had ended, everyone stood up and collected their coats.

      “They’re serving the kids cupcakes and punch before releasing them back to their families,” Rina said with a grin. “Because they’re not already wound up from their performances, right? The teachers want to seal the deal with a little sugar rush?”

      Cameron knew he should laugh or at least smile, but he couldn’t. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the middle of the rapidly emptying row.

      “We need you,” he said urgently. “Kaitlyn and I. We’re friends. You said it yourself. Don’t go. We can keep things the way they were.”

      The light slowly faded from her blue eyes. Her mouth straightened.

      “You mean give up what I want because having me around is convenient? What do I get out of it, Cameron? Aside from a check every week? A family? Someone to love who loves me back? You want the best of what I have without risk. Without having to share yourself. That’s not going to happen. You can buy childcare, but you can’t buy me. Not anymore.”

      “I didn’t mean it like that. You can still have a life. Date.”

      She flinched. “Right. Because seeing me with another man wouldn’t bother you at all. Don’t you understand that’s the best reason for me to leave?”

      They were supposed to get Kaitlyn together, to go home and celebrate with popcorn. Put up the last of the decorations. But Rina drew back.

      “I’m going to tell Kaitlyn I have to go.”

      Cameron reached for her, but she was too far away. “Wait.”

      “No. I’m done waiting. I’m moving on.”

      CHAPTER SIX

      “WHY CAN’T RINA get me ready for school?” Kaitlyn asked, the following Thursday morning.

      Cameron carefully brushed his daughter’s hair. “She’s busy with the pet adoption this coming Saturday and she has a lot to do.”

      He knew Rina was avoiding him, but he wasn’t going to say that. Whatever was going on between him and Rina had nothing to do with Kaitlyn.

      “We haven’t talked about what we’re getting her for Christmas,” his daughter informed him. “I don’t want to get her a sweater. Rina loves us. We need to give her a present that says we love her, too.”

      There was a conversation he didn’t want to have, he thought grimly. “Love is complicated,” he began, but his daughter shook her head.

      “It’s not. It’s simple. Love is when we care more about somebody else than we do ourselves. It’s like with Mommy. She didn’t love us and that’s why she left. Because if she’d loved us, she would have wanted to stay. People who love you want to be with you. And we want the people we love to always be around.”

      He put down the brush and turned his daughter so she faced him.

      “I’m sorry about your mother.”

      “I know, but it’s not your fault.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sometimes I get sad about her leaving, but mostly I don’t think about it.” She beamed at him. “You shouldn’t either because we have Rina.” Her eyes widened. “I know! Make Rina your girlfriend. Then she would be real instead of an internet girlfriend.”

      He stared at his daughter, not sure where to start. “I’m not looking for an internet girlfriend.”

      “You were.”

      “It was a bad idea.”

      “What about Rina? We already love each other.”

      “It’s different.”

      “Why?”

      “It just is.”

      She sighed and mumbled something that sounded a lot like “No, it’s not,” but he let the comment go. This wasn’t a fight he could win.

      Kaitlyn turned her back so he could start on her braid. “Rina’s pretty.”

      “Yes, she is.”

      “She makes our favorite dinners a lot and we laugh together.”

      “I know.”

      “You liked kissing her.”

      That truth kicked him in the gut. He had liked kissing her. A lot, as his daughter would say. But he couldn’t get involved with Rina that way.

      “Kaitlyn...” he began.

      She sighed. “I’ll be quiet now.”

      “Thank you.”

      Cameron went through a busy morning of appointments. Simon Bradley, a local surgeon, brought in CeCe for her quarterly checkup. These days the small toy poodle was no longer a full-time therapy dog, having been adopted by Simon and his fiancée.

      Cameron always enjoyed watching a big, powerful man reduced to cooing over a tiny dog. Not that he would say that to Simon. As CeCe still did some work at the hospital, working with children who had burns, she had to be checked more often to make sure she wasn’t carrying any parasites or had the beginnings of an infection.

      “You know Rina’s not in today,” Cameron said as he finished checking CeCe’s heart. Usually the poodle was left in the salon for a grooming on her check-up days.

      “I know. She told me when she called.”

      “Rina called you?”

      Simon nodded. “To switch appointment days. She mentioned she’s relocating her business. That she needs more room to expand.”

      Cameron nodded. That was the story she’d come up with. He knew she’d decided on the almost-truth to protect Kaitlyn as much as him. Announcing to the world she was forced to move because the man she loved was too stupid or selfish to love her back wouldn’t play well. At least not for him. Which she wouldn’t want.

      He swore under his breath. Why did she have to be so damned good?

      “What?” Simon asked anxiously. “Is everything okay with CeCe?”

      “Yes. Sorry.” Cameron straightened. “She’s fine. It’s something else. Woman trouble.”

      “I know what that feels like,” Simon admitted with a grin. “Although in my case, it was all my fault.”

      The grin faded. “Montana put her heart on the line and I walked away. Or tried to. I told myself not being in a relationship was easier than risking losing it. Because then I was in control.” He shook his head. “What a crock. There’s no control when it comes to the heart. I hate to think about how pathetic I sounded, trying to be brave when I was really terrified. I could have lost everything. For what it’s worth, if she’s half as amazing as Montana, you should suck it up, apologize for what you did wrong and beg her to take you back.”

      “Interesting advice.”

      “Good advice,” Simon corrected.

      Later that afternoon, when Cameron returned to his office to catch up on paperwork, he found himself unable to stop thinking about what Simon had said about losing what mattered most. The problem was, to risk everything not to do that would mean he couldn’t protect himself or Kaitlyn. They could both...

      He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. Who was he kidding? Protect himself from what? Having Rina in his life? Having her integrated into every moment of his

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