Her rugged cheeks were peppered with visibly broken veins and the little colour that was in them leached out completely at my comment. ‘Don’t you get smart with me because he’s here.’

Taking a deep breath, knowing that if we continued at this pace, we’d end up in a huge argument in front of Cam, I softened my tone. ‘Cole and I have lives, Mum. You need to watch out for yourself more now, okay?’

Waiting for a reaction, I stepped back so I could at least feel the heat of Cam behind me. I was grateful to him for keeping quiet and letting me deal with Mum in my own way. She got shakily to her feet, setting her mug on the table. ‘I just needed a bit of help,’ she answered quietly, hitting me in the chest with her words. Guilt wormed its way inside, despite my urgent battle against it.

I sighed heavily. ‘If you’re really desperate, phone me next time.’ I could have punched myself for giving in.

‘I will, darling.’ She shuffled past us, her eyes on the ground. ‘Nice meeting you, Cameron.’ It was the nicest she had been to me since I confronted her about hitting Cole. Remembering how much I distrusted her, I felt deep regret at being even slightly polite to her. I shouldn’t have given in, I thought bitterly.

Cam grunted in response to her, doing a fair impression of Cole.

I waited until she’d disappeared from the room, until we heard her bedroom door closing, and then my eyes slid to Cam. ‘Well?’

His features had hardened. ‘She’s a manipulative cow and she knows just how to play you.’ At that he turned on his heel and disappeared into the hall, heading towards the kitchen.

I followed him, my heart thumping in my chest. ‘I told you how she is.’

‘Yeah, one minute a bloody witch, the next completely normal and nice. It’s deliberate. When she’s a witch, you stand up to her. When she’s nice, you give in and she knows it. She’s playing you.’

Knowing that he was right and not really wanting to get into it with him on what had started out as the best morning ever, I began helping him make tea and coffee. We returned to the sitting room, having come to an unspoken agreement to put thoughts of my mum aside, and we both sat down on the couch. As soon as I did, Cam pulled me over his lap so that my legs straddled his thighs.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, my lips twitching with laughter.

‘Getting comfy.’ He reached past me and grabbed our mugs, handing me mine.

I took it, completely bemused by our proximity. We were so close I could see coppery striations in the cobalt blue of his irises. ‘You’re comfortable like this?’ I watched him as he casually took a sip of coffee, his other arm around my hip, his hand resting on the curve of my ass.

‘Extremely,’ he murmured.

Shrugging, I relaxed into him, taking a sip of tea.

And that was as long as I got to relax. The sound of the front door opening moved me into instant action. I attempted to dive out of Cam’s arms.

He stopped me effortlessly with one arm.

‘What are you doing?’ I hissed, my eyes narrowed on him, my heart thumping hard at the thought of Cole walking in on us wrapped around each other without an explanation first.

‘Um, what’s going on?’

Too late.

I closed my eyes briefly, shooting Cam a death look when I opened them and then peering past his head to smile apologetically at my brother, who took up a good portion of the doorway with his height and increasing frame. His green eyes were narrowed on the back of Cam’s head. They shifted to me. ‘Is this what you wanted to talk about?’

I nodded and tried once again, unsuccessfully, to clamber off Cam’s lap as Cole strode into the room. He walked past the sofa to the armchair and Cam smiled at him before sipping his coffee, completely relaxed except for the arm that bound me tight to him.

Cole sighed and dropped into the chair. ‘You two together, then?’

We answered in unison.

Unfortunately not with the same answers.

‘Yes.’

‘We’ll see.’

As Cole’s eyebrows rose, his eyes bright with amusement, Cam turned his head sharply to glare at me. ‘We’ll see?’

Bugger. Now he thought I didn’t want this. I did want this. I just didn’t want him to feel pressured in case that scared him off. ‘I don’t want us to feel rushed.’

‘Bullshit. You don’t want me to feel rushed. I thought we talked about that.’

I gaped at him. Cam wasn’t known for his intuitiveness when it came to me, but apparently the more he got to know me the more he saw. Was I becoming predictable?

I didn’t know how I felt about that.

‘If you’re looking for my approval, you have it,’ Cole muttered as he stood up again. He shot Cam a quick smile as he passed us. ‘Seems like you know what you’re doing.’

‘Oh, funny.’ I took umbrage at my brother’s droll comment, rolling my eyes at the sound of his chuckle as he disappeared down the hall into his room. My eyes slid back to Cam’s face only to find him grinning at me. ‘Don’t even think about becoming a tag team.’

He laughed, his eyes crinkling in the way that melted my insides. ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’ He put his mug down and then mine, before wrapping his arms around me. I slid my arms around his neck, settling closer into him. ‘That went well.’

‘It went how every conversation with Cole goes lately.’

‘And what way is that?’

‘Quickly.’

I felt Cam’s shoulders shake underneath me. ‘He’s a guy. We like to get straight to the point.’

Enjoying the mix of contentment and excitement I felt in his arms, I pressed my body deeper into his, feeling his erection grow against my butt. I brushed his mouth lightly with my own, glorying at the hitch in his breathing. ‘You took a while to get to the point this morning.’

The glitter in his eyes was the only warning before I found myself thrown back on the couch. Cam gripped my thighs, pushing my legs open so he could settle between them. I wrapped my long legs around him and he kissed me, slow and deep. We made out for a while like two teenagers. It was bloody brilliant!

As his strong hand glided up my outer thigh, I breathed in his familiar scent and wished we didn’t have to go to lunch. Reading my thoughts, he finally pulled back, and I couldn’t stop myself from tracing my fingers along his lips. He really had the most distracting mouth of any man I’d ever met.

Continuing our conversation as if five minutes of lip-locking hadn’t just happened, I whispered, ‘I didn’t mean that as a bad thing. I meant it as a very, very good thing.’

‘Then I’ll make sure to take my time getting to the point in the future.’

‘I said I was cool with it, not that I wanted to see it,’ Cole grumbled above us.

We both jerked our heads around to see Cole standing by the couch, glaring down at us, a plate of sandwiches in one hand and a glass of Coke in the other.

‘Oi, what are you doing?’ I huffed at my brother, pushing Cam off of me. ‘We’re going to lunch. You’re going to spoil your dinner.’

‘Wow,’ Cam said lightly as he sat up. ‘I just got a glimpse into the future.’

‘What?’

He laughed, shaking his head as he turned to Cole. He gestured to the sandwiches. ‘I’ll take one of those.’

Cole held the plate out and Cam casually took a sandwich.

I stared at them both, munching on their snacks, ruining their appetites. ‘God. Now there’s two of them.’

That only made Cam and Cole share amused, secret ‘guy club’ smiles.

A sense of warmth – beautiful, relaxing, contented warmth – radiated out from my chest, enveloping my entire body in a kind of happiness I’d never felt before.

The feeling absolutely terrified the bejesus out of me.

I spent the bus ride to Stockbridge talking. I don’t think I stopped to breathe once. Cole sat behind us with his earphones in, listening to an audiobook, so he was completely oblivious to my record-breaking nonstop chatter at Cam as I laid out the benefits of keeping our relationship on the down low. I honestly didn’t know why I wanted to keep it quiet. I thought it might have something to do with making sure there were few witnesses to my heartbreak if this went south, but I wasn’t going to tell Cam that. Instead I rambled, and rambled, and rambled at him.

He may have been sick of the sound of my voice by the time we got off that bus, but at least I knew my point had been made. We were keeping our relationship quiet.

‘Jo and I are together now.’

Ten minutes had passed since we’d got off the bus and we were standing in Elodie Nichols’s living room with the entire Nichols family plus Adam, Braden and Joss staring at us. Cam had made that little announcement in response to Ellie’s ‘So how are you?’

As Joss would say, I felt sucker punched. I shot Cam a disbelieving look. ‘Did you not hear a word I said on the bus?’

He gave me that wide, appeasing grin that did naughty things to my insides. ‘I have selective hearing, baby.’ He clutched my hip, trying to pull me close. ‘Good thing too or my brain might have melted out of my ears. I didn’t know it was possible for a human to say that many words per minute.’

I looked at my friends, who were all staring at us with sly grins on their faces. ‘Cam and I just broke up.’

Cam laughed, hugging me even tighter into his side.

I huffed, trying to wriggle free. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting back together with you.’

The sound of barely stifled chortles made my cheeks redden. Oh, God, we were being ‘cute’ in company. My eyes slid to Joss. Sure enough, she had a superior smile on her face. There was no way to win this round, but I could lessen the cuteness. ‘Fine,’ I mumbled ungraciously, relaxing against him.

Elodie and Clark, who had been introduced to Cam only three minutes ago, started firing questions at him about being a graphic designer, about growing up in Longniddry, and about his parents, until I eventually left him sitting beside Cole and enlisted Hannah in making an escape. Since I couldn’t feel the heat of Joss’s stare, I took this to mean that she was just happy Cam and I were together and didn’t need to know the details. Ellie was a different story. She would want to know absolutely everything. Her eyes bored into me, and I could almost hear her telepathic orders for me to look at her. That was when I started shooting Hannah ‘save me’ looks.