Page 32 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CAM

S ervice for the evening charity event was set to start in ten minutes. And Cam was so fucking thankful that this would all soon be over.

When he’d met with Tricia, he’d agreed to consider the request because of Elle, but he’d only come on board when they’d confirmed that it would be a cocktail evening with h'orderves, versus a plated dinner service. Cam was good at what he did, but a plated meal in five days that accounted for various dietary restrictions and individual guest needs wouldn’t have been possible.

Especially with the group he was serving.

Add in his requirement to only use the freshest and highest quality proteins available, which was not something that the country club seemed concerned about if the salmon he’d been served had been any indication, and he’d pulled it all together by the skin of his teeth.

The team he’d been given was already cooking up the first sets of trays that would be whisked out of the kitchen in minutes, and it wouldn’t stop for at least another two hours.

Tricia, who’d done her very best to be his shadow this week, was standing next to him at the long prep table, running over a final checklist. He made sure to keep an extra foot away, less her ‘tactileness’ as she’d described it, came out to play.

She looked up from her tablet and gave Cam an appreciative stare.

Every time he got that look, he moved away another inch.

At this rate, they’d be on opposite sides of the room by the end of the night.

“I’m surprised I didn’t see your consultant more this week,” she hedged, looking toward the double doors that led into the kitchen.

“She’s a busy woman, but she’ll be here for the event.

” At least, that was the plan. Elle had spent the night at her parents again, but she should be arriving any minute.

Between prepping the courses, wrangling the kitchen staff, and being forced to play nice with a few VIPs who’d wanted an ‘intimate look’ at Cam’s process–which made him want to vomit–he hadn’t had time to think, let alone check his messages.

And after what he’d done yesterday, clingy was the last thing he wanted to be seen as in Elle’s eyes. Even if he, too, had been checking that door more often than he should.

He didn’t miss the disappointment that flashed across Tricia’s features, which settled into a tight smile as she pushed on. “Great. Passed plate service will last about ninety minutes, where guests will mingle as well as have the chance to interact with you.”

Cam looked toward one of the industrial stovetops, where a large pot of boiling water was about to spill over.

He walked over, the chef unaware, and turned it down.

This place was a fucking mess. If this is what Rock Harbor’s elite considered good food, then he could have shown up with a tray of deconstructed Happy Meals and have likely blown their minds.

As he walked back toward Tricia, he took off his apron, his black chef’s coat underneath. “I’m not sure what I’ll have to say.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll do most of the talking,” Tricia said with a wry smile, the first ray of a real personality shining through.

He didn’t have time to acknowledge it, though.

All the air was too busy being sucked out of his lungs.

Elle was striding toward him, and she looked so beautiful that it was hard for Cam to breathe.

She was wearing a thigh-length black dress, which hugged her perfect curves in all the right places, a deep v-neck giving just enough of a hint at her perfect tits, though it stayed on the right side of suitable.

At least, according to accepted dress codes.

Cam would have appreciated at least another couple of inches to really push his fantasization into overdrive.

He loved how Elle looked when she was freshly fucked or when she was coming back from a run, those perfect lips and deep brown eyes always on full display, regardless of what she was wearing.

But this? This was a look meant to make him stop in his tracks.

To make him think about the softness of the thigh he could see through the almost immodest slit or the zipper that was begging to be pulled down so that he could kiss her shoulder blades.

Her dress was the possibility of unwrapping a beautiful present, and Cam’s fingers twitched with the urge to reach out, thinking about how the fabric would bunch in his hands as he hiked it up around her hips.

As if this night wasn’t going to be hard enough to get through, what with the pretentious assholes waiting around the room like landmines to explode his sanity, he’d have to know that Elle was here too. Looking like that.

And that he knew, far more dangerously, what she looked like underneath it, too.

“Tricia,” Elle said on approach, the two women staring one another down.

“Elle,” she responded with a quick nod before turning her attention to Cam, who’d honestly forgotten that she was there. “ I’ll check in with you later.” And then she was gone, thankfully aware that she was no longer needed in the conversation.

“I didn’t know we were going to match,” Elle commented when she finished crossing the kitchen and stood in front of him. She reached out and tugged at the lapel of his jacket, straightening it before she ran her hands across his chest, her fingertips lingering. “You clean up nicely.”

Cam wanted to bury his head in her hair, styled in dark, flowy waves that only made her lips and eyes look bigger. “You look beautiful. I’m going to have to beat people off with a stick.”

She accepted the compliment with a pleased smile. “There’s got to be somewhere in your contract that forbids physical assault.”

He couldn’t help but smile back, like some idiot teenager on a first date. “They should have done better research on me.”

Elle’s hand was still on his heart, like she was holding it. “My mistake as your consultant.”

“Your only mistake is throwing your lot in with mine.” The hint of truth in his words was something he hadn’t been able to shake over the last few weeks.

Elle shrugged and bit her bottom lip, Cam tracking the movement with his eyes. “So far so good.”

He leaned in closer. “We didn’t have a chance to talk yesterday after…”

Elle’s fingers stilled against his chest, and there was fire in her eyes. “I’m not sorry it happened, so don’t ask me to be.”

Cam let out a breath. “Me neither.”

Toying with one of the buttons on his coat, Elle looked up at him.

The need was visible on her face, etched across every feature.

Something primal took over, and all he could think about was dragging Elle into a dark corner and showing her just how much he didn’t regret yesterday.

How much he wanted to taste her and touch her and explore every fucking possibility that two people could do together .

“Cam…” It was terrifying, the way she said his name. Gentle and knowing and like she saw him , and only wanted him more because of it.

He wanted to run from it, but Elle’s hand on his chest was an anchor, holding him in place.

Whether it was tethering him to reality or to a fantasy, he didn’t know.

Elle Pierce was so much more than he’d bargained for.

Acerbic. Funny. Beautiful as hell. Thoughtful in ways he’d never known.

And now that he did, well… every day, in spite of his best attempts, he couldn’t seem to stop trying to learn more.

Elle’s voice was quiet but resolved. “I’m not asking you to marry me, Cam. I’m just asking for you to stop running from us, in whatever form we take. I like you,” Elle stressed, “and I like the time we spend together.”

Damn Elle and the more than fair points she was making.

He couldn’t fight that. Couldn’t fight her .

He leaned down and kissed red lips he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off since she’d walked in the room.

They tasted as good as they looked, and when she sighed into his mouth, his nerves settled.

The kiss was over too soon, as Elle pulled away and Cam was left chasing the ghost of her lips. “Wha–”

“I know you’re only doing this event to help me.

I also know that you hate these kinds of things, and that now you’re going to be forced to talk with people for the next few hours.

” He wondered if Elle could feel his heart, which had picked up now and was hammering in his chest. From what, he didn’t know.

Maybe the sincerity in her words, or maybe it was because he did trust her, to be at his side and support him through this.

And that was a terrifying prospect for Cam, who’d built his whole life around not depending on other people.

“Let me do the talking,” Elle said, playing with his jacket lapels again, her fingers running down a row of buttons. “And in just a few hours, we can go home together, and I can show you just how appreciative I am for all the help you’ve given me. ”

Cam felt her words more than heard them, his body responding viscerally.

His heart was still beating too fast. His pants were uncomfortably tight.

And his hands, which he’d been keeping at his sides, wanted nothing more than to wrap around Elle and pull her close.

As close as two people could get. So close that it wouldn’t matter what happened next, because they’d have marked one another in a way that transcended everything else.

He wanted Elle. More than he’d wanted anything in a long time. He was tired of fighting it.

And finally, he decided with a focus and determination usually reserved for the kitchen, that he was going to show her that.

Elle was a vision to behold as they walked into the apartment together at the end of a long, grueling night. For Cam, at least.