Page 43 of The Sweetest Mistake

“That’s okay. I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“Well, as you can see, I’m kind of busy here. Ava was sick last night, and we were up late.”

There was the dreaded we again. Julia was starting to hate that word.

“Yes, I know. How’s she doing today?” Julia asked, temporarily setting aside her animosity and reminding herself that Ava was the innocent one here.

“Better, but she might be contagious, so you shouldn’t get too close.”

Ava looked fine from where Julia stood, but she got Cam’s message loud and clear. Not wanting Julia to get too close to her daughter is exactly what Cam wanted.

“I know what you’re doing, Cam, and it’s not going to work.”

“What am I doing?”

“Trying to win Connor back.”

The words floated in the air for a moment before Cam shrugged. “And what if I am?”

“You might think that because you had his baby, he’ll take you back, but you’re wrong. You screwed up when you screwed your boss, and Connor isn’t going to forget that.”

“Maybe not, but he might be able to forgive. If not for my sake, then for Ava’s.”

“What kind of mother uses her child as bait?”

“She’s not bait. She’s our child. That’s right—ours. And Connor is going to want to do whatever’s best for her.”

“And you think what’s best is if you three become a happy little family, right?”

Cam shrugged again.

“Connor already told me that’s not going to happen.”

Cam’s eyes narrowed, and her smug smile instantly disappeared. “He may have said that to you to make you feel better, but that’s not what he said last night.”

Julia’s heart began galloping in her chest. Don’t let her get to you. She’s lying.

“In fact, last night, when we were sitting in the living room drinking a beer, he said he’d consider letting Ava and me move in here for a while.”

Julia studied Cam’s face, looking for any indication that she was lying, but she didn’t see one.

“Ask him yourself. He’ll tell you,” she said confidently.

Julia’s head was spinning, and she thought she might faint. The shitty thing was she believed her. She could see where Connor might allow them to live there until Cam found a place of her own. And once Cam had him in her clutches, who knew what might happen. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he could fall in love with her again. People broke up and got back together all the time. Wasn’t that the very reason Connor was skeptical of Alec?

She and Cam were still standing in the entranceway when she noticed the shower had shut off. She was debating about whether to wait for Connor to come out when, suddenly, he was standing there too, off to the side with a towel wrapped around his waist and damp hair.

When he saw Julia, his face lit up, but Julia noticed that Cam’s did too as she openly perused his magnificent body from head to toe. Suddenly, it was all too much, and Julia had to escape. Turning around, she started to walk out when Connor called, “Julia, wait!”

Ignoring him, she pushed open the door and hurried to her car, moving quicker than she thought possible on her high-heeled wedges. She cursed herself for wearing them because she’d been trying to look pretty for him. What a joke!

“Julia, stop!” he shouted.

Ignoring him, she slid into the driver’s seat, and then she noticed that he’d stepped onto his porch in the towel and was about to come after her. Behind him, Julia saw Cam and Ava standing in the doorway, watching the whole scene play out.

At that moment, all Julia’s courage and determination disappeared, and all she wanted to do was get as far away from them as possible. Ignoring Connor’s protests, she backed down the driveway faster than she probably should have and left him in a cloud of dust—literally. The last thing she saw was him waving his hands in front of his face to clear the dust away.

Heart pounding, her fingernails dug into the faux leather steering wheel. She was barely aware that she’d passed the turn-off to her street until she was already well past it. All she knew was that she didn’t want Connor to find her, assuming he would come looking for her at all.