Alarm bells start to ring. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God. Up until now, I haven’t told Cameron about my son. Bringing his family into this as well is the worst possible scenario I could ever have imagined. What if they ask me if I have children? What if they ask me anything about my life?
I can’t lie. I’ll have to tell them. My eyes widen in horror as I imagine the night ahead of me. This is not the way I wanted to tell Cameron.
He’s going to hate me. He’s going to fucking hate me.
“Cameron…” I splutter. “I thought we weren’t at the meeting family stage yet.” My eyes widen with fear. “Why didn’t you tell me that you wanted to come here?”
He smiles sexily and squeezes my thigh. “Because I knew you would freak out.”
I stare at him as my brain misfires. Freaking out doesn’t come close.
I feel sick to my stomach as we drive up a large, circular driveway and Cameron parks the car. My heart is hammering hard in my chest. I’m lying to his family now, not just him… it’s a thing now.
What kind of a person am I? Oh my God. I just want to go home.
Two men approach us and Cameron smiles broadly.
“Max and Parker, this is Ashley.
Ashley, this is Max and Parker, my brother’s and his family’s security.”
The men both smile and shake my hand and my heart starts to thump. Security? Who are these people?
Parker steps forward. “Ashley, as house policy you will leave your phone here in the security office.”
I glance at Cameron.
Cameron shakes his head. “No, she’s good.”
“Nope,” Parker replies. “I’m not breaking protocol.”
I nervously take my phone from my bag. “It’s okay.” I hold it out to him.
“That won’t be necessary,” a male voice asserts from behind us.
We all turn to see a tall man walking towards us with a little girl in his arms. He smiles. “Thanks, Parker, but we have it from here.”
Cameron smiles and shakes the man’s hand. “This is Ashley.” He presents me proudly. “And Ashley, this is my brother Joshua, and this is Ellie.”
Joshua smiles and I see him do a quick assessment of me before he hides it and shakes my hand. “Hello Ashley. Say hello Ashley,” he prompts the shy little girl.
I smile as I watch her. She’s timid like Owen.
“Hello.” She smiles sweetly.
Joshua is tall-about six-foot four like Cam with crew cut, dark hair and a muscular physic. I swallow the lump in my throat. He has a square Jaw, two-day shadow, and piercing blue eyes, and he’s wearing a pair of cargo pants with a white T-shirt. He’s gorgeous like Cameron, but in a different, rugged way. Jeez, these two as brothers would have been trouble when they were younger. Holy crap.
Joshua gently kisses his daughter on her forehead as she sits comfortably on his hip, and I feel myself melt. What is it about super alpha men and the softness that their children bring out in them that makes all women go gooey?
My heart starts to really pump with nerves. For fuck’s sake, and I’m here with my beautiful doctor and his gorgeous, rich brother, and I am nothing but a fucking lying bitch.
Oh please, Earth, swallow me up. I can’t deal with this.
I stare at Joshua as I search my brain for something intelligent to say. Nope, I got nothing.
The gene pool these two come from is insane.
Joshua smiles warmly and his eyes flicker to Cameron whose smile is beaming off his face.
I frown. Have I missed a part of their conversation? Could have. I can hardly hear anything over my heart going into cardiac arrest over here. Good thing I have a resident cardiologist present.
“It’s nice to finally meet you Ashley.” Joshua smiles.
I fake a smile. “You too.”
He gestures to the house. “Please, come inside and meet my wife and family.” He walks toward the house.
I should tell Cam right now, I should do it before I lie to his family. Cameron pulls me by the hand to follow his brother, but I stand still on the spot.
“Cam,” I whisper.
He turns to face me and cups my face with his two hands. “What is it, Bloss?”
My eyes search his. “We don’t even know each other yet. Isn’t it too soon to be meeting families?” I whisper.
He smiles and kisses me softly. “No Ash. It’s not. And seeing as you are the first girl I’ve ever brought here to meet my family, I thought you’d be happy.”
My face falls. “First time?” I frown. “Cam… we need to talk.”
He smiles as he takes my lips in his. “We need to fuck, too.”
“Cam.” Oh God, he’s a bona fide sex maniac. “Haven’t you had enough sex?”
“I will never have enough of you,” he whispers as he kisses me softly.
“Well, that’s the last thing on my mind.” It honestly is, I’m not lying.
He winks. “Let’s go in. You have nothing to worry about. They’re going to love you. What’s not to love?”
I smile softly as I watch him. He’s excited to have me here meeting his family. My guilt runs through me like a freight train.
He deserves better.
I give him a nervous nod and he leads me up the path to the house. Two more security men are at the front door and they wave us through.
“What’s with all the security?” I ask.
“They’ve had some issues in the past.”
“What kind of issues?”
He turns to me and frowns. “You’ve honestly never heard of the names Joshua or Natasha Stanton before?”
I shake my head.
“Have you lived under a rock?”
I shrug. “Maybe.” Shit, I’ll have to Google this when I get home. What the hell is he talking about?
We walk through a grand foyer and across to the back of the house before we enter the kitchen. Oh my God, and I thought Cameron’s house was swanky.
A beautiful girl with long dark hair comes into view. She smiles broadly and kisses Cam. “This is Ashley.” Cam smiles proudly. “This is Natasha,” he introduces.
She turns to me and hugs me. “I’m so happy you’re here, Ashley. Please… come in.”
I smile in relief. Oh, she’s normal and not at all what I expected with all of this money. She’s wearing ripped, faded, tight jeans with a black T-shirt, and her hair is plaited down her back. She’s wearing hardly any makeup. I follow her into the kitchen. It’s huge with four ovens and a large stone island bench that has ten stools around it. Sitting at the end of the bench is a man-blonde, good looking, and wearing a suit. Hell… yet another beautiful person. I can’t cope.
Natasha walks around and puts her hand on both of his shoulders from behind him. “This is Adrian.”
I smile and nod. “Hello.”
He smiles and stands to kiss me on the cheek, and then takes both of my hands in his as he inspects me. “You’re beautiful, Ashley.” He smiles warmly.
“She is, isn’t she?” Cameron says from behind us.
Oh no. They’re nice. This gets worse. They’re fucking nice. I turn to face Cameron and he smiles sexily. He gives me that look and I feel myself melt. Natasha and Adrian smile at each other and Adrian winks. I feel like a bit of a freak as they all do their assessment of me. This is so awkward.
“When you two are through being creepy, how about you offer the poor girl a drink?” Joshua asks as he walks into the kitchen and wraps his arms around Natasha from behind.
Natasha smiles. “Would you like a drink, Ashley?”
I nod as I wring my hands nervously in front of me. “Thank you, that would be nice.”
“What would you like? Red, white?”
Adrian stands. “I think this is a champagne kind of occasion.”
My face falls. This just keeps getting worse. I nod. “Or there’s that,” I whisper.
Suddenly, three children come running into the room, two girls followed by a boy who is chasing them with a tennis ball. He throws it hard and it hits the eldest girl. She squeals, picks it up, and throws it back at him.
“Dad!” she screams. “Blake is hitting us with the ball.”
“Blake,” Joshua snaps. “Cut it out.”
I smile broadly. I love it when other people’s children misbehave.
“Come and meet our new friend,” Natasha calls to the kids.
They seem to remember where they are and all file over. “This is Jordana.”
I smile and she shakes my hand. She’s a pretty girl aged about nine or ten with long, dark hair like her mom, and matching blue eyes. “Hello. Are you Uncle Cameron’s friend?”
I’m taken aback with her forwardness. “I am. It’s nice to meet you, Jordana.”
“This is Ellie.” Joshua announces proudly and Ellie shyly shakes my hand. Oh, this one is a little sweetie.
“And this is the crazy Blake man.” Cameron picks up Blake and throws him onto the sofa. They begin to wrestle. Blake is around seven years old, I think.
“You have three children? You must be very busy,” I say to Natasha as the three kids run back to their chasing game.
“Ha.” She smirks. “I have five children.” She raises her wine glass to Adrian and he lifts his in return with a broad smile. “This is why we drink the good stuff,” she adds.
My eyes widen. “Five?” I gasp.
“The two youngest in two years.” She replies dryly. “Three-year-old and a two-year-old, boys. They’re in bed, thankfully.”
Joshua shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “If you ever want to lose your mind, have two children that close,” he grumbles.
I laugh as Adrian hands me a glass of champagne and holds his up until we all clink his glass. “To Ashley the doctor.” He smiles softly
“You know that I’m a doctor?” I frown. Has Cameron been talking about me?
“I know all about you, Ashley.” Adrian smiles.
“You’re fucking creepy, Murph,” Joshua says, and we all laugh. “Ignore him, Ashley. He knows nothing.”
My eyes linger on Joshua, and I can’t believe just how good looking he and Cameron are. How do two brothers seem so different, yet so similar?
Cameron is tall, broad and dark like Joshua, but where Joshua is rugged, Cameron is cultured. Cameron has the whole rich playboy look mastered to perfection.
Cameron walks over and picks up his glass. He grabs my hand, our eyes meet, and I feel myself melt. As long as he is with me, everything is okay.
Adrian
I watch Cameron watching Ashley and I smile. He’s absolutely smitten and hangs off every word that comes out of her mouth.
I like this girl. She’s different to anyone he’s ever dated before. Naturally beautiful, intelligent, and witty, and she gives it back to him. I haven’t seen Cameron like this with anyone, ever.
The conversation has been light and natural. She’s very easy to get along with and I’m getting flashbacks of when I first met Natasha and the hold she had over Joshua. Dinner is nearly ready and Natasha is fussing in the kitchen. Joshua is doing as he’s told and helping her. Cameron is next to me and Ashley is on the other side of him. We’re sitting at the kitchen counter still drinking champagne.
“Can I help with anything, Natasha?” Ashley asks.
“No thanks. We got it.” She smiles as she bends to get something out of the oven and Joshua’s hand drops to her behind, only for her to swat him away with the tea towel.