Free Be Mine Forever by Kennedy Ryan Page A

wants.”
    Cam rested his elbows on his knees and pushed his fingers through his hair. This dude…
    “You saw what happened with Kerris. You know my history with women.” Cam opened and closed his fist. “Why, for the love of all that’s holy, would you keep encouraging me to pursue your daughter?”
    “Because you’d never hurt her.”
    “I bet Kerris thought I’d never hurt her, too.”
    “I bet you thought Kerris would never hurt you .”
    Touché to that. Cam had believed he and Kerris would be safe with each other. Two truly damaged, broken people who might not have the greatest love of all but would take care of each other. Maybe heal each other. But they’d emerged from that marriage with more scars than they had taken in.
    “Things would be different with you and Jo. You wouldn’t hurt her. Not if you could help it.”
    Unc’s voice was irrationally certain. Impossibly, mistakenly sure. That was the problem. Cam couldn’t help but hurt Jo. His control over everything seemed held together with Elmer’s glue and paper clips these days. Jo would be walking into a powder keg if she got involved with him. He couldn’t be that selfish. Not with Jo.
    “Cam, what happened with Kerris was a comedy of errors, if you ask me. Jo has always been special to you. I thought this would have happened a long time ago.”
    “What would have happened a long time ago?”
    “That you’d stop fighting it.”
    “I haven’t stopped…there’s nothing to fight.”
    Unc used his eyes to connect the dots between Cam’s clenched fist on his knee and his granite-hard jaw.
    “Sorry. I must have been mistaken.”
    They both went silent when the front door opened and closed. Jo coming in off the porch. She’d been out there for a long time. Images of her outside dry humping Peter against a porch rail buzzed around Cam’s head like flies. He swatted at them, but they wouldn’t leave him alone.
    Unc stood and stretched, the Harvard T-shirt he wore with his khakis straining over his still-firm torso.
    “I think I’ll head on up.”
    “And just check out of the game?”
    “Oh, I’m checked out?” Unc leaned forward, moving a couple of pieces on the board. “Checkmate.”
    “Wait. That’s impossible.”
    “You should have seen that coming three moves ago. Don’t worry. I get it. You were…distracted.” He leaned back, peering into the hall. “Jo, glad you enjoyed your evening.”
    Jo reappeared at the door, high heels hooked over her fingers.
    “It was really nice.” She studied the shoes in her hand, a small smile playing around her full lips. “Peter’s really nice.”
    “He’s a promising young man, that’s for sure.” Unc crossed the room, stopping in front of Jo and giving her a quick kiss on the cheek. “We’re lucky to have him working with us.”
    Jo nodded, meeting Cam’s eyes for a millisecond before looking up at her father.
    “You headed to bed? You guys done already?”
    “Young Cameron wasn’t very focused. I felt awful taking him down, but there was nothing to be done for it.”
    Cam offered a disgruntled snort from the comfort of his armchair.
    “Tomorrow’s another day,” Unc said, heading toward the staircase.
    “I’m not coming back tomorrow, old man.”
    “That’s what you said yesterday.” His voice drifted back to Cam, fainter now that he was halfway up the stairs.
    Jo stood there for a moment, like a beam of sunlight in her gold dress, hair crowning her head in some elaborate arrangement, and diamond studs sparkling in her ears. Her expression searched for some missing piece of the puzzle.
    “You were here yesterday? I thought you’d just gotten in from New York.”
    Because he had wanted her to think that.
    “Yeah. Like I said, Shaundra must have gotten the dates mixed up.”
    “I didn’t see you here at the house.”
    “You were at work.”
    He didn’t add he’d been coming just about every day this week while she was at the office. Unc was conveniently