Dax didn’t look impressed, but he held up his hands. “It’s all good. I care about those things too, you know.”

Cam believed that he did. Just not as much as Cam did. Or as much as Whitney did.

“And you need to get your shit together too,” Cam said, pointing at Ollie.

“Me? I’m easily Whitney’s favorite person here.”

Cam felt a very stupid, very juvenile surge of jealousy at that. He shook his head. “No. You’re not.”

“Well, I’m her favorite when it comes to business ideas,” Ollie said, with a shit-eating grin. “I’m always up for anything. I never tell her no.”

Cam debated just letting that go. He knew he should definitely let that go. “What are you talking about?” he asked instead.

“I’m just saying, I don’t know how you do it,” Ollie said with a shrug, sitting back in his chair and propping one ankle on his opposite knee.

“Do what?” Cam asked.

“Say no to that girl. She’s gorgeous when she gets excited about work ideas. I can only imagine how she looks when she’s… just excited.”

Cam gritted his teeth. Ollie was messing with him. Oliver wasn’t usually the one to give the rest of them crap like that. That line right there was more of a Dax line. Or, honestly, a Cam line. He’d very much enjoyed saying stuff like that to Grant in the time between Grant meeting Josie and realizing that he was just going to fall in love with her and there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

“How do you know I say no to her?” Cam asked.

“You have definitely not said yes to her,” Ollie said. “Not yes yes anyway.”

Cam narrowed his eyes. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“That.” Ollie pointed at Cam. “You’re too wound up to have said yes to Whitney. Though I don’t know how you’re helping it.”

Cam took a breath. Okay, Ollie was assuming he and Whitney hadn’t slept together because Cam needed to get laid. That was fair. Kind of. “Maybe she’s said no to me.”

She had. Basically. Once. But he’d been the one to pull back from their kiss the other night. The kiss where her skirt had been hiked up and her shirt had been on the floor and her breast had been in his hand…

Ollie shook his head. “She doesn’t look at you like she said no to you.”

“She doesn’t?” Dammit. He didn’t need to act interested in that.

Dax was the one to answer that though. “Definitely not. She looks at you like you said no to her.” He tipped his head to the side. “Like maybe you started something you didn’t finish?”

“You can not read all of that from me,” Cam said. Dammit. These guys knew him well, but there was no way they knew him that well.

“Jane looks at me like that,” Dax said. “When I start something in my office just before we have to go somewhere. The whole rest of the time we’re with other people she gives me these looks that are part I-want-to-smother-you-with-a-pillow and part I-want-to-tear-your-clothes-off.” He grinned. “It’s worth doin’ once in a while just because the anticipation makes it so great later.”

Awesome. Now Cam was going to get to think about that for the rest of the day. Was Whitney thinking about their kiss? Had she realized she was grateful he’d pulled back or was she thinking about repeating it sometime? Picking up where they’d left off?

She’d made a lot of progress on the project. Surely, she was feeling more secure here. Surely, she was feeling more comfortable and a part of the team and confident in her ability to pull this all off. He’d given her space and time to get the work done as well as all the resources she needed. Piper had even been assigned to be her right-hand person for the duration of the project. She’d been given full latitude to do whatever needed done with staffing and the machinery and the supplies. She was fully in charge.

And she was rising to every bit of the challenge.

But maybe, once this was wrapped up and she’d realized she belonged here, she was valued here, and could pull all of this off—she’d relax and would be able to think about something else.

Cam shook his head. “Stop distracting me. Whitney is fully focused on this project. As she should be. We should all be thrilled about that. As you noticed from the presentation today,” he said, looking at each of them pointedly. “She’s doing an amazing job. She’s completely pulling this off. She doesn’t have time to be messing around.”

Ollie nodded. “So you’re not messing around. That’s why you’re so grumpy.”

“I’m grumpy,” Cam said, “because you need to stop giving Piper a hard time.”

Ollie scowled. “Me and Piper are fine.”

“Look, man, I don’t know what’s going on there but if Whitney wants to put alpaca prints on those damned bars, then we’re going to do that. Even if it means that you have to think about Drew Ryan’s handsome face every time you see one of them,” Cam told him.

Ollie blew out a breath. “Whatever. I don’t give a fuck about Drew Ryan.”

Yeah. That was definitely not true.

“Whitney is doing a great job,” Aiden said. “And we get that you’re one hundred percent in her corner.”

“We should all be one hundred percent in her corner,” Cam said.

“Yeah, well, maybe not the way you are,” Aiden told him.

“What does that mean?”

“You were watching her during the presentation like you were proud and awed and imagining bending her over the conference table all at once,” Aiden replied bluntly.

Cam opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“I know how it feels to watch a woman and think all of that…” Aiden trailed off and cleared his throat.

Yeah, the woman he was talking about was Cam’s sister. They didn’t really need to delve into that too deeply. “Great,” Cam said. “I appreciate your commiseration.”

“It’s just that I get how you can get knotted up when you want her to be successful, but she needs to figure it out on her own,” Aiden said. “Just… lighten up. We’re on your side. Her side too.”

Cam took a deep breath.

Okay, yeah, he was being hard on these guys. His friends realized that Whitney was important here and they were treating her with respect and including her in these decisions. Hell, they were letting her lead the way.

“Fine,” he relented. “Just… pay attention and do your shit. And… be nice.”

They all grinned.

Yeah, okay, they were usually the ones telling Cam to be nice.

Everything was different now. Because of Whitney.

16

Cam knocked on Whitney’s office door five minutes later.

“Come in.”

She was standing behind her desk, her arms crossed.

He shut the door behind him. “You wanted to talk?”

“If there’s something about the new product idea that you don’t like, you can tell me to my face.”

That wasn’t what he’d been expected at all. “I like everything about the new product idea.”