All or Nothing

14

Camila almost trips over a box lying outside her apartment door when she leaves the next morning. Bleary-eyed and half-awake, already late for a meeting, she stumbles as her boot catches on the box, and frowns, bending down to pick it up and smiling softly when she recognizes it, the favorite brand of chocolates she'd told Lauren about last week.

I'm sorry, is what the note attached to it reads, Lauren's writing as elegant as the rest of her, and the paper smells like her perfume and Camila is careful as she drops the box and the note on the table by her front door for her to come back to later.

She'd gone to sleep with a heavy heart last night – a complete contrast to the night before, where she'd been boneless and aching, heart still racing from the memory of Lauren's touch against her skin – seeing Lauren's tired eyes whenever she blinked.

She wonders if Lauren had lain awake and thought about her, like she'd done, wishing she could go and knock on Lauren's door and they could just... forget. Forget about sharp words and even sharper glances, and Camila gets it, she does, considering Lauren had apparently had a day from hell and expected to come home to a quiet house complete with her nanny waiting for her and her son in bed, and not a wide awake Leo along with Camila and Sofi, but that doesn't mean it didn't hurt when Lauren had pushed her away.

The note eases some of that hurt, though, and Camila's step is lighter as she races towards her gallery, making it just in time to meet her client. She's too busy to call Lauren and thank her for the apology, but when there's a knock on her studio door after her third and final meeting of the day, a delivery guy with a bouquet of gorgeous flowers in his hands that, when she looks it up, mean 'forgive me', she fires off a quick text because god knows what else Lauren will try and send to her before the end of the day if she doesn't hear from her.

You're already forgiven, she sends before she settles behind her easel in the studio she'd fashioned out of one of the back rooms at the gallery, a workspace for her client-related work as opposed to her home one, which is mostly for her own enjoyment.

There's a light knock on the door sometime later, and Camila frowns because she could have sworn that she'd flipped the sign out front to 'closed' before she came back here. She pauses, listening, and when the knock comes again she sighs, wiping her hands off on a towel and wandering back into the main gallery, freezing when she recognizes the woman hovering in front of the door.

She wonders, for one long moment, whether she can take the coward's way out and edge back to safety, but as she's considering it, Clara Jauregui looks up, piercing stare meeting Camila's through the glass windows and she groans, forcing her legs to move her towards the door and pulling it open reluctantly.

"We're closed," is all she says, opening the door only a crack and leaning one shoulder against the frame.

"And yet you're still here." Clara's wearing a fake smile that glitters with just enough malice to set Camila on edge. "I was hoping we could chat." She doesn't move to press forward, to push Camila like Camila can tell she wants to, and she knows she could slam this door in her face and be done with it – though she's not entirely sure how well Clara would take that.

Lauren's torrid mood yesterday is starting to make a lot more sense, with Clara's cool, calculated gaze on her, and she wonders if she'd had a visit from her mother at work.

"I fail to see what you and I could possibly need to talk about." She doesn't move an inch, because she can tell Clara being out on the street is making her uncomfortable. "What, you went to see Lauren yesterday and didn't like what she had to say so you're trying to scare me, instead?" Clara's cheek twitches, just enough to let Camila know that she's not wrong. "Well, it's not gonna work, so why don't I save you the trouble of opening your mouth. We're closed, go away."