Chapter Two
Camila wasn’t sure how long she stayed at the park, before she felt more herself and got up to leave. By the time she managed to get a cab to head back home, though, she was hungry.
At least I don’t have to go to the office,she thought with a sigh.
The photoblog actually did have an office where they handled everything, since it wasn’t just something casual. It was a pretty small office, but the blog had about ten people working for it, so it wasn’t as if they needed much space. It was also pretty relaxed, in that the employees didn’t have to show up at the office and stay there all day, as long as you had a project to do, you headed out, aside from the few people who were responsible for putting up the articles and photos on the blog.
On the ride, she remembered to text in that the interview had gone without a hitch. Because it was someone so high profile, everyone had been worried about how it would go. Not to mention, some of her coworkers had been envious of her getting this project, and Camila felt pretty lucky herself, since it practically just fell in her lap. With the message sent, she looked outside. She figured she might as well buy some groceries on her way back, because there wasn't much left at home.
“Right here, please,” she said to the driver, a block away from her apartment building.
She made the payment and jumped out of the car, then walked into the store and made a quick purchase. She wouldn’t be getting paid for another week or so, so she managed on a small budget, and walked out a few minutes later.
It was the middle of the day so the sidewalk wasn’t as crowded as it usually was, since she was out early in the morning and back late in the evening on most days. The day was surprisingly still warm, even with the breeze, and she took a leisurely walk, her thoughts swirling around her mind the whole way.
Her thoughts were, of course, on Samuel Kane. No…it was just Samuel now, though it felt odd to be on first name basis with someone so out of her league.
Let’s see,she mused internally. The info I gathered on him online…
Like any other high-profile person in New York, there was a lot of information about Samuel going around on the news, in the papers, and online. Most of the research she and the guys at the office had done had mostly been what they could find online, and most of it was gossip. Much of the gossip centered around Samuel Kane being a notorious rake who preyed on women and had more exes than you could count on one hand. This little bit of info had given Camila some apprehension before the interview, but now, she was wondering if it was really true.
The man that I met…a notorious rake?
When she thought about it now, he definitely carried himself like an ex-soldier. Even when they sat down, besides when she had him posing for photos, he’d kept his spine straight and his posture was very formal. Even the way he spoke—his voice wasn’t quite expressionless, it was more like you couldn’t tell what he felt from just looking at his face and hearing him talk. He was hard to read.
He definitely did not look, or act, like any of the playboys she’d ever heard of before, though at thirty-six years old, calling him a playboy was a bit much. And now she was wondering if there was some misunderstanding in all that info she managed to find before, and the bit that she was given.
I’ll need to look into it again,she thought decisively.
Camila glanced up to realize she was already at her building, and she could have passed it if she hadn't paid enough attention. She readjusted the bag of groceries in her arms and headed up the steps. Her apartment was on the third floor, which made going up and down a serious annoyance, but it was a nice apartment, spacious, a little old, but she was happy to have the space to herself.
Well, for herself and her mom.
“I’m home,” she called out as she walked inside, knocking lightly on the door to alert her mom.
There was no sound, but that probably just meant her mom was asleep, busy in her room, or out. She didn’t go out often, though, so she was probably locked up in her bedroom. Camila debated going to check on her for a moment, then sighed and headed to her bedroom instead. The apartment was just comfortable enough for two people, with a mid-sized living room and kitchen, and another small room where they did their laundry. They had separate bedrooms, but had to share a bathroom.
They both had enough privacy that Camila didn’t feel awkward at all about living with her mom at twenty-three. Their relationship was also okay and they knew to respect each other’s boundaries, so she actually enjoyed having someone else around.
In her bedroom, Camila locked the door behind her. When she worked, she didn’t like to be disturbed by anyone or anything, and locking herself up in her room was her way of closing the rest of the world out to get the work done. She put her coat away, moved to her desk, set down the camera and her purse, and then sat. She pulled up the lid of her laptop and turned it on, then picked up her camera as she waited for it to log her on.
She’d scrolled through the pictures on her camera, all the ones of Samuel, and the random ones she’d taken of the park, too. They were all good pictures. Of course, the ones of Samuel, she couldn’t do anything with them if they weren’t going on the blog besides saving them on her computer.
But… I kinda don’t feel like sharing this with anyone,she thought to herself with a small smile.
Once her computer came on, she shut off her camera and pulled out the memory stick, then connected that to her computer and opened the images to save them in her drive.
Now, all I need to do is work on that damn article, and send it in with the photos. Other people can worry about the design and positioning…
But, she still had time to do the article. Besides, she’d have to listen to the recording of the interview and make a bunch of notes, then create the article from that. It wasn’t like what she wrote would be the final draft, anyway, and she didn’t need to bother about it beyond that point.
Right then, there was something that was on her mind more than just this. After a short hesitation, she minimized all the windows she already had open, and pulled up her browser. She could sort the photos later.
“Okay,” she mused out loud, rubbing her hands together as a new tab opened on the browser. “What to look for, exactly…”
Finding information on the internet was a simple thing, but sometimes, what you found in the end could depend on the wording you used in your search. Sometimes, information wasn’t that hard to find, but considering all the posts she knew must exist that included Samuel Kane in the content, she couldn’t just look for something general.
After a short hesitation, she made searches on his family and background. To try and understand someone, you had to know where they came from first. But, his words from earlier were totally true, there was barely anything about him that she could find online, not even with those searches.