The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence) (14 page)

BOOK: The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence)
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He pulled out onto the road with a burst of adrenaline and a fast car, watching with satisfaction as the scenery sped by. Who would have thought that in one meeting he could have dispensed so easily with the very threat that drove Camilla to his office in the first place. Apparently the Winthrops wanted no part of an heir who wasn’t going to be raised in the Winthrop style. And that was just fine with Sam.

Now, after the meeting with that cold-as-ice Winthrop woman, he’d started to wonder if maybe Daniel Winthrop’s estrangement from his family hadn’t been Camilla’s fault at all. And wonder if maybe he had been too harsh when he refused to listen to her reasons for sending Olivia to a boarding school. As a lawyer, he knew there were always two sides to a story. But he also knew that circumstantial evidence went a long way toward making a case, and the deck was stacked pretty heavily against Camilla.

One thing for sure—there was no need to share anything about this meeting with Camilla. As long as she believed there was a chance the Winthrops were still pursuing custody of JD, she’d have no problem allowing JD to legally become Sam’s son. Next to that, nothing else mattered.

Chapter Fourteen

Where were they? Sam paced across the room and looked out the front windows again. His assistant had thought it was “sweet” when he left early on a Monday after getting a call from JD saying they were headed home. She’d made some comment about the first time he and his bride had been apart since the wedding, and he’d gritted his teeth and endured it.

Because the truth was, as much as he told himself it was JD and Olivia he was anxious to see, there was that part of him that was missing Camilla as well.

And although it was far from typical for him to head home before three o’clock on a Monday afternoon, he certainly wasn’t behind on his work. In fact, he’d spent most of the weekend in the office. Already it was difficult to remember what he’d done with his leisure time in the days before JD, Olivia, and Camilla had arrived. He couldn’t spend his evenings out in the clubs—he was a married man now, and was not about to tarnish his reputation. Surprisingly, it was no big sacrifice. He didn’t have the least desire to flirt with other women, and when he imagined a woman on his arm—or in his bed—it was always Camilla. Sam shook his head. There was little to be gained from wishing his wife was really what she pretended to be. JD was enough. And once Camilla was out of Sam’s life permanently, he’d be able to put her out of his mind as well.

He heard a car door slam.

“Sam!” JD burst out of the back door of the Jeep with a shout and raced up the walkway, large plastic bags with the iconic mouse logo banging against his legs as he ran. “Sam! I saw Mickey and I rode the pirate ride and I got stuff for my room!”

He dropped the bags on the ground as Sam stepped out the front door to meet him, sweeping him up into the air.

Olivia got out of the Jeep and opened the back, dragging out the rest of what Sam assumed was JD’s pirate loot, soon to be displayed in his room. “Hey, Sam,” she said, trudging past him into the house laden with the packages, looking like she wanted nothing more than a hammock, a cold drink, and a book for the rest of the afternoon. JD squirmed in his arms and he set him back down.

“Go check out your room,” Sam said, and the little boy’s eyes got as big as saucers and he raced into the house. The mural was done, and the furniture had been delivered. JD would totally flip when he saw it, Sam thought, smiling to himself.

Then Camilla got out of the car and Sam’s breath caught in his throat. It had only been four days. Four days. And somehow he had forgotten how breathtakingly beautiful she was. She did not look like a woman who had trudged through theme parks for four days with a preschooler in tow. Quite the contrary.

Her blond hair was pulled back sleekly in a clip, and her crisp white cotton blouse was open to the waist, showcasing a burnt-orange tank underneath that showed off the golden glow on her skin. The narrow lightweight khaki-colored slacks that hugged her legs and ended midcalf were sexier than a pair of short shorts would have been. She made his mouth water, and all he could think about was pulling her to him, loosening her hair so it would swing freely over her shoulders, and burying his face in the scent of her.

“Hello, Sam.” Her voice was soft and sounded almost shy. She looked at him as if she were trying to gauge his reaction to her.

He kept all expression off his face. He felt bad that his lack of reaction left her so uncertain. But he couldn’t let her know how she was affecting him, couldn’t put that kind of power in her hands.

“Camilla.” He nodded to her as he went behind the car to unload their suitcases from the back, breathing in the light, floral scent of her as she walked past him and headed into the house. She looked back at him and their eyes met for a moment, hers registering some emotion he couldn’t put a name to, and he wondered if she’d missed him. He almost reached out to her, but just that quickly the moment was gone.


After four crazy days at the theme parks, Camilla was glad to be home. And more than a little surprised at her own reaction walking back into Sam’s house. It really did feel like home, especially with JD bounding up the stairs anxious to see his newly decorated room.

Even though Camilla had seen the beginnings of the mural, had shopped with JD when he picked out the furniture, she was amazed how it had all come together. And she had to admit that Sam had added touches she never would have thought of. She shot him a grateful look as JD climbed the “rigging” to the upper part of his sturdy wooden bunk bed. A telescope-like contraption was mounted there. JD could look through it and adjust the angle to magnify the details of the mural painted on the opposite wall. Sailcloth was suspended from the ceiling, and there was a spot where the pirate flag they’d picked up could be mounted perfectly. The upper bunk had a side rail with portholes built in. A nautical wheel was mounted low on one wall, with pegs he could hang his jacket and ball caps on, and the toy box looked even more like an authentic treasure chest in person than it had in the catalog they’d ordered from. There was a Lego pirate ship, still in its box, waiting to be assembled on a low table, and a little desk extending from the side of the bed, onto which Sam had tacked a rough-hewn sign that said
Captain’s Quarters
.

“Watch this,” Sam said. He lowered the shades, blocking out the sunlight, shut the door, and turned off the lights. Fluorescent stick-on stars sparkled on the dark-painted ceiling.

“Wow,” JD said, then went speechless with awe.

“Look,” Sam said, leaning against the bed and putting his hand on JD’s shoulder. “That one’s called the Big Dipper—see the handle sticking out?”

Camilla could see a narrow line from a fluorescent pen tracing the Big Dipper and several other constellations. Sam had actually taken the time to make the ceiling astronomically correct.

“I love you, Sam,” JD said, throwing his arms around him.

“Nice job,” Camilla said to Sam. She felt her eyes tearing up and quickly looked away from Sam. Part of it was sheer gratitude that he’d taken the time to make something so perfect for her son. And part of it was that every time he did something like this it just made it hurt even more that they weren’t ever going to be a real family. Why, she wondered for what had to be the hundredth time, did he insist on always believing the worst about her? She couldn’t do anything to change the last five years, and even now couldn’t imagine what she could have done differently.

When she’d first realized she was pregnant, she’d gone to Danny and told him the truth. There was, after all, no way she could conceal it, since in the early weeks of her marriage, sex hadn’t been something they’d even considered.

So when she told him she was pregnant and confessed the mad fling she’d had, she’d actually trembled with the fear that he would punish Camilla by canceling the deposit for the expensive rehab center where Olivia would face months of physical therapy learning to walk and talk again. But the only way to avoid Danny’s finding out would have been to end the pregnancy—a choice that even under these dire circumstances Camilla was not willing to consider.

So she’d braced herself for his rage, his derision. Prepared herself to get down on her knees and beg. But whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t the reaction Danny had. He sat there in his wheelchair staring at her while she trembled, and then, amazingly, he started laughing. This, Danny said, was the greatest cosmic joke of all. That he was going to be a “father.”

“I’ll need to tell Sam,” she said tentatively. “I don’t expect you to support this child, and we can file for divorce sooner if you prefer.“

His face had hardened then and he cut her off.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear, Camilla,” he’d said, in a tone that had made her blood run cold. “You will have no contact whatsoever with the man who I consider nothing more than a sperm donor. You will tell no one this baby is not my child. You will continue to live here with me until I say this marriage is over, and you will put my name on the birth certificate. Is that understood?”

“I don’t understand why—”

“It’s not up to you to understand,” Danny said.

“But, Danny, I have to—”

“Do you think you’re in a position to negotiate with me, Camilla? Because it seems to me that you’re in a position to do exactly what I tell you.”

He’d looked at her then with disgust. “Do you actually think some guy you shacked up with for a drunken week in Vegas wants to hear how he knocked you up? If you fell into bed with him that easily, you think he’s even going to believe it’s his kid? Grow up, Camilla. Do exactly what I say, and your child will be a Winthrop, with all the benefits that birthright entails. Cross me, and you’ll be very, very sorry.”

She’d sunk down into a chair then and started crying, hugging her arms across her abdomen and the new life that was growing there.

“It’s your choice, Camilla,” he said, as he turned his wheelchair on the marble floor and moved away from her. “Don’t be a complete fool.”

As she’d sat there that day, there had been no way she could have imagined how the events of the coming months would forever change her relationship with Danny. Or how profoundly the tiny life growing inside her would transform all their lives. She only knew that she had no choice. There was no looking back. And there was only one path going forward.


The first thing Sam noticed when he woke up was that Camilla wasn’t in the bed next to him. The second was that he had overslept. Not that six forty-five was late by most standards, but it was about an hour after he usually woke up. Apparently the internal clock wasn’t working today. He might not have even been awake now if it wasn’t for the smell of something sweet that made his mouth water and his stomach rumble.

Sam shook his head to clear his brain and dispel the last remnants of the dream he’d had. Lately he’d been dreaming a lot about Camilla. Ever since he’d stopped sleeping with her, his subconscious seemed to have other ideas. Her actions and the facts just didn’t add up, but in his dreams he forgot all about her deception and self-interest and imagined himself in love with her.

Sam started toward the shower, then changed direction when he heard laughter downstairs. The closer he got to the kitchen, the stronger the tempting smells became. He walked in to see Camilla lifting what looked like oddly shaped pancakes off the griddle on the center island, onto plates. She was wearing a white chef’s apron, and the counter was cluttered with bowls and utensils and canisters of flour and sugar, and cartons of milk and eggs. He could smell vanilla and cinnamon and other flavors he couldn’t identify. His usually pristine kitchen looked like a disaster, but it smelled like heaven. His stomach rumbled again.

JD was perched on a stool enthusiastically dumping strawberry syrup on what appeared, on closer inspection, to be two pancakes shaped like the letters
J
and
D
.

“Sam!” JD shouted, as Camilla lifted a giant
O
pancake onto Olivia’s plate. JD bounced off the barstool and ran over to grab Sam’s arm with his small, sticky hands, pulling him farther into the kitchen. “Mommy makes the bestest pancakes in the whole world. ”

Camilla smiled at him sheepishly as she ladled pancake batter onto the sizzling griddle. She gave in to JD’s pleading for just a little bit more whipped cream out of “the squirty can” and made a little zigzag down the long part of the
J
before setting the can firmly out of his reach.

Sam sat on a stool and watched little bubbles appear and pop on the oversize
S
,
A
, and
M
and Camilla expertly flip them over. He realized as she slid the
S
onto a plate for him that she’d actually written it backward so that when she flipped it over it would be right side up.

“Pretty impressive,” he said, then glanced over at Olivia, who had already pretty much polished off the first
O
and was waiting for Camilla to slide additional letters onto her plate.

“This is the girl who never eats breakfast?”

“Camilla’s pancakes are really good,” Olivia said around a mouthful of them.

She was right. The pancakes were somehow thick and light at the same time, and their aroma mixed with the smell of fresh-brewed coffee was almost intoxicating. He’d known Camilla baked a mean chocolate chip cookie, but apparently that was only the beginning of her culinary repertoire. Since Sam was rarely home for dinner, he hadn’t given much thought to how or what his wife and his son ate. He’d just assumed they mostly either ate out or got food delivered in. His own mother had never liked spending time in the kitchen—she’d certainly never made him pancakes in the shape of his name when he was a little boy.

By the time he finished eating the third complete spelling of his name he decided it might be interesting to get home around dinnertime once in a while and find out what was going on in his own kitchen. And he wondered idly if this sort of thing went on every morning after he left for the office.

Camilla laughed at something JD said and reached up and brushed her hair back behind her ear, leaving a faint smudge of flour. She looked over at Sam.

“So what was your favorite breakfast when you were a kid?”

The question caught him off guard. “What? Why?”

“So I can make it for you, silly.” The look she gave him, just so natural and guileless, made something twist in Sam’s gut and for a moment he felt shaken and off-balance.

“I don’t know. Cereal.”

“Well, that’s boring. So what’s your favorite breakfast now?”

My name spelled in pancakes,
he almost said. But that would be ridiculous. He wasn’t four years old.

“Eggs Benedict,” he said, naming the first thing that came to mind.

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