The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence) (18 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Sam woke up early the next morning energized. It was barely six o’clock, and he could spend some time in the office and be back before the rest of the family woke up.

He quietly slipped out of bed and left Camilla sleeping, her silky hair splayed across the pillow, her face looking younger and more innocent somehow. And he felt a sudden wave of tenderness come over him. Spending time with Camilla and Olivia and JD at the firm outing had given him a taste of what he’d been missing. It was Sunday. And he intended to spend at least a part of it doing the kinds of things that other families did.

As usual, he got caught up in more things than anticipated at the office, and by the time he got back home with a bag full of bagels and Camilla’s favorite latte, it was already after ten. He should have called, or at least texted. They’d probably had breakfast already and were not even home anymore. So much for his surprise brunch.

He set the bag of bagels on the kitchen island, then saw Olivia out by the pool Skyping with one of her friends. She waved at him cheerfully, then turned back to the screen. When he’d seen her yesterday hanging out with the other teenage family members of his office staff, he’d felt guilty that he hadn’t done anything to help her meet kids her own age before that. Skype and Instagram and texting were all well and good, but she should be going to the movies, hanging out at the mall, playing volleyball at the beach, not spending all her time in his office or up in her room. He resolved to do better.

“JD?” He called out when he didn’t see him anywhere downstairs.

“I’m up here,” JD answered, and Sam carried Camilla’s latte upstairs, stopping to poke his head in JD’s room.

“Shhhh,” JD said, putting his finger to his lips. “Mommy’s still sleeping.”

“Really?” Sam was glad she hadn’t been sitting around impatiently waiting for the feast of bagels he’d promised last night. But he was a little worried she seemed tired a lot lately. And the extra stress he’d added to her life from the way he’d treated her since the wedding probably hadn’t helped any.

JD was sitting on the bottom bunk of his pirate ship bed, still dressed in his pajamas, holding his iPad on his lap.

“What are you looking at?”

JD looked up. “Livvy put the pictures on from the boats yesterday. Wanna see?”

“Sure,” Sam said, and JD scooted over on the bed to make room for him. Sam ducked his head to sit down beside him, then put his arm around JD’s shoulders.

The screen was on slide show mode, and Sam watched, laughing out loud at the shots of JD posing on the deck with his hands on his hips, and later ones of himself tossing JD up into the air, the boy’s face shining with excitement. There was one of Camilla, standing at the railing on the terrace, her face partially turned away from the camera, gazing out at the horizon, so hauntingly beautiful in that moment that she took his breath away.

“There’s Mommy,” JD announced. “Isn’t she pretty?”

Sam just nodded and gave him a squeeze. The words seemed to have dried up in his throat.

“Look, there’s Livvy—she was chasing us kids,” JD said, and started to giggle. “Livvy the sea monster.”

The slide show ended, and Sam looked at the other icons on the screen. “What’s this one?” he asked, pointing.

“Oh, that’s when Mommy and Livvy and me went to Disney.”

JD clicked on that file and treated Sam to a running narration, replaying their entire day ending with a video of the fireworks display that was really too dark to see, but hearing JD’s excited voice in the background of the video made it worthwhile anyway. Sam had sent them away because at the time he didn’t want to be in the same room with Camilla. Now he wished he’d been with them for JD’s first visit to Disney. He determined that he would be there for all the rest of the milestones in JD’s life, starting with the first day of kindergarten this fall.

Sam had a sudden thought. “Do you have any more videos of you? Like when you were little?”

“Like baby stuff? Nah,” JD said. “Mommy has lots, though. She’ll show you.”

“Okay.”

JD looked up at him shyly. “I could show you my other daddy, though. I mean, if you want to.” He looked down at his feet dangling from the bed, and shrugged in a perfect imitation of Olivia.

“Sure,” Sam said, although he wasn’t so sure how he felt about seeing pictures of his son with his other “daddy.”

“Okay.” JD wiggled in closer to Sam. “I like this one,” he said, clicking on an icon. “It’s a funny movie Livvy took.”

Sam had to look closer to recognize the man in the wheelchair as the invalid he’d seen in news photos from shortly after Danny’s accident. This man looked nothing like an invalid, and nothing like the bitter person Olivia had described visiting her in the rehab center.

He looked strong and confident and…happy.

A younger JD was running beside the man in the wheelchair, and the man in the wheelchair was chasing Camilla around a lavishly furnished living room, finally trapping her between a piece of furniture and the wall, and pulling her into his lap.

The way he was kissing his wife wasn’t like an invalid.

The littler version of JD put his hands over his face and protested, “Ewww!!! Kissy stuff!” Then Danny had reached out and snatched him up in between them and he and Camilla were both covering the little boy’s face with loud kisses. Danny looked up and said, “Get over here, Olivia!”

“Yeah,” Camilla said, “group hug!”

Then Olivia’s voice saying, “You guys are so lame.” But the camera wavered and then shut off, and the picture Sam had of the four of them together was as vivid in his mind as if the video had continued. Camilla really had loved her husband. He felt a sudden stab of jealously at the sense of intimacy they projected in the short, silly little video. Then thought,
How ridiculous can you be? You’re jealous of a dead man.

“You don’t think he’s mad, do you?” JD was looking up at Sam with big eyes.

“What? Do I think who’s mad?” Sam asked.

“My old daddy,” JD said, his eyes filling up. “You don’t think he’s mad I got another daddy, do you?”

Sam reached over and hugged the little boy, pulling him onto his lap. “No, I don’t think he’s mad.” He pictured the light shining in the other man’s eyes as he held the woman who was now Sam’s wife, and looked down at the little boy who had always been Sam’s son.

“I think your old daddy is very happy that you have a new daddy who loves you as much as I do.”

JD sighed and snuggled his head against Sam’s shoulder.

“Sam?”

“Yes, JD?”

“You think sometimes it would be okay if I called you Daddy, too?”

Sam felt his throat constrict. “I think that would be just fine.”

Chapter Nineteen

Camilla breathed deeply as she opened her eyes. Vanilla latte.

“So you finally woke up.”

She sat up against the pillows and waited for the usual wave of nausea to hit, and was pleasantly surprised that, at least for the moment, she felt okay.

Sam handed her the latte.

“Decaf?” she asked.

He grinned. “Of course. I pay attention.”

She sat up straighter in the bed and took a sip of the hot, smooth liquid, and sighed as it slid down her throat. Amazing. She looked at the clock on the bedside table and realized she’d slept almost twelve hours, and she still felt tired.

Sam balanced a tray on the side of the bed.

“Are those bagels?” Camilla felt herself perking up a bit. All of a sudden she was ravenously hungry.

“Thought I better bring you something before you slept through another meal.”

“Mmmmm.” Camilla picked up a half a bagel, spread some plain cream cheese on it, and felt herself almost purring with contentment.

“I thought we might do something today. The four of us.”

“You’re not going into the office?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“And your point would be?” Camilla smiled when she said it. At first, she’d thought Sam spent so much time at the office just so he could avoid being with her. But she’d come to realize that was how he always worked—and in large part one of the reasons the firm he and his two partners had founded was so successful. With his cover-model good looks and his reputation as a highly successful lawyer, he could easily have spent his nights at the hottest and most exclusive Miami clubs, with a socialite on each arm. Instead, he spent most evenings with his sleeves rolled up working late at his office, returning home only to continue working into the night.

So, yeah, she was more than a little surprised that he was home midmorning, and that he was talking about the four of them actually spending the rest of the day together.

Sam was looking sheepish. “Well, I actually did stop by the office this morning while you were sleeping,” he confessed, “but I’m done now.”

He flashed a smile at her—that slightly crooked smile that made her knees go weak—and suggested that the kids might like going out on the boat. Or if she’d rather, they could spend the day doing the whole tourist thing, him showing her what her new city had to offer.

“Let’s do the tourist thing,” she said quickly. Camilla wasn’t about to press her luck with morning sickness by agreeing to another day on the water.

He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. “Finish your bagel and get ready. I’ll round up the kids and we’ll meet you downstairs.”

If she weren’t already in love with Sam, she would have fallen in love that afternoon, as she watched him pedaling his bike through the art deco district of Miami’s South Beach. The bike rental shop had provided one of those extender bikes for kids that converted the adult touring bike into a bicycle built for two. JD was pedaling diligently behind Sam, in his little bike helmet with his own personal water bottle tucked into a holder, and a tall narrow safety flag swaying behind him. After about the first twenty minutes, though, JD apparently realized that he could stop pedaling anytime he wanted to and just coast along while Sam did all the actual work propelling them forward.

The art deco buildings they passed were a vision of Miami the way Camilla had always imagined it, and the fact that most of their ride followed a path directly along the Atlantic Ocean kept JD entertained. But when they turned inland and came to the pedestrian mall at Lincoln Road, Olivia literally squealed with excitement.

Everyone was ready for a break—not the least Camilla, who was feeling hot and tired despite her floppy straw hat, the flat terrain, and the gentle breeze that been coming off the water They parked their bikes and got in out of the sun in an air-conditioned café. Olivia, however, said she wasn’t hungry at all, and by the time their cold drinks came was already fidgeting and complaining that she wanted to go check out the shops. When Sam described how the original developer of Miami Beach had envisioned this shopping district as rivaling L.A.’s Rodeo Drive and New York’s Fifth Avenue, Olivia looked like she was about to burst out of her seat.

“Come on, Olivia,” Sam said, and the two of them left together to explore the shops. They agreed to meet up for dessert in an hour at a little Italian ice cream parlor.

Camilla didn’t want to be anywhere except sitting in the cool café, and JD was happy nibbling at his lunch while he played games on her iPhone, even though she knew he’d never admit he was tired out. Camilla sighed at how quickly he was growing up, already losing his rounded baby features.

By the time they wandered from the café to the picturesque ice cream parlor, JD’s energy was on the rebound. They sat down just as Olivia and Sam came in. Camilla stared. They were literally weighed down with
bags and bags
from 7 for All Mankind and BCBG. And Olivia looked like she’d died and gone to heaven.

“Umm,” Camilla started, and Sam interrupted.

“Now don’t be mad if I just wanted to spoil my little sister a bit.”

Camilla looked from Olivia’s beaming face to Sam’s sheepish one.

“Sam…did you forget we came here on
bicycles
? How exactly are we supposed to get all that stuff back to the car?”

The looks on both their faces were priceless. Camilla would have laughed out loud if she wasn’t actually picturing herself riding her bike with shopping bags draped over and flapping from every appendage. You’d think a trial lawyer who routinely pulled in million-dollar verdicts would have more sense.

As it turned out, the solution suited Camilla just fine. Nobody was all that excited about getting back on the bikes anyway, and a phone call to the bike shop with the promise of a hefty tip was all it took for them to find themselves riding in a comfortable van, the array of shopping bags taking up an entire bench seat. And the ride was just long enough for Olivia to pull out three or four pairs of jeans, assorted tops, three—yes, three—designer bags, four pairs of shoes, a fancy dress—
where exactly did she plan on wearing it?
Camilla wanted to know
—
three skirts, two jackets, and an entire bag full of necklaces, bracelets, and hair accessories.

Camilla looked at Sam, aghast. “You must have spent—”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell,” he said, winking at Olivia. “Put on a fashion show when we get home,” Sam suggested. “Then she’ll see…we couldn’t help ourselves.”

“Okay,” Olivia said, smiling happily, and Camilla thought,
I wish I could just freeze this moment and keep it forever.

Sam was turning out to be the perfect father and the perfect husband. Now, from all indications, he was the perfect big brother to Olivia as well.

Unfortunately, once she told him she was pregnant again she was very much afraid he would see her as far from the perfect wife.

By the time they had loaded back into Sam’s car and headed off to the Children’s Museum, Camilla had tried to convince herself that things might work out all right after all. Maybe by being with her through this pregnancy, Sam would be able to finally let go of everything he’d missed with JD. For the first time, today, she’d really felt like the four of them—soon to be five—were a family. During the short car ride she leaned back against the seat and allowed herself to dream about what the future could be, with Olivia attending high school here in Miami, she and Sam sitting together at kindergarten orientation for JD, applauding with the rest of the proud parents at the school holiday program as a chorus of smiling five-year-olds sang off-key, smiling and taking photos when Olivia’s date picked her up for the prom… Sam, beside her in the delivery room, holding her hand and a look of amazement spreading across his face as their baby came into the world.

She gave a contented sigh, and Sam looked over at her and smiled.

Later they sat together on a bench, and Olivia chased after JD while he experienced everything from the giant two-story sand castle to the undersea world that only children under age five could enter. When Olivia dragged him off for some “messy creative fun time,” Camilla wisely decided to stay put on the bench.

“I think I’ve had about all the fun I can take for now,” she said to Sam.

Then she caught the serious look in his eye and suddenly it was as if they were in their own private bubble, while the rest of the people at the crowded museum seemed to move past them in slow motion, their chatter fading into background noise. The urge to tell him right now was suddenly overwhelming.

“There’s something I need to tell you—” they both began at once.

“You first,” Sam said.

Camilla took a deep breath and put her hand on his arm. “Sam, I—”

“Mommy!” JD came running back, and Camilla pulled back from Sam, turning to catch the little torpedo that hurled itself at her.

“The pet place tells you the perfect pet for your family, and you have to come see! Come see right now, can we get one?” JD grabbed Camilla and Sam by the hands and started tugging them down the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” Camilla said to Sam as they let JD pull them along.

“We’ll talk later,” Sam said. “This really isn’t the place for what I want to discuss with you.”

No, it wasn’t the place for what I wanted to discuss with you, either.

“I think I’d rather talk to you alone,” Camilla said, and Sam nodded.

“We’ll go out on Friday, have a quiet dinner. Maybe somewhere here at South Beach.”

“All right,” she said, and resolved not to spend the week second-guessing what Sam wanted to talk to her about. But she didn’t know how she was going to get through all the days until Friday.