The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence) (20 page)

Fortunately it was all a great adventure to JD. When he asked about Sam, Camilla just told him Sam had to work and couldn’t come on vacation with them.

Camilla spent all her time researching their options for the future. If she’d succeeded in stopping the adoption in time, then Sam had no legal rights to JD. But the same wouldn’t be true of the new baby, who was conceived while she and Sam were legally married.

There was really only one thing she could do if she wanted to make sure she had the upper hand in any custody issue.

“We’re moving to Italy,” she announced to Olivia one evening as they sat watching JD play at the edge of the water.

“You really think we have to leave the country?” Olivia made patterns in the sand with her foot and looked out to the horizon.

“We have dual citizenship,” Camilla said. “I’ve been doing some research. If I file for divorce in Italy as an Italian citizen, I won’t have to worry about a custody challenge from Sam. Once we’re settled and JD is recognized as an Italian citizen, I’ll contact Sam. He can visit us in Italy.”

Olivia sighed and leaned her head back on the beach towel. “I don’t understand why Sam did this, why he had to ruin everything.”

JD was jumping up and down at the edge of the water, venturing out when the waves receded, then running back shrieking with excitement as they chased him back up onto the beach.

“He’s only cheating himself,” Olivia said. “Just look what he’s missing not seeing JD grow up.”

“He’s missing more than he realizes,” Camilla said quietly.

“What do you mean?” Olivia sat rolled over on her side, leaning on one elbow, and looked at her.

“I mean…I’m pregnant.”

Olivia’s eyes widened. “Oh, Cam, no. Sam doesn’t know?”

“I can’t tell him yet. As soon as we get settled in Italy I’ll call him.”

“But Cam, don’t you think maybe this would change things? Maybe he’d change his mind about the divorce, about everything.”

“I trusted him once, and he
tricked
me into agreeing to let him adopt JD, when all the time he was planning to take him away from me.” Camilla turned back to watch JD playing in the sand.

“I don’t know what else I can do.”

…

Jonathon and Ritchie looked up in surprise when Sam walked into Ritchie’s office and sat down next to Jonathon. He saw them take in his rumpled suit, his unshaven face. He looked like shit, and he couldn’t have cared less.

“I got a call from Olivia. They’re in Key West right now. Camilla is taking them to Italy.”

Jonathon frowned. “Italy? Why?”

“I guess she believes she has to go that far to be safe from me,” he explained, and it was a bitter pill to swallow. “She and Olivia have dual citizenship, and there’s nothing I’d be able to do to convince the Italian courts to award me
any
rights to my son.”

“Then you have to stop her now, before she gets on that plane,” Jonathon said, half rising from his chair. “You get on the road, and I’ll make some calls.”

“No,” Sam said, simply, and Jonathon sat back down in his chair.

“What do you mean, no?”

“I think what he means,” Ritchie said, “is that he’s not going to stop Camilla from getting on that plane.”

“Do you realize what you’re doing?” Jonathon was looking at him like he just lost his mind. “Once she gets to Italy, it will be too late.”

Sam got up, walked over to the window, and stared at the Miami skyline.

“Everything I’ve done since Camilla came back into my life has been a series of mistakes and bad judgment.” He turned around. “But all that ends now. The best thing I can do for Camilla is to let her go.”

“What about JD?” Jonathon asked. “What about your son?”

“Camilla said she’d be in touch once she got settled somewhere. And if not—maybe JD’s better off without me.”

“Now you’re talking crazy,” Ritchie said.

“Really? What were all my objections to Camilla? That she was a liar. Manipulative. Couldn’t be trusted. Got married for ulterior motives. Who does that describe, Ritchie? Camilla? Or me?

“I’m the one who lied and manipulated and betrayed the trust of not just Camilla, but Olivia and JD, too. Everything Camilla did she did out of love. She’s a better parent than I’ll ever be. I don’t want to hurt her—or JD—anymore.” He shook his head. “God knows my own parents were never there for me, but at least I always knew where I stood. What’s the point in me creating all these expectations for JD and Camilla, when I just end up hurting them even more?”

“Do you love her?” Ritchie asked.

The question was like a knife cutting into his heart.

“I love her with all my heart,” Sam said.

Ritchie nodded. “That’s the right answer.” He paused. “I have something to tell you, Sam, that may change what you’re doing.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Camilla sighed as the plane finally touched down at Marco Polo Venice airport. It had been a long day. Fifteen hours, five thousand miles, and two stopovers with an exhausted four-year-old and a sulky teenager had just about done her in. All she wanted now was a warm bath and a long nap at the charming boutique hotel she’d found on the internet. Tomorrow she’d meet with the realtor who was going to help them find a permanent place to live.

Camilla had arranged for transportation by boat from the airport to the Aman Canal Grande Venice, a small and luxurious old-world hotel built directly on the water that would give her the peace and tranquillity she needed to begin a new life that didn’t include Sam. Once her heart had healed in the Italian sun, she would find the strength to contact him and make arrangements for him to see JD. And tell him about the new baby.

A man from the hotel held a sign with her name, and she chatted with him briefly in Italian as he gathered their bags and led them to the boat that would deliver them right to the hotel. Already she was feeling a sense of calm. This was what she had wanted, wasn’t it? A fresh start for herself and Olivia and JD?

Stepping onto the boat turned her cranky son into an excited passenger. But Olivia remained sullen, and Camilla realized that Sam’s betrayal had hurt her sister almost as much as it had wounded her own heart. Olivia had dragged her feet at the Key West airport, delaying their departure with one excuse after another until the very last moment they could board the plane, making Camilla wonder what in the world Olivia was thinking. She reminded herself that teenagers were moody in the best of circumstances.

Camilla looked up at the scenery as they motored down the Grand Canal and frowned. “Wait,” she asked the driver of the boat, once she got her bearings. “We’re going to Aman, not the Gritti.”

“Yes, signora,” he said, “But you are booked for a gondola ride, no? I am taking you to Santa Maria del Giglio gondola park. It is near the Gritti, yes, but the gondolas will take you to the Aman.”

“But I didn’t—”

“We’re getting to the hotel by gondola?” Olivia asked, showing the first interest in anything in several days.

Camilla decided not to argue about it.

“Fine, then,” she said to the driver, as he pulled the boat to the dock. “But I’m sure I didn’t—”

“Please don’t hate me,” Olivia said, her lower lip trembling the way JD’s did when he realized he’d just been caught doing something bad.

“What? What do you mean, don’t—” She broke off as she looked up onto the dock and saw Sam reaching out his hand to assist them off the boat.

“Daddy!”
JD shouted and he scrambled to the side of boat, making it rock, and climbed up into Sam’s arms. “You came with us on our vacation, Daddy.” He threw his arms around Sam’s neck.

Camilla turned to her sister, saw her eyes fill up with tears.

“Olivia, what did you do?”

“I didn’t mean to tell him where we were going. I just wanted to know how he could do this. But then he explained how it’s all just a big mistake. I thought he might come to the airport in Key West, but he didn’t, and now, oh Camilla, he came all the way to Italy!”

Camilla leaned close to her sister’s ear and hissed, “Did you tell him about the baby?”

“No!” Olivia pulled back, her face horrified. “No, Cam, I wouldn’t do that.”

“All right.” Camilla took two deep breaths, then turned back to where Sam was now standing beside JD on the dock. When he reached out his hand, she allowed him to help her out of the boat.

She felt her heart beating wildly as soon as they touched, and asked herself again how she could be so utterly in love with him, despite everything. Her head told her he was a deceitful, lying SOB; her heart wanted it all somehow not to be true.

“Sam.” He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in days.

“Camilla, we need to talk.”

She lowered her voice, watching as Olivia and JD stood a few steps away looking at the gondolas. “How dare you let me think you cared about me, when you were plotting to take JD.”

“It’s not what it looks like, Camilla.”

“I saw the papers. I read the memo listing my ‘deficiencies’ as a mother. I saw the petition for sole custody. So you tell me, Sam, what exactly else could it be?”

“All I’m asking is that you ride with me from here to the hotel. Give me a chance to explain.”

“All right, Sam. I’ll hear what you have to say.”

Sam had arranged for two gondolas—one for Olivia and JD, and another for the two of them. Camilla stepped in woodenly and braced herself for whatever explanation Sam was going to provide, determined not to let him see how it broke her heart just to be near him again.

…

Sam’s heart was in his throat. Nothing he’d ever done before in his life mattered as much as this moment. No words he’d ever used to sway a jury to a million-dollar verdict were one fraction of a percent as important as what he would say now. He only hoped he could find the right words.

It was Camilla who spoke first as the gondola pulled away from the dock and moved through the calm waters.

“You can’t force us to go back with you. In Italy,” she said, “I’m a citizen, and you’re nobody. I have the power here.”

You have the power everywhere,
he wanted to say, because he didn’t know how he could live without her.

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a stack of papers, setting them down on the seat.

“You know what this is?” He held up the first document.

“It’s the prenup.”

“Right,” he said, then he ripped the document in half.

“No more prenup.” He picked up the rest of the documents and handed them to her. “I’ve transferred a one-half interest in everything I own to you. Not to JD, to you. The house, the boat, the cars, my stock portfolio, everything.”

She looked up at him, and he saw surprise register in those brilliantly blue eyes.

“I’m sorry about the papers Olivia found. It was stupid. I hired that lawyer way back in the beginning, Camilla, before I knew you, before I realized what we could have together. Before I loved you.”

She looked up at him in shock then and he realized he’d never said the words to her before.

“I do love you, Camilla. I love you with my whole heart.”
Here goes
, he thought, and he didn’t care that interested gazes were fixed on them now.

He shifted in the gondola so that he was down on one knee and reached in his pocket, pulled out a jeweler’s box.

“I can’t propose to you and give you a ring, Camilla, because you’re already my wife. But I hope you’ll wear this again.” He opened the box and saw her eyes widen the moment she recognized the silver necklace with two small interlocking hearts.

“Sam, how? It can’t be the same one…”

“I found it in the bed after you left the hotel in Vegas.” He took a deep breath. “After I sent you away.”

“You kept it all these years? Why?”

He just shook his head. He didn’t know himself why he’d held on to it. He’d only remembered he still had it when, for the second time, Camilla had walked away.

“The clasp broke.” Her voice trembled slightly.

“It’s not broken anymore.” He’d taken it to a jeweler last week. The clasp was solid now, strong enough to last a lifetime.

“I can’t buy your love, Camilla. I can only ask you to give me your heart. And tell you I’ve already given you mine.” He took her hand, placed her two rings and the necklace on her palm, then closed her fist over them and held her hand in his.

“Camilla, when you left I was frantic. Then I realized I didn’t deserve you. I had made up my mind to let you go.” He took a deep breath. “But Ritchie told me something that changed everything.”

“Ritchie…told you.” She pulled back away from him, and he thought he saw a sudden sadness in her eyes.

“So that’s why you’re here, Sam?”

He could feel her body stiffen.

He looked at her, perplexed. “What better reason could there be? When I told Ritchie I was prepared to give you up, that you were a better parent for JD than I could ever be, he asked me a question. He asked me if I loved you, and I said I love you with all my heart. And that’s when he told me.”

She looked confused. “Told you what?”

“That he asked you the same question, sweetheart. He asked you if you loved me, and you told him you loved me with all your heart. That’s when I knew I couldn’t lose you.”

“
That’s
what Ritchie told you?”

“Yes, what else would it be?”

“Oh, Sam. There’s something you don’t know.”

“I don’t care what it is. I used to think I had to have all the answers, why you didn’t tell me about JD, why you stayed married to Danny, Camilla, I don’t care anymore. I don’t care about the past. The future’s the only thing that matters.”

“I’m pregnant, Sam. I’m carrying your child.”

The sheer joy of it rushed through him. He knew it had to be written all over his face.

“We’re having a baby,” he said. “Camilla, now you
have
to come home with me.”

“No,” she said, as the tears started to spill over. “That’s why I have to stay here.”

“Stay here? I know I’ve made a mess of things, but it’s not too late. Everything I have, everything I am, doesn’t mean a damn thing if you aren’t there to share it with me. Can’t you see that we belong together?”

She was standing right there in front of him and he was losing her and it was crushing him. He was the skilled trial lawyer known for his powers of persuasion, and now, when it mattered most, his words were falling flat. They weren’t enough.

“I love you, Camilla. I’ll say it a million times if that’s what it takes for you to believe me. I love you with all my heart. And there’s nothing I want more than to spend the rest of my life loving you.”

“I want to believe you, more than anything. But how can I trust you? And what if you change your mind?” Her eyes still glistened with tears as she tried to give him back the rings, the necklace.

“They’re yours,” he said, and when he refused to take them back, she slipped them into her pocket.

Camilla lifted her chin. “I can’t live in fear of losing my child ever again.”

“Okay, then. Okay.” How could he think when everything he cared about was slipping away from him? “Then the hell with Miami. You want to live in Italy, fine. I’ll commute.”

“You can’t commute between Venice and Miami.”

“I don’t know why not. We’ll buy a corporate jet. It’s about time my law firm went international.”

“Sam, that’s crazy.”

She said the words, but her voice trembled and the sudden light in her eyes gave him a glimmer of hope.

“Without you and Olivia and JD and”—he paused and looked at her still-flat stomach—“our new baby, nothing else matters. So I will do what it takes to make this work.”

Their gondola pulled up to the grand entrance of the hotel. JD and Olivia had already arrived and were standing there waiting for them. When he looked back at Camilla his own heart stood still.

The two hearts sparkled at her throat. The rings were on her finger.

“I might be crazy, Sam, but I believe you. I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” Camilla said, her voice thick with emotion.

“There’s nothing more important in my life, Camilla, than you. And the family we have together.” He helped her out of the gondola and pulled her into his arms.

“Sam.” She reached up and touched his cheek.

“I’m never going to let you down, Camilla.” He reached out, included Olivia and JD in the embrace, and for a moment he saw, in his mind vividly, an image of Danny, with Camilla and JD on his lap in the wheelchair and Olivia squeezing into the group hug. Sam sent a silent promise to the man he’d never met.
They’re mine now, Danny, and I’m going to take good care of them.

“So, are we heading back to Miami right now?” Olivia asked.

“Well,” Camilla said, “considering I booked our suite here in the hotel for two weeks…”

Sam grinned. “I think we’re about to have a two-week vacation in Venice.” Then he took his family and walked up the sweeping staircase into the hotel.