The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence) (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

Sam was having the week from hell. There were hearings, depositions, and deadlines, and two paralegals and an associate who normally worked on his cases were out with some sort of virus. And it was only Wednesday.

The only thing that was getting him through the week was thoughts of the reservation he’d made for Friday night. For two. At a world-renowned art deco hotel and celebrated restaurant. In the heart of South Beach’s historic art deco district, it was a quiet oasis of old-fashioned style and timeless sophistication. Or at least that’s what the website promised. The architecture had caught his attention on their bicycle tour, and he’d decided right then that it was the perfect place to return with Camilla and share his new plan for their future.

He realized now that Camilla was nothing like he had believed initially. His first thought on Sunday, as they sat together in the Children’s Museum, had been that he would take her to dinner, tell her that he’d been wrong about her on so many counts, and ask her finally to tell him why she’d kept JD’s birth a secret from him. And he’d listen with an open mind and forgive her—whatever her reason was—and they’d put it behind them forever. But as the week went on he realized that he didn’t want Friday night to be about Camilla explaining herself. What difference did it make? He knew now what kind of person she was, and there was no way to go back and undo the past. It didn’t matter why she hadn’t contacted him five years ago. The only thing that mattered was that she and JD and Olivia were here now. And they had a real chance to be a family. So he would tell her that the past was over and the future started today. That he loved her and wanted their marriage to be real.

Part of him must have known for some time that he loved her, before he even admitted it to himself. He felt a little guilty that he’d let Camilla continue to fear that her former in-laws were poised to file a custody suit. But he hadn’t been ready to tell her how his feelings for her had changed and the threat of the Winthrops lurking out there with their high-priced lawyers was one guarantee that no matter how angry Camilla might be with him, she wouldn’t leave him.

Now he wanted her to stay out of love, not because she was afraid to leave his protection. God, he’d been a jerk. But he’d make it all up to her, starting with a romantic dinner, followed by an even more romantic evening in the oceanfront suite he’d booked.

He nodded, satisfied, as he packed up his files to leave the office for the deposition that would take up the remainder of the day.

“Have you seen Olivia around?”

His legal assistant looked up at him, her face pale, and told him Olivia was down the hallway.

He nodded and started to walk away, then looked back. “You don’t look so good.”

She stared back at him glumly, and said she thought was getting the same virus that had been running through the office.

“Go home,” Sam said. “I’ll be in depos all afternoon. Anything we didn’t get done today can wait.”

His grateful assistant logged off the computer, grabbed her purse, and was halfway to the elevator by the time Sam collected Olivia from a nearby office. He’d thought it would be good experience for her to go to a deposition with him, see another aspect of his law practice.

As they walked to the court reporter’s office in a nearby office tower, he was tempted to say something to Olivia about the plan he had for them all to be together, for her to transfer to a local high school right here in Miami, and for the four of them to permanently be a family. Because he could no longer imagine life without Olivia any more than he could imagine life without Camilla and JD. But he stopped himself. He wanted to do things right with Camilla this time. Not blurt out his plans without discussing them with his wife.

Maybe he’d get the hotel suite for the whole weekend, he thought. They could pick up Olivia and JD after brunch on Saturday, go spend the afternoon at Jungle Island, just like any other vacationing family enjoying the tourist attractions. He liked the picture that formed in his mind.

“What are you looking so pleased about?” Olivia asked him.

Christ, he’d gone from being an intimidating trial lawyer to a guy walking around with a silly grin on his face. That must be what falling in love did to you. Everything just seemed crisper and clearer; even the sun looked brighter as it beat down on the Miami skyline. How could he have lived more than thirty years and never had a clue what it was like to feel this way? He wished he could take the rest of the day off and spend it with Camilla. Why wait until Friday to tell the woman he loved that he was determined to spend the rest of his life with her?

But he had work to do, and depositions didn’t take themselves. There was time enough to tell Camilla how he felt.

He turned to Olivia. “I’m pleased about how we’re going to kick ass in this deposition, and watch the manufacturer’s rep and his lawyer squirm.”

“Yeah,” Olivia said, her face lighting up. “This I want to see.”

By the time he was an hour into the deposition, Sam was feeling even better about the case. But when they took a break, he realized he’d left one of the files with a set of exhibits back in his office. Olivia said no problem, she’d run back and get them. He appreciated the help, and realized she was probably grateful to get a little break and get some air. Since the office was only about five blocks away and he was pretty sure he’d left the file sitting right there on the middle of his desk, she would be back soon and he wouldn’t even miss a beat in his questioning of the witness.

He was starting to get concerned when thirty minutes later she still hadn’t returned. He went through the litigation briefcase he’d brought with him one more time just to make sure he didn’t really have the file after all, and checked his phone for text messages. Surely if Olivia couldn’t find the file, she’d text him and let him know.

Sam continued the deposition, but he was getting more and more concerned as the time went by. Damn. If his associate wasn’t out sick, he could have passed the questioning on to him while he found the file himself. Of course, if his associate wasn’t out sick, he wouldn’t have misplaced the file in the first place. It probably hadn’t been on his desk after all, and Olivia was frantically searching the entire office.

He took another break in the deposition and texted Olivia, but didn’t get any response. He called the receptionist and learned that Olivia had, in fact, made it back to the office, and then left again about ten minutes later. Sam arranged for someone else to locate the file and fax the documents to him at the court reporter’s office, but he was worried about Olivia. Had she suddenly gotten sick like his legal assistant? Called Camilla to come pick her up at the office? Surely she’d have at least sent him a text or left a message for him with the receptionist.

He called Olivia’s cell phone and got no answer, then tried Camilla’s, which went directly into voicemail.

There was probably some perfectly reasonable explanation for Olivia going AWOL on him, but for the life of him he couldn’t think what it could be. Then he reminded himself that she was, after all, only fifteen years old. He’d have a talk with her tonight and get it all straightened out.

Three hours later he’d completed the deposition, it was close to 6:00 p.m., and he still hadn’t had a callback from either Camilla or Olivia. Now he was worried. Had Olivia suddenly gotten so ill that Camilla had taken her to the emergency room?

Sam headed back to the office and checked his voicemail. There were no messages from Camilla or Olivia, only a message from the attorney handling his adoption of JD, asking Sam to call him immediately. Had something gone wrong there?

He felt his face harden as he picked up the phone to return the call. He wouldn’t tolerate any delays.

The other lawyer came on the line right away.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“That’s what I was about to ask you.” Then Sam heard something that was so unbelievable that he made the other lawyer repeat it twice. Camilla had withdrawn her consent to the adoption.

“Did she tell you why?” Sam was reeling. What the hell was going on?

“No, she was very curt. And I received a fax from her within about ten minutes of the phone call confirming it. Sam, I had no choice but to call the judge’s office and hold the file until we sort this out. Everything was good to go—we were just waiting for the judge’s signature.”

“There has to be some misunderstanding,” Sam said. “I’ll call you back tomorrow. Don’t do anything else until you hear from me.”

Sam racked his brain for what could have happened.

Jonathon stuck his head in. “Oh, good, you’re back. You got the file, then?”

“What?” Sam looked up. “For my deposition? Yeah.”

Jonathon frowned. “No, the
file.
I got the opinion letter back from the lawyer about your petition for sole custody of JD. She sent over the draft for your review. Your assistant wasn’t here, so I left the folder on your desk.”

Sam felt his stomach lurch. “Oh God. Jon, I’m not going through with that. I’m not even divorcing Camilla.” He shuffled through the small stack of papers on the corner of his desk, checked his credenza, but it was no use. He already knew the file wouldn’t be there.

“News to me, buddy. Fine, I’ll give her a call tomorrow and tell her to stop any work.”

“No, no, that’s not—how could you leave something like that sitting on my desk? What the hell were you thinking?”

Jonathon’s eyes narrowed. “I was thinking how adamant you were to move forward with this. What’s gotten into you?”

“The file’s not here, Jonathon.” He slammed the palms of his hands down on his desk. He wanted to hit something, someone. But it was his own fault. He’d created this disaster all on his own. He looked at Jonathon and shook his head in frustration.

“I sent Olivia back here from the deposition to look for some documents. Olivia’s gone, the file you left is gone, and neither she nor Camilla is answering her phone.”

Damage control. Lawyers were good at it. He could fix this. He just had to get home as fast as possible and
explain
.

All the while he assured himself that he could fix this, a sick feeling was clenching like a fist in his gut. And Ritchie’s look of stunned disbelief that night they’d discussed it in the bar kept coming back to him.
Now you and Jonathon are scheming how to take this woman’s child away from he
r was the way Ritchie had described it.

It wasn’t going to be enough to explain that he had changed his mind. Camilla would hate him for starting this process in the first place. He had lied to her since day one. Tricked her into signing the adoption papers by telling her it would protect JD from the Winthrops, when really he’d just been setting her up to file his own custody suit. All the things he had wrongly accused Camilla of—lying to him, betraying him, marrying for selfish motives—were the very things he himself had done to her. And he was very much afraid that he had lost her forever.

He pulled into the driveway and was relieved to see that the Jeep was sitting there.

He was up the steps in a few bounds and went in through the front door. “Camilla?” As soon as he stepped into the house he could tell, just from the stillness, that nobody was home.

He found the note on the marble island in the kitchen. Camilla’s wedding ring and engagement ring sat beside it.

The handwritten note said simply,
Good-bye, Sam. I’ll call you in a few weeks. Don’t try to find us.
She hadn’t bothered to sign her name.

…

Olivia was crying. Camilla glanced over her shoulder to where JD had fallen asleep in the back of the rented SUV, and reached over and squeezed Olivia’s hand. She hated running like this, as if she was the one who’d done something wrong. Maybe she’d panicked when Olivia showed her the file, but even after she talked to the adoption lawyer—the lawyer
Sam
had hired to handle the adoption—she’d realized there was no one she could trust. What if the lawyer didn’t halt the adoption? After all, her signature was already on the documents. She couldn’t fight Sam in court in Miami where he knew every lawyer, every judge. Where she was the outsider. She needed time to figure out what to do, to hire her own lawyer, and find out what her rights were. Then she’d contact Sam. She wouldn’t keep him from seeing JD or the new baby. But she’d be the one making the rules.

“I really thought he loved us,” Olivia said, brushing her eyes with the back of her hand. She’d been calm and cold as ice when she’d caught a cab a few blocks from Sam’s office and come home to show Camilla what she’d discovered right there in the middle of Sam’s desk. “He must have been planning to file this as soon as the adoption went through.”

Camilla hadn’t wanted to believe it. God, she’d wanted to believe Sam was falling in love with her. Maybe she’d wanted it so bad she convinced herself it was true. She had come to him for protection from losing JD. And instead had walked right into the lion’s den, pitting herself against an adversary who posed a far worse threat than the Winthrops had ever been.

She patted Olivia’s hand and then pulled her own hand back, placing it over her stomach. She had no doubt he would do everything in his power to take the baby away from her as well. And that was not going to happen.

Camilla didn’t start to relax even a little until they were all the way to Key West, and she’d rented a little bungalow that she paid for by the week in cash. After two weeks had gone by she’d finally stopped looking over her shoulder all the time, expecting Sam to suddenly appear.

She’d rented the SUV with the credit card Sam had given her, and when she found the chance to hand the car off to some students she met who were heading back to the northeast for college, she’d jumped at the chance. If Sam was looking for them—and she was certain he was—he’d be looking in the wrong place.