The Millionaire's Unexpected Proposal (Entangled Indulgence)

by Jane Peden

  “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 her 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.

  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, th
e 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.