by Jane Peden
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 swe
et 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.
“Okay then.”
He finished his coffee and said he had to get ready for work since he was already late, and told Olivia a little too curtly that she better hurry up if she wanted a ride in with him. She just grinned back at him, apparently unaffected by his sudden mood swing.
As he sat at his desk later looking out over the Miami skyline, he allowed himself to wonder for a moment whether he might have a made a mistake assuming that Camilla was only playing the part of a doting mother to his son. He had to remind himself that the most important thing was making sure JD stayed here, in Miami, where he belonged and where Sam could personally guarantee he had a happy and secure future.
But now that JD and Olivia weren’t right there in front of him, he couldn’t stop his mind from taking off in other directions when he thought about Camilla and the breakfast. He had a few creative ideas about what he could do alone with his wife and the strawberry syrup. And that can of whipped cream. He imagined her wearing the white chef’s apron and nothing else. And then he’d untie the sash on the apron and take the bottle of strawberry syrup and slowly… Okay, time to get his mind back on his work. It was probably the residual effects of that dream he’d had last night about Camilla. God only knew what he’d start dreaming now that he had this fresh set of images in his mind.
Chapter Fifteen
The charity gala was one of the most noted Miami fund-raisers of the year. There was a red carpet entrance, with event photographers as well as the media taking shots of each couple as they arrived. Camilla smiled up at Sam, playing the devoted society wife in her glittering dress. He pulled her body closer to his on the dance floor, molding her to him, so close now that she could feel his heart beating. She knew her own heart was pounding.
They couldn’t go on like this, Camilla thought, as she glided across the dance floor in Sam’s arms. She fit in his arms as effortlessly as JD and Olivia had fit into his life. As effortlessly as she would fit into his life, if he would just see her for who she was. If she wanted to get past the stubborn walls Sam had erected and be a family, she would have to take matters into her own hands.
Ever since they got back from the theme park, he’d stopped pretending to fall asleep working late at night in the den. They slept in the same bed, not touching, not speaking. She closed her eyes at night and lay there for what seemed like forever, every nerve ending in her body acutely aware that he was just a few feet away as she listened to his even breathing and wondered if he was still awake, too.
She couldn’t take it any more. Living in the same house, sleeping in the same bed, treating each other like perfect strangers. If her plan worked, that would change tonight.
When they went back to their table, she sat nervously fingering the small clutch purse she’d brought with her. It was too small to hold her cell phone—she’d slipped that into Sam’s pocket—but it was big enough to hold what she needed. Sam nudged her and she looked up guiltily.
“I was asking if you’d like some more champagne.”
She nodded. Sam gestured, and the white-gloved waiter refilled her glass, then Sam’s.
Sam leaned back in his chair as the auction began, and Camilla watched as Miami’s most extravagant spenders bid on everything from fancy cars to romantic getaways.
She looked at him in surprise when he began bidding on an item. She was even more puzzled when she realized it was the Tahitian pearl necklace she’d been admiring in one of the displays earlier. Ten minutes later he fastened the elegant strand around her neck. He leaned over and kissed her as a photographer snapped their photo, and she felt her pulse get faster even as she wondered if it was all just for show.
“I really didn’t need a necklace that cost over $5,000,” she said quietly.
“These events aren’t about what you need, darling,” he said smoothly, “they’re about what pleases you.”
An older couple seated across the table smiled indulgently, and suddenly the image of herself and Sam growing old together formed in her mind with a poignancy that brought tears to her eyes.
Sam caught her chin,
turned her face toward him, and his face was expressionless as he surely must have read what she could no longer conceal. She was in love with her husband. It was the way he’d looked sitting in the kitchen eating those silly alphabet pancakes—and the look of sheer incredulity on his face when she’d surprised him with eggs Benedict made from scratch a few days later—that had finally done her in. She wanted a lifetime of everyday moments like that, and she wanted them with him. She’d thought that if her plan failed tonight she could just walk away. Now she knew it wasn’t true. If he turned her away, she would swallow her pride and keep on trying until he finally saw the person she was inside.
He didn’t love her now, but she had months to make him see how happy they could be together.
“Do you want to leave?” Sam asked.
She nodded, still not trusting her voice. Sam knew so many people that it took about thirty minutes of mingling before they finally made their exit.
The limo pulled smoothly up to the curb. The driver opened the door and nodded almost imperceptibly to Camilla, signaling that everything was in place.
Then they were on their way, gliding smoothly through traffic. Sam tossed his tuxedo jacket casually on another seat, then raised his eyebrows when he saw the chilled champagne and two glasses. She glanced over at the control panel to make sure the intercom to the driver was turned to off.
“I don’t remember this being here when we got out of the limo.”
“I thought we’d take a drive out to beach.”
Sam looked out the window and noted the direction they were traveling.
“Should I take it that I’ve been shanghaied?” The corner of his mouth quirked in amusement. “What do you plan to do with me?”
Whatever words he was about to say next died on his lips when Camilla reached behind her and began unzipping her dress. She felt her hands tremble because it wasn’t only her body she was baring to him. It was her heart.
