Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67675 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
I hung up on Robert. If I told him my plan, he’d try to counter it, and I wasn’t going to give him that chance.
When I walked into the living room, I thought Cami had left. The remotes for the television and the sound system were laid out across the coffee table, but the couch was empty. Then I heard my pantry door and turned to see her standing in the kitchen, a sparkling water in one hand, a protein bar in the other.
“I’m hungry,” she explained sheepishly. “Not that I consider this food.”
“Send me a list. I’ll have the cabinets stocked.”
Cami squinted at me, trying to detect facetiousness in my voice.
“I’m serious.” I walked into the kitchen, determined to make her see the wisdom of my plan. “I just got off the phone with Robert. We need to take this threat seriously. I know you don’t want a bodyguard on Emma, so you’ll have to deal with me.”
“You’ll be her bodyguard?” Cami asked doubtfully. “I don’t know, Landon.”
“You’re going to move in with me,” I said. “This is the safest place in the city.”
I had it all planned out in my head. I was going to cut back on my workload for the next few weeks. I’d work from home, but I’d offload my in-person responsibilities to my second-in-command while I got this situation with the Lavignes sorted out. Once the threat had been dismissed or neutralized, we’d figure out something else. In the meantime, I’d get to know my daughter while making sure she was safe.
“We’re not moving in with you,” Cami spluttered, setting down the protein bar and water. “That’s insane. This place is too small.”
“It’s three bedrooms.”
“One is your office!”
“You think I can’t get it turned into a bedroom by the end of the week?” I could get it flipped over by the end of the day, if I put enough money into it.
“No. No. This is crazy. We’re not–we can’t.” Cami was shaking her head, trying to clear it. “We’re staying with Casey. We’re perfectly–”
“Like hell. Casey has a fence that Emma could get around if she put her mind to it. She’s got eight windows on the front of her house, six on the back, and a bay window on the side. She also has double front doors with more fucking glass.”
Cami stared at me, wide eyed. “How do you–”
“You don’t think I looked into it?” Annoyed, I walked into the kitchen to stand over her. “There’s no way you and Emma are staying there.”
“Okay, fine, we’ll go somewhere else. But it can’t be here, Landon.” Cami stared around my spacious, open-concept penthouse. “There’s no outdoor space. There’s no color.”
I took her point. It was about as different from the lush, tropical Hawaii as it could be. “We’ll add some fucking color,” I ground out, irritated. “And you two won’t be locked up in here. We’ll go out whenever you want.”
“But never by ourselves,” Cami surmised. She shook her head again. “No, I’m not–”
“You are. You don’t have a choice.”
She tried to turn away, possibly to make a break for the door, but I took her by the shoulders, trapping her gently. I didn’t want to repeat my threat to fight for full custody of Emma, but I would. I would do anything to keep her safe, even if it meant alienating her mother. But it would be a hell of a lot easier to bond with Emma if Cami didn’t feel like Rapunzel in the tower.
“Give me three weeks,” I said quietly. “I’ll make your world safe again. Then we can figure out something else.”
Cami’s eyes met mine. I saw exhaustion in them, wariness. In the past, she would have swayed against me. I would have wrapped my arms around her. Now she held herself ramrod straight. I could feel the tension in her arms, the muscles tight beneath her soft, supple skin. “Three weeks?” she repeated.
“Three weeks.”
“We won’t be trapped up here?”
Though I itched to argue the wording, I confined myself to a head shake. “We’ll show her the city together.”
Almost imperceptibly, Cami nodded.
“Good.” I dropped my hands from her shoulders and leaned back against the kitchen counter, trying to shake away old memories of the two of us in this kitchen. My hands on her. Her eyes on me. “I’ll put a guy on Casey’s house tonight. Pack your things and come back here in the afternoon. It’ll be ready for you.”
Con put me in touch with the interior decorator that had designed rooms for his daughter when she was growing up. I paid an eye watering premium, and it nearly killed both of us, but we got my office flipped into a guest room, and we got the guest room flipped into a kid’s dream room. At least, that was what she promised it was. No time to paint, but one full wall was covered in silk wallpaper that depicted a scene from Frozen. I now could recognize the full cast of characters. The doll I’d gotten Emma was named Elsa. Her sister was Anna. The snowman was Olaf. Then there was a reindeer and a guy whose names I didn’t know, but the interior decorator assured me that Emma would. She had insisted on talking to Cami before arranging for a bed to be delivered. She got a toddler-sized one that still had half a guardrail, and she made it up with Frozen bedding.