Vivi’s silence was all the answer he needed. Cam looked away, annoyed and confused. He was angry, sure, but he also thought that, maybe, her instinct to keep Clem from him was right. What type of father was he going to be? He was a driven workaholic, someone determined to show the world that a McNeal could be successful, that a McNeal could hold on to a dollar for longer than a millisecond, that a McNeal could build a business, keep a job. He didn’t know how to be a parent, to think about someone else, to put a child first. He’d spent most of his life looking after himself. He had no reference point, having come from a long line of messed-up, childish, irresponsible men.
Feeling sad, annoyed and totally at sea, Cam accelerated away. He had a child, he was a father and he was also totally in lust with Clem’s mother. So where to go from here?
Back to River Oaks, he supposed, not that he would find any of the answers he needed there. It was just a house, not a home.
* * *
Vivi made it to Tuesday night without ripping Cam’s clothes off and doing him against the nearest wall—which was not an easy feat. Also equally heroically, she managed not to put a pillow over his face when he was sleeping. Alternating between lust and annoyance, she felt like she was not only living her life in someone’s else’s house but also on a knife-edge. She was mentally exhausted; all she wanted was a break. From feeling horny and from insisting that Cam keep his credit card in his wallet.
“You cannot buy me a car, McNeal.”
Cam, recently returned from dropping Clem off at Charlie’s, looked up from buttering his toast and grinned. “How do you plan on stopping me, Donner?”
Semantics. “You can obviously buy me a car. I just don’t want you to,” Vivi responded, trying to hold on to her patience. “My insurance money should be in soon and if transporting Clem is a problem—”
“Which it’s not.”
Vivi ignored his interruption. “—I can take a taxi. But the point is, you cannot buy me a car.” She pushed away the brochures he’d handed to her, knowing that if she looked at his suggestions, she might have a harder time saying no.
“No. A thousand times no. You cannot spend money on me.”
“Why not? ” Cam slapped jam on his toast, took a bite and chewed, his eyes dancing. He wasn’t taking her seriously, dammit! “It’s just money. I’m paying to have Clem’s room turned into a nursery and you worked with the interior designer on Clem’s room.”
“Worked with” was overstating her involvement in the process. Yesterday, after visiting the DMV and her bank, she’d watched as a crew of men delivered a rocking chair, a bed and a chest of drawers to the room opposite the master bedroom, the one two doors down from her own. The interior designer—some bright-eyed blonde Vivi was convinced had shared sheet time with Cam—asked her whether Clem was a pink or neutral baby. Vivi told her that her daughter liked bright colors, but Clem’s room was now a masterpiece in beige and cream. Clem didn’t like her new room, which was why she still shared Vivi’s big bed. Vivi was okay with that—if Clem slept with her, there was less chance of her inviting Cam to do the same.
“Clem doesn’t seem to be particularly enthralled with her new room,” Cam commented.
It’s rich but it’s as boring as hell. As dull as dishwater. But Cam was proud of what he’d done for Clem, so she couldn’t hurt his feelings. “She’s only two, Cam. And she likes the books.”
There were lots of books in her new room, and Vivi was grateful to have new material to read to Clem at night.
“You could’ve saved yourself a fortune if you’d just spoken to me instead of going through your bland interior designer, but—”
Cam placed his piece of toast on his plate. “Bland? She decorated every room in this house.”
“And it’s beautiful,” Vivi quickly responded. It was utterly gorgeous, but...
“But...? I can hear your but.”
Vivi winced and decided that he was a big boy, he could handle the truth. “But it has absolutely no personality. There’s nothing of you in this house.”