Camille
Five years later
When my cell rang,I darted over to grab it, thinking it might be Brennan. I wasn’t worried about him, not technically, but I knew he’d worry about me if I didn’t immediately answer.
It was ridiculous considering I was in a secure location, and he was in Las Vegas with his brothers and crew for his bachelor party, but ever since we’d been abducted, he’d amped up security for all the women in his family.
Years later, I still lived like I was under constant threat, which meant I had Bagpipes with me at all times, even in the nail salon or a craft store, but I also had another guy in the back seat, monitoring the car when we left it.
When he’d flown down to Nevada, he and Eoghan had ratcheted things up even more, to the point where we couldn’t even leave the damn house without taking an army along for the ride.
With us all under the same orders, and because it turned our homes into prisons, we’d agreed to stay at the building the Points used expressly to protect their women, and we were taking advantage of our time stuck together as a pre-bachelorette party, getting everything ready for when it was my turn.
What that boiled down to was that every O’Donnellys’ wife was tucked away here, safe and sound, so that their menfolk could go partying.
It was a joke, but we’d get our own back when we left for Key West. They wouldn’t be locked up here, and we’d have a lot of guards on us, but I intended to have a bachelorette party worthy of a Netflix film.
Disappointed when I saw it was an unknown number, I wasn’t going to answer, but it rang on for a while.
Uneasily, I connected the call, and asked warily, “Hello?”
Only God knew who it might be, but this number was harder to get than the President’s.
“Cammie?”
That deep, husky baritone hit me right in the stomach.
Nyx.
Before, a flutter of butterflies would have stirred to life inside me.
Now?
Dread filled me. Regret and irritation too—I’d been such a fool back then. So pathetic. His voice was a flashback I didn’t need, but it was also a reminder of how different I was now.
I was no longer Cammie.
I was Camille.
“Please, don’t put the phone down,” he burst out, making me tighten my hands around my cell, because I’d been on the brink of doing just that.
“What do you want, Nyx?”
“I—” He hesitated. “I know this is stupid, but Giulia gave birth today.”
Before Brennan, that would have sent shards of agony throughout my entire being. Now, I could admit that I was happy for him.
Huskily, I said, “Congratulations.”
“I just got back from the hospital,” he muttered. “I have a daughter, Cammie.”
“That’s great, Nyx,” I told him softly. “I’m happy for you.”
And I was.
Genuinely.
“I believe you mean that,” he rumbled.