All I knew was that when I’d needed him most, he’d been there without question or condemnation, and so had she.
I would do the same for them now.
“I’m sure that you’ll win on appeal,” I said with more conviction than I felt. “In the meantime, don’t worry about me.”
Robert started to speak, then suddenly there was a scuffing sound. He’d put his hand over the receiver, but despite his efforts, I heard my mother.
“Don’t tell her not to worry,” she wailed brokenly. “It’s allgone. Everything. If ever there was a time to worry, it isnow.”
The old feeling suddenly welled up in me. I was seven years old, and Robert wasn’t in our life yet. It was up to me to protect my mother, to be her counterweight. She was distraught, so I would be calm. She thought our life was ruined, so I had to be the one who proved it wasn’t.
After I got off the phone with Robert, I stared out at the golden, sandy beach to where it met the blue-green water. White-tipped currents were pulling the tide in. I had to think, to take stock of my life, but my thoughts were as amorphous as the water.
Come on, Cami, I thought brutally,you’re not a child anymore. It’s time to focus.
I squeezed my eyes shut and stared into the darkness until my thoughts cleared. I had no idea what money or property I had left to my name, but I had to assume it wasn’t enough to live on. Not for long anyway. Beyond that, I had a high school diploma from Flintridge Prep and an undergraduate degree from University of California where I’d majored in Nutrition. I’d halfheartedly joined the ranks of young, fame-adjacent social media influencers in college, sharing the tips and tricks I was learning in school. I had been popular, so not all of my money was inherited, but I’d stopped when I started receiving death threats.
Remembering them now sent chills up and down my spine. My parents had hired the top security firm on the West Coast to protect me. The police had traced the threats to a man in Ohio who had a history of psychotic behavior and put a stop to it. For someone who had a history of anxiety, I’d put it behind me with shocking ease. There were two men to thank for that. One was Robert. The other was a man I hadn’t let myself think about in a long time, even though I saw bits and pieces of him every single day.
An expression that was uniquely his.
Pale green eyes that were identical to his own.
I turned away from the window and walked back toward the living room. A white monitor sat on the coffee table, the picture off but the sound on. Absently, I recapped what I had. Two degrees, one former stalker, an ex-lover, an unknown amount of liquid assets–and a daughter.
As I turned on the monitor and checked to make sure Emma was still napping, a plan started to form in my mind. I wouldn’t put myself back in the public eye and risk another stalker coming out of the woodwork, but there wasoneperson I could see. Landon Campbell, the owner of the elite security firm my parents had hired five years ago.
The man I’d fallen in love with.
The man I’d run away from.
The man who had no idea he had a daughter.
3
LANDON
On Friday morning, Aniya Potts, my executive assistant, met me at the door to my office. Her lips were pursed, and her forehead crinkled. “There’s a woman in your office,” she said in place of her usualgood morning.
“Alone?” I asked, surprised. Potts had worked for me for three years. She knew never to let anyone in my office before I arrived. It was a basic tenement of security.
She nodded, and there was a look of recrimination on her face that checked my own. “I sent Alfie in a few minutes ago, but yes. I let her go in alone.”
“Why?” I asked, still more surprised than angry.
Potts offered a bewildered shrug. “I don’t know. She came in about ten minutes ago and said she had a meeting with you. I told her it wasn’t on your calendar. She asked if she could wait in your office, and I don’t remember saying yes, but suddenly she was in there.”
“She pushed past you?” My eyebrows lowered. It wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to strongarm their way into my office. As if they could ever access my files behind all their locks and passwords and firewalls.
“No,” Potts said after a pause. “She just went in like she owned the place, and it took me a minute to remember she didn’t.”
It was so unlike Potts that I could only stare at her for a moment. She stared back, equally surprised at herself.
“What did she look like?” I asked, a suspicion forming in my mind. In my life, I’d only ever known one woman who could walk into any room like she owned it so convincingly that even the owner doubted himself.
When Potts described a woman with dark hair and dark eyes, I nodded grimly. I wasn’t exactly surprised that Elyna Lavigne had found her way back into my office. Her need for security had surely only increased over the years. And it didn’t surprise me at all that she hadn’t bothered to make an appointment but rather shown up whenever it suited her.
I walked back to my office, irritation thrumming through me. Not at Potts, but at Elyna. Here she was facing financial ruin, and she’d come to me, the most expensive security firm on the coast. I had a feeling it was because she thought I had an interest in her family’s security. There was no way she didn’t know that Cami and I had been sleeping together before she moved to Turin. Cami and her mother were too close for secrets like that. Elyna must think that, even though it was questionable whether the Lavigne family could pay, I would still want to protect them.