Joe waited a beat before snapping out his question. “And why is Cam McNeal with you, Vivianne?”
Here came the hard part.
He’d been the first man she’d noticed on entering that hole-in-the-wall bar three blocks down from her mom’s house in Tarrin, a small town west of Houston. He was lounging on a bar stool, watching her with bright blue eyes. His light brown hair had been longer then, touching the collar, though now it was expensively cut. His tall, muscular body seemed harder now, as was his attitude.
“So, I’ve told you a little of my history with my parents,” she began.
“A little, mostly that you were fed a steady diet of anti-government and end-of-the-world BS from your father and you’re-going-to-fry-if-you-don’t-listen propaganda from your mother,” Joe said, always impatient with intolerance.
“I was an only child with ridiculously overprotective parents, so college was out of the question. Dating—unless it was arranged through my mother—was frowned upon, and socializing outside of their tight social circle was not acceptable. Drinking and dancing and sex? Hell, no.”
“And hell, as you were frequently told, was where you’d end up if you flirted with those vices.”
“I told you that my dad died and that the family money was placed into a trust, controlled by lawyers who were my dad’s friends, and every decision we made had to go through the lawyers. I was so angry.”
“I’m still not seeing the connection to Camden McNeal.”
“After leaving the lawyers and my mother after the funeral, I ended up in a bar, and later, in Cam McNeal’s bed. And with his baby in my belly.
“My mother was angry with me for embarrassing her on the day they buried my father, but she was incandescently furious when I told her I was pregnant. Basically, she disowned me,” Vivi explained.
“Can I track her down and give her a piece of my mind?”
Vivi smiled at Joe’s outrage. God, she loved this man.
“You must’ve been so scared, Viv.”
“I was, but I also felt empowered. And free.”
She’d faced a tough, uncertain future, but it was her future, one she’d created. “I thought about contacting Clem’s father but I didn’t know his surname and had no idea where he worked.”
But more than that, she hadn’t wanted to put herself under anyone’s control again. This was her life and she was responsible for herself and her baby. She’d made this bed and she was determined to show herself that she could sleep in it.
“I relied on public assistance and bounced from job to job, first juggling pregnancy and then a tiny baby as I tried to earn enough to support us both. Then I found work with you.”
Those first few months after Clem’s birth had been super tough, but life had improved when she found steady work as a dishwasher at The Rollin’ Smoke. She’d met Charlie, the widowed mother of one of the servers, who ran a childcare service from home. Finally, after placing Clem with someone who was both affordable and loving, her confidence had grown. She’d pestered Joe to both teach and promote her, and the result was that she’d risen through the ranks at a record pace. Line chef in three months, sous chef in six, head chef within the next year.
“And sometime, I’m guessing recently, you bumped into Cam again. Probably at the restaurant, since Ryder Currin introduced him to my place.”
Nail on head. “Three months ago, I was off duty but I went into Rollin’ with Clem at lunchtime to check on my kitchen. You grabbed Clem and took her into the restaurant to meet the customers.”
“She is the grandchild of my heart.”
Vivi felt the hard ball of emotion clog her throat. “I looked through the kitchen window and saw two men sitting at the coveted VIP table.” And just like earlier, she’d found her head swimming and her throat constricting. She’d looked into that hard, sexy face and realized that her baby’s dad was eating at her restaurant.
“I asked Gemma who he was.”
She still remembered the words from the waitress. “The younger hottie is Camden McNeal, venture capitalist. He’s one of those guys who went from rags to fabulous riches in a heartbeat.” Gemma had added, grinning, “So sexy.”
He was. And his sexiness was the reason for the little girl she loved more than life itself.
“Since then I’ve wrestled with whether to contact McNeal, whether he had the right to know that he had a daughter,” she told Joe. “One day I’d decide it was the right thing to do, and the next I was convinced that it was better to leave him in the dark.”
They’d met when they were both poor, both in different places in their lives. They’d moved on from the people they were then, thank goodness, and while she was proud of her achievements, his rise to success had been stratospheric. According to her research—Google, mostly—he routinely refused personal interviews; it was reported that he was cynical, controlling and suspicious, not one for making friends easily.
“I kept thinking that if I showed up on his doorstep with Clementine, he’d accuse me of being a gold digger trying to cash in on his wealth. Or he’d want to take control of the situation. And of Clementine.”
“Well, that’s a moot point now, isn’t it?” Joe said, as blunt as always.
Maybe, but neither option was remotely acceptable. She didn’t want his money. Nothing was more important to her than making it on her own, and she certainly wouldn’t give Camden McNeal any say over her or her daughter’s life. She’d lived under her parents’ control, and she wasn’t ever going back to that.
And then there was the little problem of her still being utterly, completely, ridiculously attracted to him. As much, or more, than she was three years ago. She just needed to see a photo of him online and her lungs constricted and heat rushed between her legs.
Not something she wanted to think about when she was having a conversation with the person who’d stepped into her father’s shoes.
“But at the end of the day, Camden is, apart from my mother, Clem’s only biological relative. I was so worried that, if something happened to me, Margaret would petition the courts for custody of Clem.”
“I’d would’ve fought her,” Joe assured her.
He would and she loved him for it. “But, because you are close to seventy, Joe, and my mom is only in her early fifties, and a woman, she would’ve won. Even if I gave Clem to you, and I wanted to do that, I was told it would be easily challenged given your age and the fact that we’re not related. On legal advice, I updated my will to give Cam custody and put him as my emergency contact number in case something bad happened.”
And it so very nearly had.
And now, Camden McNeal, that gorgeous, billionaire badass, was back in her life.
* * *
He was the one thing he’d never thought he’d be.
In the hallway outside Vivi’s room, Cam lifted his hand and saw his shakes. As a young kid, six or seven years old, when his dad left him alone, for days on end, his hand had never shaken. When he’d scaled buildings and crept past sleeping couples to steal wallets and jewelry, he’d shrugged off the nerves and kept his cool. The day he was arrested and heard that his father wouldn’t bail him out, his hands hadn’t trembled.
He was a dad, he had a kid...
Life had finally found the one thing, the only thing, that terrified him. Cam rested his head on the wall and fought the urge to slide down its smooth surface. Slapping his palms on the cool surface, he locked his knees and pulled in rhythmic