Penthouse Prince (10 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Riding high on the success of his zoo surprise, Camden whistled as he headed downstairs on the elevator. Due to his many issues with his father growing up, he’d always assumed he’d be as horrible of a parent as his dad had been. Yet being around Kaycee made the idea of having children—previously abhorrent—more appealing since his relationship with Kaycee pleased and satisfied him in a way he’d never expected. .

The added perk of Jeanie’s response to his gift left him soaring. Knowing the two of them stayed in the apartment while he headed down to meet with Lowe in the building coffee shop—preparing for naptime, safe at home—warmed him.

Home
.

Funny, it’d always been the penthouse or the city apartment when he’d thought of it before, not home. It took Jeanie and Kaycee to turn the rooms into that impossibility. Home meant family, another pipe dream he’d long ago decided only fools believed in, like love. It seemed the ladies in his life were determined to try to change his mind about a lot of his established truths.

Glancing at his cell phone, he strode out of the elevator, only stopping when a woman blocked his path. Her gray-streaked hair reminded him of Jeanie—what her golden curls might look like in a few decades or so. A quick scan of her from head to toe revealed more similarities—his bride-to-be might look
just
like this woman in a few decades, depending on her life choices.

Could they be related? But that couldn’t be. Jeanie had said she didn’t have any relatives to call.

Could it be the mysterious
her
in the text messages?

He thought of the terror etched on her face each time a text came in.

Pieces clicked into place, but he was still missing a few integral parts to create a whole. “Can I help you?” Polite, distant, unconcerned. He guarded his tone even as he rattled through possibilities in his mind.

“Perhaps. Do you have a minute, so we could speak privately?” The woman’s voice sounded far huskier than Jeanie’s, marking her a smoker if he hadn’t already caught a whiff of the smell.

“I’m a very busy man…” He trailed off and started to move away from her, but the woman caught his arm. “I’m sorry, do I know you?” He looked at her hand as if it were no more than an irritating bug that had landed on his suit.

“You don’t know me, but you will. Mr. James, it will only take a moment of your precious time. I’m sure you can spare that.” Sharper edges, gleaming dangerously, marked drastic differences between her and his fiancée. This woman? She reminded him more of himself—a practiced liar and a cold-hearted bitch.

He twisted his lips to keep his irritation obvious. “Vagueing it up isn’t buying you more time. If I were you, I’d talk fast before I have security remove you from the premises.”

“Fine. You know my daughters.” A smile gave away her glee at her hope he’d pepper her with questions.

“I know a lot of daughters. Women have a thing for me. Maybe you should start a fan club. Great talking to you, but—”

“Jeanie Long.” She snapped the name out and shifted from foot to foot. “You’re engaged to my daughter. And soon, I’ll be your mother-in-law. Do you have a minute for me now?”

Her mother?
Keeping his face neutral, he tried again to fit the pieces into place.
Still missing bits…
“I think, if you were her mother, she’d have mentioned you if you carried any value to her. Since she hasn’t, if you’ll excuse me…”

The hand on his arm tightened. “I said daughters, Mr. James. Kaycee Long is also my daughter.”

She waited, and he considered her in silence, mind whirring to process the information. He finally asked, “Kaycee is
your
daughter?”

The smile that slipped across her features said nothing about happiness and everything about triumph. “Yes, and if you want to keep up whatever lies you and my daughter are weaving…”

He nodded. She still didn’t offer to explain why her daughter raised her other daughter. The dad? He believed Jeanie—the man probably died a hero. This snake? “Fine, I can give you five minutes. If you’ll follow me?”

Leading her down a hallway, he tripped through possible explanations, but none sufficed.

He opened the door and gestured for her to enter the unoccupied office. She did and stood, back to him, and he waited for her to begin. After all, she’d asked to talk to him, not vice versa.

“My name is Calliope Long, since you’re apparently not going to ask. I’m not sure how you got tangled up in this, but you’re part of it now, since you put a ring on her finger. I’m also not sure what lies Jeanie told you, but I’m here to reveal the truth.”

He crossed his arms. “Which is?”

“Their father entered the military when Jeanie was still a very little girl. He came home between tours, but a medic is always needed and our country is constantly at war, so I’m sure you can guess how hard it was for me to be a single mother to an impetuous child, like Jeanie. I raised her, though, on my own for years. She finally grew up, was headed out on her own to go to college, when I found out I would be having another child. Imagine my surprise—no one expects a baby when they’re forty. Shortly after I had Kaycee, Garrett died. They held a beautiful funeral for him, and I tried to get past my heartbreak to be the mother Kaycee needed…” She looked back at him, and the woman’s green eyes—so like Jeanie’s, yet so very not—blinked back tears.

“Sob story, okay,” he said. “Poor widow, you. This doesn’t explain anything, and I’m getting bored. Can we fast forward to why your daughter is raising your other daughter?” He glanced at his watch, just to further rile Calliope.

Calliope smacked the table—the mother apparently thrived on drama the daughter wouldn’t have bothered with—and went from teary to eyes flashing in a beat. “Jeanie doesn’t think I’m a good mother, doesn’t understand what I gave up for her. She demanded Kaycee, threatened me. She agreed to make sure I would be safe, and I’m not. My home—I’m about to lose my home. How does it make the Penthouse Prince look? If you leave the mother of his wife-to-be homeless, if you don’t do a thing to help her? And her, a veteran’s widow… I came to you to ask for help, just enough to save my house. Is that so wrong?”

Ah
. The pieces finally clicked. “Let me get this straight…your daughter is raising your child, and you wanted
her
to also take care of
you
? What about the pension—oh, are you cheating the government? Collecting checks intended for Kaycee while Jeanie busts her ass to support herself and her sister?”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know our family. If you don’t help me, I’ll go to the press and—”

He loomed over her and got in her face. “Go. You go to the press, and you tell them that you’ve been scamming the US military for more than five years. You go tell them your boo-hoo story about how mean that woman—” he paused and pointed up “—has been to you. I dare you. If you even attempt it, I will destroy you faster than you can blink.”

“Now just a minute here—”

“Homeless? I have a fleet of lawyers who will be on you like white on rice so fast your fucking head will spin.” He straightened his shoulders. “Leave Jeanie alone, leave Kaycee alone, and while you’re at it, leave me alone. You’re small time, no class, and you don’t deserve the children you birthed. They’re both a hundred times the women you will ever be. If I see one more text come from you to her, I’m coming after you. Every resource at my disposal? Aimed your way. If you want a fight, you found it. Like I said, go to the press. I. Fucking. Dare. You.”

With that, he spun from the room and left her.

Chapter Nineteen

They were getting married.

Not just talking about getting married. They were actually going through with it.

Her palms sweated, her hands shook, and she thought everyone must see through her.

Instead, silver trays laden with small hors d’oeuvres and flutes of champagne circled past her on the arms of wait staff as the wealthy and elite gathered to celebrate her engagement. A glance at Camden showed him in his element, cool smile in place, ready to shake hands and clap men on their shoulders. Not phased in the least when an actor paused near them and grinned his famous, heart-stopping smile, or a famous actress asked about their summer plans.

She wasn’t sure she could feel like more of a fake than she did tonight.

Threading their fingers together, he leaned close and whispered, “How you holding up?”

“I keep expecting someone to jump out and tell me I’m being punked, but other than that, fantastic.”

His laughter rolled over her, and she tried to reconcile the different parts of him. Man bent on controlling a company? Check. Man who rubbed elbows with the glamorous and the elite? Check. Insomniac who could hold her for the whole night and leave her feeling safe and cherished? Check. Man who bought a zoo because a five-year-old was promised a vacation? Check. Man who could make her come alive and…

Memories of the limo and their meeting in the hallway shimmered to life, electrifying her skin. Man who could leave her breathless and a little dizzy with just the memory of his touch? Check.

Which was the real Camden James? All of them? None of them?

She wasn’t sure anymore. The more time she spent with him, the more confused she became, and the more tangled in the web of lies she got.

The night wound on, and her feet hurt. She didn’t resist when he offered their good-byes. She didn’t even murmur a word of dissent as he stood next to her on the ride in the elevator up from the building’s ballroom—
because everyone owned a building with its own coffee shop and ballroom
. She kept herself stiff. Neither touching him nor saying a word, she quickly escaped the daunting presence of him to head to her own rooms.

A white dress hung in the walk-in closet—a closet he’d steadily filled with a wardrobe to fit a princess, or the wife of the most eligible bachelor of the year—and she paused to consider it.

Every little girl dreamed of happily ever after. When she was a kid, she remembered believing in handsome princes and men of honor, like her dad.

But she grew up fast when he’d shipped out, and she was left with her mother. Her mother would sell off furniture, jewelry…whatever she could get her hands on to further her own wardrobe and would no doubt wriggle in jealousy if she could glance at the rainbow of expensive costumes—because that’s what they were, costumes to make a regular woman into a princess—hanging in her daughter’s closet.

The better the clothes, the better man you can snag.

That’d been Calliope Long’s motto. Men were like fish. She’d always advised Jeanie to pick her lure, draw them in, and throw the little ones back
.
Her mother was of the opinion that men only wanted one thing and the one with the best lures drew in the best men.

The echo of her mother’s words chilled Jeanie. When she was young, she didn’t see her mother for the cheating, manipulative bitch she was. She’d just seen her beautiful mother, who men flocked to and women wanted to be like.

As a teenager, she’d realized the parade of men, while her father fought overseas, meant Mom cheated on Dad. But what could a kid say? Should a child have that kind of power, to be able to destroy a marriage with a confession?

At least it was just her back then, and she could escape. Her father, bless the wonderful man, devoted himself to his family, his wife, his country. Maybe he had his flaws—God knew, he had a broken picker based on his wife—but Jeanie never saw them. She saw a hero. The video chat when she told him she’d been accepted into school, that she’d earned a scholarship…he’d beamed his pride at her.

Then he’d died.

The void of that loss—the knowledge it was just her and her mother forever more—really hurt. She already didn’t trust men. Her mother proved time and again that love wasn’t something men cared about, since she indiscriminately had relationships with both married and single men while she wore the gold band of her commitment to Jeanie’s dad.

Jeanie kept people at arm’s length, even before he died, because she feared being blind to the kind of betrayal people like her mother could commit. The loss of the one man who represented
good
and
safe
separated Jeanie from her family, too.

Until she learned her mother carried Kaycee.

Without her father in the picture, Jeanie could only imagine the future of her sister. Drinking heavier than ever before—because of her supposed grief—Calliope might not even carry to term…

But she had. At the hospital, Jeanie headed to the nursery to hold the tiny baby. So pink. So new. So helpless…

And Jeanie knew what she had to do.

Her mother disagreed, at first. “She’s my child, Jeanie. Why would I give her to you?”

Until she pointed out her mother could keep the pension, keep whatever the military provided for military children. It didn’t matter, she didn’t need it.

She only wanted Kaycee.

Jeanie could almost see the ticking, spinning wheels in her mother’s head. Jeanie didn’t foresee years of blackmail—always something more—but it didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter.

Kaycee became her focus, her world.

She did okay, too. They had a home, and it might not have been the best home, but it was theirs. Lori became family, something more than Jeanie expected and yet dear and treasured. When they’d first met, Lori had watched Kaycee while Jeanie worked. Lori’d slowly wiggled her way behind the walls, until Jeanie could count at least her as trusted family.

Now, Jeanie stood on the eve of her own wedding. Was it any less a lie than her mother’s wedding? She’d married a man who bought and paid for her. The white dress symbolized the childhood dream—the one about a real family, where people cared about each other and the man could be a hero—shattering in the glaring light of reality.

But for Kaycee? If he married her and accepted Kaycee as part of the package, Kaycee would never want for another thing. He could offer her so much more than Jeanie dreamed of providing.

And…she
liked
him. She damned herself for it, but at some point the lie had become fact. She might even love him.

Did it matter that he didn’t love her? She’d never imagined she’d be with a man who didn’t. But she’d seen couples who had far less chemistry say they loved each other. Was it possible what Camden was offering could be enough?

Swallowing hard, she removed the gown she’d worn that evening, scrubbed her face hard to wash away the tears her study of the bridal gown caused, and pulled on comfortable pajamas.

Staring at the bed, she couldn’t imagine sleeping. Her mother loomed—no new texts, but surely there would be more—obviously aware of the coming wedding. Was she waiting? Biding her time to swoop in and ask for more?

And there was the wedding. She’d walk down the aisle tomorrow, say
I do
, and promise to love and cherish a man who she might actually love…

But for how long? How long until he changed his mind? How long until he went back to his normal life, once the shares from his father were secured?

How long until the world watched her fall from the tower, discarded like a sandwich wrapper, because the Penthouse Prince didn’t need her anymore?

Unable to sit still a moment longer, she went in search of him and found him not in his nightly position by the windows—likely too early—but instead sitting behind his desk and on a call. He waved her into a seat before rolling his eyes at the caller and obviously trying to bring it to a close. In the moments he worked to end the conversation, her bravado began to falter.

Yet when he sat the phone down and steepled his fingers, she realized it was then or never. “I want to talk about the wedding.”

He didn’t answer, silently tapping his fingertips together and waiting patiently for her to continue.

“I’ve been thinking about everything you’ve said. About your lawyers looking for loopholes and the time running out…” Her mouth went dry, so she swallowed hard. She couldn’t tell him part of her wanted to be married to him. Wanted to see where his kisses led and be around when he dropped the mask and the man underneath showed through. Instead, she went the logical route. “We’ve both been desperate to find a way out of this, but I have decided you were right. This is a good idea, the getting married.”

After a moment, he said, “I thought this was settled. How do I know you’re not just hesitating again?”

“You’ll get what you want, I’ll get what I want. I just wanted you to know that I’m on board, that I agree fully to the plan.”

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t force herself to look at him. He’d been the one who pointed out that it could give them both what they wanted, after all, but what if he’d changed his mind? What if his rational brain realized he could find another way, or maybe wait for the Hail Mary pass that would get him out of making a pretend fiancée into a real life bride?

Worse, what if he simply laughed at her, the whole thing nothing more than a joke for him, and she’d just given him the punch line?

He’d stopped tapping his fingers, and yet didn’t answer for a notable amount of time. When he spoke, he broke the silence, and she jerked, startled at the sound of his voice in the otherwise quiet penthouse.

“You’re saying you’ll walk down that aisle tomorrow and agree to be my wife? To make this a much longer agreement and an actual binding contract rather than something I scraped together in a matter of minutes on the fly?”

Since he didn’t sound appalled or on the verge of laughter, she met his gaze. His face was perfectly composed and blank.

She twisted her hands together. “Basically, yes. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Her mind rattled off a list of things—she could fall entirely in love with him, he could get bored with her and regret his choice, he could meet someone else, someone more suited to his life and lifestyle…

But he nodded. “I did mention that it would work wonderfully for me, since it would suit me to have a wife without the downfalls of being married. We’d both go into it knowing and understanding where we stood rather than being full of the dewy eyed idiocy most modern marriages are destroyed by over time.”

He wasn’t disagreeing, and being married to him would ensure Kaycee would be provided for, not to mention being married to him wasn’t likely to be a bad job. It certainly would have some perks, since if he made love like he kissed…

Heat flooded up her neck, and she would bet her cheeks were so red as to resemble flags plastered across her cheeks. It was a very good thing he couldn’t read her mind. “Exactly,” she agreed.

“So tomorrow we do it? We get married.”

Again, she found herself unable to meet his gaze, so she focused on his collar as she nodded. The collar moved, and she realized he’d offered his hand. Shaking it awkwardly, she gnawed her lips until she’d ensured she regained the ability to speak without stammering. “Agreed. Tomorrow, we get married.”

Once the words were spoken, she slipped her hand out of his and practically ran back to her room. Staring at the gown, still hanging in silent accusation, she bit down on her knuckle before moving back to the window to gaze into the night. “Oh, I hope I’m making the right choice.”

The cityscape below, though, offered no answers.