Cameron shivered. Needing relief from the thoughts racing through his head, he staggered to his feet and made his way to the bookshelves lining the wall. Pushing aside the largest volume of books, he reached between the two and extracted a bottle. Damn, he craved that first biting swallow.
But instead of opening it, he closed his eyes and cursed under his breath. Just as he carried the alcohol to bathroom and poured the entire contents down the toilet, the doorbell rang.
It was probably Boston. Kincaid was no doubt worried how things were going. He was annoyingly thoughtful that way. It’d been especially irritating right after Sienna had died, when Cam had wanted to be left alone the most. Yet, Boston stuck by his side through it all.
"Look, your concern is touching, Kincaid," Cameron muttered, yanking open the door. "But—"
His words died in his throat as he found himself face to face with Vivian Helbrock-Donovan-Roark. He blinked to clear his vision.
Vivian’s face filled with hatred, and her lip curled into a sneer. "I’ve come for my daughter," she stated in a stony, serious voice.
For some reason, a bolt of panic roared through Cameron. No! He didn’t want anyone to take Livy.
He needed her.
But then reality returned, and he realized Olivia wouldn’t go anywhere with her mother.
Relaxing, he sent Vivian a sympathetic look. "Sorry, honey. But you can’t have her."
"Look, you unethical little prick. You might have screwed me in that underhanded business dealing but—"
"Screwed you?" Cameron broke in incredulously. "I merely backed off my bid when I discovered my mother-in-law was the competition."
"—but you can’t have my daughter. I want her back. Now. And you were not thinking any such thing. You knew what would happen to me if I won that bid, you cocksucker. It’ll take me five years to regain all the capital I lost."
"Then maybe you shouldn’t have tried to undercut me," Cameron murmured, folding his arms over his chest and giving Vivian a steely look. Man, but he’d love to knock the wind out of her sails. It was too bad she wasn’t a man; he could’ve just punched her in the nose.
For a moment, Vivian’s face turned purple and Cameron wondered if she was going to keel over. But the older woman seemed to calm herself. She looked expectantly over Cameron’s shoulder into the house. "Where is she?"
"Why don’t we make a deal?" Cameron said instead of answering, aware Vivian had yet to call her daughter by her name. Something was clearly missing in the woman. Like a heart.
No way in hell did he want her anywhere near Livy, but, "If you let her remove all her possessions from your house, I’ll let you come visit her whenever she wants, and I’ll call a truce on the business level. I’ll stop screwing you over like you tried to do to me."
"I’m not making any deals with you, Banks," Vivian huffed. "Now, where’s—"
"Mother?" Olivia said in a startled voice from inside the living room.
Cameron spun around just as Vivian charged past him into the house.
"Olivia!" she cried out in relief.
Okay, so the lady remembered her name after all. So what? That didn’t mean—
Cameron briefly thought the old broad was going to throw herself at her daughter’s feet and wrap her arms around Olivia’s ankles, kissing the very ground she stood upon. Olivia looked like she was thinking similar thoughts because she skipped a nervous step back.
"Olivia," Vivian repeated, sending her a desperate smile as she reached for her daughter’s arm. "You’re coming home with me. Right now."
Olivia pulled her hand away before her mother could catch her. "What?" She cast an accusing look Cameron’s way as if this were all his doing. Then her gaze veered back to Vivian. "No. I don’t think so."
"But, Olivia. You have to. I want—no, I need—you back, darling."
Darling? Cameron watched Olivia’s face as she blinked rapidly, clearly bowled over by the term as well.
Vivian sent her a tenuous, begging smile. Her lips quivered; Cameron almost swore he saw a tear in the bitch’s eye. "But you’re my little hostess, sweetheart. I can’t—nothing’s been the same since you left." Then, lifting the back of her hand to her mouth, she sniffed, like she really was crying. "Nolan’s dead."
Olivia stumbled back a step, her eyes growing large. "Dead?" she repeated. "How? When?"
"We buried him yesterday. It was a massive stroke. He…" Vivian’s voice choked; she paused a dramatic moment. "Too many clogged arteries."