AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I was never one to smooth situations over with an insinceredon’t worry about it, and I didn’t now. I tasted the wine instead and waited.
“I also won’t pretend like it wasn’t money that brought me back.” Cami’s dark eyes fell to the ruby liquid in her glass. She twisted it around by the stem without drinking it. “We both know it was, but–”
I cut her off. “If you think I’m just going to write you a check, you’re dead wrong, Cami.”
“No,no. I’m not asking you to just write me a check.” Her eyes widened in what looked like genuine surprise. Again, I searched for artifice and found none. “I said I had a business proposal, not a charitable request.”
I’d assumed the two were interchangeable in her mind, but I tried not to let my skepticism show on my face. “Then let’s hear it.”
To my surprise, Cami pulled a notebook-sized, wafer-thin computer from her purse.
Despite the circumstances, I had to struggle not to laugh. “You made an actual business plan?”
Her lips curved into a small, embarrassed smile. “Not exactly. I have an Excel sheet.” She turned the screen toward me and began to explain. My eyes scanned the columns of numbers with interest. She wanted to go to a Naturopath program at Cal State.
The LA campus, I noted. Good.
She had included the cost of the program she wanted to do, breaking it down by year based on how many classes she’d take each semester. She’d ballparked the cost of books. I was more interested in the costs associated with Emma, though.
“She’s out of diapers now, so that’s a big savings,” Cami said. “Not that I thought about it back then, but when I look back at how much I spent, it’s hard to believe.” She shrugged her bare shoulders, making the thin burgundy straps slip across her clavicle. Her skin was golden, her tan deeper than it had been four years ago. I refused to let my gaze linger on it though. I needed to pay attention to the bottom line. Cami was in the middle of saying something about how expensive daycare was, but I interrupted her.
“You’re going to graduate from this program with almost three-hundred thousand dollars in debt.”
Cami nodded grimly. “I know. It’s expensive, and no one is going to give someone like me a grant or a scholarship. And I have to factor in the cost-of-living expenses and Emma. But as you can see on the next tab, I have a plan to pay you back in–” she bit her lip “--ten years. Hopefully faster.”
I skimmed that tab. It was too ambitious. Fifteen years was more reasonable, if she wanted to live somewhere other than a slum while she built her Naturopath practice. “You aren’t factoring in child support,” I noted. “Why not?” I knew it couldn’t have been an oversight. She’d been too thorough and meticulous about everything else.
Cami lifted her chin and met my eyes. “I’m not asking you for child support. Not if you loan me the money at this interest rate that’s lower than any student loan program would give me. I feel like one offsets the other.”
“It doesn’t.” I knew a little something about this from my friend Con, who had paid child support for his oldest daughter until she turned eighteen. “Someone making what I do would be paying you ten thousand a month. You’d have more than enough to live on and go to school with.”
“Ten thousand,” Cami said incredulously. “Are you really so–” she cut herself off, a faint flush rising to her cheeks.
“Rich?” I finished blandly. “Yes. I thought you knew.”
She shook her head. “No. Not really. It doesn’t matter, though. I don’t want to take your money like that. I want a fair, honest arrangement.”
I didn’t note the irony of her wanting anhonestarrangement after four years of lies. I swirled the wine around in the base of the glass, wondering what the hell the right thing to do was. I wasn’t going to accept these ludicrous terms that kept her indentured to me for the next ten years, at least. No matter how it had come about, she was the mother of my child. I would make sure they were both taken care of. Which brought me to the crux of the matter.
“You also didn’t say anything about custody,” I said. “I hope you don’t think you’re going to keep my daughter from me any longer than you already have.”
Cami shook her head, but I wasn’t done.
“You can’t buy her from me, if that’s what this plan is about. I will pay child support, and I will be in her life. Those terms are nonnegotiable.”
“No, I’m not trying to keep her from you,” Cami said, daring to be incredulous. “That’s not what this is about. I’ve already worked out in my head how we should do it. We’ll spend time with her together at first, and then when she’s comfortable with you, you can take her for whole mornings or afternoons–she still naps between noon and two. Then, after that, weekends, and we’ll see from there.”
It sounded fair enough, but the matter of child support was still an issue. I poured another glass of wine. “I’ll get in touch with a custody lawyer tomorrow. They’ll help us work out what’s fair. Then, if you need a loan on top of that, we can revisit the subject.”
“I’d hoped we could avoid lawyers,” Cami murmured unhappily.
After everything she had been through with theLavigne Beautylawsuits, I didn’t blame her. But in my view, she was putting the blame on the wrong party. Lawyers hadn’t ruined her family’s business – Elyna and Robert had done that themselves with their questionable business practices. I studied her, wondering if she knew that. Cami was no fool, but she had a blind spot a mile wide for her parents. And who knew what explanation Elyna had spun to explain why this wasn’t her fault at all. I imagined it was some fairy tale involving wicked consultants who were too lazy to sell their product conspiring with the profiteering lawyers to take down the innocent figurehead.
Either way, it wasn’t my job to break the news to her. My business with Cami started and ended with Emma. “There will be lawyers,” I said firmly. “I’ll have Potts arrange it and let you know when to come in again.”
That brought a glimmer of a smile to her lips. “Potts must have her work cut out for her, working for you.”
I thought Potts had had it pretty easy until Cami reappeared in my life, but I didn’t tell her that. Cami didn’t need to know that I didn’t generally use Potts as my middleman. She didn’t need to wonder why I was so hell bent on keeping her at a distance.
