Chapter 38 Olivia #2
Before I can spiral too far, Taras returns with my wide-eyed assistant trailing behind him. Camille’s eyes dart frantically around the foyer, taking in the hand-carved crown molding and the wrought iron staircase railing.
“Holy. Fucking. Shitballs. Livvy, this place is huge!” She runs over to me and clutches my arm, manicured talons digging into my skin, eyes bugging right out of her head. “We’re standing under a crystal chandelier right now. If it fell, we’d both be crushed. Death by Tiffany diamonds.”
Taras chuckles. It’s only then that we both seem to remember he’s still in the room with us.
Camille hitches a thumb at him. “Also, your new bodyguard needs to work on his bedside manner. He thought I was breaking in.”
“Because you were,” Taras retorts.
Camille narrows her eyes over her shoulder at him. “I think you’re dismissed now. Right, Olivia?”
She says it like I have any control over Taras. I meet his eyes, and thankfully, he looks bemused rather than pissed. “I’ll dismiss myself so you two can talk.”
He turns to go. I try to pull Camille along because, if I know anything about Stefan’s methods, Taras will probably end up just lurking around the corner, eavesdropping and taking notes.
But Camille is rooted to the spot. “Olivia Aster. Are you living here with him?!”
“With Taras? No, he’s just—”
“Not him, dummy!” She flings her hands. Then her voice drops to a dramatic stage whisper that Taras can undoubtedly still hear. “What happened to ‘He’s just a potential investor, Camille’? Huh? You don’t usually have sexy sleepovers with potential investors.”
She’s right; I don’t.
Until now.
As good as I felt just before opening my eyes today, I now feel disgusting. Maybe I really am no better than Rebecca Walsh.
“It’s… complicated,” I mutter as I finally succeed in dragging her toward the guest room.
We get halfway there before she stops again and spins around to face me. “Yesterday, you were making me run ethics checks on potential surrogates. Today, you’re shacking up in Billionaire Sex Castle? That’s a hell of a lot more than ‘complicated,’ girl!”
“Keep your voice down!” I glance toward where Taras disappeared.
“Did you seduce him? Did he seduce you? Is this some Beauty and the Beast situation where you’re trapped until you fall in love? Because I’m getting serious Stockholm vibes—”
“Camille!” The last thread of my patience snaps. “Can we please focus on why you tried to break into my apartment this morning?”
That finally slows her roll. “I didn’t break in. I have a key, remember? For plant-watering emergencies.” She trails her finger along a side table. “For real, though, Liv. Did you, like, sign something? A contract? This screams non-disclosure agreement territory.”
I pull her into the guest room and shut the door firmly behind us.
“Fine, don’t tell me.” She pouts, but her attention is already wandering. “Good Lord, is that a Monet? Like, an actual, real, ‘belongs-in-a-museum’ Monet?”
She points to a painting hanging across the room. Soft blues and water lilies. I wish I felt half as calm as it looks.
“Camille! Focus!” I snap my fingers to draw her eyes back to me. “What was so important that you had to track me down here?”
She tears her gaze away from the artwork with visible effort and looks annoyed that she does actually have a reason for being here. “This is not what I want to be talking about, but there are actually two pieces of amazing news. I tried to call you last night, but you weren’t answering your phone.”
X-rated flashes of what I was doing last night flicker in my mind. I swear Camille can see them, too. She smirks knowingly.
“So, I stopped by this morning because I was impatient.” She takes a deep breath, letting the anticipation build before she practically shrieks, “Someone made an anonymous donation to the clinic! Honestly, I was half-tempted to steal it and go start over with a brand new life in a foreign country. We’re talking the kind of donation that should be delivered with suits in dark sunglasses and briefcases.
It’s enough to buy all the new equipment we’ve been dreaming about and then some. ”
My heart stutters. Stefan. It has to be.
“Any idea where that might’ve come from? Any ideas at aaalll?” Camille sing-songs the question, making it clear she already knows.
I cross my arms over my chest—over the sweatshirt Stefan apparently bought for me—and feel disgustingly cheap. “Nope.”
“Righty-o then. Well, second order of business,” Camille continues, “is that I just had a phone interview with a potential new client this morning. Older woman, very private, but seems to be loaded. Said Dr. Heller from Mass Gen referred her. Also—and you’re gonna love this—she said she’s interested in investing in the clinic, too. ”
Now, that I have no explanation for.
“That’s… incredible.” I feel hope flutter to life, fragile as a newly-formed embryo. Two financial lifelines in one morning? After months of suffocating in my own misery, the sudden abundance of oxygen is almost dizzying.
“She wants to meet you. Today. In private.”
Never mind. As fast as hope soared, my heart sinks. “I can’t. I can’t… leave. I’m—”
Well, there’s no way to explain that I was shot at yesterday and don’t currently own a pair of shoes.
“I know what you are.” Camille waggles her eyebrows. “And I have a feeling you can convince your Russian sugar daddy to let you out of his sex lair for a few hours.”
My face flames, at both Camille understanding way too much about this arrangement for my liking and also at the thought of asking Stefan for permission to leave.
It makes something rebellious curl in my stomach. I’m a grown woman, a doctor, not some medieval concubine to be locked away in a tower.
“I’m not going to use sex to manipulate him into—”
“Into what?” Camille’s grin is positively wicked. “Into letting you go to a meeting? Because it sure looks like you already used sex for something.”
She taps my neck, and my hand flies over the place where my collar has slipped low, revealing hickeys where Stefan’s mouth marked me last night.
I flush bright red, but Camille just laughs. “Don’t worry; I never judge. If a man was willing to do that to me, I’d go off the grid, too. Good boinking makes people do crazy things.”
Like accidentally start falling for your contractually obligated baby daddy.
But she’s not wrong: Sex does make people do crazy things. And as I sit here and wonder just what the hell my next move should be, it occurs to me that maybe I’m not the only one feeling a little loopy this morning.
It takes two to tango, doesn’t it? So what if I’m not alone in this? What if I have a sneaking suspicion that Stefan might be just as lost in the hot-and-heavy madness of our arrangement as I am?
So fuck it. He’s not the only one who can throw a scheme together. If we can’t be alone in a room together without losing our minds—and our clothes—I might as well use it to my advantage.
Matter of fact, a big part of me is desperately looking forward to it.
I bite my lip to hide an eager smile. “Tell the client I’ll be there. No matter what it takes.”