He Chose His First Love. I Own His Empire. novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Camille's Price
"Walk," I said. "Not a word until we're inside."
Camille followed me up the lawn with her phone held in both hands.
The lights were already on in the lake house sunroom.
Odile sat in her chair with a blanket across her knees and the oxygen tank at her side, because she never slept past five.
She looked at Camille and then at me, and she did not look surprised.
"Sit," Odile said to Camille. "Not there. In that chair, where I can see your hands."
Camille sat on the edge of the wicker seat.
"Hallie tells me you have something to play."
"Yes, Mrs. Aldrich."
"Then play it from the start. And don't explain it."
Camille pressed the screen and set the phone on the table between us.
A car door shut, and an engine idled.
Adaline's voice came first, clipped and cool. "You were steady in there. Don't let it show that you weren't."
"She had it in her pocket, Mother," Dalton said. "A pastry cook had Gran's ring in her pocket for a year."
"Then stop treating her like a cook. She's a lock on a door. Once it's born, she'll sign whatever I put in front of her. She always does."
I listened to my husband and felt nothing at all, and that surprised me.
Adaline had not finished.
"She'll fight for the baby, so we take the thing she can't fight for. Her mother. Maple Court answers to the hotel's benefit office, and the benefit office answers to this family. Move the mother out first, and Hallie will beg us for it."
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