Maya was his, and Elinah’s. Why couldn’t that be enough for his headstrong daughter?
Pushing those thoughts away, he glanced at Clementine again. God, he missed that, missed the time when his kids were young. Carrying them up to their rooms, then carrying Elinah to their bed.
Camden was—impatiently, he was sure—waiting for him to leave. Because Ryder knew it would annoy him, he accepted Vivi’s offer of a second cup of coffee. His mouth twitched at his friend’s scowl.
“Is the TCC meeting still on for tomorrow?” Cam asked.
Ryder nodded. “Yep.”
“Then I’ll see you there,” Cam hinted. Ryder smiled and ignored his not-so-subtle jerk of his head in the direction of the door.
Cam scowled at him again before releasing a resigned sigh. “You never told me how your meeting with Sterling Perry went last week, Ry. Did you challenge him to pistols at dawn? Or swords at sunset?”
Cam loved taking the piss out of him. He was one of the very few people he’d allowed to do that. “Sterling wasn’t available.”
But Angela Perry had been...
Ryder shifted in his chair. Holy hell, he was fifty years old and it had been a long time since he’d been that turned on. Oh, he’d had several affairs since Elinah died—he wasn’t a damned monk!—but those had always been about getting his rocks off. Kissing Angela had been...awesome. He’d have been happy to stand there and kiss her for another five, ten, fifty minutes. Since that kiss, his brain felt fried, and all he could think about was the way she stepped up and into him, laying those cool, pink lips on his. Her long, lean body with its subtle curves pressed into him made his head swim.
Dammit, he was utterly and completely attracted to Angela Perry—the daughter of his rival. What the hell was he going to do about it?
* * *
Cam noticed Ryder’s expression change and wondered at the hint of panic he saw on his old friend’s face. The bastard should’ve left a half hour ago and Cam knew, by the laughter dancing in his eyes, that he was hanging around purely to piss him off. But now the laughter was gone and worry turned his eyes a deeper shade of blue.
“Thank you, darlin’,” Ryder said, taking a glass of whiskey from Vivi, who resumed her place in the corner of the overstuffed leather sofa.
Vivi asked Ryder about his kids and Cam looked down at his child. Clem, dressed in pale purple pj’s with spotted dogs printed on them, was sprawled across his lap, legs and arms spread wide. Her eyelashes rested against her cheek, her perfect, rosebud mouth pursed. In sleep she looked like a porcelain doll, picture perfect. In real life, she was a walking, talking Energizer Bunny. The kid never, ever, stopped. Cam was an active guy, fit and strong, but Clem wore him out. Okay, she and her mother wore him out. The hours after Clem went to sleep were his and Vivi’s and they didn’t get to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.
It was as if they both realized that their time together was limited, that they had to take every moment given and enjoy every second. They were both acting like this couldn’t last, like they were living on borrowed time.
Cam looked down at Clem and reminded himself that he’d soon run out of excuses to keep Vivi and his daughter with him. At some point, they’d return to their cottage in Briarhills and he would be left alone in this house. He looked around at his informal, tastefully decorated living room and realized that the only thing giving the space warmth was Vivi’s presence.
Cam tuned out of their conversation, thinking about the way Vivi made him feel. He just had to look at her and his heart rate accelerated, his mouth dried up. He’d had lovers before but none, not even Emma, had made him feel so off balance. Sex had always been another basic function, something he enjoyed and forgot about. But sex with Vivi was different, wild and intoxicating. He couldn’t get enough of her.
Whatever was between them was different from anything he’d ever experienced and he had no clue how to handle it. Before Vivi and Clem, he’d been content to live his life alone, but now he didn’t know how he’d go back to that solitary life when they moved out.
He couldn’t define what he and Vivi had but it wasn’t meaningless. And he wasn’t enthusiastic about rambling around this mausoleum on his own. He liked hearing Clem’s high-pitched laughter, her tiny footsteps, her piping voice and her off-key singing. He liked coming home and seeing Vivi in his kitchen, sharing a glass of wine with her at the end of the day, watching her bathe their daughter. He wanted her to stick around and teach him how to be a dad, to let him share her bed and her body, have her explore his.