Hot Commodity (Banks / Kincaid Family #1)(59)

gunned the engine and took off.

Cameron sucked in a quiet breath and refrained from latching onto something for support as they neared a tight curve. "So…" he started nonchalantly. "Nice weather, we’re having today. Bright and sunny. Not a cloud in the sky."

Remembering their first morning in Vegas, Cameron watched Olivia ignore him as she sped even faster.

He gnashed his teeth and stared out the side window so he couldn’t see how recklessly she drove. He tried talking to her some more, but she completely ignored him. His humorous monologue should’ve had her cracking up with laughter, but she merely stared stonily ahead.

Cameron started to grow frantic. Why was she so mad at him, anyway? Who cared if he’d been playing pool? Who cared if he hadn’t gotten started on the annulment yet? Why was she suddenly in a rush? Was he such an awful roommate?

As she veered around a corner, the tires broke loose and squealed. Cameron grabbed hold of the dash for dear life. "Holy—" he started to swear and then glanced over at her irritably. "Why are you so eager about this annulment anyway?" he muttered, finally getting to the meat of the problem. "It’s not like you have somewhere more important to go."

He realized he’d just said the wrong thing a split second after the words left his mouth.

"Actually, I was coming to tell you about the job I started today," she hissed. "I even got paid. Real money."

The breath whooshed from his lungs. Oh God. She was leaving?

"Really? That’s great," he said, after clearing his throat. "Uh, where is it? What’ll you be doing?"

She screeched to a stop in their drive, hurled herself out of the seat and slammed the door, stomping toward the house.

"Okay, then," Cam said to himself, since there was no one else around to address.

He opened the passenger side just in time to hear her slam the door into the house as well. Cameron blew out a breath.

Slowly, he exited the car and loped to the entrance. He could hear her stomping up the stairs and slamming more doors as he eased carefully inside. She went straight to her room, the one she’d stayed in only one night so far. He knew this wasn’t the best time to mess with her, but he didn’t have anything else to do, so he strolled up the stairs.

The sound of glass breaking in the bathroom followed by a cry of pain caused him to pause. "Livy?"

He rushed forward. When he reached the opened doorway to the private bath, the breath whooshed from his lungs. He came to a dead stop.

It was like stepping ten years into the past. As fresh as if it were yesterday, the vision hit him suddenly of Sienna lifting her face with guilty triumph and flipping over her wrists to show him her knife work. He’d nearly fallen to his knees when he’d seen the blood.

"Oh, God, Sienna. What have you done?"

"Just let me go," she said weakly as she glanced down awe-struck by the red stream pumping from her veins.

He grit his teeth, not even aware tears were flowing down his cheeks. "No." His voice was hoarse as he flew to her side. "No!"

But he didn’t use such dramatics with Olivia. It only took a moment to take in the situation. The wall mirror was shattered and pills from an opened container had been spilled out and were scattered among broken glass.

Cameron lifted accusing eyes. She held a large chunk of mirror in her shaking hand; it dripped with red ooze. Blood squirted from her wrist.

Her face went sheet white as she looked up with wide, scared eyes.

Oh, God.

Not again.

Without saying a word, he grimly marched into the bathroom and went to work. Snatching a white hand towel, he pressed it against the wound on her wrist, mummifying her entire arm as he wrapped her. When blood instantly soaked through the terrycloth, Olivia let out a gasp, and her knees gave way.

Cameron cursed and caught her before she hit the floor. She grabbed his shirt and held on for dear life.

He took her free hand, manually setting it over the wound. "Hold this," he said. "Press it tight."

Olivia followed his directions but looked away as she did, tucking her face against his chest as if seeking comfort.

Not wasting a second, he scooped her up into his arms and carried her downstairs and out to his car. Refusing to feel anything, Cam set her in the passenger seat and buckled her in.

Other than his two gruff instructions, he didn’t speak to her. He merely drove fast all the way to the hospital. Looking too scared and pale to talk either, Olivia held her hand over the towel, trembling, and refused to look at all the blood. Cameron glanced over once to see the sticky, red wetness seeping between her fingers. He pressed his foot harder on the gas.

All the while, he shook his head and gnashed his teeth. Explosive words bubbled to the surface, but he kept swallowing them back down. This woman wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t going to waste any time lecturing her. It didn’t involve him. He kept repeating that to himself even as the anger turned to panic, and he felt like crying for the fate that had been handed to him.

Why? Why had she done it?

*

Olivia felt like a complete nimrod. She’d never been so foolish and

asinine in her entire life. She was just lucky Cameron had been there to keep a level head and get her to a hospital.

Like a knight in shining armor, he’d swept into the bathroom and taken control of the situation. And now she was sitting in an emergency room, waiting for someone to come back and release her. Eight stitches had patched her wrist back together.