Page 58 of Hot Commodity (Banks/Kincaid Family 1)

His parents.

The couple standing on the other side of the threshold pulled back when they saw her. She knew exactly who they were from the pictures she'd seen of them. The pictures she was currently turning into a scrapbook.

Still lacking the ability to move, Olivia stared with wide eyes. The man and woman stared back a moment before Cameron's father smiled, a light flirtatious grin that reminded her of Cam at his best.

"Well, hello there," he greeted her pleasantly. "Is Cameron around?"

Olivia licked her lips and was embarrassed to discover a glob of mayonnaise on the corner of her mouth.

Face heating, she slapped her hand over the spot and wiped furiously. "Uh, yeah," she answered in a muffled voice as she stepped aside to let them enter. "He's, um, on the phone with Boston."

Though both parents nodded with understanding, neither seemed concerned about going to find him. They were far more preoccupied with studying her.

"We're his parents," the man said. "I'm Chuck Banks. And this lovely vision here is my wife, Allison."

He stepped toward her and cordially held out his hand. Olivia shook it and then turned to Allison Banks. Cameron's mother smiled shyly and offered her fingers.

Okay, this was surreal, Olivia decided. Meeting the in-laws. If only they knew who she was, they would in no way be so pleasant to her.

She wondered if she should introduce herself at this point, but what in the world would she say? Hi, I'm the woman that trapped your little boy into marriage. Yeah, that'd go over real well.

"It's nice to meet you," Allison said quietly, smiling at Olivia. "You're...a friend of Cameron's?"

Olivia paused. "Uh…" How to break it to them? "No, not quite. I'm…I'm…" Hmm.

From behind them, Cameron appeared. "This is Olivia," he said from the doorway.

Allison and Chuck turned back together to look at Cameron. Olivia frowned at him. He'd found some alcohol somewhere, she could tell it immediately by his smile. He only gave off that pleasantly content look when he had liquor in him. And he'd only been gone a few minutes. How had he found the time to talk to Boston and drink?

~ * ~

Cameron jammed his hands into his pockets. He'd been hoping to hold off this little scene for a while longer. But now that Mom and Dad were here, there was no getting around it. Olivia looked as if she'd just swallowed a bowling pin. She kept glancing at him as if searching for some kind of silent command from him on what to do.

He turned to his parents and announced, "She's my wife."

Olivia's face turned bright red as Allison and Chuck both whirled back around to blink at her.

"But don't worry," Cameron went on to explain. "It won't last long. The marriage was a mistake."

Allison gasped. "Cameron," she whispered in horror, looking worriedly toward Olivia.

Cameron flushed. "Sorry, Livy. You know I didn't mean it that way. I meant, it was an accident." He glanced at his parents. "We didn't mean to marry each other."

"An accident," Allison repeated in perplexity. "But how in the world could you accidentally marry someone unless…" Then she realized.

"You were drunk," Chuck finished flatly, disappointment thick in his voice.

Allison pressed a hand to her mouth. When tears immediately filled her lashes, Cameron shoved his hands in his pockets and turned uneasily away. "It's okay," he assured. "Boston's going to work out the papers, and we'll be annulled in no time."

But Allison shook her head, still looking like she was going to fall to her knees and start weeping uncontrollably. "I thought you had recovered," she insisted. "You went to all those AA classes."

"It was just one relapse," Cameron said. He could shrug off anyone else, but seeing his mother hurt by him was more than he could handle. "I haven't—"

"Don't," Chuck snapped, glaring. "Don't you dare lie to your mother. I don't care if you're thirty or eighty. You're still my son, and I will not let you lie to my wife."

"Look, I'm not like I used to be," Cameron argued. "I promise you I'm better. Alcohol doesn't rule my life. It doesn't affect me like it did. I can stop. I have stopped."

"Except you haven't," Chuck cocked back. "And it obviously does rule your life since it made you marry a perfectly innocent young woman."

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