Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
Camille startled from sleep in the dead of night. Somewhere in the darkness a loud bell echoed. It took a second or two for her brain to stir from the deep dream she’d been enjoying. Another long moment for it to register that the ringing noise was her cellphone.
Still half asleep she blindly reached for the night stand. Her fingers danced back and forth over the smooth glass top but touched nothing.
“Merde!” she grumbled. In an effort to get a better night’s sleep she’d moved her phone away from her bed. Her improved sleep patterns now came at the cost of having to get out of bed whenever someone called her late at night.
She threw back the covers and padded across the soft carpet, the light from her cell phone guiding the way. As she picked it up, she checked the name which shone brightly on the screen.
Hope.
What on earth was Hope doing calling her at…wiping the sleep from her eyes, Camille peered harder at the screen. “It’s two seventeen in the morning.”
She hit the receive button and put the phone to her ear.
“Hi Hope, are you ok?” Camille croaked sleepily down the phone.
Please don’t let her have been in an accident.
“We tied the knot!”
It took a second or two for her addled brain to register Hope’s words. “What knot? I don’t understand.”
She winced at the loud commotion which drifted down the phone. It was like a dozen people were all talking at once, accompanied by an orchestra comprised of a thousand pinging machines.
“In the US, when we say someone has tied the knot, it means they got married. Neil and I are husband and wife. How amazing is that? He flew us out here to Las Vegas late last night and then got down on bended knee in front of the Bellagio fountain and proposed. Oh my god, Cami it was so romantic! I had to say yes.”
Camille held the phone away from her ear for a moment, as she silently mouthed every foul word she knew in French, English, and German.
Hope had gone and married Neil. Neil the shitty boyfriend who had broken Hope’s heart over and over again.
Just when she thought that particular nightmare might finally be over, Neil had pulled a Vegas sleight of hand and made Hope his wife. His Yang had smashed Camille’s Yin to pieces.
Camille gritted her teeth. There was nothing she could do, the damage was done. All that was left was to try and pick through the rubble and see what could be salvaged.
“Congratulations. That’s wonderful news,” offered Camille.
Like hell it is. I’ll give this trainwreck of a relationship six months at tops.
Knowing Neil he would be waving divorce papers in front of Hope every five minutes, in order to make sure his wife toed the line.
There was frantic whispering going on now, and Camille could just make out the deep tone of Neil’s voice. “Do it. Tell her.”
A chilling sense of premonition crept down her back once more. Hope had run off to Las Vegas and gotten married, but Camille was sure that wasn’t going to be the end of it. Neil would want his victory over her to be complete. Which meant another ticking bomb was about to explode at her feet.
There was a worrying pause on the other end of the line. Camille’s already sinking stomach bottomed out as Hope delivered the final gut punch.
“I’m also ringing to give you, my notice. Neil doesn’t want me working for you anymore.”
She knew plenty of French words which would suffice, but nothing came close to the hard impact that a stream of barely muttered English foul oaths could bring to this situation.
Fuck. Fuck. And triple fuck.
Her irreplaceable personal assistant had just resigned.
Fuck.
But if her sole employee wished to leave, there wasn’t much she could about it. Just make the handover as smooth as possible.
I have to get Hope alone and try to talk some sense into her. Who knows, she might be able to get this stupid marriage thing annulled, or whatever they do in America. I wonder if I can get a top divorce lawyer onto this before the ink is dry on the wedding certificate.
Camille sucked in a deep breath. “I’m really sorry to hear that you are resigning. Maybe take a day or two to think things over. Just because you got married, doesn’t mean you have to leave.” Or yield to Neil’s demands. “But if you are still set on going, then when you return to the office, we can sit down together and work out a hand over plan.”
She would act as professionally as she could about all this, do her best to make Hope’s departure a clean, neat one. They would part on good terms. What was done was done.
But before then she’d be doing her all to make Hope see reason. To try and save her.
“I won’t be changing my mind, and I won’t be coming back to the office. My resignation is effective immediately.”
The voice on the other end of the line didn’t sound like Hope. The cold, empty words were not those of the woman Camille had worked with for the past two years. The woman she’d thought she knew.
“Are you…” Camille started before she was abruptly cut off.
“I’ve sent an email. It has all the passwords. Bookings et cetera. All the instructions you need to use my planning system are in an attached document. Last night I prepared and paid my final pay check, along with my bonus. I even submitted the taxes, so it’s all sorted.”
“Are you sure?” pleaded Camille, as the reality of what was happening began to sink in fully.
A tired, contemptuous sigh came down the phone. “Yes, I’m sure. Neil made me realize that the main reason why he and I kept breaking up was you. He had wanted to marry me all along, but felt you judged him. In the end he said it was a choice between his love or my job. I chose him.”
Camille’s left hand curled into a tight fist. Neil had never liked her. He enjoyed making fun of her French accent. Hope’s new husband seemed to think that his jokes about Camille looking like one of the Parisian rats in the Ratatouille movie were the height of comedic talent. He had taken one of her favorite films and weaponized it against her.
And now he’d emotionally blackmailed Hope into marrying him.
Why didn’t I see this coming? He was never going to let her go.
Blindsided, Camille hastily scrambled to salvage something of Hope’s departure. To keep what was left of their friendship. To allow a door to remain open. To give Hope an escape route if she ever needed it.
“Can we at least arrange a farewell lunch when you are back in town? I mean we should make your send off a proper one. Go somewhere really special. My treat.”
“I’ve got to go,” said Hope, and the line went dead. Camille stared at her cell for a long minute. What on earth had just happened?
Was this what people in NYC meant when they said life had thrown you a curve ball? One day she was holding Hope’s hand and feeding her sweet petit fours from Andre’s Bistro, the next she was being dumped via a brutal middle-of-the-night phone call.
Camille took in a slow deep breath. Neil had to have been standing right next to Hope when she’d called, making sure she did and said exactly what he wanted.
She’d lost the battle, but this war was far from over.
I am not giving up on Hope.
Her PA might have resigned, but that was not the end of their friendship. Hope had to know that she had someone in her corner if she ever worked up the courage to leave Neil.
But in the meantime Camille had a PA roll to fill.
She glanced at the time. It was now almost two thirty, the chances of being able to go back to bed and actually get some sleep were next to nil. Slipping on a robe, Camille headed upstairs to the design studio.
Seated at her desk, she opened her laptop, and clicked on her inbox. Hope’s email sat at the top. Camille fought back tears as she opened it.
The email contained what her former PA said it would. A long, long, long list of things. Dot point after dot point. Camille’s vision blurred just trying to read it all. She hit print, then sat listening as page after page churned through the home office multi-function machine.
She’d always felt guilty over using too much paper, but trying to read and comprehend documents on the computer screen had never worked for her.
While she waited, Camille clicked onto various social media platforms, looking for another way to reach out to Hope. She’d been blocked on Facebook. Unfollowed and blocked on Instagram. Even TikTok was a bust. Every avenue of communication was gone. The woman whom she had trusted with so much of her career and business had been forced to methodically wipe Camille from her life.
Camille’s fingers raked through her hair, and she gripped it by the ends. A sense of panic was slowly rising as the weight of abandonment settled heavily over her.
The Hope she thought she knew would never have done this, would have found a better, kinder way to end their connection. This was Neil taking a spiteful swipe at her, with the sole intention of hurting Camille as much as possible.
I need to get passwords and bank account details changed as soon as possible. If Hope was going to cut her off, that had to run both ways. A former employee with access to the core of Camille’s business could do real damage.
“I’ll call Bryce in the morning, and ask him for some advice. He’s sure to have dealt with this sort of thing in the past,” she muttered.
Camille was still offering up curses about Hope’s new husband to the universe when her gaze fell on another email. This one had arrived late last night. And from the little opened envelope icon it appeared that Hope, who had access to Camille’s email account, had already read it.
She clicked on the email. The second she read the first line, all thoughts of Hope and what she had done slipped from her mind.
NEW YORK FASHION WEEK RUNWAY SHOW OFFER
Her pulse kicked up a notch. This was big. Really big.
As the printer continued to happily chug away, Camille took in the formal offer from the fashion week booking committee. They wanted her to be the warm up act before one of the big shows.
Her collection would be featured in an area located to one side of the large presentation space. After watching Camille’s show, guests would then move to take their seats along the main runway where a major designer who supplied garments to several international retail chains would be launching their new season collection.
“All those buyers and guests will get to see my clothes first.”
This was a huge career opportunity.
Camille’s hand settled over her heart. It was still racing. This was the moment she had worked her ass off to achieve — four years in the making. This would be her chance to step out from behind her clothes and show her face. For the world to see the woman behind Camille Royal Designs and what she could do.
Excitement and dread swirled around in her belly. Hope had to have known what this offer meant to Camille. She would also know that ditching her boss right now was the worst thing she could have done. Hope had been manipulated into quitting a job she loved by her new husband.
When she’d first left Paris, it had been with a handful of dreams. But now just as Camille was reaching out to grab them for real, it seemed that fate had decided to step in, slap her hard over the hand, and tell her she wasn’t ready.
But I am ready. This is a setback. That’s all. Every designer has to overcome such challenges. No gain without pain.
She really wanted to talk to someone. Vent or cry. Or cheer. Her emotions were all over the place. Her happiness was mixed up with the disappointment and shock of what Hope had done.
It was far too early to call Bryce, and besides, what was she going to say?
“Hi Bryce, yes, I know it’s three am, but I’ve just got shafted by my trusted employee, and I need a shoulder to cry on. Oh and by the way I have to host a full runway show at New York fashion week in the middle of September—that’s only three months away. Come and get me before I pass out.”
Her cousin was one of her best friends. But he was not her counselor. Bryce had his own life and career to deal with, as well as a fiancée who might not appreciate being woken at such an ungodly hour.
I am not going to call Bryce. But I could call Sophie.
If there was one person who would truly understand what New York Fashion week meant it was her sister. Camille picked up her cell once more, and checked the time in Paris. It was almost nine o’clock in the morning, and if Sophie stuck to her usual habits, she would be up and taking the family dog for a walk along the River Seine. She would be well away from the prying ears and eyes of their parents, and thus able to talk freely.
I miss her so much.
Tapping her sister’s name on her phone, Camille lifted it to her ear. If anyone understood the predicament she was in, it was her twin.
Please pick up.
The call went straight to voicemail, and Camille left a short message.
“Hi Sophie, can you please call me when you get a chance?”
It seemed like the universe really didn’t want her to talk to anyone today. Maybe it was sending her a message. That it was time for her to figure these things out for herself.
I can do that, but it would be nice to not feel so alone.
What she would give to have someone in her life she could rely upon, who would always have her back.
Four years in New York and Camille still hadn’t managed to make one real friend. Ambition and hard work were finally paying off for her career. But the events of this morning had been a painful reminder that no matter how big her success, she was a lonely girl in a very big city.