23. Bree
— ? —
Bree
The drive home was almost normal.
Rosie woke up hungry, so we stopped at a diner for breakfast. She told us about a dream she’d had involving Snowball, the stuffed pig, and a place called “a rainbow highway” that I chose not to analyze too deeply. Rafael ordered waffles and let her steal half of them.
“These are really good waffles,” Rosie announced with her mouth full.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, baby.”
“These are really good waffles,” she repeated after swallowing, her expression suggesting she’d made a significant concession.
The sun was bright. The roads were clear. I was almost starting to relax.
Then we turned onto the road that led to the farm, and I saw the car.
A rental. Sleek and silver and completely out of place on the dirt road leading to my property. Manhattan plates.
And leaning against it, arms crossed, watching us approach with a smile that made my blood run cold, was Camille Fairchild.
“Who’s that?” Rosie asked from the back seat.
“Nobody,” I said. “Rafael, take Rosie inside.”
“Bree-”
“Take her inside. Send the women home. I’ll handle this.”
He looked at me. I looked back. We’d spent weeks learning to read each other again, and it was all there in the look.
“Be careful,” he said.
“I’m always careful.”
I pulled up to the gate. The farm women were clustered near the porch, Molly at the front, all of them watching Camille with the particular wariness of people who recognized trouble when they saw it.
Ruth had her arms crossed. Martha was holding a pitchfork that she probably didn’t need for any farming-related purpose.
Rafael got out, unbuckled Rosie, carried her toward the house. The women parted to let him through. I heard him speaking to them, low and calm, sending them away.
I walked toward Camille.
She hadn’t changed. Same perfect blonde hair. Same tailored clothes. Same smile that never reached her eyes.
She was wearing heels. On a dirt road. That told me everything I needed to know about how seriously she took my world.
“Brianna.” She said my name with exaggerated warmth. “Look at you. The country life suits you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I came to see an old friend. Is that a crime?”
“We were never friends.”
“No, I suppose we weren’t.” Her smile sharpened. “But Rafael and I have been friends for a very long time. And I was concerned about him. Disappearing like that, without a word to anyone. People were starting to talk.”
“Then you’ve seen him. You can go.”
“Not yet.” She pushed off from the car, took a step toward me. “We should talk. Woman to woman. About the situation.”
“There’s no situation.”
“There’s a child.” Her voice dropped. “A hidden child. Kept from her father for years. From her grandparents. From everyone who had a right to know she existed.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
“That’s none of your business.”
“It became my business when you decided to steal Rafael’s daughter.
” She was enjoying this. I could see it in her eyes, the satisfaction of having found a weakness and exploiting it.
“Sylvia will be devastated when she finds out. All these years, a granddaughter she never knew about. The lawyers are already preparing the case.”
“What lawyers?”
“The ones Sylvia has on retainer. For custody matters.” Camille’s smile widened. “She sends her regards, by the way. She’s so eager to meet the little girl.”
Sylvia. Rafael’s mother. The woman who’d been kind to me during our marriage, who’d sent flowers when I was sick, who’d seemed genuinely disappointed when she’d learned about the divorce.
The woman who was apparently sending lawyers after my daughter.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Camille tilted her head. “Call her yourself. Ask her about the custody filing. Ask her about the private investigators she hired to find you.” She leaned closer. “You ran from a billionaire family, Brianna. Did you really think they’d let you keep their heir?”
The word landed wrong. Heir. Like Rosie was a possession. A prize to be claimed.
“Get off my property.”
“Make me.”
I smiled. The gala smile. The one I’d perfected across a hundred Manhattan galas.
“You’re trespassing,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re standing on my land. Uninvited. Unwelcome. And you have thirty seconds to get in your car and leave before I call the police.”
“The police?” Camille laughed. “In this backwater? What are they going to do, arrest me for trespassing?”
“Yes.”
I pulled out my phone. Dialed.
“Sheriff’s office.”
“Hi, Peter. It’s Bree. I’ve got an unwanted visitor at the farm. She’s refusing to leave.”
“On my way.”
I hung up.
Camille’s smile faltered. “You can’t be serious.”
“You’ve got about three minutes before Peter gets here. He’s very enthusiastic about trespassing violations.”
“I’m not afraid of some small-town sheriff.”
“You should be. He likes me.”
Peter arrived in two and a half minutes. His cruiser pulled up in a cloud of dust, and he stepped out with the unhurried assurance of a man who knew his jurisdiction and everyone in it.
“Problem here, Bree?”
“This woman was just leaving.”
Peter looked at Camille. Camille looked at Peter. Whatever she saw in his face made her step back.
“I’ll go,” she said. “For now. But this isn’t over, Brianna. The lawyers will be in touch.”
She got in her car. Drove away.
Peter watched until she was out of sight.
“Friend of yours?”
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.” He tipped his hat. “Let me know if she comes back.”
“Thank you, Peter.”
He winked at me, the same hopeful wink he’d been giving me for four years now, and drove away.
I stood in the yard and breathed and tried to slow my racing heart.
Rafael appeared at my elbow.
“What did she say?”
“She threatened me. Said Sylvia has lawyers preparing a custody case.”
My hands had gone cold around the phone. I shoved it in my pocket before he could watch them shake.
“That’s insane. My mother loves you.”
“Your mother is apparently very eager to meet her stolen granddaughter.”
“Bree.” He grabbed my arm, turned me to face him. “Whatever Camille told you is a lie. My mother doesn’t know about Rosie. She doesn’t know about any of this. I’ve been taking personal leave, but I haven’t told anyone why.”
“Then why would Camille-”
“Because Camille is a liar.” His voice was hard. “She lied to you about the photos. She’s lying to you now. And I want to know why.”
“She was at the inn,” I said. “Before she came here. The women said she was asking about rooms.”
“Good.” Rafael’s jaw tightened. “Then let’s go have a conversation.”
We drove into town.
Camille’s rental was parked in the town square, boxed in by three pickup trucks that had materialized from nowhere. Their owners were standing nearby, chatting with the casual intensity of people who were definitely not watching a specific car.
“Accident,” one of them said when we walked over. “All three of us tried to park at the same time. Going to take a while to sort out.”
“Of course it is,” I said.
Marigold taking care of its own. Again.
We found Camille at Dot’s, trying to order coffee.
“Machine’s broken,” Dot was saying. “Has been all day. Sorry about that.”
“The machine was working an hour ago.”
“Must’ve broken since then. These things happen.”
Camille spotted us through the window. Her face went tight.
We walked in.
“Rafael.” She stood, smoothing her skirt, arranging her features into warmth. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“We can talk here.”
“I’d prefer somewhere private-”
“Here is fine.”
She looked around the diner. Every eye was on her. Dot behind the counter. Three farmers at the back booth. The teenager from the bike sitting at the window, watching with undisguised curiosity.
“All right.” She squared her shoulders. “If that’s how you want to do this.”
“You’re going to explain this to me.” Rafael’s voice was calm. Cold. “Four years ago, my wife accused me of cheating on her. With you.”
Camille’s expression flickered.
“She said you showed her photographs. Pictures of us together. Intimate pictures, dated across our entire marriage.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Don’t lie to me.” He stepped closer. “I’ve known you for twenty years, Camille. I know when you’re lying.”
“Rafael-”
“Did you show her fake photographs?”
Silence.
Camille’s mask cracked. I watched the composed corporate executive disappear, replaced by a rawer, desperate woman.
“They weren’t fake,” she said. “They were composites. Built from real images, real moments, real-”
“You doctored photographs to make my wife think I was cheating on her.”
“I did what I had to do!” Her voice rose. “You were never going to leave her, Rafael. You were too stubborn, too loyal, too convinced that the arrangement could work. I had to show her what she was missing.”
“What she was missing?”
“That you didn’t love her!” Camille’s composure shattered completely. “That you’d never love her! That she was just a contract, a business arrangement, a warm body in your bed until someone better came along!”
“Someone better meaning you.”
“YES.” She was crying now, mascara streaking. “Yes, meaning me. I’ve loved you since we were sixteen years old, Rafael. I’ve worked beside you, supported you, waited for you while you married someone else and pretended it was real. And you never saw me. Not once.”
The diner was silent.
I stood beside Rafael and watched his ex-COO fall apart and felt nothing. No triumph. No satisfaction. Just a cold, hollow understanding of what had been done to me.
The phone call came back to me. The frightened girl at the front desk, the honeymoon suite booked under his name a week after our wedding.
Camille had made that reservation herself.
She had stood at his side for twenty years, and putting his name on a room, on anything, would’ve cost her nothing.
She’d built the whole thing brick by brick, and I’d believed every brick.
“You came a long way to hear this in person,” Rafael said quietly. “So hear it. There’s nothing here for you. There never was.”
“Rafael-”
“You’re fired. Effective immediately. Security will escort you from the building when you return to New York.”
Camille stared at him. Then at me. Then back at him.
“You’re choosing her.” Her voice was raw. “After everything I’ve done for you. After everything I’ve given up. You’re choosing the farm girl.”
“I’m choosing my wife.”
The word landed in the silence. Wife.
Camille made a sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. She grabbed her purse from the booth and pushed past us toward the door.
At the threshold, she turned.
“Ask him about Zurich, sweetheart.” Her voice was steady again, cold and precise. “Ask him what he’s been hiding from you. You’ll see how long he lasts here, working like a peasant.”
She walked out.
The diner was silent.
I turned to Rafael.
“What about Zurich?”
His face went pale.