Chapter 11 #2
“Yes. You’re familiar?”
“I was a fan of that movie,” Camille admitted with a small smile.
“Really?”
“I didn’t realize you were directing Christian films now. At the audition, I was struck—I hadn’t realized you were the director.”
He grinned. “John Gray is not something I advertise.”
She nodded. “I understand. As a Christian, I wouldn’t watch it now. It’s… gritty.”
“It perfectly mirrored my mood.”
“What changed?”
“You mean why I shifted to Christian films?”
She nodded.
~*~*~*~
Before Aaron could respond, the last few members of the crew began gathering their things, calling out easy goodbyes as they moved toward the front of the house.
Aaron rose, glancing over at Madison, who lay curled on one of the patio lounge chairs, fast asleep, her small hand tucked beneath her cheek.
He turned back to Camille, his voice lowering slightly. “Do you mind taking her inside? Just put her down for a nap. I’ll see them out.”
“Of course,” Camille said softly.
He gave her a brief, grateful look before heading toward the front, his voice fading as he called after the crew.
Camille moved to the lounge chair and carefully gathered Madison into her arms. The child stirred only slightly, settling against her shoulder with a soft, sleepy sigh.
Camille paused for a moment, looking down at her—at the delicate curve of her cheek, the softness of her lashes resting against her skin.
She pressed a gentle kiss there before carrying her inside.
Something warm and unexpected stirred in her chest as she held the child. A quiet, aching tenderness she hadn’t prepared for.
For a fleeting moment, her thoughts drifted—unbidden.
She wondered what her own child might have been like. A boy or a girl. If a girl, would she have been fair like Madison, with Simon’s coloring… or darker, like her?
Her stomach tightened sharply.
Camille closed her eyes for a brief second and shook the thought away.
There was no point in going there. No undoing what had been done.
She settled Madison into the bed, smoothing the blanket gently over her, lingering just long enough to be sure she was comfortable before stepping back.
In the quiet of the room, Camille glanced at her watch. It was well past three. She should probably leave. Lunch had stretched into hours, and she didn’t want to overstay her welcome—didn’t want to assume.
The door opened softly behind her.
Aaron stepped in, his gaze going immediately to Madison before anything else then turning to Camille. His voice, when he spoke, was low.
“Can I get you a drink?”
She recognized the question for what it was—an invitation to stay.
“Sure,” she said, matching his tone. “I’ll have some more of the lemon squash.”
He nodded and gestured toward the hallway. She followed him out, the house settling into a softer quiet now that the others were gone.
In the kitchen, she took a seat at the bar, watching him as he moved—opening the refrigerator, dropping ice into a glass, pouring with quiet care.
When he handed her the drink, he didn’t linger there.
“Let’s go into the living room,” he said softly.
She followed, and, when they sat, he lowered himself beside her on the sofa.
The conversation softened into a quiet stillness.
“So,” he murmured, his voice low, “where were we?”
“You were telling me why you shifted to Christian films.”
Aaron leaned back slightly. “God didn’t give up on me. My family wouldn’t give up on me either.” His expression turned thoughtful. “One day I was listening to my brother preach, and I just broke. Right there in church.”
Her eyes widened.
“I wasn’t wailing,” he added with a quiet laugh. “But the tears came. I surrendered everything to God. And the peace that followed…” He shook his head slightly. “There’s nothing like it. Do you know what I mean?”
“I do,” she said softly.
Her voice had thickened with emotion—and something else.
“I know what it’s like to be broken,” she said quietly, “and then put back together.”
Aaron lifted his hand and brushed a tear from her cheek, his thumb lingering briefly against her skin.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked gently.
Camille hesitated. There were still parts of the story she struggled to touch without feeling the old shame rise up again.
“You remember the other night at Geoffrey’s Malibu?” she said softly. “When I asked you how you forgive someone and still protect yourself?”
He nodded.
“I told you I wasn’t only talking about Simon. I was talking about my father too.”
Aaron stayed quiet, giving her space.
“My father managed everything for me when I was younger. My accounts, my earnings, investments, taxes—everything. I trusted him completely.” She gave a faint, humorless smile.
“Honestly, I barely looked at anything. If bills needed paying, he handled it. If I needed something, I told him and it appeared. He always said he was investing my money and growing it for my future.”
She looked down at her hands.
“And for a long time, I believed him.”
Aaron’s expression tightened slightly, sensing where the story was headed.
“He’d show me statements and spreadsheets sometimes, but I didn’t really understand any of it then. I was working nonstop and I trusted my dad, so I never questioned him.” She swallowed. “Then eventually things started unraveling.”
“What happened?” Aaron asked quietly.
“He wasn’t really investing the money the way he claimed.”
Her voice lowered.
“He was gambling with it. High-risk trades. Speculative deals. Sometimes he made money, sometimes he lost badly. And when he lost, he’d move money around trying to cover it.”
Aaron frowned.
“He also started involving other people,” she continued. “He’d tell them he was managing my money too, so they trusted him. I didn’t even realize my name was being used that way.”
A flash of pain crossed her face.
“If one investment failed, he’d pull money from somewhere else to keep everything looking stable. Sometimes he replaced it. Sometimes he couldn’t.”
“And the taxes?” Aaron asked carefully.
She let out a slow breath.
“He stopped paying them.”
Aaron’s eyes widened slightly.
“I didn’t know,” she said quickly. “I thought everything was filed properly. I thought all of that was being handled.”
She paused briefly, gathering the memory into words.
“Then one day, shortly after I turned twenty-three, a friend approached me about investing in a business venture with her. It wasn’t even some massive deal.
Just a small lifestyle company she and her brother were trying to launch.
” A faint smile touched her mouth. “For the first time in my life, I decided I wanted to handle something myself.”
Aaron listened quietly.
“My parents were overseas on some romantic getaway at the time. I remember thinking, I’m an adult. I don’t need to run every financial decision through my father.”
Her expression darkened slightly.
“So I contacted the bank myself because I needed documentation for the transfer.”
“What happened?”
“At first, nothing dramatic,” she said. “That’s the strange part. The assistant I spoke to just sounded… confused.”
Aaron frowned slightly.
“She kept putting me on hold,” Camille continued. “Then she asked if I was calling about my personal account or one of the holding accounts.”
“I didn’t even know what she meant by that.”
Aaron’s brow furrowed.
“I told her it was my main account. The one my earnings went into. And she went quiet for a second.”
Camille swallowed.
“Then she said the balance available was much lower than expected because several large transfers had recently gone out.”
Aaron stared at her. “Transfers to where?”
“I had no idea.”
Her voice softened.
“I honestly thought there had been some mistake. Fraud maybe. I remember laughing nervously and saying, ‘No, there must be an error. My father manages my accounts.’”
She looked away.
“And the woman on the phone said something like, ‘Yes, ma’am, Mr. Carlucci authorized the transfers.’”
A silence stretched briefly between them.
“That was the first crack,” Camille said quietly. “Not even the money itself. Just the realization that things were happening with my finances that I knew absolutely nothing about.”
Aaron remained still beside her.
“So I started asking questions. For the first time ever.”
Her mouth tightened faintly.
“I requested statements myself instead of just accepting the summaries my father gave me. I started comparing dates. Transfers. Withdrawals.”
“And it didn’t add up?”
“No.” She shook her head slowly. “Not even close.”
Her voice became more subdued.
“There were accounts I didn’t recognize. Investments I’d supposedly approved but had never heard of. Large amounts moving in and out constantly. Some payments were marked as temporary reallocations. Others had almost no documentation at all.”
She exhaled slowly.
“At first I kept trying to explain it away. I thought maybe there was some sophisticated strategy I simply didn’t understand.”
“But deep down?” Aaron asked softly.
“Deep down, I already knew something was wrong.”
She looked at him then, eyes glistening.
“And the more I pulled on the thread, the more everything unraveled. So I commissioned an audit.”
Her jaw tightened.
“That was when I discovered I owed taxes on money that technically I’d earned—but no longer actually had.”
For a moment neither of them spoke.
“It all became public after that,” she said more quietly. “There were investigations. Lawsuits. News stories. And a lot of people assumed I must’ve known what he was doing.”
Aaron shook his head immediately. “That’s insane.”
“But I understood why they thought it,” she said softly. “I was the celebrity daughter with money and privilege. From the outside it looked impossible that I could’ve missed it.”
She gave a brittle laugh.
“The truth was, I was just na?ve.”
Aaron’s hand tightened around hers.
“And around that time, Simon became my hero, my rock,” she continued after a pause. “My entire world felt unstable. Financially. Emotionally. Publicly.” She stared ahead. “And Simon…”
Her voice softened slightly.
“Simon felt safe. He was eleven years older, established, confident. He listened to me when almost everybody else was judging me. He told me the situation with my father wasn’t my fault. He encouraged me to learn about my finances and take control of my life again.”
She shook her head faintly.
“I leaned on him emotionally long before the affair became physical. By then we were already deeply attached. He’d confide in me about his marriage, tell me how unhappy he was, how lonely he felt and I wanted to believe him.
In the back of my mind, I knew it was wrong,” she admitted.
“But I kept justifying it. I told myself his marriage was already over emotionally. That his wife didn’t love him.
That I wasn’t destroying something healthy. ”
She looked down, ashamed.
“I lied to myself because the truth would’ve forced me to walk away.”
A long silence followed before she continued.
“He always said he was going to leave her eventually. There was always a reason it couldn’t happen yet.” Her mouth tightened. “And eventually I realized he didn’t really love me. Not selflessly, anyway. I think he loved how I made him feel. The attention. The escape. The ego boost.”
Her eyes glistened again.
“And then God saved me.”
The words came softly but with certainty.
“Suddenly I could see everything clearly. The affair. The lies. The compromises I’d normalized. Even the career choices I’d been defending.” She shook her head slowly. “I realized I was building my life on things that were hollow.”
She exhaled shakily.
“So I walked away. From him. From the show. From all of it.”
Her voice cracked slightly.
“That’s what I mean when I say I know what it feels like to be broken and then put back together.”
Silence settled between them.
Aaron reached for her hand fully then, holding it firmly, his thumb moving slowly across her skin as if grounding her there beside him.
Then a soft sound interrupted the moment.
Camille glanced up to see Madison shuffling toward them, curls tousled from sleep.
Reluctantly, Aaron released her hand.
“I’ll be right back,” he murmured.
Camille nodded, suddenly aware of the loss of his touch.
Aaron settled Madison with cartoons, milk, and cookies, his voice low and patient. Watching him stirred something deep in Camille’s chest.
When he returned, he sat a little closer this time.
“Thank you for telling me that,” he said quietly.
Camille became acutely aware of him beside her: the warmth of his body, the faint scent of his cologne, the steady rise and fall of his chest.
Her pulse stumbled.
Aaron glanced at his watch, though he sounded reluctant when he spoke.
“It’s getting late.”
“How about Bible study before I leave?” she asked too quickly. “We’re still only at Esther three. I thought maybe we could cover four and five since tomorrow’s script focuses on chapter five.”
A flicker of amusement crossed his face.
“I was supposed to review tomorrow’s scenes,” he said, his gaze lingering on her, “but this might be more interesting.”
Her breath caught.
They leaned over the Bible together, shoulders brushing lightly.
Aaron’s voice deepened as he read aloud—Mordecai’s plea, Esther’s fear, the weight of what was being asked of her.
Camille tried to focus on the words, but she was intensely aware of him. Of his hand resting inches from hers. Of the way his knee grazed hers when he shifted.
“If I perish, I perish,” she whispered, the words catching slightly in her throat.
Aaron’s gaze lifted from the page to her face.
Neither of them spoke.
The silence stretched—fragile and electric.
Finally, he cleared his throat and continued reading, though his voice had roughened now, softer and lower around the edges as he read of the king’s favor, the extended scepter, the invitation to the banquet… the promise of something still unfolding.
By the time they finished, the air between them felt charged with something neither of them was ready to name.