Chapter 22
Simon contacted Camille a couple of days later.
She had just gotten off the phone with Aaron, stretching out a conversation neither of them ever seemed ready to end.
They had fallen into the habit of calling each other throughout the day—quick check-ins, small jokes, nothing urgent, just the comfort of hearing the other’s voice.
It felt safer that way. Easier than spending too much unchaperoned time together.
As she moved through the house—tidying, picking up, pausing here and there—she kept him in her ear, her AirPods in place, his presence a quiet, constant companion. It was almost like he was right there with her.
So when the phone rang again, she smiled and tapped her earbud, certain it was him calling back because he’d forgotten something.
She answered in a teasing tone.
“Why don’t you just come over so we can talk properly? I miss seeing your face.”
She expected his easy laugh, some comment about video calls. Instead, there was a pause.
“Hello?”
“I miss seeing your face too,” the voice replied softly. “In fact, I miss seeing your entire body.”
A chill crept up her spine.
“Simon,” she said, her voice tightening. “What do you want?”
“I hear congratulations are in order. You spurned my offer of marriage, but you accepted his.”
“That’s because I love him.”
“Really?” A faint hum of amusement. “Does he love you?”
“Of course he does.”
“So… he forgave you for lying to him about filming the Shadow Peak episodes.”
Her spine stiffened.
“How did that get out, Simon? I thought you agreed to a gag order.”
“Well, I don’t know,” he said lightly. “You know how it is on a set. There’s always a mole.”
She went still. Then the realization settled in, cold and precise.
“I think it was you who leaked it.”
A pause. Then his soft laugh.
“And why would I do a thing like that?”
“Because you wanted to fracture our relationship.”
“Well, from what I hear, if it was me—as you say—it worked. For a while.” A quiet chuckle. “If it was me. I’m not taking any credit.”
“You’re despicable.” Her voice trembled. “I can’t believe I ever thought I was in love with you.”
“Perhaps you can’t believe the lengths you went to in order to keep that love either.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Does he know?” he asked.
Her blood ran cold.
“Of course,” she said quickly—but the words faltered, cracking halfway through.
Simon laughed—low, satisfied.
“You’re such a little liar.”
She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.
“I hear he’s a real one,” Simon continued. “A real Christian. Unlike you.”
She said nothing. There was no explaining grace to someone like him. No explaining redemption.
Then he said it.
“I wonder what he’d say if he knew you killed your own child.”
The words struck like a physical blow.
Tears spilled instantly down her cheeks.
“I wonder if he’d forgive you,” Simon went on, almost casually. “I know I have. I don’t hold it against you. That’s why we belong togeth—”
She ended the call.
Her hand shook as she silenced the phone completely.
For a moment, she sat frozen.
Then she folded in on herself, dropping her head into her lap, her arms wrapping instinctively around her stomach—as if shielding something that was no longer there.
A sob tore from her chest.
This was it. The reckoning.
There was no doubt in her mind—Simon would find a way to reach Aaron. The same way he had before. Quietly. Strategically. Cruelly.
He would not stop.
She had to get to Aaron first.
But how?
Simon was patient. Calculating. He would already have set something in motion.
A text.
A call.
An anonymous tip.
Something.
Fear tightened around her chest until she could hardly breathe.
There was nothing left to do.
Nothing—except turn to the only One who already knew everything.
Her voice came out broken.
“Lord… I know You have forgiven me for what I’ve done.”
She wiped at her tears, but they kept coming.
“But I’m not sure Aaron will.”
Her fingers curled tighter against her stomach.
“Please… give me the courage to face whatever comes next.”
~*~*~*~
Aaron leaned back in the chair behind his desk, one hand resting against his mouth as the trailer played across the large monitor in his home office.
The opening was clean.
Studio logo. Fade in. Music—low, deliberate. The kind that told you something important was coming before you even knew what it was.
Then him.
A close shot. Controlled. Guarded.
A line of dialogue he barely remembered recording.
Cut.
Camille.
Soft light. Stillness. Her eyes lifting just slightly before she spoke.
Aaron’s hand dropped from his mouth.
He watched more closely now.
The pacing tightened as the trailer moved on—quicker cuts, rising score, tension layered carefully. It was well done. He couldn’t deny that. Whoever had cut it understood exactly what they were doing.
But they also knew exactly what to emphasize.
Him and Camille.
Not just the obvious scenes—the confrontations, the charged exchanges—but the quieter moments too. A look held a second too long. The brush of her hand against his arm. A breath between lines.
Constructed.
But not fabricated.
His jaw tightened slightly.
The music swelled.
Final sequence—rapid cuts, emotional peak, just enough ambiguity to pull people in.
Then the last shot.
Him and Camille again.
Close. Intimate. Unresolved.
Fade to black.
Title.
Silence settled over the room as the screen dimmed.
Aaron didn’t move immediately.
He exhaled slowly, leaning forward this time, elbows resting on his knees. The remote hung loose in his hand.
They were selling the story. Of course they were. But they weren’t just selling the story.
They were selling them.
His gaze shifted back to the screen, though it had already gone dark.
For a moment, he saw it the way an audience would.
Not the marks. Not the direction. Not the breaks between takes.
Just two people who looked like they belonged to each other.
Aaron let out a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh.
“Yeah,” he murmured to the empty room. “That’s going to be a problem.”
He sat back again, this time slower, eyes still on the blank screen.
At the moment, his phone buzzed on the desk.
Unknown number.
He almost ignored it.
But something—some strange instinct—made him pick it up.
The message contained only a link.
No greeting.
No explanation.
Just a link.
Aaron frowned.
“Spam,” he muttered under his breath.
Still, curiosity got the better of him.
He tapped it.
The screen opened to a short article on a gossip site he didn’t recognize. The headline immediately made his stomach tighten.
Esther Star Camille Carlucci’s Hidden Past?
His jaw clenched. He hated these sites. They thrived on speculation and half-truths. He almost closed it. Then a line caught his eye.
Sources close to the actress claim that just before she left Shadow Peak, Carlucci terminated a pregnancy after pressure from her married boyfriend.
Aaron froze.
The words seemed to blur on the screen.
He read the sentence again. And again.
His chest tightened as if something heavy had settled there.
“No,” he said quietly.
The article was vague, carefully written in that way gossip pieces often were—suggestive without being outright defamatory. The boyfriend’s name wasn’t mentioned. But the implication was unmistakable. His mind began to race.
Simon Halden.
The name surfaced immediately.
Aaron leaned back slowly in his chair.
For several seconds he just stared at the phone.
His first instinct was anger. Not at Camille. At whoever had written the piece. At whoever had fed them the story. At the cruelty of dragging someone’s past into the light like that.
But beneath the anger something else stirred.
A quiet question. Did she tell me everything about her past relationship with Halden?
He closed his eyes briefly.
Camille’s voice echoed in his memory from months earlier, when she had told him she was sorry for defaulting to half-truths. Then she had said, “I want to be with you. But not like this. Not while you’re bracing for me to disappoint you. I want you to trust me. Fully.”
The words had seemed to be a far off goal then. But they had worked through it. He had forgiven her. He had come to trust her again. Because he loved her.
He picked up the phone again. His thumb hovered over her name. He could call her right now. Ask her directly. Part of him wanted to. Another part of him hesitated. Because if it was true…
He didn’t want to hear it through suspicion. He wanted to hear it from her heart.
He exhaled slowly and set the phone down again.
Across the hall Madison stirred in her room, murmuring softly in her sleep.
Aaron glanced toward the door. Then back at the phone. If this was true, the person probably also sent it to Camille. And she was probably terrified right now.
And alone.
He reached for the phone again.
This time he pressed her name.
The call began to ring.
~*~*~*~
He was calling her.
Camille recoiled from the phone as though it were a rattlesnake.
The device vibrated against the coffee table, the screen lighting up the darkened living room where she had stayed curled up on the couch after Simon’s call.
Aaron.
His name glowed on the screen.
A barrage of conflicting emotions descended on her.
Part of her wanted to run and hide.
She didn’t know if he knew the truth yet or if he was innocently calling, unaware of the earthquake Simon had just unleashed. But regardless, the call presented her with a choice.
She could answer and pretend nothing had happened—wait for him to find out on his own.
Or she could answer and confess everything, whether he knew or not.
What she wanted most was to run to him, to confess everything and find forgiveness and understanding and comfort in his voice.
But that seemed too good to be true.
Why should Aaron forgive her?
This was yet another thing—another weighty thing—that she had kept from him. Why should he trust her again?
Aaron was good. Loving. Kind. He adored his daughter. He had mourned the loss of his unborn child.