5. Camille
— ? —
Camille
Monday morning, Diane Whitmore’s emails go out like missiles.
“Affairs with subordinates violate your firm’s ethics policy,” Diane writes in the HR email. “I thought you should be aware.”
My kitchen table becomes command central. Coffee goes cold in my mug as I watch the clock, imagining the chaos unfolding thirty-two floors up in that gleaming office building. The same hallway I walked down with champagne and hope and a blue dress that still hangs in my closet like a ghost.
The fallout is swift and brutal.
Tuesday brings the first domino. Jared gets called into a meeting with the senior partners that stretches four brutal hours.
Maya’s contact at the firm texts her updates, which Maya relays to me in a breathless phone call: he emerged gray-faced and shaking, was escorted to his office to pack his things, security standing watch like he was a common criminal.
Which, technically, he is.
Wednesday, HR launches a formal investigation. Alexis gets placed on administrative leave, her access badge deactivated, her work email shut down. I imagine her sitting in her trendy apartment, pregnant and panicking, watching her carefully constructed life crumble around her.
Good.
By Thursday, it’s official. Jared Harrison - golden boy, future partner, the man who was going places - is terminated.
“Misuse of company funds” reads the official statement.
The unofficial story spreads through the industry like wildfire: affair with his wife’s sister, company money funding romantic getaways, the whole sordid mess laid bare.
Friday morning, Alexis joins him in unemployment. “Ethics violation.” She calls me seventeen times between 9 AM and noon. Each call goes to voicemail. Each voicemail gets deleted without being played.
Nathan texts me updates throughout the week, checking in without pushing.
Heard Jared got escorted out by security. You okay?
Maya told me Alexis got fired too. How are you holding up?
I know you said you needed space, but I’m here if you want company. Or food. Or someone to help you burn his stuff in the backyard.
That last one makes me laugh, actually laugh, for the first time since the blue dress.
Rain check on the bonfire, I text back. But maybe dinner this weekend?
His response comes immediately: Name the time and place. I’ll be there.
***
Saturday, I host what I’m calling a “fresh start” brunch.
The guest list is strategic: every wife from our social circle, the country club women, the charity committee ladies, the women who lunch while their husbands move money.
A roomful of women who have been part of my life for five years, who saw Jared and me as the golden couple, who had no idea what was rotting underneath.
They gather in my living room with mimosas in hand and curiosity barely concealed behind polite smiles. I stand before them in a soft cream blouse and minimal makeup, the picture of dignified pain.
“I’m sure you’ve heard rumors.” My voice carries clearly through the room. “I wanted you to hear the truth from me.”
And then I tell them. Everything.
The affair. My sister. The pregnancy. The family meeting where my own parents asked me to “move forward” like I hadn’t just watched my life detonate.
No tears. No trashing Jared or Alexis. Just facts, delivered calmly, letting the horror speak for itself.
“I’m not asking anyone to choose sides,” I conclude. “But I think you all deserve to know what kind of man Jared is. And what kind of woman my sister is. Make your own decisions.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Then Margaret Ellison - whose husband golfs with Jared every Saturday, whose opinion carries weight in every social circle that matters - sets down her mimosa and crosses the room to pull me into a hug.
“That bastard,” she whispers fiercely. “We’re going to destroy him.”
***
Within a week, every couple we know has dropped Jared like a stone.
His golf buddies suddenly have “full foursomes.” The poker nights dry up. Someone at the country club “loses” his membership renewal application, the same club he’s belonged to for eight years, the one he bragged about to everyone who would listen.
Alexis fares even worse. Pregnant and unemployed, she becomes completely untouchable.
Nobody wants to associate with the woman who slept with her sister’s husband.
Her Instagram followers plummet from twelve thousand to three hundred.
The “influencer” brand deals she’d been cultivating evaporate overnight.
Friends who used to fawn over her suddenly can’t seem to return a text.
Social death, swift and thorough. The kind that no amount of cute pregnancy photos can undo.
***
Nathan and I have dinner that Saturday at a quiet Italian place he knows, somewhere neither of us will run into anyone from my old life. He’s waiting outside when I pull up, leaning against the brick wall in dark jeans and a charcoal sweater that makes his gray eyes look almost silver.
“You look good,” he says as I approach, his gaze traveling over me slowly. “Really good.”
“Revenge is an excellent skincare routine.”
He laughs, low and warm, and something in my chest loosens. When he puts his hand on the small of my back to guide me inside, the touch burns through my silk blouse like a brand.
Dinner is easy. Comfortable. We talk about everything except Jared - Nathan’s work at the hospital, the patients who stick with him, the ones he couldn’t save. My half-formed ideas about restarting my event planning business. The terrible reality TV we both watch but would never admit to in public.
“Wait, you watch Married at First Sight?” I nearly choke on my wine.
“It’s research.” His eyes crinkle with amusement. “I’m a trauma surgeon. I need to understand all forms of human disaster.”
“That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard.”
“Fine. I watch it because it makes me feel better about my own choices.” He leans closer, his voice dropping. “Also, the drama is extremely satisfying.”
“Dr. Cole. Are you secretly a messy bitch who lives for drama?”
“Only when the drama isn’t mine.”
We’re both laughing now, and I realize with a start that this is the most fun I’ve had in years.
Not the performative fun of Jared’s networking events, where every smile was calculated and every conversation was a transaction.
This is real. Easy. The kind of fun that doesn’t require anything from me except being myself.
After dinner, he walks me to my car in the parking garage, and the echo of our footsteps feels loud in the concrete silence.
“I had a really good time tonight,” I say, turning to face him beside my car door.
“Me too.” He’s standing close, close enough that I can see the individual stubble hairs on his jaw, can smell that cedar-and-warmth scent that’s been haunting my dreams all week. “Can I see you again?”
“Are you asking me on a second date, Dr. Cole?”
“I’m asking you on as many dates as you’ll give me.” His hand comes up to brush a strand of hair from my face, and my breath stutters. “I meant what I said, Camille. I’m not the kind of man who disappears.”
“And I told you I didn’t want to wait.”
“You did.” His thumb traces along my cheekbone, and heat pools low in my belly. “That was a week ago. You’ve had time to process. You’ve had time to think.” His eyes search mine, looking for something. “Are you still sure?”
“Yes.”
The word barely leaves my mouth before he’s kissing me.
It’s not tentative. Not careful. Not a polite first-date kiss that asks permission and waits for instructions.
Nathan kisses me like he’s been starving for it, like he’s been holding himself back for so long that now the dam has broken and there’s no stopping the flood.
One hand fists in my hair while the other grabs my hip and pulls me flush against him, and I can feel every hard inch of his body pressed against mine.
My back hits the car door. His thigh slides between my legs. And when I gasp at the pressure against my core, he swallows the sound and turns it into a groan that vibrates through my entire body.
“Fuck,” he breathes against my mouth. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that.”
“Then don’t stop.”
He pulls back just far enough to look at me, his eyes dark with want. “We’re in a parking garage.”
“I’m aware.”
“Anyone could walk by.”
“Still aware.”
“Camille.” His voice is strained, ragged. “If I don’t stop now, I’m going to do something very inappropriate against the side of your very expensive car.”
“Promise?”
The sound he makes is almost pained. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Not before you make good on all those things you’ve been imagining for five years.”
His grip on my hip tightens. For a moment, I think he’s going to say something about waiting, about doing this right, about not rushing.
Instead, he pulls out his phone.
“My apartment is twelve minutes from here.” His voice is rough, barely controlled. “You can follow me, or you can leave your car and ride with me. But I need you to decide right now, because my self-control is about thirty seconds from completely fucking disintegrating.”
My heart hammers against my ribs. This is it. The point of no return.
“I’ll follow you.”
***
His apartment is exactly what I expected, clean lines, minimal furniture, the organized chaos of someone who works eighty-hour weeks and values function over form.
Medical journals stacked on the coffee table.
A guitar leaning against the wall that he probably hasn’t played in months.
A kitchen that smells faintly of the bitter, over-brewed coffee he mentioned making every morning.
I don’t get much time to observe before he’s on me again.
The front door barely closes before his mouth finds mine, hungrier this time, more desperate. My back hits the wall of his entryway and his hands are everywhere, sliding under my blouse, spanning my waist, gripping my ass to lift me against him.
“Bedroom,” I gasp. “Where-”
“End of the hall. But I’m not going to make it that far.”
He drops to his knees right there in the entryway.