Chapter Seven
The Daughter Between Them
Camille’s question hung in the ballroom.
“How long?”
Aisha let go of Graham’s wrist.
He lowered his hand from her face, but he did not step away from her. That small refusal to create false distance did not escape Camille’s notice.
Her gaze moved between them.
“Someone answer me.”
Graham spoke first.
“Several weeks.”
Camille stared at him.
“Several weeks?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been sleeping together for several weeks?”
Aisha flinched at the bluntness.
Graham’s expression hardened. “You do not need details.”
“I think I need a hell of a lot more details than either of you have apparently decided to give me.”
“Camille,” Aisha said softly.
Camille turned on her.
“No.”
The word struck with enough force to stop Aisha where she stood.
“You don’t get to say my name like I’m overreacting.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were about to calm me down.”
“No, I was about to apologize.”
“For what part?”
Aisha swallowed.
“For hiding it.”
Camille laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Hiding it.”
Her eyes traveled around the ballroom—the room Aisha had rebuilt while Camille planned her wedding, the room where Graham had just declared his love.
“All this time, I kept joking that you two hated each other.”
Neither answered.
Camille’s face tightened.
“And you both just let me.”
“We didn’t know how to tell you,” Aisha said.
“You could have opened your mouths.”
“It wasn’t that simple.”
“It actually was. ‘Hey, Camille, while you’ve been planning your wedding, your best friend has been screwing your father across the hall.’”
“That’s enough,” Graham said.
Camille’s head snapped toward him.
“No, it isn’t. You don’t get to decide when it’s enough. Apparently, you decided everything else without me.”
“This relationship does not require your permission.”
The words were true.
They were also the worst possible ones he could have chosen.
Camille went still.
Aisha turned toward him.
“Graham.”
He looked at her and understood his mistake immediately.
Camille nodded slowly.
“Right. Of course. Because I’m just the daughter.”
“No one said that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
She walked farther into the ballroom.
Her heels clicked against the newly restored floor, each step loud in the silence.
“When did it start?”
“The night of the storm,” Aisha said.
Camille looked at her sharply.
“The night you were trapped here together?”
“We almost kissed that night.”
“Almost?”
Aisha forced herself not to look away.
“We kissed later.”
“And then?”
“Camille,” Graham warned.
She ignored him.
“Did you take this job because of him?”
Aisha felt the question like a slap.
“No.”
“Did you know he wanted you?”
“No.”
“Did you want him before you came here?”
“I remembered him as your father.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Aisha’s hurt sharpened.
“I accepted this project because it was the largest opportunity my company had ever received. I did not build my career for twelve years so I could manipulate my way into your father’s bed.”
Camille’s face changed.
Regret appeared, but anger swallowed it quickly.
“I don’t know what to think.”
“Then don’t think the worst of me.”
“You lied to me.”
“I withheld something personal.”
“For weeks.”
“Yes.”
“While I stood here telling both of you everything about my life.”
Aisha had no defense against that.
Camille’s voice cracked.
“I told you about my fears. I told you Elliot and I were fighting about whether to have children. I told you I was worried my parents would ruin the rehearsal dinner. And the entire time, you had this whole other life happening with my father.”
“It wasn’t an entire life.”
Graham looked at Aisha.
She heard the weakness in the sentence as soon as it left her mouth.
Camille did too.
“He just told you he loved you.”
Aisha fell silent.
Camille looked at Graham.
“And you.”
He faced her without retreating.
“This is my fault.”
Aisha frowned. “No, it isn’t.”
Graham continued as though she had not spoken.
“I pursued her.”
“That is not true,” Aisha said.
“I should have established clearer boundaries.”
Aisha stared at him.
There it was again.
His instinct to seize control of the disaster by claiming all of it.
“You are doing it again,” she said.
He looked at her.
“You are turning me into someone who stood still while you made every decision.”
“I am trying to protect you.”
“I do not need protection from my own choices.”
Camille laughed bitterly.
“Wow. So this is a regular argument.”
Aisha closed her eyes briefly.
“This is not helping.”
“No,” Camille said. “It really isn’t.”
She looked at Graham again.
“Did Mom know?”
“She discovered it today.”
“Before me.”
“By accident.”
“Did anyone else know?”
“No.”
Camille glanced toward the doorway.
“What about Nora? Darius? The entire crew taking bets every time you two argued?”
“No one was told,” Aisha said.
“That isn’t the same as no one knowing.”
Aisha could not deny it.
Camille’s expression crumpled for one exposed second.
Then she pulled it back together.
“I feel like an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot,” Aisha said.
“I was the only person in this building who didn’t see it.”
“You trusted us.”
“Exactly.”
The accusation landed because it was deserved.
Aisha stepped toward her.
Camille stepped back.
The rejection hurt more than anything she had said.
“I need space.”
“Okay.”
“Not ten minutes while everyone calms down. Actual space.”
Aisha nodded.
Camille looked at Graham.
“I’m leaving.”
“The roads are dark.”
“I am capable of driving.”
“I’ll have someone take you.”
“You mean you’ll arrange it because God forbid I do anything without you managing it?”
Graham’s mouth closed.
Camille reached into her bag and pulled out her phone.
“I’ll call Elliot.”
She walked toward the doorway.
Aisha followed several steps.
“Camille.”
Her best friend stopped, but did not turn.
“I am sorry.”
Camille’s shoulders rose with a breath.
“I believe you.”
Aisha’s chest loosened slightly.
Then Camille added, “I’m just not ready for that to matter yet.”
She left.
The ballroom remained silent after the sound of her footsteps disappeared.
Graham stood beside the plans with his hands braced on the table.
Aisha looked at him.
“You made it worse.”
“I know.”
“You tried to turn me into an innocent bystander.”
“I was not going to allow her to blame you.”
“She had every right to blame me for hiding it.”
“She did not have the right to question your career.”
“She was hurt.”
“That does not excuse it.”
“No, but I don’t need you fighting every battle for me.”
Graham straightened.
“I love you.”
“And that does not make me yours to manage.”
Pain crossed his face.
Aisha hated that she had caused it.
She hated more that the words needed to be said.
“She is my best friend,” Aisha continued. “I should have told her before tonight.”
“We agreed to wait.”
“We avoided deciding.”
Graham looked toward the door Camille had exited through.
“I believed there would be a better time.”
“There was never going to be a good one.”
“No.”
Aisha wrapped her arms around herself.
The warmth that had filled her moments earlier was gone.
“I’m finishing the hotel.”
His eyes returned to her.
“But after the wedding, I think this needs to end.”
The words felt wrong as she said them.
Graham’s face became unreadable.
“Is that what you want?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I cannot build a life with you over the wreckage of the most important friendship I have.”
“Our relationship did not destroy your friendship.”
“It might.”
“And ending it fixes that?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No, Graham, it isn’t. I don’t have one.”
He took a step toward her.
Then stopped.
Aisha saw the choice.
He wanted to argue. To persuade. To list reasons, consequences, solutions.
Instead, he forced his hands to remain at his sides.
“If that is your decision,” he said, “I will respect it.”
The calmness of his response hurt worse than a fight would have.
Aisha blinked rapidly.
“That’s it?”
“What would you have me do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ask you to choose me over her?”
“No.”
“Tell you she will eventually forgive us when I cannot know that?”
“No.”
“Pretend I do not love you so this becomes easier?”
Aisha looked away.
Graham’s voice softened.
“I will not pressure you into staying. But I will not lie about what this is to make everyone else more comfortable.”
Her throat tightened.
“What is it?”
“The first honest thing I have wanted for myself in years.”
Aisha closed her eyes.
He crossed the distance between them then, but he did not touch her.
“I will give you whatever space you need,” he said. “I will not interfere with your work. I will not ask you to hide what happened between us.”
She opened her eyes.
“But?”
“But I will not agree that loving you was a mistake.”
He walked away before she could answer.
Aisha remained in the ballroom alone.
The exposed brick wall stood before her, restored without pretending it had never been damaged.
For the first time, she wondered whether people could be repaired the same way.
Not by recreating what existed before.
By building something honest around what had been exposed.
Camille spent the night at a nearby rental cottage with Elliot.
She paced the living room while he sat on the sofa, watching her complete her fourth lap between the fireplace and the window.
“Say something,” she demanded.
“I have said several things.”
“Say something useful.”
Elliot leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.
“You are allowed to be angry.”
“I know.”
“You are allowed to feel betrayed.”
“I know.”
“You are not allowed to act as though they needed your permission.”
Camille stopped.
“That sounds suspiciously like something my father would say.”
“It is still true.”
“She is my best friend.”
“Yes.”
“He is my father.”
“Yes.”
“That is disgusting.”
Elliot’s eyebrows rose.
“They are two adults.”
“I don’t need you to be reasonable right now.”
“Then you should have called someone else.”
Camille glared at him.
He held up his hands.
“I’m not saying the secrecy was acceptable. It wasn’t. But your father has been divorced for twelve years, and Aisha is thirty. She is not some helpless intern he cornered in an office.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”