Page 14 of The Good Girl Effect (Salacious Legacy #1)

Jack

“ W hat about this one?” I asked, holding a blue leather-bound book in my hands.

Em turned around and glanced at it. With a shrug, she shook her head.

“No, I couldn’t get into it.”

“To the donation bin it goes,” I replied, tossing it in the box full of other books, old sweaters, and a pair of barely worn ballet slippers.

We were standing in Emmaline’s apartment in Giverny, packing her belongings on a warm Sunday spring morning.

There was some generic classic rock song playing on the radio.

The smell of coffee, fresh flowers, and her perfume wafted through the air.

It was only my second time being in her home.

The first was the trip I took three months prior, delivering her home after her yearlong teaching internship in Paris.

The second time was this particular memory. Packing her things to move in with me.

A two-carat diamond on a gold band sat on her left ring finger.

Seeing it shimmer in the light had my heart beating faster in my chest. I moved closer to her, wrapping my arms around her waist and kissing the side of her neck. She giggled like she always did, a sound like a warm breeze or a sip of champagne.

“Are you happy?” I asked.

Turning toward me, she kissed my lips and softly mumbled, “Very happy.”

As I pulled away, I tried to find the truth in her eyes more than just in her words. She looked back at me for a second before her attention flitted down to my lips and then to the ring on her finger.

“Very happy,” she softly whispered again.

It sounded true enough.

I scroll through another photo on my phone, scrutinizing all Em’s smiles and the memories captured in the pictures.

On my desk, my computer displays another month of dismal stats and numbers.

Ever since we took ownership of L’Amour, recently renamed Legacy, it’s been slowly sinking into an unprofitable mess.

As someone who worked for L’Amour under the direction of Ronan and Matis for seven years, I should know how to fix it.

I should be focusing on that now instead of romanticizing the past, but this is what I always do.

I search for a distraction. Work is my distraction from my grief, and my grief is a distraction from my work—a vicious cycle.

Neither is what I should really be focusing on.

“Knock, knock,” a soft, familiar voice calls from the doorway. I peer up from my phone to see Phoenix leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and that familiar, concerned look etched into her features.

“Hey.” I set my phone down and wait for her to continue, although I’m pretty sure I know what she wants to ask.

“How are things?”

I knew it.

“Fine,” I murmur without meeting her eyes.

Phoenix is the type of friend who can see that I’m drowning but doesn’t know how to pull me out of the water. Instead, she dives in and swims next to me. She’s been by my side, shoveling work and distraction my way since Em got sick because she knows it’s the only way to get me through.

Right or wrong, I love her for it.

“How’s the new nanny working out?” She steps into the office and sits in one of the chairs facing my desk.

My molars clench at the mention of the nanny. “Bea loves her,” I say, sounding more displeased about that than I should.

“That’s good,” she replies before clearing her throat. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Phoenix chewing on the inside of her lip, and it’s blatantly obvious just how worried she is.

After Em died, I begged Phoenix to take my daughter. And for a short time, she did. For me.

It was a cruel request, and I’m not proud of it. To ask my best friend to help me and hurt me at the same time. To take the person I love most in this world because I couldn’t be the father Bea needs.

I nearly died right along with Em when my daughter wasn’t in my house for six whole months.

But I didn’t die. Instead, I buried myself in something new. Something to distract me. Something that gives me control and forces me to focus.

I found a love for bondage that made everything hurt just a little less.

I thought I was better. That is until Bea returned home, and I realized that I still didn’t have what it takes to be a father to her.

“I’m glad it’s working out,” she says softly. “But you know if it doesn’t…she can always come back and stay with me.”

I hear my daughter’s voice in my head, and sorrow builds painfully in my throat. The adorable way she greeted me as I left the apartment. The hope and love in her eyes.

She just wants her father.

I won’t give her up again.

“Thanks, Nix,” I say, my voice thick and raspy with emotion. “But it’s getting better.”

She forces a smile. “Good. You know I’m always here for you.”

“Thank you,” I say on an exhale.

“Now, go home. There’s nothing you can do to fix this mess tonight,” she adds, gesturing to the financial reports on my desk.

“I will,” I mutter lowly.

With that, she leaves my office, and I’m left with nothing but shame and regret.

I usually take a car back from the club, especially at nearly four in the morning.

But I need a moment to think, and the quiet, early mornings in the hilly district of Montmartre are the perfect place to do it.

Throughout my entire walk, I think about this new nanny.

She was hardly qualified in the first place, but now she’s proved herself disobedient, insubordinate, and nosy.

Not to mention there is something that borders on inappropriate between us that is both of our faults.

I should fire her. But I won’t.

What I said to Phoenix was true. My daughter likes her new nanny. There is laughter in our home again. She smiles more now. What kind of asshole would I be if I took that away from her?

Besides, it’s only six more weeks until the yearlong contract with the club is up and we are free to leave. It might have been heartless of me to hire a new nanny with plans to leave the city before the year is up, but I’m a desperate man in a desperate situation.

The city streets are still wet from the late evening rain, and I find something so relaxing about that. The way the cobblestones glisten under the streetlights and the cars on the road sound against the wet concrete.

I will miss this city when we go. I’ll miss the way Paris feels, embracing me with memories.

But I won’t miss it at the same time. Because even the rain on the city streets taunts me with moments from our past, like the night Em and I were caught in the rain, coming home from dinner.

How she asked me to kiss her under the downpour because it was romantic , although I still don’t understand why.

But I did it anyway.

I used to hear her laughter in my mind so much more, echoing through our house and down the halls. Now I hear Camille’s instead, and it grates on my nerves. Her presence alone seems to be erasing the memory of my wife. And she has no idea.

Even the feel of her body against mine today. The soft curls of her hair against my cheek. The sound of her footsteps against the floorboards. The pinkish-red hue of her lipstick.

Fuck, I hate the way she tempts me. I’m a monster for what I want, not only because the poor woman is so naive, so innocent, and so new. But also because I want to reach for her in memory of reaching for Em.

I have to brush these thoughts aside. No more lurking in the hallway outside her door at night. No more pushing boundaries with her. No more lingering eye contact.

Put all these feelings away for good.

When I reach the house, I creep down the hall before disappearing upstairs. I briefly hover in Bea’s doorway before approaching her bed. My daughter sleeps peacefully, clutching a stuffed unicorn in her arms.

There’s an ache in my chest as I stare at her, the same way I do every night.

I wish more than anything it had been me to go instead of Em.

If she were here, she’d smother our daughter in comfort and affection so she’d never feel my absence.

I wish I could do the same, but I don’t know how.

I don’t know how to reach through my own pain to ease my child’s, and I feel like a failure for it.

My mother raised me alone until I was seven. She made it seem so easy, but I don’t know how to do this without Em. I’m terrified of saying the wrong thing or messing Bea up somehow. This grief feels like a disease I don’t want her to catch.

She’s better off without me.

After gently kissing my daughter’s head, I tiptoe out of the room. Pausing in the hallway, I glance down at the closed door where Camille sleeps. Part of me wants to linger there again for reasons I don’t understand.

It’s the strangest thing. It’s like there is a line of invisible rope from her to me, and it tugs me relentlessly closer to her.

God, I need to get out of this city.

Turning my back on her room and ignoring the bond between us, I creep up the stairs to the second floor. I loosen my tie from around my neck as I walk into my bedroom, closing the door behind me.

I notice the piece of paper on the nightstand right away. Pausing in the middle of my room, I stare at it.

At first, I consider that it’s a note from my daughter. Or perhaps a drawing she made in school today.

Upon closer inspection, I see my name scribbled in black ink with messy yet feminine handwriting. Tearing off my tie, I toss it on the dresser before picking up the letter and staring at my name, written by her.

Jack

Slowly running my thumb over her handwriting, I imagine her scribbling my name on this paper. I hear her voice in my head as I read it over and over again.

What is this hold she has on me?

I unfold the two pages and find a letter written inside. A panic takes over as I consider that this is her resignation letter, not that I would blame her. I’ve been terrible to her. Sitting on the bed, I read the words in a rush.

Dear Jack,

You say I don’t belong here, but you are wrong. I do belong here. I don’t know why I came up to your room today, and I don’t know why I opened that armoire, but something was calling me to.

What I found today in that room has made me very curious, and I know you are the best person to teach me. Whatever it is, I just want to feel what it’s like.

I’ve done my research. I know what it is you enjoy, and I’m not some naive virgin who is afraid of being hurt. I know it doesn’t have to be about sex, so I’m not asking for anything inappropriate. We can keep things innocent.

I think you want to teach me. I felt the way you touched me today. I heard the way you reacted. You can deny it all you want, but we both know that this could be good.

One thing you should know about me is that I’m stubborn. I don’t give up easily, and I always put up a fight. So the more you push me, the more I push back. The more you try to silence me, the louder I will be.

And since you won’t let me speak, this is the only way to reach you.

I’m trying to be patient with you. I will give you grace and patience while you work through whatever it is you need to work through, but you and I have more in common than you think. Because I think you’re as stubborn and curious as I am.

If you don’t want me to talk to you, that’s fine. I won’t. But I still want to know what those ropes feel like. I want to know what it’s like to let you tie me up in them. I want to know what it feels like to submit.

Please.

Show me.

Camille

A rumbling groan climbs its way out of my body as I run my hand over my five-o’clock shadow. I read the letter nearly ten times before deciding how the fuck to feel about this.

Those last two words make my cock twitch in my pants: Show me.

Does she even know what she’s asking of me? She thinks this doesn’t have to be about sex, so she clearly doesn’t understand what it would feel like to be bound and submissive for another person. Because it might not be about sex, but it’s definitely going to blur some very serious lines.

“No,” I say to myself as I set the letter on the table. “Absolutely not.”

I sound out of my mind, speaking to no one in the room as I stand from the bed and pace the empty space. Part of me wants to march right back downstairs and tell her emphatically that this is out of the question.

She’s my employee. I’m her boss.

My daughter is our only priority, so abusing this working relationship would only put Bea in harm’s way. The right thing to do would be to keep things professional and tell Camille that we cannot do anything that would be considered inappropriate.

But as I unbutton my shirt and tear it from my shoulders, I imagine her long blond curls braided down her naked back. I picture her small wrists bound behind her. I picture a blindfold over her eyes and her empty mouth at the right height to take my cock.

“Fuck!” I bark as I bury my fingers in my hair. What am I doing? I can’t think things like that. That is exactly what I should not be doing.

Trying to distract myself, I go to the bathroom down the hall and close myself in. I don’t have to remove my pants to know my cock is stiff and pulsing with need.

“Stop it,” I berate myself, trying to carry on with my normal night routine before going to sleep. By the time I’ve finished brushing my teeth, my cock has managed to soften to a manageable state.

I’m a monster for even having to think that.

Dammit, Camille. How could she ask me that? She really has no idea the effect she has on me, and clearly, neither did I until this moment.

Returning to my room, I know there won’t be an ounce of rest for me until I respond to her in some way. So I go down the hall to my office and sit in the dim room with only a small lamp on the desk to illuminate the blank white page.

With a pen in my hand, I quickly scrawl my reply. But every few lines, I decide I hate my response, and I tear the page from the pad and ball it up before throwing it in the trash. Every excuse feels wrong.

It would be inappropriate.

I am your employer.

Contrary to what you assume, I do not share these feelings with you.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Just once, I decide to write something without letting my mind stop me. I write her a response that feels right. The words fly across the page, and by the time I finish, I know that I should not, under any circumstance, give her this letter.

For nearly an hour, I contemplate what I’ve just written. The sun starts to crest the city through the windows when I mumble, “Fuck it.”

Folding up the pages the same way she did, I scribble her name on the front. In a pair of dark joggers, I quietly tiptoe down the stairs, rushing to deliver the letter before she wakes.

With one last moment of hesitation, I slide the letter under her door.

There is no turning back now. My regret and I make our way back upstairs and into my bed.

I am not a man of impulse. I don’t make decisions lightly. But this woman seems to have scrambled the wires in my brain. I find myself almost obsessed with her in a way that can’t be healthy.

And when she reads that letter today, she will know.