Page 47 of The Good Girl Effect (Salacious Legacy #1)

Jack

C amille is sleeping peacefully on my chest when I wake to the sound of tiny feet pitter-pattering across the floor downstairs.

“Oh shit.” I scramble out of bed and throw my sweats and a T-shirt on. Finger combing my hair to the side as I scurry down the steps, I find my daughter standing at the bottom in pink polka-dot pajamas with a wide-eyed expression on her face.

“Camille is missing!” she cries. Her hair is still tangled from sleep as if she just rolled out of bed and went to her nanny’s room first.

I chuckle to myself as I reach the bottom floor. “She’s not missing.”

“She’s not in her room!”

“I know she’s not,” I reply, ushering my daughter toward the kitchen so I can make her breakfast and me coffee. “She’s…erm…upstairs.”

“In your room?” Bea asks, looking perplexed.

“Yes. She was…helping me with something. She’ll be down in a moment.”

“What was she helping you with?” Bea asks as she climbs up on the stool in front of the counter.

I fight a smile as I start to make a pot of coffee, rinsing the carafe in the sink. “Um…” It feels wrong to lie, but it’s not like I can tell my six-year-old the truth, especially without talking to Camille about it first.

“She was showing me how to iron my suit,” I say.

“This early in the morning?” Bea asks.

As I put coffee beans in the machine, I change the subject so my daughter stops asking so many questions. “Did you have fun with Monique last night?”

“Yes,” she replies excitedly. “We watched A Little Princess and made cookies and stayed up until ten!”

I smile as I turn toward her. Crossing my arms over my chest, I stare at her.

Today is the first day I can finally accept that this life is perfect just the way it is. Camille and I love each other. Who cares that she was my daughter’s nanny? She won’t be for long. Starting now, she’ll be my girlfriend.

Am I a fool for thinking I can have it all? I know Bea would be ecstatic to have Camille as more than a nanny. And I know Camille is worried about the risks, but there would be risks no matter who I was dating.

And don’t the benefits outweigh the risks?

I can see our future so plainly it feels unreal. Every morning, waking up next to her. Spending our weekends together as a family. Raising Bea…and maybe more children. Going to the club at night like we’re living double lives.

It’s all within reach.

As I make Bea breakfast, it’s all I can think about. Camille sleeps peacefully upstairs as I sip my coffee, anxious to tell her how I feel. It’s more than just I love you .

It’s… I want you forever.

As Bea watches cartoons and eats her breakfast, I slip out of the room in search of some paper and a pen. It’s been a while since Camille and I wrote each other a letter, and I’m desperate to express what I’m feeling in this moment.

Instead of waking Camille, I creep into her room. I want to do this while she’s still sleeping. Last time, I found the pen and paper in her desk drawer, so I assume that’s where she keeps it.

When I pull open the drawer, I smile down at the collection of letters I’ve written to her over the past few weeks. I pick them up and reminisce at how far we’ve come in such a short time. Or rather how far I’ve come.

The letters started filthy, then disciplined, then hopeful, and eventually downright romantic.

As I sift through them, I can hardly believe the transformation I’ve seen in myself. But then I come to one in the back that catches me by surprise.

It’s not a letter I wrote to Camille. It’s a letter I wrote to…Emmaline.

I’m frozen in place, staring down at the envelope, remembering the moment I addressed it and stamped it and placed it in a mailbox over seven years ago.

My skin grows hot and my heart hammers wildly in my chest as I reach into the envelope and pull out the letter. Between the folded pages is a photo.

I nearly gasp at the sight of it. Em and I huddled together in front of the Sacré-C?ur just a day before she left Paris. I sent it to her only a week later, begging her to come back, professing my love for her, asking her to marry me. And she said yes.

The love of my life.

I stare at the photo and suddenly feel sick. What am I doing?

How could I move on so easily and so soon? How could I do this to her?

My eyes sting as I stare at the photo. Then I flip open the letter as if the answers to my questions will be hiding inside.

But I can’t even skim through the words I wrote because my attention is stolen by a drawing at the bottom in black pen. A style of drawing I’ve seen over a hundred times in my home over the past two months.

My hands start to shake. Nothing makes sense.

“Jack?” Camille whispers from behind me.

I spin around, holding the letter, photo, and envelope. She glances down at it, and I see the moment fear registers in her expression.

“Where did you get this?” I ask.

Her chest is moving quickly as she stares at the things in my hands. She won’t look me in the eye. Why won’t she look me in the eye?

“I found it,” she whispers.

“Found it where? When?” I ask, a familiar rage growing inside me.

Finally, she glances up at my face and into my eyes, but it’s not the same. She can’t see inside my soul like she normally can. Instead, she starts to cry.

“At a bookstore in Giverny. I was bringing them to you. I was returning them so you had this reminder of her, but…”

My brows furrow. None of this makes any sense. “But what?”

“But…Phoenix thought I was here to apply for the nanny position.”

There is remorse in her tone, but it’s foreign to me. I can’t seem to hear it as I crumple the paper in my hand. She flinches, reaching for the letter like it’s somehow more precious to her than it is to me.

“You mean…you lied . You took this position. You…took care of my daughter , and this whole time…”

She takes a step toward me, reaching for my hands, but I am too blindsided to make sense of any of it. How did I let this happen? I hired someone from off the street to be a nanny for my little girl. Someone who wasn’t qualified at all…and for what?

“Were you stalking us?” I ask. When I look at Camille, it’s like I don’t even know her suddenly.

She drops her hands and straightens her spine. “Of course I was not stalking you,” she argues. “It’s not my fault you hired someone without any experience. It’s true I didn’t know I was coming here to apply for a job, but I applied for it anyway,” she snaps. “It’s not my fault you hired me!”

“You’re a fraud!” I bellow.

“I never lied about anything!” she shouts.

My daughter appears behind Camille, clutching close to her side. “Stop yelling,” Bea murmurs tearfully.

Camille shields her, and I want to reach for my daughter, but for what? To protect her from Camille? The woman who has cared for her and loved her like her own this entire time. It doesn’t feel right. None of this feels right.

“Your papa and I are sorry,” Camille mumbles, kneeling down to face Bea. “We won’t yell anymore, but we need to have a grown-up conversation.”

Camille looks over her shoulder at me, and I let out a heated sigh before turning away and running my hands through my hair.

“Now, go watch your cartoons.”

“Okay,” Bea murmurs sadly before shuffling out to the living room.

The moment she’s gone, Camille closes the door so we’re alone.

“I am not a fraud,” she states quietly.

“You’re fired,” I grit through my teeth, and my heart bursts in my chest at the way she puts a brave face on. Without showing an ounce of weakness, she holds her chin high as it trembles. I wish I could say the same. Just uttering those words makes my legs shake and my heart shatter.

“Fine, but I am not a fraud. And I didn’t lie.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I implore her.

“When could I have told you, Jack? You wouldn’t let me speak! You silenced me every chance you had. And what about you?” she whisper-shouts.

“What about me?” I ask.

“When were you going to tell me that you’re moving back to America? Was any of this real to you, or was I just something to fill a wife-size hole for you?”

I take an angry step toward her. “I changed my mind.”

“What do you mean you changed your mind?”

She’s standing toe-to-toe with me, shouting quietly in my face.

“I’m not moving back to America. At least I wasn’t. And how dare you say that to me? You were never a replacement.”

“So you are moving back now?”

“Yes, maybe,” I growl.

“Why?” she argues. “Because you found out I’m not perfect? You found out that I’m nothing like her? I won’t live in her shadow, Jack. I refuse to.”

“No,” I reply, feeling flustered. Fighting with Camille makes me forget why I was angry. In fact, it only makes me want her more. “Fuck, I don’t know.” I turn my back on her, storming across the room to breathe. I pull at my hair, trying to make sense of my emotions.

“You know what I think?” she asks from behind me. “I think seeing that letter reminded you of what you had with her. Seeing that letter reminded you that I’m not her.”

“You’re not her,” I grumble lowly to myself.

“And you’re mad at me for that,” she snaps, and I hear the tears in her voice. There is raw emotion and pain in her words, and it guts me. “You’re mad at me because I’m not Emmaline.”

Spinning toward her, it’s like I’m coming undone.

“No,” I bark. Then I take her face in my hands, pulling her so close it hurts.

“I’m not mad at you because you’re not her,” I mutter through my own tears.

She’s staring into my eyes with longing and agony.

“I’m mad at you because you made me love you more. ”

When she blinks, more tears cascade over her cheeks, and I feel so inclined to kiss her it scares me. My body is drawn to hers like she owns me and is calling me home.

Instead, I release her jaw and step away.

Love has removed all the options and has given us only consequences.

She wipes at her face, sniffling to keep from crying more.

“Camille,” Bea calls from the other side of the door.

Neither of us move.

Then Camille quietly says, “If I’m fired, I’ll tell her. I’ll say goodbye and pack my things.”

Her voice shakes on every word, as if the idea of letting that little girl go would be her reckoning. I’d be a monster to do that to either of them.

“No,” I grunt in surrender. “You’re not fired.”

She drags in a grateful breath and wipes her eyes. Then she turns her back on me and rushes toward the door. Opening it up, she fakes a smile and takes my daughter’s hand.

“What’s wrong?” Bea asks.

“Nothing is wrong,” Camille lies. “Do you want to go to the park today?”

“Okay,” Bea replies hesitantly.

The two of them disappear into Bea’s room, and I drop onto Camille’s bed. Burying my hands in my hair, I try to make sense of what just happened and how all my dreams for the future just fell to pieces.