Camille

Three. Long. Deep. Breaths.

I’d give anything for a drink of water right now. A freshly poured glass of still water rests right before me, but I can’t reach for it. My hands are trembling, and I’ll be damned if I let Trey Bancroft see me shaking like a leaf.

“I’m glad you called, Camille.” He’s calm and even-keeled, one of his greatest strengths. In the face of scandals and high-pressure political storms, he’s always had the uncanny ability to remain perfectly intact and come out unscathed. “I’ve missed you.”

“This isn’t about us. Let me make that clear.” I want my journal back, and my gut tells me he has it. He’s the only man in this city who knows where I live, and the only person I know who is ballsy enough to help himself to my apartment if the opportunity arose. Perhaps he was searching for something else and found more than he bargained for. It’s the only thing that makes sense.

He smiles his arrogant smile, like I’m just some political pundit he needs to butter up in order to fall into their good graces. Trey oozes confidence, and I can’t say that I blame him. He’s a man who rarely swings and misses, a man who knows how to get what he wants.

Screw it. I’m taking a drink.

I don’t think he’s looking at my hands anyway. He hasn’t taken his eyes off my breasts since he walked in here, despite the fact that they’re one hundred percent covered in a cable-knit cardigan fit for a schoolmarm. I made sure when I dressed for this evening that nothing about my ensemble remotely whispered sexy.

“Then what is this about?” he asks, wearing a smile as fake as his dyed brown hair. Trey wears his forties well, but not without some assistance. An avid runner with an eye for style, he’s an attractive man with a charismatic way about him. People are drawn to his magnetic charm and easy personality.

But he’s also a liar and a cheat.

There’s no easy way to ask, so I lay it on the table without any kind of preface. “Were you in my apartment this weekend?”

He scoffs, nearly choking on the wine he just sipped a second earlier.

“Excuse me?” He laughs. “Why would I have been at your apartment?”

“Something of mine is missing,” I say.

“Like what?”

“Don’t play games with me, Trey. You are the only person in this city who knows my address.”

And the only man in this city who’s ever set foot in there . . .

“Did you ask Araminta?” Trey suggests. His eyes roll as if this conversation bores him.

“Don’t worry who I have and haven’t asked.” I lean forward, narrowing my gaze. “I’m asking you, Trey.”

“I haven’t seen, nor heard from, nor spoken to you in months, Camille, and this is what I get? An accusation of theft? I knew we left off in a bad place, but I expected a little more class from you.” He sips his wine like he’s some dignified diplomat.

“Really? You want to talk about the way things ended?” In my mind, I’m standing right now, yanking that pretentious, hundred-dollar glass of red wine from his hand and dousing his pristine white shirt in it. “How’s your wife, Trey? And the kids? How’s the baby, Trey? Is she walking yet?”

His face reddens as his eyes scan our surroundings for any prying patrons.

“Keep your voice down!” Trey’s whisper borders along the lines of a shout.

“Why’s that? Wouldn’t want your dirty little secret getting out?”

We both lean back in our chairs, refusing to make eye contact for a moment. He seethes from his side. I huff from mine.

Clearly, coming here tonight was a bad idea, but I had to ask. And I wanted to personally remind him to leave me the hell alone. I figured coming to a very busy restaurant in a very public place would keep the meeting from feeling intimate.

“If I go down, I’m taking you right along with me, sweetheart.” He cocks a smile that makes me want to punch him.

I’d met Trey just before last Christmas. He’d heard about me through another senator, as they all seemed to do, and I accepted him as a client after learning of his emotionally abusive, alcoholic wife and how she’d abandoned their marriage yet refused to initiate a divorce. He claimed to be fresh off of filing a legal separation when we had our first date, and the first week into our arrangement, this handsome senator cried in my arms about how much he missed the tender touch of a lover. He claimed to be a man simply in search of a woman who enjoyed physical intimacy as much as he did. Months passed, and I found myself breaking all of my own rules. He swept me up with the sweet nothings he’d whisper into my ear when he’d stay the night, and he sealed the deal with sweeping romantic gestures that made me forget I was just somebody’s prized whore.

No one had ever done those things for me. And none of these men had ever taken the time to get to know me the way Trey did. He knew my favorite music, my favorite stores and restaurants. He was the first man I’d ever so much as mentioned to my mother.

We were planning a trip to Tennessee last summer when the letter arrived in the mail.

It was postmarked in DC and the return address was blank. I’d almost thrown it away because it looked like disguised junk mail, the kind with no identifying information so that you’re forced to open it to see what’s inside.

Only when I opened this letter, I saw a family photo. Trey Bancroft sat next to his beautiful, smiling wife, Tippy, who cradled a pudgy-faced baby. A black lab and two blonde girls in pigtails and matching rompers sat in front.

My heart knocked erratically in my chest as I studied that photo, searching for some kind of clue. It could’ve been taken a year or two ago for all I knew.

And then I saw it. The pink and yellow paisley tie around his neck. The one I bought for him during a weekend getaway in Cape May not two months prior. He jokingly said it was the most ugly thing he’d ever seen, and I told him if he loved me, he’d wear it sometime.

I dropped the photo in that moment, my hands flying to my mouth in case the stir of bile in my stomach decided to rise. The picture fluttered to the ground, landing upside down when it hit the floor.

And that’s when I saw the writing on the back.

END IT OR EVERYONE WILL KNOW.

“This was a mistake.” I rise from the table. I should’ve known better than to expect a liar to give me a straight answer.

“Where are you going? We haven’t even ordered yet.”

My jaw slacks. “This wasn’t a date, Trey.”

He stares ahead, his expression hardening. If it weren’t for whoever the hell was stalking us back then, I’d probably be staring across the table into his eyes right now like some idiotic escort who fell in love with her client.

“And stop following me. Do we really need to go down that road again?” I say to him. “I know you followed me the other day.”

His handsome face wrinkles, and his head shakes. “No idea what you’re talking about, Camille.”

“The Melrose, Trey. Someone saw you there.”

He leans in, his eyes lifting to mine. “I have just as much skin in the game as you do, sweetheart. The last thing I want is to be seen in a hotel with my ex whore.”

His words sting worse than I expected them to, but I hold my head high. I may be a whore, but I’m the classiest whore this city has ever seen. And besides, it’s just his bruised ego talking. Deep down, that man is still head over heels in love with his whore.

“Now,” he says. “Tell me, why would I have followed you to a hotel?”

“Because you still want to be with me,” I say in a rushed whisper, annoyed to have to state the obvious. Why else would he have dropped everything to meet me tonight?

“Don’t flatter yourself.” He scoffs, but he has to be lying. I can hear the uncertainty in his voice disguised as arrogance. “Don’t think for one moment that you’re not disposable to any of the men who pay for your . . . services.”

“You loved me, Trey.” I keep my voice down. “And for a tiny sliver of this past year, I almost thought I loved you too.”

His eyes roll and his square jaw relaxes as he smirks. “I could never love someone like you, Camille. I thought it was all part of the game. We were just a couple of professionals doing what we do best: pretending to be people we’re not.”

I blink away tears that threaten to blur my vision. It’s been years since anyone’s made me cry, and here I am, letting an asshole like Senator Bancroft get right beneath my skin and vaporize every ounce of strength I have.

“Nobody who hires you is ever going to love you,” he adds. “It’s like leasing a car. It’s yours for a while, and it’s shiny and new and fun, and then you give it back as soon as you’re done with it.”

“Beautiful analogy. Wow. Lovely. Thank you.”

I don’t know this man, the one who cried in my arms and sent me flowers every single week for months, the one who placed his hand on my belly not six months ago and asked if I’d ever consider having a baby with him someday, the one who said he couldn’t imagine his future without me in it.

Whether he lied then or he’s lying now, it all hurts the same.

A crushing, suffocating sensation fills my chest. His words make me nauseous. I’ve spent the better part of the last five years learning to read people, and you spend enough time around politicians that you tend to grow desensitized to their bullshit.

But I thought it was different with Trey.

I pull in a breath and refuse to let myself sink any deeper. I’m more upset with myself for believing him. It’s not his fault. It’s mine. I knew better. There’s a reason Araminta and I have rules, and I threw them all out the window after a few sweet words and tender nights with this con artist.

Never again.

“Thank you, Trey.” I hook the strap of my bag around my shoulder.

“For what?”

“For a most enlightening evening. Now go home to your wife and kids.”