Chapter 10 - The Watch Finally Came Home

One year after the engagement gala, Adrian held another dinner.

Only twelve people.

No orchestra.

No reporters.

No champagne tower.

Thomas came early.

Mr. Bell came earlier.

Genevieve flew down from Quebec.

Camille arrived alone.

I opened the front door for her.

She smiled.

“No kitchen door?”

I looked at her.

“Not tonight.”

She laughed softly.

That mattered.

The investigations were mostly over.

Richard Sloane had pleaded guilty to fraud, conspiracy and obstruction.

Marc Laurent had been convicted on financial charges after a long trial.

Nothing erased the past.

Nothing brought back the years Camille lost with her mother.

Nothing gave Adrian back the childhood he spent believing Thomas was dead.

Justice was not a machine that returned what had been taken.

It was only the point where lies stopped collecting interest.

Vale Shipping survived.

Smaller.

Cleaner.

Adrian removed three family names from company buildings.

Including his grandfather’s.

Thomas never asked for an office.

Genevieve never asked for money.

Mr. Bell asked for a better chair.

He received one.

I became house manager.

That surprised me more than almost everything else.

Adrian handed me the keys six months after the gala.

“You opened the ballroom doors when everyone else wanted them closed.”

I told him that was a dangerous hiring standard.

He said:

“It worked once.”

Camille and Adrian did not become engaged again.

Not immediately.

They started with dinners.

Then weekends.

Then arguments they finished instead of avoiding.

Trust returned slowly.

Which was probably the only way it could return honestly.

At the anniversary dinner, Adrian stood near the same fireplace where he had once waited to toast an engagement.

The silver pocket watch rested in his hand.

Thomas looked at it.

“I thought you lost that.”

Adrian shook his head.

“No.”

He opened the back.

A.V.

Then handed it to his father.

Thomas frowned.

“It’s yours.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you giving it to me?”

Adrian looked around the room.

At Genevieve.

At Mr. Bell.

At Camille.

At me.

Then back to Thomas.

“Because you carried it for twenty-one years.”

Thomas’s eyes filled.

Adrian continued.

“And because I don’t need proof you came back anymore.”

Thomas closed his fingers around the watch.

No one spoke.

Then Mr. Bell cleared his throat.

“Are we eating or repairing every damaged relationship before soup?”

Genevieve laughed.

Camille laughed.

Even Thomas did.

Dinner began.

Halfway through, Camille touched Adrian’s hand.

He looked at her.

She did not hide the movement.

No secrets.

No performance.

Later, after dessert, Thomas placed the watch back in front of Adrian.

“I carried it because I was afraid to face you.”

Adrian looked at him.

Thomas continued.

“You should carry it because you didn’t become me.”

Adrian’s expression changed.

He took the watch.

This time, he slipped it into his pocket.

After the guests left, I found Camille standing beneath the staircase where she had once ordered me to turn Mr. Bell away.

White roses were gone.

Only warm lamps remained.

She looked toward the entrance.

“I was awful to you that night.”

“Yes.”

She laughed.

“You could pretend.”

“I work for Adrian.”

“Fair.”

Her smile faded.

“I really did love him.”

“I know.”

“I also lied to him.”

“Yes.”

She looked at me.

“You always say yes.”

“So does Mr. Bell.”

We both smiled.

Adrian came down the stairs.

He stopped beside Camille.

Then looked at me.

“Nora, go home.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“That sounded dangerously like an order.”

“It was.”

Camille looked amused.

I took my coat.

At the front door, I looked back once.

Adrian stood beside the woman whose family had tried to use their marriage.

Camille stood beside the man she had first been sent to meet for someone else’s reasons.

Thomas had returned.

Genevieve had returned.

Mr. Bell had returned.

But none of them returned to the lives they had before.

That was the part people misunderstand about truth.

It does not put everything back.

It gives you the chance to build something that was never based on a lie.

Adrian reached into his pocket.

The silver watch clicked open.

Camille looked at him.

“What time is it?”

He smiled.

“For once?”

A pause.

“Ours.”

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And this time, when the front door closed, no one was being sent away.

If you enjoyed Adrian, Nora, Camille, Thomas and Mr. Bell’s story, keep reading for more gripping tales of hidden family secrets, dangerous loyalties, complicated love, and truths that refuse to stay buried.