Work Text:
lock broken, slur spoken / wound open, game token / i didn’t know you were keeping count
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Cameron Cook had always considered herself perceptive. Raised by a single mother who cared more to be known than to parent, she’d learned young what survival meant for girls who didn’t look like Goldie Hawn or Farah Fawcett.
“If you go missing, they’ll never look for you the same way they would a white girl,” her mother had said one night, half-drunk off a bottle of gifted whiskey, a victory present from one of the donors who’d funded her mother’s latest bid at political power.
Now officially a councilwoman for District 27 in Queens, Carolyn Cook had decided her role as a mother was to impart life advice on her daughter at random intervals and leave the actual raising to the various aunts and uncles in surrounding neighborhoods. She was busy, organizing protests for women’s equality, running her campaign, doing everything possible to get elected and stay elected, because, as she’d told Cameron no less than a half-dozen times:
“Black women have to be better than perfect. When they look at us, they don’t see us. That’s why I named you Cameron. Let them think you’re a white man, and when you roll up into an interview room, you let them see it. See you .”
Cameron had nodded, half-wondering why her mother felt the need to spoil the victorious mood by bringing up Cameron’s eventual disappearance like it was marked in her calendar while also reminding her that life would never be easy for a black girl who wanted to make it in the television industry.
Another part of her understood it, though. She had to work harder, be harder, in order to stand out. So Cameron noticed everything, able to tell whether a man was cheating on his wife by the way his lips curled over her name… or whether he’d be willing to give it a try. It’s how she realized Tony had something to offer her besides a chance at breaking into the British television game, and what led her to sinking onto her knees in the middle of his hotel room just hours after his plane landed.
Her perception of the world had always been Cameron’s greatest gift, the reason she was just shy of her mid-thirties and as sought-after a producer as some of the men who’d been in the game for decades.
That was why it rocked her so, one sunny afternoon in Penscombe’s library, the notebook in which she’d been reworking the opening for Venturer’s newest proposed program--a weekly sports chat show--falling to the ground with an unceremonious clatter. Seb leaned over and tried to hand it back to her, but Cameron was frozen, staring at Rupert and Taggie as moments from the last six months slowly clicked into place, slotting together like the final pieces of a particularly stubborn puzzle.
The scene went like this: enter the small, plainly-clothed daughter of Declan O’Hara, clad in a pair of high-waisted jeans and white t-shirt, her unruly hair making a valiant effort to escape its perch from the top of her head. She carried a stack of binders almost taller than herself, and it was clear that helping his daughter bring in the newest programming material for the Venturer crew had not occured to Declan.
From stage right came the ex-Olympian show jumper, springing to his feet and relieving the girl of her burdens mere seconds after she appeared in the doorway. It was small, hardly significant, and at any other time this interaction wouldn’t have caught Cameron’s attention. But Taggie beamed at Rupert like he’d just pledged to donate every last coin in Penscombe’s coffers to help orphaned puppies. And Rupert’s eyes softened in a way Cameron was sure had never been directed towards herself, lips tilting into a small, secretive smile that was somehow more intimate than the snap of his hips as he drove his cock into her cunt just that morning.
The scene continued, Taggie murmuring something Cameron couldn’t decipher and Rupert responding in kind, that same devastating smile still playing on his lips. Whatever it was that he said, Taggie blushed so furiously that Cameron had to resist every impulse to march across the room and demand to know what the hell her… boyfriend? lover? partner? had said to the girl.
And then it was over, curtains drawing, but not before Rupert’s free hand casually drifted across Taggie’s waist, barely skimming the fabric of her t-shirt, as he moved past her to begin distributing the binders. Taggie’s intake of breath was visible, even at a distance, and so was the way her eyes followed Rupert around the room, brow slightly furrowed and teeth worrying her bottom lip as if she couldn’t quite decide what she should be feeling.
And Cameron? Cameron couldn’t breathe.
But everyone was staring at her, and Seb was still holding that fucking notebook full of ideas she’d excitedly shared with Rupert last night while they’d sat in that very room, him nursing a glass of scotch while she paced back and forth, reading the program description she’d painstakingly crafted for the upcoming investors meeting.
And because everyone was staring at her, she laughed, taking the notebook from Seb and scribbling some nonsense in the margins, saying, “I just think we’ve got a damn good show here.”
There was a smattering of applause that far surpassed what the situation warranted, but everyone was a little bit drunk and entirely exhausted after the long road they’d walked just trying to secure a chance to bid for the franchise. Declan insisted on fetching another bottle of whiskey for a toast (disregarding the fact that it was, in fact, Rupert’s house and therefore his whiskey) and was none the wiser to how Rupert lifted his glass solely in Taggie’s direction, as if there weren’t half a dozen people and two very unruly dogs between them. This time, it was Rupert who looked away first as Taggie took a delicate sip of wine, throat bobbing as she swallowed.
Get a fucking grip , she wanted to scream, forcing a smile as Declan topped off her glass. Her father’s right there. I’m right here .
It was improbable. Ridiculous, even, that Rupert Campbell-Black would be in love with the young, meek daughter of his closest ally, his friend . Cameron wanted to think something scathing, remembering the way she’d heard the girl’s own mother call her dim-witted the previous autumn, but everything she’d witnessed from Taggie O’Hara spoke to the contrary.
Sure, the girl couldn’t read, but neither could half the kids in her cousin’s Harlem neighborhood growing up. Cameron, who benefitted from her father’s comfortable career in trading and her mother’s tenacity, never forgot what the private Catholic school she’d attended had given her. Catholicism wasn’t her style, and neither, admittedly, was it her mother’s, but its graduates went on to be somebodies .
But none of this charitable kindness that Cameron bestowed upon the O’Hara girl--because that’s what she was, a girl --changed the fact that Taggie was twenty years old, for God’s sake. Young enough to be Rupert’s daughter, young enough to be Cameron’s own daughter, if her mother had been a little less industrious about ensuring Cameron was on birth control in her early teenage years.
How could this girl, this little slip of a thing who flitted in and out of rooms, attracting as much attention as the beating wings of a butterfly, be her rival?
Cameron continued to watch them throughout the afternoon, and the more she saw, the more she wondered how the hell she’d managed to miss it all these months. The pair rarely spoke, true, but it was like they were tuned to a frequency only they could hear. Rupert’s eyes were constantly scanning Taggie’s body, but not like how he traced the outlines of Cameron’s breasts and thighs, fingertips soon following the trail his gaze burned into her skin. No, somehow, this was worse. It was as if Rupert’s entire being was consumed with pursuing Taggie’s happiness and wellness.
Cameron briefly entertained a delicious fantasy in which Declan wisened up and got his head out of a bottle long enough to see the way Rupert stalked his lovely little girl around every room she entered, swooping in the moment it looked like she was going to exert herself by refilling a glass or stacking up dessert plates, calling for his housekeeper and topping off drinks himself. But that, Cameron reasoned, would require Declan to care about anyone but himself, and that day seemed impossibly far away, especially now that Maud had returned to London and was ignoring his calls.
Instead, Cameron kept vigil, noting that Taggie spent a significant amount of time pouring over her own binder that afternoon, tucked away on a window bench overlooking the gardens with Beaver and Gertrude--whose presence at Penscombe Cameron had once chalked up to Rupert’s penchant for dogs, but now wondered if it had something to do with his affinity for her owner--curled at her feet. For a moment, she felt a twinge of pity, figuring the girl was having a difficult time with the admittedly small script, full of television and corporate jargon that likely went well beyond Taggie’s experience.
That feeling quickly dissipated, however, when Rupert broke away from a conversation with Corinium’s latest defector, Daysee, to snag a throw off of a nearby chaise and drop it casually over Taggie’s lap. She smiled gratefully, tucking the blanket around her feet and the dogs, and how Rupert had known she was fucking cold on a sweltering day in mid-June was bewildering. They never spoke, never touched, but Cameron felt as bitter a jealousy as if Rupert had gotten down on one knee before Taggie.
The worst, still, was yet to come. Scene two: they moved into the smaller of two dining rooms, canapes abounding, drinks flowing, and yet more revisions being made to the proposed lineup of Venturer-produced programs. As evening settled in, streaks of purple and red stretching through the sky across Penscombe’s grounds, the doorbell rang. Rupert shortly returned with a little girl clinging to his leg, dark hair and gray eyes making her his spitting image.
She waved shyly at the group before Rupert explained, “The nanny’s just stopped by. Tabitha left her riding gear here last week.”
Picture Cameron, stage left, wincing internally as she recalled her half-hearted attempts to bond with the children who had about as much interest in her as she showed to them. Tabitha barely answered Cameron’s forcefully cheery hello before spotting Taggie and launching herself at the girl, shyness forgotten as she chattered a mile a minute about marshmallow cupcakes and blueberry tarts and something called a Battenberg cake (though the pronounced the latter as “Batty-berg”). A spotlight steadied on Rupert, capturing a peculiar expression on his face, something both possessive and adoring and absolutely decimating any hopes Cameron might have had of this strange relationship between Taggie and Rupert resembling anything close to paternal.
“When can you keep me and Marcus again, Taggie?” Tabitha bounced back and forth on her heels, little hands fisting the front of Taggie’s shirt. “Daddy says we shouldn’t bother you ‘cause you’re doing very lovely work but I promise I’ll be oh so careful with the eggs and I practiced with Nanny--”
“Tabitha, I’d love your a-assistance!” Taggie said brightly, if not a tad embarrassed by the compliment wrapped up in the six year olds rapid speech. She smoothed her hand over the girl’s raven curls. “Tell your father that you’re welcome in my kitchen anytime, as long as he promises to do the washing up for us.”
Another look passed between them, charged and tender all at once. Cameron didn’t think she could replicate it if she tried.
Tabitha’s face lit up, and she turned to her father, triumphant. “See, Daddy! I told you Taggie wanted to be my friend.”
“Come now, Tabs, before you scare her off,” Rupert chuckled, gently steering the girl towards the door and away from Taggie, who was gazing after Tabitha so fondly that Cameron--who, for the record, never wanted children and found them only sometimes mildly pleasant to be around--felt a stab of jealousy.
It should be her greeting Rupert’s children. Her was her… And there the question was again, because they’d never labeled this relationship. Cameron had at first thought herself a great feminist for it but now wondered if she’d been played for a fool.
And then she realized why it bothered her so much: she’d been home that Wednesday, too, grateful that Rupert had planned on taking the children out and declining his invitation to join in favor of a glass of wine and a soak in the tub. He never asked her to keep them--and never mentioned the meeting, or the fact that darling fucking Taggie was apparently playing stepmother now.
Something unpleasant must have shown on her face, because once Rupert had packed Tabitha’s gear into the car and seen them down the drive he joined Cameron--and conveniently, Declan. “Taggie helped me out of a tight spot last week. Maggie called a last-minute meeting and I had to dash off to London, but the nanny was off and Helen wouldn’t have let me hear the end of it if I’d called her. Taggie obliged to play babysitter for the day and saved poor Gerald from another one of Tab’s makeovers.”
Gerald grimaced and nodded emphatically. Declan, however, still looked perturbed. “Seems like you’re at my own house more than I am lately, Rupert,” he said, words already taking on that slightly whiskey-induced slur that seemed to be making itself part of his regular speech these days.
To Cameron’s surprise, it was Taggie who spoke next. “Daddy, you were home. Last Wednesday, you were… sleeping, in your study.” Taggie flushed, and the implication she very politely made was quite clear: Declan had been too busy sleeping off a killer hangover to realize two small children had invaded his home.
“Er, right, then. Good of you, Tag,” Declan said gruffly, scratching the back of his neck. Then, “Fucking Hell, we haven’t even touched Lady Gosling’s ‘personal revisions’ yet. Grab another bottle, will you, Tag?”
Taggie stood, with Rupert, unsurprisingly, right behind her, but before Cameron was even fully conscious of her actions she rose as well, brushing past Rupert and overtaking Taggie. “I’ve got it. I need to talk to Mrs. Bodkin about the menu for that damn dinner with the chef we’re eyeing.”
It was a lie--Alain Moreau was a renowned patisserie chef, so of course they’d finalized the menu with the catering company Rupert had shelled out an eye-watering amount of money for. But Cameron needed out, before she slapped the hell out of Rupert or said something truly beastly to Taggie.
She made it back to the library before sinking down into a chair--never collapsing, never breaking--with her mother’s voice ringing in her ears:
Don’t you ever let a man make you feel so small. Make him regret trying to.
But hadn’t that been what she was doing this whole time? Betraying Tony--nearly killing him for putting his hands on her--and buying into Venturer, she’d made every man who underestimated her regret it, made them realize how much they needed her to succeed. And yet, maybe there was something to fragility. To softness. To allowing someone-- anyone -- to tuck a blanket around your feet and gather the dishes so you could rest.
And selfishly, and quietly, Cameron wondered why Rupert had never even bothered to try looking at her like something he might cherish.
“Fuck!” Cameron said, just loud enough that Beaver pricked up his ears and looked around the room, growling lowly. She shushed him and stood, wandering aimlessly, fingers trailing over spines of books that were more valuable than everything in that apartment Tony had rented for her combined.
As if drawn to it, Cameron made her way to Taggie’s abandoned perch, where her programming guide still sat. Nagged on by a tight feeling in her gut, Cameron flicked open the cover to see a short note written in a vaguely familiar hand tucked behind a page protector.
Angel-
Thought this might help. I’ll keep up with additions as we change the programming.
Yours,
Rupert Campbell-Black, MP (Minister for Sport)
It was hardly significant, barely more than a sentence, but as Cameron flipped through the binder with an increased urgency she realized that Rupert must have spent hours penning careful notes to Taggie through the pages, explaining television terms, the rough outlines of their financial planning, and adding his own crude commentary when he deemed appropriate. Some pages said things like, Christopher Carlisle is a restaurateur in London and has a lot of ties with television. Best coq au vin I’ve ever tasted besides yours. Must take you someday to judge for yourself . Others, I don’t know how to best explain this. I can show you an example of what the form looks like . The font itself was different--larger, with characters spaced in a distinct way that Cameron realized must be ideal for dyslexic readers. He’d even changed his fucking handwriting, replacing the elegant script of a minister with neat, block lettering.
And it all shattered something in her, this care he’d taken to include Taggie, who did so much for Venturer and never received any credit. If circumstances were different, she might feel something like shame.
All for Taggie. Everything, for Taggie.
Cameron closed the binder carefully. The only thing that kept her from marching into the dining room and emptying the most expensive bottle she could find over Rupert’s head was the surety there wasn’t a full-blown affair happening. Yes, she’d missed this… exchange of longing glances and sickeningly thoughtful gestures, but she was could read people, and had recently found herself an expert in the field of adultery. It helped, too, that she now knew Rupert was horrifically (and in her opinion, embarrassingly) transparent when it came to Taggie, if one knew where to look.
But still, she wondered. Hoping everyone was too drunk to notice her absence, Cameron slipped off her heels (Valentino, a gift from Tony six months into their “relationship”) and went upstairs, slinking through the halls until she reached Rupert’s study. It was never locked, the move of a man who didn’t believe someone would be foolish enough to invade his domain, and Cameron took advantage.
Holding her breath, Cameron paused on the threshold, briefly wondering if this was just as bad as melting into a puddle of tears. But then her gaze strayed to Rupert’s desk and her resolve firmed.
Because she’d remembered something as she combed back through her memories, trying to pinpoint the moment that she lost to a twenty year old girl. Sometime in May, before the event with Corinium, Rupert had been up late, and when she’d come to find him he’d been sitting at his desk, studying something with a smile on his face. The second he noticed Cameron, however, he shut whatever had distracted him to the point that he barely acknowledged Cameron’s open robe away in a drawer. He wouldn’t quite meet her gaze, even as her legs wrapped around his hips and her hand slid down his chest to grasp his cock.
Cameron opened the center drawer and found nothing save for a stack of legal documents with a note from Gerald reading, I’m begging of you, please sign and a handful of pens. The next drawer, though, confirmed the worst of her mounting suspicions.
Inside was a fucking shrine to Taggie O’Hara. She first spotted a newspaper clipping, taken from that (at the time, she’d believed) ridiculous article in The Scorpion about Taggie and Rupert. He’d laughed it off at the time, even trying to make light of it to Declan, blaming the Aston’s faulty seatbelt that Cameron herself had experience with, but this…
Cameron had spent enough time with Rupert Campbell-Black--in his life, in his home, in his bed, to at least have an idea of how his mind worked. And she knew he’d secretly loved this. He’d loved the idea of the world seeing him, seeing Taggie , intertwined in a supposed lovers embrace, that peculiar blend of possession and adoration she’d seen on his face when Taggie so fondly handled Tabitha rearing its head. So he’d kept a clipping, reminding Cameron of one of the booster club mothers at her old high school who loudly boasted about the scrapbooks she made of her children from ages zero to eighteen.
She put the clipping aside, feeling vaguely nauseous at the thought of finding an actual scrapbook, and pulled out another slip of paper. A receipt, the text entirely in Spanish, was easy enough for Cameron to parse. One Faberge egg, thirty five thousand pounds.
Cameron’s hands instantly went to her neck, where the diamond necklace Rupert had bought her in Spain rested. The jewels didn’t seem quite so shining in comparison.
And it only got worse. A card, from Taggie to Rupert, reading, Thank you for the lovly gifts. Hope you will come for dinner tomorow. Love, Taggie (and Gertrude) . A yellow scrunchie, not unlike the one currently taming Taggie’s hair downstairs. Inexplicably, a diamond bracelet. And finally, a polaroid photo, taken from Lizzie’s divorce celebration-slash-garden party the week prior. Taggie, glowing and golden and young , laughed at someone just outside the camera’s shot, eyes sparkling in delight. Cameron flipped the polaroid over, where a sticky note was still attached. Thought you might like this one. xx Lizzie . Cameron looked back at the photo, and there was a hand and shirtsleeve that she was sure belonged to Rupert, the object of Taggie’s unbridled joy.
Cameron had never felt older than she did then, carefully rearranging what she now knew were the mementos of a man deeply, horrifically in love. A man whose bed she shared, whose wardrobe held her clothes, whose life had seemed to open up and invite her in, once.
Cameron moved through the halls like a ghost, barely remembering to stop and grab a bottle of whiskey at random before rejoining the group, which had only grown moer raucous in her absence. They now ignored the programming plans entirely, instead watching as Seb tried to throw various bits of charcuterie into Freddie’s open mouth from across the table.
Rupert and Taggie were nowhere to be seen.
Cameron slammed the bottle down onto the table with more force than necessary, but luckily no one noticed, lost to the uproar of Freddie managing to catch an entire block of brie Seb lobbed his way. She made to ease out of the room again, but Declan shot forward unexpectedly, grabbing ahold of her wrist.
“Where’re you running off to?” He said, eyes a little glassy but still oddly intense. “You’re missing all the fun.”
“Last time I checked, Declan, this was supposed to be a work meeting,” Cameron stared pointedly at his hand. “But I need some air. Why? Want to join me?”
Cameron used her free hand to encircle Declan’s wrist, sliding her fingers up his arm. He jerked away, but not before darting his eyes to her lips, and the plunging neckline of her emerald green blouse.
“Maybe later,” he finally said stiffly, but Cameron could feel his eyes on her retreating back until she turned the corner into the hall. Later, she’d consider the implications of kissing a man and then turning her eyes on his father.
The closest door was ajar, behind which, Cameron knew, was a sitting room with a large picture window that Rupert had fucked her against last week. She’d screamed his name as she came, biting his shoulder as waves of pleasure shuddered through her.
“It’s amazing, Rupert. It’s like-- like the words are finally in an order I understand. How’d you know to do it?”
A beat of silence. “I… read a book. Overcoming Dyslexia . Gerald place an order for the tape, it should be arriving at yours next week.”
Taggie’s voice was wobbly. “You shouldn’t have. It’s too much.”
“Nonsense, angel. It’s just a tape.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
Cameron bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood. This was it, she was sure. Rupert was going to kiss her.
Instead: “I also took care of the next three months of gas and electric for the Priory. Just until Venturer starts bringing in money.”
“Rupert, I-- How--”
“I might have nicked the bills while you were distracted with Tabitha attempting to fold bluebells into your cake batter.”
Cameron chanced a peek around the corner. Taggie was half-laughing, half-crying, her head on Rupert’s shoulder as they sat side-by-side on a settee. It might have been paternal, if not for the way Rupert’s hand rubbed small circles on Taggie’s jean-clothed knee, thumb tracing the ridged seam. It seemed effortless, the intimacy tha Cameron had secretly craved while her relationship with Tony imploded. Rupert kissed her often, yes, catching her hand as she walked by to brush his lips against or knuckles, featherlight touches to her cheek when she chastised him for marring her makeup before an event.
She couldn’t explain, even to herself, where the difference lay. Was it the fact that sex wasn’t immediately presumed to follow every touch? Did Taggie’s certain brand of innocence cast their interactions in a gentler light?
Or was it the way he handled her, reverently, like something holy was contained between the calloused pads of his fingers and the worn denim covering her freckled skin?
“You do too much for us, Rupert,” Taggie finally said thickly, fingers swiping at her cheeks. “I won’t ever be able to pay it all back.”
Rupert chuckled, fingers squeezing Taggie’s knee as he pressed his lips (devastatingly, heartbreakingly) to Taggie’s temple. “Don’t worry about it, angel. Declan would do the same for me.”
Taggie snorted. “Daddy would rather give all his money to the Tories.”
“Same difference, darling,” Rupert smiled in that besotted way again, and Cameron wanted to scream. “Besides, I might have an ulterior motive that requires your cooperation.”
Taggie picked her head up, brow furrowed again. Rupert’s free hand twitched, like he wanted nothing more than to smooth out the lines with his thumb. “What kind of ult--ulterior motive?”
Rupert let go of her only long enough to reach forward and pick up the programming guide he must have brought in for this very conversation. “That chef Cameron is pushing us to court,” she ducked away, heart thumping as Rupert said her name, not even a hint of guilt coloring his tone. After a few beats, Cameron peered again around the corner. “He’s incredible, of course, but I don’t think he’s what Cotchester needs to see. In all of your campaigning, what was it you told us they wanted the most?”
Taggie paused, thinking. “They don’t feel like Corinium represents them. They want more-- more local things. Like the polo matches, or garden shows. That’s why they liked Daddy’s show, because they felt like he was one of them.”
“Exactly!” Rupert said, flicking through pages in the binder before pointing to a page. “Here’s one of Lady Gosling’s notes: ‘the locals want to feel as if they could be the next face of Cotchester programming.’ A French pastry chef isn’t going to give them that, now is he?”
Taggie shook her head slowly. “No, I don’t suppose so, but…” Her eyes grew wide as she reached the same conclusion Cameron had come to only moments before. “Rupert… You’re not seriously con-- considering…”
“Oh, but I am, Tag,” Rupert said earnestly, grasping at Taggie’s hands. “Think about it. Half the countryside already adores you, and why wouldn’t they? You’ve catered for every lord and lady from here to London. You’re the face of Venturer’s kitchen, angel.”
Cameron was seething. At the fact that Rupert was going behind her back to undermine something she’d spent months working on--something he’d shown enthusiasm for as recently as the prior afternoon--at that goddamn ridiculous pet name he reserved for Taggie alone, at herself for becoming so entwined with Rupert that she’d, laughably, thrown the idea of marrying him at Tony like her final, great trump card.
Surely, she must be a masochist, because anyone else would have put themselves out of their misery by now, either by bursting into the room and breaking up the cozy scene or rejoining the party. But Cameron had to know all of it, had to be prepared for the inevitable moment that Rupert decided gambling Venturer’s future again was worth it, for yet another woman. It was his boldness in showing up at her flat, Venturer’s franchise bid in hand, that made her consider him in another light all those months ago. And he’d never even begun to look at her like he did Taggie.
No, she could no longer gamble her future on Rupert Campbell-Black, that much was clear. Cameron’s mother didn’t know a thing about Rupert--or Tony--but she’d surely approve of her daughter forming a contingency plan for when it all went south. Venturer was her gateway into British television, that much she was still sure of, and though Cameron had clearly missed some things over the last months, she knew in her gut that Venturer could win. But she had to stop the entire franchise bid from imploding when Declan finally realized what had been going on right underneath all of their noses.
“Rupert, I can’t be half as good as him. No one wants to watch me fumble around my kitchen!” Taggie finally said, face pale. She averted her eyes, but still made no effort to disentangle their hands.
Rupert shook his head. “Darling, I’ve seen you in the kitchen more times than I can count. You don’t fumble. You’re careful, composed, and capable of keeping up the most delightful stream of chatter,” a roguish smile, one that finally, Cameron recognized, “Whether you’re dishing up a bolognese or baking one of those tarts the entire crew can’t resist. Please consider it.”
“I can’t--with Mummy gone, Daddy’s going to need more help, and you said yourself Venturer isn’t making money--”
Rupert cut across her, not ungently. “You can’t spend the rest of your life living for them. If we win the franchise, Declan’s going to be busier than ever. You deserve to do something for yourself. And I won’t, of course, be having you do all of this for free”
That was the throughline, then. They win the franchise, Declan’s too busy to care what Rupert and Taggie are up to, and they all live happily ever after.
“Rupert, I won’t let you pay me out of pity.” Taggie’s tone was sharp, now.
“It’s never pity, angel. But fine. Miss O’Hara, I’d like to hire your catering services for the foreseeable future. And if that just so happens to coincide with a screen test for Venturer and a series’ worth of trial recipes, then we’ll call it a happy accident,” Rupert finished with a wink, succeeding in drawing a small smile from the girl.
Cameron expected Taggie to put up more of a fight, having first hand seen the girl constantly undersell her own value and break her back to accommodate the whims of her parents. Instead, she laughed in a way that reminded Cameron of the polaroid, head thrown back and color creeping into her cheeks.
“You’re incorr-incorrigible,” Taggie said between fits of giggles, seeming to barely notice the doting expression on Rupert’s face, which, Cameron realized, was because she was so used to seeing it when his eyes were on her. “But fine, I’ll consider this ridiculous idea. Only if you promise not to make a fuss, and if I’m as awful as I think, you won’t lie to me.”
“You have yourself a deal, Miss O’Hara,” Rupert said, and though his words were in jest Cameron could detect an undercurrent of excitement to them. He was fucking thrilled at the idea, likely daydreaming about how many more hours he’d be able to spend staring longingly at the girl if she went through with this, stomping all over Cameron’s carefully constructed plans in the process. “And I may have already mentioned it to Freddie. He thinks you’re marvelous, and I can assure you if you’d prepared that charcuterie he and Seb wouldn’t be lobbing it at each other’s heads.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure. I don’t think Seb is still very keen on me after I broke things off,” Taggie said, and a shadow crossed Rupert’s face. For the first time since Cameron had come upon them, an awkward edge crept into the room. Then, Taggie’s face fell again. “But what about Daddy? He won’t want me so involved.”
Rupert looked slightly mutinous at that. “Declan should have considered that before he made you our unpaid campaigner, caterer, and his minder when he’s had a few too many. Besides, he’s only a third of this operation. I’m all in for you, angel.”
It didn’t escape Cameron’s notice how Rupert slipped in a compliment in almost every sentence he spoke to Taggie. It was if he was trying to make up for a lifetime of her being ignored and belittled by her parents.
Taggie flushed and threw her arms around Rupert’s neck. “This is absolutely mad!” She said, sounding positively delighted.
Rupert’s face was just visible through Taggie’s wild mass of curls. His eyes fluttered shut. “Mad indeed, darling.”
Cameron didn’t think he was talking about the show, anymore. She wasn’t sure if he ever had been.
For half a second, Cameron considered what would happen if she cleared her throat and walked into the room. Perhaps Rupert and Taggie would spring apart, putting as much distance between themselves as possible, the very picture of innocence. Maybe Rupert would swear up and down that it wasn’t what it looked like, that he considered Taggie a second daughter. Or maybe he’d lock eyes with Cameron, something like pity coloring his gaze, and ask her why in God’s name hadn’t she started packing her bags.
She’d seen enough. She’d seen it all. Every stolen glance-- circumstantial evidence. Every lingering touch-- damning. Adding up to a cascading mountain of unavoidable truths and near-transgressions that began with this simple fact: Cameron could have easily, happily loved Rupert Campbell-Black.
And that was her first mistake. The score now kept, the playing field leveled, Cameron Cook turned on her heel, intending to decode what, exactly, made Declan O’Hara tick.