Read Chapter 36: The Father's Letter

The elevator doors slid shut, sealing them into a capsule of gold light and muted hum. Camille still clutched the award—a heavy glass prism that caught the light and threw fractured rainbows across the walls. She hadn't let go of it since the stage, since the applause had washed over her like warm water, since Antoine had leaned in and kissed her cheek and the audience had roared their approval.

Now the prism felt heavier than it should. Or maybe that was the letter.

Her mother's perfume still lingered on her collar. Camille could smell it, faint and floral, an echo of a childhood she'd spent trying to forget.

"Your hands are shaking," Antoine said softly.

Camille looked down. He was right. The prism trembled in her grip, sending its rainbows skittering across the elevator's polished surface like startled fish.

"I need to read it," she said. "The letter."

Antoine didn't ask which letter. He simply pressed the button for their floor and placed his palm against the small of her back—a warm, steady pressure that told her he was there, that he would always be there, without demanding anything in return.

The hotel suite was all cool linen and soft lamplight. Someone had turned down the bed, left a plate of macarons on the nightstand, placed two glasses of champagne beside an ice bucket. Camille barely registered any of it. She set the prism on the writing desk—it landed with a dull thunk—and pulled the envelope from her clutch.

Cream-colored paper. Her father's handwriting across the front, loopy and inelegant, the penmanship of a man who'd always been in a hurry to get to the next idea. *Pour Camille.*

Ten years since he'd died. Ten years since she'd buried him in the rain, standing apart from her mother, both of them grieving separately, neither knowing how to reach for the other.

She sat on the edge of the bed. Antoine lowered himself into the armchair across from her, close enough to touch but not crowding her. His hands rested on his knees, still and patient.

"I don't know if I can do this," she whispered.

"You don't have to. Not tonight. Not ever, if you don't want to."

But she did want to. That was the terrible, surprising truth of it. She'd spent ten years not reading this letter, telling herself it didn't matter, that the past was the past, that the dead had nothing left to say. But her mother had pressed it into her hands with such care, such deliberate tenderness, and Camille had felt something crack open inside her chest.

She slid her finger under the seal.

The paper inside was thin, almost translucent with age. Her father's handwriting filled both sides, cramped and hurried, the words of a man who knew he was running out of time.

*Ma chérie,*

*If you're reading this, it means the doctors were right, and I've run out of road. I'm writing this from the hospital. I asked your mother to give this to you when you were ready. She says you're not ready yet. She says you never talk about me, and I think I know why.*

*You think I failed you. You think I failed at everything—the inventions that never worked, the company that went under, the promises I couldn't keep. You saw me broke and borrowing money from your grandmother. You saw me lose the house. You saw your mother sell her jewelry to pay for groceries.*

*I know you watched all of that, and I know you decided you would never be like me.*

But Camille, I need you to understand something. I wasn't afraid of failing. I failed a hundred times, a thousand times. Every prototype that blew up, every investor who walked away, every late night hunched over a workbench that produced nothing but scraps and solder burns—I could live with all of it. Failure is just data. It tells you what doesn't work. It's not the end of anything except one particular path.

*What I was afraid of was love.*

*I was afraid to tell your mother I loved her because I didn't know how to say it without sounding like a failure. I was afraid to hold you too tight because I thought I'd break you the way I broke everything else. I was afraid that if I let myself love fully, completely, without reservation, I would somehow taint it with all my broken dreams.*

*So I kept everyone at arm's length. I buried myself in my workshop. I told myself I was doing it for you, for our family—that if I could just get one invention to work, just one, then I'd be worthy of the people I loved.*

*I was wrong. My only real regret, the single thing I would change if I could go back, is that I was too afraid to take risks with the people I loved. Not with money. Not with patents. With people. With your mother. With you.*

*You're not like me, Camille. You're smarter, stronger, braver than I ever was. But I see you building walls, and I know where you learned to build them. I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry I taught you that love is something you have to earn, something you only deserve after you've proven yourself.*

*That's not true. I want you to know that before I go.*

*You are worthy of love, simply because you exist. Not because of your grades, or your degrees, or the companies you'll build. Because you're my daughter, and I loved you the moment I held you, and I never stopped. I was just too afraid to say it out loud.*

*So here it is, in writing, where I can't lose my nerve: I love you. I've always loved you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of who you're becoming, even if I won't be there to see it.*

*Don't make my mistakes. Take the risk. Love the people who love you, and let them love you back.*

*Your papa*

Camille finished reading and lowered the letter to her lap. The tears came without warning, not the genteel trickle of a movie actress but a sudden, overwhelming flood that stole her breath and left her shaking.

She hadn't cried for him when he died. She'd stood at the funeral in a black dress she'd borrowed from a friend, dry-eyed and furious, furious at him for leaving, furious at herself for still caring. She'd told herself she was done mourning, done grieving a man who'd never really known how to be a father.

But the letter undid all of it.

The bed dipped. Antoine was beside her, his arms around her, pulling her into the solid warmth of his chest. She buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed—ugly, gasping sobs that tore through her throat and left her raw.

"It's okay," he murmured into her hair. "I've got you. It's okay."

"He thought—" Camille choked. "All those years, I thought he didn't care. I thought I wasn't enough. But he was just scared. He was just like me."

"Like you?"

She pulled back, wiping her face with the back of her hand. "I'm afraid of failure. That's why I work so hard. That's why I never stop. Because I decided when I was sixteen that I would never be him, never be broke, never be a disappointment. I threw myself into work so I wouldn't have to feel anything else."

"And now?"

"Now I see that I was afraid of the same thing he was afraid of." She looked at him, really looked at him—the worry in his eyes, the way his thumb traced small circles on her wrist. "I was afraid to love you because love means you can lose. It means you can fail at the one thing that matters most."

"Camille—"

"No, let me finish." She took a shaky breath. "I've been running from him my whole life. All this ambition, all this drive—it was just me trying to prove I wasn't like him. But I was like him. I was keeping you at arm's length. I was making decisions based on fear instead of based on what I actually want."

She set the letter down on the nightstand and took both of his hands in hers.

"I want to try something different. I want to work less. I don't mean I'm walking away from AlgoSens—I'm not, I love what we're building together. But I've been using work as an excuse to avoid the rest of my life. I don't want to do that anymore."

"Camille, I never asked you to choose—"

"I know. That's why I love you. That's why I'm not going to be afraid anymore." She squeezed his hands. "Antoine, I'm asking you to be my partner. In every sense. Not just co-CEO, not just for the company. I mean in life. All of it."

He was quiet for a long moment. Camille felt her heart hammer against her ribs, a wild, terrified thing.

Then Antoine smiled—that slow, crooked smile that made her feel like the only person in the world.

"I thought you'd never ask."

He kissed her, soft and thorough, and when he pulled back, his thumb traced the line of her jaw.

"I love you, Camille Laurent. I'm not going anywhere."

She laughed, a wet, trembling sound. "Good. Because I've decided I'm done being afraid."

She picked up her phone from the nightstand. Her mother's number was still in the envelope, written in careful, precise handwriting on a piece of notepaper.

Camille typed out a message, her thumbs hesitating over the keyboard for only a moment before she pressed send.

*Maman. I read Papa's letter. I'd like to see you. Coffee, whenever you're free. —Camille*

Within seconds, the reply came.

*I would like that very much. Tomorrow?*

Camille smiled through the tears still drying on her cheeks.

*Tomorrow.*

She set the phone down and turned back to Antoine, curling into his side. The award sat on the desk, glittering in the lamplight—proof of everything they'd built together. But the letter in her lap, creased and tear-stained, felt heavier with meaning.

She'd spent ten years running from her father's ghost. Tonight, she'd finally let him go.