Recipe for a Broken Heart

Chapter.5.

Chapter 5 —A Ride Home

The first real week at Rousseau Industries taught Camille two things almost immediately: that she was, in fact, good at this job, and that being good at it did nothing to calm the low static of awareness that hummed under her skin every time Étienne's office door opened.

It wasn't that he sought her out. If anything, he kept a careful, professional distance, communicating mostly through short emails and the occasional clipped instruction relayed through Priya, as though he'd decided somewhere between the interview and her start date that direct contact required rationing. Camille told herself this was a relief. She told herself several times a day, in fact, with the specific insistence of someone trying to convince themselves of something they didn't fully believe.

By Wednesday, the friction had a shape. It started, as these things often did, over something small — a shipment reschedule that Camille had handled on her own initiative, rerouting a delayed vendor delivery through a different distribution partner without waiting for approval, because waiting would have cost the company two additional days and a client's patience.

Étienne called her into his office that afternoon, and Camille walked in already braced for a reprimand, spine straight, chin level, the posture she'd perfected over a decade of customer complaints and unreasonable managers.

"You rerouted the Halden shipment," he said, not looking up from his screen.

"I did. I didn't think there was time to wait for sign-off, and the numbers worked out cheaper through Fairview anyway. I can walk you through the math if—"

"I've seen the math. It's sound." He finally looked up, and there was something unreadable in his expression, somewhere between irritation and reluctant approval, an expression she hadn't yet learned to translate. "You should have told me before making the decision. Not after."

"There wasn't time to tell you before. That's rather the point of an urgent decision."

"There is always time to send one email, Camille. Even urgent ones." His tone stayed even, but there was an edge underneath it now, something that hadn't been there in the interview. "I am not upset about the decision. I am upset that you made it without informing me you were making it. Those are different things."

"With respect, I was hired to solve exactly this kind of problem. If I have to run every decision past you first, you didn't hire an operations coordinator, you hired an assistant who asks permission."

The words came out sharper than she'd planned, sharper than she usually allowed herself with anyone who signed her paycheck, and for a moment she thought she'd overstepped badly enough to undo the whole job in a single conversation. But something shifted in his face instead — not anger, but a flicker of something closer to interest, the same look he'd worn during the interview when she'd pushed back instead of apologizing.

"You are not entirely wrong," he said finally, leaning back in his chair. "But you are not entirely right, either. I need to know what is happening in my own operation, not read about it after the fact in a shipment log. That is not about trust in your judgment. It is about not being blindsided in front of my own board." He paused, tapping his pen once against the desk. "Two months ago, in Lyon, a manager made a similarly good decision without telling anyone. It saved us perhaps four thousand euros. It also meant I stood in front of the regional board unable to answer a direct question about my own department, because I did not know the answer myself. I do not intend to repeat that experience."

"That sounds like a Lyon problem, not a me problem."

"It became a me problem very quickly. That is how these things work." A ghost of something almost like humor crossed his face. "I would prefer not to relearn the lesson here, if it is all the same to you."

Camille felt some of her defensiveness deflate, replaced by the uncomfortable recognition that he had a point buried somewhere in his very French insistence on being informed of everything. "A heads-up email. I can do that."

"Thank you." He studied her for a moment longer than the conversation strictly required. "You argue well. Most people simply apologize and hope I forget the conversation happened."

"I don't really do apologizing for things I don't think were wrong."

"I noticed." The almost-smile again, brief, there and gone. "It is refreshing. Mildly exhausting. But refreshing."

Camille left his office feeling strangely unsettled, not by the reprimand — which had barely qualified as one — but by how much she'd enjoyed arguing with him, how alive it had made her feel in a way that ordinary conflict never did.

Thursday brought a different kind of test. A vendor meeting ran long, spilling past six o'clock, and by the time it ended the office had mostly emptied out, the building settling into that particular hush that came after most people had gone home. Camille stayed behind to finish a report, fingers moving fast across her keyboard, trying to beat the clock before the last train.

"You're still here," Étienne said, appearing at the edge of her desk with his coat already half on.

"Report's due tomorrow morning."

He glanced at his watch, then back at her. "You will miss your train."

"I'll catch the next one."

"There isn't a next one. Not for another hour, this late." Something in the way he lingered made it feel less like a fact and more like an invitation. "I can have someone arrange a car."

"That's not necessary. I'm fine walking to the station."

"It is minus twelve outside, Camille."

"I have a coat."

"I am aware you have a coat. I am simply pointing out that a coat is not a defense against minus twelve." There was that dry humor again. "Let me arrange the car. It costs the company nothing, and it means I don't spend the evening wondering whether my newest hire froze to death three days into her employment."

"Fine. Thank you."

"You're welcome." He hesitated at the edge of her desk a moment longer than the conversation required, like there was something else he meant to say and had decided against it. "Goodnight, Camille."

The car arrived exactly on time, sleek and black and entirely too nice for a fifteen-minute drive to a modest apartment building with a broken buzzer. Camille sat in the back watching the city slide past, streetlights smearing gold across the glass, and let herself think, for just a moment, about how different this felt from the bus rides home after a diner shift.

Her mother was waiting up, curled on the couch with a book she wasn't really reading. "You're late. And you got out of a very fancy car."

"It's not a big deal, Ma."

"You got out of a car that cost more than our rent, and you're telling me it's not a big deal." Her mother set the book aside. "Talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about. I worked late, he didn't want me walking to the station in the cold, he arranged a car. That's it."

"Uh-huh. And does he arrange cars for everyone who works late, or just you?"

"Probably everyone." Camille hung her coat up with more focus than the task required, avoiding her mother's eyes.

"Baby, I raised you. I know the difference between company policy and a man who notices when you're cold." Her mother's voice softened. "I'm not saying rush into anything. God knows you've earned the right to be careful. I'm just saying — don't talk yourself out of something good because you're scared it might turn into something bad. Those aren't always the same thing."

Camille didn't have an answer for that, not one she was ready to say out loud, so she pressed a kiss to her mother's forehead instead and went to bed, carrying the conversation with her long after the lights went out.