Page 31 of Love Unscripted
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Back in the car, Aaron glanced at Camille as they buckled in. “You seemed to enjoy yourself,” he said.
“It was great. The paintings were incredible. Your sister is really talented.”
He beamed. “She’d appreciate that. She doubts herself sometimes.”
“Hard to believe. She seems full of confidence.”
He laughed. “She gets over her doubt once there’s a crowd.”
“And your family is so nice. So supportive.”
“Yeah. We’re close. What about your family? I’m told that your mom is your manager.”
“Yes, she is. Has been since I was a kid. So… it’s complicated.”
“How so?”
“Who do you complain to when your boss is your mother? The lines blur, you know?”
He shook his head. “Not really.”
“Okay. Let me explain. The problem is the conflicting roles. Mothers are supposed to nurture while managers critique and push. Sometimes it becomes controlling—even if it’s meant well. Work-life balance didn’t exist for me growing up. Negotiations and acting prep happened at the dinner table.”
“What was it like, overall,” he asked quietly, “growing up as a child star? I can’t imagine it was easy… living your life in front of the world like that.”
Camille let out a soft breath, her gaze drifting past him for a moment as if she was taken back to the version of herself she hadn’t visited in a while.
“It wasn’t normal,” she said quietly. “Not even a little.”
A faint, almost rueful smile touched her lips.
“People see the lights, the attention, the applause… and they think it must be wonderful. And parts of it were. I got to do things most kids only dream about. But…” She paused, searching for the right words. “You don’t really get to be a child in the way other children do. You’re always aware that you’re being watched. Judged. Praised one minute, picked apart the next. You learn very early how to perform—how to give people what they expect. And after a while, it gets hard to tell where that ends… and where you begin.”
She glanced back at him.
“There’s pressure too. To stay relevant. To grow up without disappointing anyone. And if you stumble—even a little—it’s not private. It belongs to everyone. And the people around you…” She hesitated, then continued more carefully. “Not all of them are there for you. Some are there for what you represent. What you can give them. It takes a long time to learn the difference. I think that’s the hardest part. Not the work. Not even the scrutiny. It’s figuring out who you can trust… and whether you ever really got the chance to become who you were meant to bewithout an audience watching the whole time. So no, it wasn’t easy.”
Silence filled the car as they pulled into the diner parking lot.
Aaron parked a few cars down and turned off the engine. He looked at her, his expression sympathetic. “You’re quite strong. You never ended up on drugs like some child stars do.”
“No…but I made other mistakes.” She took a deep breath and gave a small, self-aware smile. “Anyway… thank you for tonight.”
He looked at her, slightly confused.
“I came into this expecting the worst,” she said. “Thought you might fire me. Instead, you talked things through, compromised, invited me to study the Word, brought me into your family… and played therapist.” Another small smile. “I appreciate that.”
He laughed softly. “It was my pleasure, Camille.”
Chapter6
Aaron pushed open the door to his home, the familiar sound of Madison’s chatter wrapping around him like a warm embrace. Malibu suited him. The house was a three-year-old purchase, a necessary fresh start after selling the Holmby Hills home he had shared with Scarlette.
That house had become unbearable after her death. Everywhere he turned, he saw her—the dark wood furniture she had loved, the gilded mirrors that echoed old Hollywood, the velvet chairs, the crystal chandeliers, the oil paintings she had insisted on, even the framed photographs of them scattered in every room. Each detail screamedScarlette. He had fled in grief, leaving it all behind.
As he walked through the hallway, he deliberately turned his thoughts to other things, like his meeting with Camille earlier that evening. He felt relieved that she had agreed to follow his direction but their truce had not erased the fact that they had to recover the ground which they had lost. This meant that filming on coming days could be grueling.
