Chapter 4 - The Ring on the Counter — Charlotte’s Sudden Nervous Breakdown
“Leo, sweetheart, go back into the living room and finish your puzzle,” Camilla
whispered, her hands shaking as she gently guided the boy back toward the couch.
Leo hesitated, his green eyes studying my face with an uncanny intelligence
before he obediently turned and walked back inside, the wheels of his toy car
clicking against the worn linoleum.
I stayed on my knees, unable to stand, staring at the floorboards where my son
had just walked. “He has my father’s nose,” I whispered.
Camilla leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms tightly across her chest
as if trying to hold herself together. “He has your laugh, too. When he finds
something funny, the whole room shakes.”
“Why are you working maintenance at the airport, Camilla? You were brilliant at
financial auditing. You could have worked anywhere in the state.”
“When your mother’s investigators started watching me, Evelyn made sure three
different accounting firms rescinded their job offers,” Camilla said with a
flat, chilling certainty. “She called every managing partner in downtown Miami
and hinted that hiring me would burn their bridges with the Vance family trust.
The only places that wouldn't check those references were hourly service
companies. I took the airport job because the health insurance covered Leo’s
asthma medication.”
A wave of nausea washed over me. While I had been sitting in high-rise boardroom
meetings in Toronto, sipping twenty-dollar scotch and patting myself on the back
for my entrepreneurial success, my son was relying on an airport janitor’s shift
differential to breathe.
My phone buzzed violently in my pocket. It was Charlotte.
I pulled it out, rejected the call, and stood up. “I’m going to fix this,
Camilla.”
“You can’t fix five years of absence with a checkbook, Lucas,” she replied
coldly. “Leo doesn’t know who you are, and I won’t let you confuse him just
because you’re having a crisis of conscience.”
“I’m not offering a check,” I said, looking straight into her eyes. “I’m
offering the truth. And I’m going to tear down every lie my mother and Charlotte
built to keep us apart.”
I drove straight to the luxury boutique hotel where Charlotte was staying while
our home in Coconut Grove was being furnished. I used the keycard we shared and
walked into the suite.
Charlotte was pacing across the plush rug, a glass of white wine in her hand.
When she saw me walk in, she dropped the glass onto the carpet, wine soaking
into the white wool.
“Where have you been?” she cried, rushing toward me. “Your mother called me in
hysterics! She said you broke into your father’s desk!”
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the surveillance photos of Leo along with
the copy of the $75,000 check she had written to my mother, and tossed them onto
the glass coffee table.
Charlotte stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes darted to the check.
“Explain this,” I said quietly.
“Lucas... it’s not what it looks like,” she stammered, backing away toward the
window. “Your mother asked for a bridge loan for an investment property—”
“Stop lying!” I roared. “The memo line says ‘Relocation & Legal Contingency’!
You paid my mother to help keep my son hidden in Little Havana while you planned
our fairy-tale wedding!”
Charlotte’s face twisted from panic into a venomous sneer. “And what if I did?
You think your life would be where it is today if you had been saddled with a
baby and an ex-wife with no connections? My father gave your company the
three-million-dollar credit line that saved your Canadian division! You owe my
family everything!”
I slowly unbuttoned my cuffs and looked at the woman I had thought was my
partner for four years.
“The wedding is off,” I said, sliding the platinum engagement band she had given
May you like
me off my finger and dropping it onto the coffee table beside the check. “Pack
your bags and get out of Miami.”
