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My phone vibrates instantly with an incoming message.
Kalum: You both are everything to me.
I smile and place my phone back inside my pocket, but it begins to ring. Camila pinches her brows when she sees the look on my face when I see who is calling me. It is Lane’s mother, Mrs. Turner.
I touch the green button to answer the call. “Hello.”
“This is Caroline, Lane’s mother. I need to talk to you about Lane Jr.”
She rambles on the phone and my stomach bottoms out when her threats spill through the phone as I look at Lane writing in his workbook. After she hangs up, a ringing sound assaults my ears. She can’t. She wouldn’t. Why can’t I be happy? Why are they so evil?
I hang up the phone and drop it on the dining table with a thud.
“What is wrong, Aura? What happened? Who was that?”
I place my hands over my face. “It was Caroline. She wants Lane Jr. She says I can’t take care of him properly as a single mother. He is a Turner, and she can provide better for him than I can.”
“But that is not true. Look at where we live and you have the pop-up store and everything going. ”
I close my eyes and slide my hands down my face. “Yeah, all that is great, but I haven’t received a dime until the funds clear after sales, and everything is in a trust. She pushed me to do that to set me up, Camila. On paper and in front of a judge, the Turners will make it seem he is better off living with them based on the life they could provide. They will twist things around to make it look like I’m struggling, and they could force me to sell Lane’s cars, shop, builds, maybe even his company. It is their endgame. I doubt they care about Lane Jr. When they ask for my financial statements, I look like I can’t afford where I live and would need to sell assets to create liquid cash flow and in the end, they get what they want, to destroy what Lane built under their name to make a point.”
Camila’s mouth opens like a fish when she sees how I painted it all out. How it will go through lawyers, judges, and the court. The well-being of Lane Turner Jr.
“You have to tell Kalum, Aura.”
I shake my head. “All I have been is trouble for that man. Maybe his parents were right in getting rid of me. There is nothing he can do.”
“Don’t underestimate him, Aura. You need to tell him.”
I lower my head and slide my fingers through my hair. “You know I’m not. I already have to pay him back for the pop-up store and this is not his fight but my own with my dead husband’s family. This is not his problem. He is better off being with some heiress.”
“You know that is not true. It will all work out, Aura.”
I get up and walk toward the bedroom. “I’m not sure anymore, Camila.”
Chapter 30
Kalum
It has been a week, and I have moved my schedule around to have Aura wake up in my arms, but she is distant. Something is wrong, but she won’t tell me. The pop-up store was a success on the first day. She almost sold out of every design, but her smiles don’t reach her eyes and I’m confused. I thought she would be happy. I have asked her if she is okay, she says everything is fine, but the spark in her is gone. Something is very wrong. Is she not happy? Does she miss Lane?
I’m looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows of my office. It is getting cooler, and people are wearing their long coats in New York and even in the warmth of my office, my veins feel like the weather down below. Cool with dread. Something is going on with Aura, but she won’t tell me. She won’t open up to me.
My phone rings and it’s from Melissa out front. “Yes.”
“There is a Miss Exie Turner wanting to see you, sir. Do I let her in?”
I roll my eyes. Great. What does she want? “Let her in,” I reply.
The door opens, and Exie Turner enters wearing a blue pantsuit. The epitome poster child of the female CEO. She made the cover of Forbes as one of the most influential businesswomen to own a billion-dollar fortune, the Turner fortune. She has almost as much money as me. Almost but not quite. I beat her profit margin by a couple billion.
“What can I do for you, Exie?”
She crosses her arms over her coat in her hand. “We need to talk, and it’s about Aura.”
My head snaps to attention. “What is it?”
She sits and levels her stare on me. Her expression hard and serious. Whatever she is going to tell me, I’m not going to like.
