The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 197

Chapter 197

Laila’s POV

“What was the noise, Mommy? Ava asked, when I returned to her room. There wasn’t a chance in the hells that I was going to tell her the truth of what I just witnessed. At least, not all of it.

“Luna Brittany is here,” I said, a few rooms down. “The reporters were interviewing her.”

Ava frowned. She didn’t like Brittany, but I could see her struggling with the news. “Is she hurt?”

“No,” I said quickly. “She’s perfectly fine.”

Some relief filled Ava’s face. “Okay. I don’t like her, but I don’t want her to be hurt.”

My darling daughter was such a sweet, kind, innocent soul. Moving to her, I reached down had frugged her as best I could with her in the bed.

“You are an angel, Ava. Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Okay, Mommy,” she said, sounding like she believed me.

I wished I believed myself.

I avoided the news, afraid to see the interview in full, knowing the lies would only make me more furious. But I couldn’t stop thinking of Brittany’s twisted smile and crazed eyes. She had thought herself so clever, making a mockery of all the women who had suffered such a terrible, devastating loss for real.

I had known her to be ambitious, and even cruel, but this was a whole new level. She was dangerous, totally apathetic, not caring about a single person but herself.

Jason was right to want to cut her from the Luna role, even though she was going to fight him like hell for it.

My heart ached to reach out, to talk to him about this, to find out if he was alright. But if that conversation would be overheard, it would only make things worse. As no one had approached me yet, I could guess that, by some miracle, Brittany had kept my name out of things. She could have easily said that an affair between Jason and me had caused her distress.

Unless she was holding onto that card, maybe to use it against Jason.

Gods, I needed to talk to him. Not just about this, but about Adelaide too. I had promised him I wouldn’t deal with her on my own anymore. Now that she was the primary shareholder of my company, she had inserted herself into my life. I had no choice but to interact with her on a daily basis.

Yet, how could I keep my promise, bothering Jason with this news when he was fighting against such serious allegations as Brittany was leveling against him?

I couldn’t. So even though I desperately wanted to reach out to Jason, to discuss Brittany, to discuss Adelaide, I just couldn’t bring myself to make the call.

For now, we had our own battles to fight. And we would have to fight them alone.

I returned to work to discover a stack of paperwork on my desk and Claire nowhere in sight. The paperwork was mostly clerical, things that needed signed and filed or delivered. Unopened mail. Notes about memos that needed written.

This was all work that Claire would normally handle. But where was Claire?

Sitting at my desk, I checked my phone messages. My inbox was filled with messages that Claire would have usually filtered through. People wanting to schedule meetings or clarifying times.

Nothing from Claire herself. No call–out, not on my business phone or my private one. Perhaps my email inbox?

+25 Bonus

Pushing the pile of documents to the side, I logged into my computer and opened my emails. Again, it was filled with messages that Claire would have otherwise handled. But no messages from Claire herself. It wasn’t like her to not tell me if she was sick. She had always been very punctual, yery reliable.

I started to worry.

Lifting my personal phone, I found her number and called it.

The phone rang twice before she answered, sounding somewhat frazzled, “Ms. Harper, is everything okay?”

“Who are you talking to?” said a voice in the background. “I didn’t give you permission to call anyone.”

“I’m sorry, Vanessa,” Claire said. “I have to go.”

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