The Alpha's Unclaimed Mate (Jason and Laila) by Caroline Above Story novel Chapter 70

Laila’s POV

I wanted to return to the hospitabright away, but given the circumstances, and that I was being judged for prioritizing my daughter over my work, I knew I had to stay. Leaving now would look bad for me. So, instead I went into my office and I closed the door.

It was late anyway. Ava should be sleeping by now. If I returned, I would only wake her, and she had already been awake too much this night.

In my office, I moved to the computer. The first thing I set out to do was change all my passwords to hopefully keep my email and other logins from being hacked into again.

After that, I began to comb through all of my sources to try to find new leads. It was too late to do any cold calls, but I was confident I could stir up something just from the files alone. Over the years, I had taken meticulous notes, which I was depending upon now.

I cross referenced my notes with other sources, and despite my best efforts, even after working all night, I didn’t come up with anything substantial. I could likely broker a contract here or there from what I found, but it would not be the kind of substantial profit I would need to win this competition with Sheila.

I continued working, driven, not giving up, until my phone started ringing about 5 am. I checked the phone, saw the call was coming from the hospital, and dropped everything else to answer it.

“Hello? This is Vanessa.”

“Mommy?” Ava asked with a yawn.

“It’s me, honey. Is everything alright there?”

“Yeah. But I woke up and you weren’t here… When are you coming back?” Her voice was small and it made my heart hurt. But at the same time, I was relieved that she wasn’t hurt and this wasn’t an emergency.

“I’m sorry, Ava. There was a work emergency. I’ll probably be here for a while. But I’ll Riley come and check on you, okay? And then William too. And I’ll be back over a little later.”

Ava listened so quietly that I thought maybe she had fallen back asleep. I debated whether I should just hang up.

But then she spoke again. “Are you okay, Mommy?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Ava said. “You sound different. Like you are really worried about something. Is the work thing bad?”

She was so observant, so intuitive, in my mind, I praised my little girl again. I had the brightest and the best daughter anyone could ask for.

“It’s nothing I can’t handle,” I said.

“Then why do you sound so worried?”

She got me there. “It’s just been a lot, that’s all. I can handle it, I’m just… One of my coworkers challenged me to something like

a contest. And it’s a really important contest too. I have to win or my company might be in trouble.”

“Oh,” Ava said. I didn’t know how much of what I said she really understood, but at the very least she pretended too. “Well, I don’t think you should worry, Mom.”

“No?”

“No. I know you can do it,” Ava said, then yawned.

Chapte

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