Chapter 20

Chapter Twenty

L ila bolted upright. She’d fallen asleep sitting up with her laptop still on her thighs. She’d been writing a paper and hadn’t finished it.

Quickly, she grabbed her cell off the bed table to check the time. “Dammit!” She only had two hours to complete and submit it.

Lila’s fingers started flying across the keyboard. Two hours felt like minutes because, in no time at all, she was coming up against the deadline. Fortunately, Lila managed to finish her paper with only a little time to spare.

“Done!” She did a quick review before pressing the submit button. Only nothing happened. Lila tried it again and again, and nothing. She couldn’t submit her paper.

She glanced at her phone to check the time. “I’ve got ten minutes to figure this out, or I’m going to fail this class.” Lila saved the document. She shut down her computer and restarted it. Once everything was back up and running, she attempted to submit her paper once more, only to receive the same error message.

“Okay, okay, okay.” A bit of panic was starting to set in as she bit her lower lip. What should I do? Lila looked for the school’s Contact Us hyperlink. “I hope these folks in the chat box can help me. I only have a few minutes left.”

After wasting precious time typing back and forth with the bot in the chat box and getting canned answers that did not help her, Lila finally received the would-you-like-to-speak-to-an-agent message. Quickly, she clicked yes .

It asked for her number so an agent could return her call. Lila typed that in the box, too, and was informed she was number two in the queue.

Suddenly, she felt hot. Her anxiety was through the roof. She’d worked too hard this semester to fail this class because she couldn’t submit her paper. While waiting for a return call, Lila emailed her instructor to let him know she was having technical difficulties submitting and included her paper as an attachment, just in case. At least it would be date and time stamped.

Her cell rang. She answered it without glancing at the screen. There was a breathlessness in her tone. “Hello?”

“It’s been a long time.”

Lila stilled, but only for a second before her mind started to race. “What...why are you calling me? I told you to lose my number!”

“Funny.” Carrington was pissed but tried to mask it. “You didn’t have this same energy when you were sleeping with me to get my money. Does your new sponsor know you were nothing more than a prostitute?

“Screw. You.”

“You’re wasting your time with him. Do you know he is almost broke?”

“You’re disgusting. Hear me clearly since you didn’t get the message last night. If you call me again, not only will I tell your wife, but I’ll also get a restraining order and leak it to the press. You, of all people, don’t need any more bad press. Now, leave me alone!”

Carrington laughed. “You won’t do that.”

“Yes, I will.”

“No, you won’t.”

His tone made Lila think Carrington might have something behind his bark. She knew she would regret it but had to ask the question anyway. “After the way you lied and treated me? Why wouldn’t I?”

“Actually, two reasons. Colby James and Brian Lockwood.”

Her heart stopped. “What about them?”

“I hold their future in my hands.” Carrington continued to taunt her. “Why so quiet now? Don’t you want to know how?”

Lila remained silent.

“Since you can’t seem to form a coherent thought, let me explain it to you. That asshole you’re fuckin’ just met with a company called Glenmore because Lockwood is bleeding cash. And guess what? It’s one of my subsidiaries. See, baby girl, since nobody wants to take a chance on Colby and Lockwood Racing, I hold the key to their futures.”

Lila’s blood turned cold. She closed her eyes and counted to three before opening them again. She hoped this was all part of a bad dream. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. She could still hear Carrington’s heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

There was no more fight in her. “Why are you doing this?”

“You know why.”

“No, honestly, I don’t. You’re married, and even if you weren’t, you don’t love me and never did. You know I never loved you either. We had an arrangement.”

“Why do you act like you care that I was married?”

“Because it mattered! I never would have dated you if I had known you had a wife and kids.”

“So now you’re saying we dated? Which is it? Was it an arrangement, or were we dating?”

Lila’s head was pounding. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter.” Carrington was zapping her energy. “What do you want?”

“I want what’s mine.”

“I was never yours.”

“You’ll always be mine. I paid for you, and if you want Glenmore to sign those damn papers, you’ll pack up your shit and move back into our place within the next forty-eight hours.”

“I can’t do that! Colby races for the Cup in less than two weeks.”

“Does she? I mean . . . she might, depending on your response.”

The silence between them seemed to last forever.

“Forty-eight hours and not a second longer.” His voice changed from the sound of pure evil to light and cheery. “Oh...and wear that canary yellow lingerie set I bought you. I always liked the way it looked against your chocolate skin.”

The line went dead.

Lila sat stunned. She was still in a state of shock that Carrington would do something like this. Then again, he was a bastard, so was she really surprised he would be such a dick? How was she supposed to handle this? She couldn’t let Lockwood lose the sponsorship, and she couldn’t move back to be with him.

“Ugh!” she screamed aloud. Was she ever going to be able to shake off her past and all her mistakes?

This was an ugly situation, and Lila had no idea how to escape it. However, she had forty-eight hours to figure something out.

Head in her hands, Lila made her decision. She knew what she had to do, but first, she needed to talk to Brian. It was going to be a painful conversation, and she was disgusted with herself that she even had to have it, but it was necessary. She didn’t waste any time getting showered and dressed.

It was still early when Lila entered the kitchen and found her mother sitting at the table, sipping on a cup of coffee and scrolling through her phone. She glanced up when Lila walked into the room. They made eye contact, but neither spoke.

Lila was the first to break the silence. “Look?—”

“I’ll be out of your hair soon. I’m making plans to leave.” Faye continued to stare at her phone.

As much as Lila’s mother worked a nerve, she did want a healthier relationship with her. “I know I said some awful things last night, and I wish I hadn’t lashed out.”

Faye refused to look at her. “You don’t mean that.”

Lila rolled her head around her shoulders. “I do. I want us to be able to talk without all the anger and resentment.”

“I’m not angry or resentful.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Why would you say that?”

Lila shrugged her shoulders. “Because I stopped you from living your best life. If you didn’t have to take care of me, who knows what might have been? Maybe you would have even found the love of your life and wouldn’t need so many adventures.”

Faye had never thought about how her actions might have affected Lila. She sighed. “You didn’t stop me from living my best life. I’ve just made some shitty choices, and as they say, the chickens have come home to roost.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying...unlike me, I want more for you. I want you to find that special someone and not have to beg, borrow, and steal to get the things you need and want.”

“What if I already think I have the best?”

Faye looked thoughtful. “Of course, you do because you have the currency of youth. But, baby girl, that runs out. What are you going to do then?”

Carrington’s face flashed before her. “I’m going to make something of my life so that when that time comes, I won’t be beholden to a man.”

“That’s a lofty goal and sometimes easier said than done.”

“Maybe, but I want to try.”

Faye wondered what would have happened if she had made different choices. When she spoke again, her tone was wistful. “I’ve always loved clothes.”

Lila smiled. “My mom the fashion designer.” She caught her word choice before she said it. Calling her mother, Mom, instead of Faye sounded strange, but it had rolled off the tongue.

Faye acknowledged it. “That was weird but kind of nice.”

They laughed.

Lila agreed. “It was.”

As their laughter died down, Faye turned serious. “I’m sorry for not being a better mother to you.”

Lila shrugged. “Water under the bridge. Nothing we can do about it now. Maybe we can start from here to be better toward one another and build a stronger relationship.”

“Don’t let me off the hook so easily.”

Lila smiled. “I won’t, but I’m tired of fighting with you. I’d prefer to get along, and I’m in a rush. I’ve got to go. Can we finish this conversation later?”

“In a rush to see Brian?” Faye asked.

“Yeah.”

“I’d like that. Maybe we can do dinner too. Just the two of us.”

“Make the reservation. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“Your face is flushed.” Cheekily, Faye smiled. “If you’re going to see Brian, maybe I should make the reservation for tomorrow.”