“Laura,” she looked at me, “Some connections just have to end here.”
I understood it all too well. But my heart still ached.
I took a deep breath, refusing to let the tears fall. The night before returning home, I secretly made a resolution that I wouldn’t shed tears over matters of the heart anymore.
I wanted to be a strong Laura.
If I could survive the bombs in Alcostan, what else could defeat me?
I slept with a heavy heart for a whole day after returning home, and after packing up, I threw myself back into work the next day. Coming back from Alcostan this time, I became the hero of the entire magazine company. Brian especially bought flowers and placed them on my desk to thank me.
I joked, “Be careful not to make your fiancée jealous. I don’t want to take the blame for that!”
“Don’t worry!” Brian laughed, “It was actually her idea to buy them for you, and she specifically asked me to convey her thanks!”
“Why does she need to thank me?”
Brian winked at me, “I pretended to sprain my ankle…”
Actually, he didn’t need to say it. In a place like Alcostan, torn by war, nobody wanted to go there.
I patted his shoulder, everything understood without words.
“Oh, by the way, Laura,” he turned back to tell me as he was leaving, “There have been people coming to the office looking for you recently.”
“Who are they?”
“People from The Lynch Family.”
My heart tightened.
“It’s been different people each time, but they all say they’re from The Lynch Family.”
I bit my lip. “Why are they coming to find me?”
“They keep saying the madam wishes for you to come home… The last time someone came… it was indeed a middle-aged woman. She was dressed very elegantly, but she didn’t look too well… Laura, was that your mother?”
I felt a lump in my throat, sitting at my desk lost in thought.
It must be Stella.
But why did she want me to come home?
Didn’t she know? Cameron had already driven me away.
No one in the family stood up for me back then. We lived under the same roof for fifteen years, but in the end, it was all just an illusion.
In the afternoon, the phone kept ringing at the office. Holly answered several times for me, and in the end, even she was annoyed. Not long after the calls stopped, Stella actually came in person, this time accompanied by Carter.
I froze for a moment, sitting there motionless, my breath caught in my throat.
The two of them seemed like memories from a past life.
I took them to a nearby café.
The three of us sat at a table, feeling like there was a lot of distance between us.
“Laura…” Stella spoke first. “Laura, you still remember me, right?”
I was startled and looked at Carter. Carter shook his head at me, and Stella continued, “Laura, I’m Anne’s mother!”
Hearing Anne’s name made my whole body tense.
Carter gestured to me to keep listening to Stella.
Only then did I carefully observe her… She still looked like a pampered lady, but her face was pale, and she seemed like she was skinny, as if she could collapse at any moment. Her eye sockets were deeply sunken, her gaze vacant.
“Laura, Laura…” She murmured my name, her smile sending shivers down my spine. “Laura, I’m Anne’s mother. Do you have any news about Anne?… You were kidnapped together, you must know where she is, right? Laura, please tell me, Laura…”
“What’s going on?” I couldn’t hold back anymore.
Carter looked at me and said, “We thought she would improve in the sanatorium, but it’s only gotten worse. The doctors say she may not make it.”
“What?”
Looking at Stella’s condition, it was impossible not to feel sorry. After all, she had been my foster mother for fifteen years, and she had raised me.
“She managed to get ahold of so many magazines these days, and when she saw your articles, she kept mentioning your name,” Carter said. “I talked to Dad about it, and maybe letting her see you would help with her condition.”
“Dad?” I was puzzled. Ethan was hardly ever home, so how did he have time to discuss this with Carter?
“Yeah,” Carter smirked, a smile I couldn’t understand, only feeling its chill.
“With Cameron not being home, of course I had to talk to Dad.”
“Speaking of which,” he said slowly, “you went abroad for interviews, and Cameron wasn’t home either!”
I avoided his gaze and gently held Stella’s hand.
“Laura, you’re Laura, right?” She stared at me intently. “Laura, you’re married to Carter, when are you going to give The Lynch Family a grandson…”
“Her condition is unstable, and her memory is confused. Don’t take her words to heart,” Carter said coldly. “Whether you go back to that family or not doesn’t matter. Our marriage is invalid anyway.”
“But I still hope you come back,” he chuckled lightly. “Firstly, your presence would help Mom feel more emotionally stable. Secondly…”
He paused. “Mom actually holds a will, a huge inheritance left by Grandpa, and you’re mentioned in it.”
I was shocked, it’s something I had never expected.
“But there’s a note on the will,” he looked at me. “Only if you truly marry into The Lynch Family can this inheritance be used. In other words, whoever marries you, whether it’s me or Cameron, will inherit this fortune. Heh, Cameron didn’t tell you this, did he?”
My mind buzzed, and my blood seemed to rush in reverse.
A will? An inheritance?
And the key to it all was me?
Carter’s smile became even more inscrutable.
“I knew Cameron definitely didn’t mention it to you. If you thought he was getting close to you for a purpose, how could you still be so devoted to him, you silly girl?”
“He’s engaged to Queenie, yet he hasn’t announced the wedding date, probably waiting for this fortune,” Carter’s gaze locked onto me. “Once he marries Queenie, the fortune will inevitably fall into my hands. But if he doesn’t marry Queenie, the news of the two families being linked has already been released. The Lynch Group has also invested in Sunshine Real Estate, and if the money goes out but doesn’t come back, that’s not The Lynch Family’s style!”
My mind went blank, my heart pounding, a suffocating fear gripping me.
“However, marriage can also end in divorce. Marriage is just a bargaining chip; interests are eternal,” Carter took a sip of his coffee. “If I’m not mistaken, Cameron’s plan is to keep you hanging while marrying Queenie. Once The Lynch Group gets the dividends from The Scott Family, he’ll immediately divorce Queenie and then come after you…”
“No way!” I shouted. “Cameron isn’t like that.”
“What kind of person he is, we’ll see in the future.”
“I don’t believe it…”
“People can do anything for the sake of interests, for money. Laura, it’s only naive women like you who fall for Cameron’s tricks!”
I glared at him fiercely, forbidding him to continue.
Cameron wasn’t like that, absolutely not…
He said he loved me.
He said I could never escape his grasp.
He shielded me with his flesh and blood in the midst of gunfire, and he even went out of his way to make the crabs I loved.
He gave me tenderness that I would never forget in this lifetime.
How could he possibly be using me?
“You’re really naive,” Carter sat beside me, his hand stroking my back. I instinctively recoiled, goosebumps rising on my skin.
“Laura, if you don’t believe it, come back home with me. Last time, I intentionally leaked The Lynch Group’s secrets, not to harm you, but to keep you away from Cameron!”
I already had shadows about that family, and I really didn’t want to go back, but Stella held onto my hand tightly. Ethan also repeatedly called me, urging me to go back. The words he said in these few phone calls were more than all the words he had said to me in the past fifteen years combined. So I went back again. I really hated myself, but reality forced me to come back…
But this time, my feelings were completely different from before.
The first time I came to The Lynch Family, I genuinely wanted to make it my home. This time, coming back, I just felt like a passerby.