Chapter 114
Chapter 114
The hospital café sat empty at 2 AM, its harsh fluorescent lights casting an unnatural glow across the plastic tables. Camille stared into her untouched coffee, watching ripples form each time she trembled. Outside, rain pattered against the windows, blurring the city lights into smears of color.
Alexander slid into the seat across from her, setting down two fresh cups. The scent of strong espresso cut through the antiseptic hospital smell.
“You haven’t slept,” he said. Not a question.
Camille shook her head. She hadn’t changed clothes either, still wearing the navy suit from her meeting with Victoria’s lawyer twelve hours ago. The folder of handwritten notes sat on the table between them, untouched. She couldn’t bring herself to read Victoria’s words yet.
“They’re prepping her for surgery now,” she said, her voice raw from hours of silence. “Four hours, they said. Maybe five.” Alexander nodded, watching her face. His own showed signs of fatigue, the shadows beneath his eyes, the slight stubble- along his jaw, but he remained alert, steady. A port in the storm.
“When I was seven,” Camille said suddenly, “I broke my arm falling from a tree. My father was away on business. My mother sat with me in the emergency room all night, holding my good hand. I remember feeling so safe, knowing she wouldn’t leave me.”
She looked up from her coffee. “When I told my parents about Rose and Stefan’s betrayal, my mother told me I was lying. She chose Rose. She always chose Rose.”
The memory still stung, but distantly now, like an old wound that ached before rain.
“Victoria chose me,” she whispered. “When no one else did.”
The admission hung in the air between them. Camille had never voiced it before–the depth of what Victoria meant to her. Their relationship had always been defined by other terms: mentor and protégé, benefactor and recipient, teacher and student. Never mother and daughter. Not out loud.
Alexander reached across the table, his hand covering hers. “She chose you for a reason, Camille. She saw something in you worth investing in, worth protecting. Worth loving.”
Loving. The word struck Camille like a physical blow. Victoria Kane was not a woman who spoke of She spoke of excellence, of potential, of strength. But in her actions–taking in a battered woman with nothing toer, reshaping her, defending her, and now naming her heir to everything she had built–wasn’t that its own language of love?
“I can’t lose her,” Camille said, the words breaking free after hours of containment. “Not now. Not when I’ve just realized…” “Realized what?” Alexander asked gently.
Camille gripped her coffee cup so hard her knuckles whitened. “That she’s my mother now. Not by blood, but by… by everything that matters.”
Her voice cracked. “My entire life, I wanted my parents to be proud of me. To see me. Really see me. They never did.” She drew a shaky breath. “Victoria saw me from the beginning. The real me, beneath the perfect daughter, beneath the devoted wife, beneath the victim. She saw who I could become.”
Alexander’s hand tightened on hers. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
The directness of his question broke something inside her. The careful wall she had constructed over the past two days crumbled.
“I’m afraid the surgery won’t work,” she whispered. “I’m afraid I’ll lose her. I’m afraid of walking into that boardroom as the controlling shareholder of Kane Industries and failing. I’m afraid Rose and Herod will win because I wasn’t strong enough.”
She looked into Alexander’s eyes, her own burning with unshed tears. “But mostly, I’m afraid she’ll never know. That I never told her what she means to me. That she gave me more than revenge, more than power. She gave me back myself.”
Alexander moved from his chair, kneeling beside her. The gesture–so unexpected from this powerful man–unlocked the tears she had been holding back. They spilled down her cheeks, hot and unstoppable.
“Then tell her,” he said simply. “When she wakes up from surgery, tell her.”
Camille shook her head. “Victoria doesn’t want Successfully unlocked! s control, discipline.”
“That’s what she shows the world,” Alexander countered. But she chiuse you, Camille. Not a business partner not a protégé. She chose you, named you her daughter in every way that matters. That wasn’t a business decision.”
Camille closed her eyes, remembering Victoria’s rare moments of vulnerability. The night she had taken Camille to Sophia’s grave. The day she had given Camille her daughter’s silver phoenix pendant. The quiet pride in her eyes when Camille had
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successfully navigated her first board meeting. Small cracks in the armor of the formidable Victoria Kane, glimpses of the woman beneath.
“What if she doesn’t wake up?” The question emerged as barely a whisper, giving voice to her deepest fear.
Alexander stood, pulling Camille to her feet and into his arms. She stiffened at first–physical comfort was not something she had allowed herself since her transformation began–then melted against him, burying her face in the solid warmth of his shoulder.
“Victoria Kane is the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” he murmured against her hair. “That includes you, which is saying something. She didn’t build an empire by giving up, and she won’t start now.”
Camille allowed herself to be held, drawing strength from Alexander’s certainty. After a moment, she pulled back, wiping her eyes.
“I’ve never seen you cry before,” Alexander said quietly.
“I’ve never let anyone see me cry since…” She trailed off, thinking of the night she had signed those divorce papers, walked out of her marriage, and been attacked in that parking,garage. The night that had ended Camille Lewis and begun Camille Kane.
“Victoria taught me that emotion is weakness,” she said.
Alexander shook his head. “Victoria taught you that uncontrolled emotion is weakness. There’s a difference.”
He brushed a strand of hair from her face with unexpected tenderness. “What you’re feeling right now, fear of losing someone you love, someone who changed your life, that’s not weakness, Camille. It’s the core of what makes us human.”
Camille took a deep breath, steadying herself. “Victoria would say humanity is overrated.”
Alexander smiled slightly. “Victoria says a lot of things. But she also took in a stranger who reminded her of her daughter, rebuilt her, and made her heir to everything she values. Those aren’t the actions of someone who doesn’t understand love.” A nurse appeared at the café entrance, scanning the room until she spotted them. “Ms. Kane? They’ve taken Ms. Victoria to surgery now.”
Camille nodded, pulling herself together with visible effort. “Thank you. I’ll be up shortly.”
After the nurse left, Camille turned back to Alexander. “Will you stay? During the surgery?”
“Of course,” he replied without hesitation. “As long as you need me.”
She gathered Victoria’s folder from the table, hugging it to her chest. “She left me notes. Things she wants me to know. I haven’t been able to read them yet.”
“Would it help if we read them together?”
Camille considered the offer. The papers felt intensely private, a direct line to Victoria’s thoughts. But the idea of facing them alone seemed suddenly overwhelming.
“Yes,” she admitted. “It would.”
They walked to the private waiting room that had been prepared for them, a small space with comfortable furniture and windows overlooking the hospital gardens. Camille sat on the sofa, Alexander beside her, and opened the folder with trembling fingers.
Victoria’s handwriting filled the pages, elegant, precise strokes that reflected her personality. Camille began to read aloud, her voice soft in the quiet room.
“Camille,” she began, “If you’re reading this, I am either in surgery or have not survived it. I prefer to believe the former, but I‘ ve never been one to ignore possibilities, however unpleasant.”
Camille paused, steadying her voice before continuing.
“There are practical matters addressed in these notes, strategies for dealing with the board, warnings about potential rivals, advice for the completion of the Phoenix Grid. All important, all necessary. But there are other things I need to say, things I‘ ve never found the right moment to tell you.”
Alexander’s hand found hers, warm and supportive.
“When I found you that night, beaten and broken, I saw myself as I had been thirty years ago, a woman betrayed, left with nothing. I told myself I was helping you for Sophia’s sake, that saving you would somehow redeem my failure to protect my daughter. I was wrong.”
Camille looked up, meeting Alexander’s gaze with surprise. Victoria Kane rarely admitted being wrong about anything.
“I helped you because you deserved to be helped. Because the strength in you called to the strength in me. Because in your eyes, I saw not just pain but a fire that others had tried and failed to extinguish.”
Tears threatened again. Camille blinked them back, determined to continue.
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“I have never been demonstrative. Emotion was a luxury I couldn’t afford when building Kane Industries. Perhaps I forgot how to express it along the way. But know this, Camille: In you, I found the daughter of my heart. Not a replacement for Sophia, no one could ever be that, but a second chance I never expected.”
Camille’s voice broke on the last words. Alexander squeezed her hand, grounding her.
“If I survive this surgery,” she read on, “I may never speak of these things again. Pride is a difficult habit to break, especially at my age. But I needed you to know, once and for all, that you are more than my heir. You are my legacy in the truest sense, not the buildings that bear my name or the company I built, but the remarkable woman you have become.”
The letter continued with practical advice about the company, but Camille couldn’t read further. She closed the folder, pressing it to her heart, Victoria’s words echoing in her mind.
“She never said any of this to me,” she whispered. “Not once.”
“Some people can only say certain things on paper,” Alexander said gently. “Or when they fear they’re running out of time.” Camille nodded, understanding flooding through her. Victoria had given her so much, a new identity, a purpose, a future. And now, in these pages, she had given Camille something even more precious: the knowledge that she was truly loved. “She has to survive,” Camille said, a new determination threading through her voice. “She has to. Because I need to tell her…”
“Tell her what?” Alexander prompted when she fell silent.
Camille looked toward the windows where dawn was beginning to break, pale light seeping through the rain clouds. “That she saved me. Not just from Rose and Stefan, not just from being destroyed. She saved me from becoming like them, someone who only takes, who only destroys.”
She turned to Alexander, her eyes bright with unshed tears and newfound clarity. “Victoria Kane gave me back myself, and then she gave me a mother. A real one. I need her to know that before….”
The door opened, and a doctor in surgical scrubs stood in the doorway. Camille froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. It was too soon. Far too soon for the surgery to be complete.
“Ms. Kane?” the doctor said. “There’s been a development. You need to come with me right away.”
Camille stood, Victoria’s folder clutched against her chest like armor. Alexander rose beside her, his hand at the small of her back, a silent promise of support.
Whatever waited beyond that door, hope or heartbreak, Camille would face it standing tall, just as Victoria had taught her.
ents. Because that’s what daughters did for their mothers. They made them proud, even in the darkest m
Especially then.
