Chapter Ninety-SixRaphael’s POVThe day started off as usual. I and Jason got ready for the day and then I went to drop him off at school before heading to work. Rae enterprises had already reached out to me and given me feedback. We had signed the contract already. One of the clauses was that I would personally oversee the project, I couldn’t hand it over to someone else. That wasn’t a problem because I didn’t plan to do that anyways.I got to work about 2 minutes late. I had a bunch of files waiting for me on my desk and my assistant brought my morning coffee for me. After hours of meetings and paperwork, I headed down for lunch with a client. It seemed like I never had any free time except for when I was at home.After lunch, I went back to the office. I still had some meetings before the day ended for me. After I was done for the day, I went to pick up Tori. Since the night I picked her up from rehab, she hadn’t seen Jason. She said she wasn’t ready to see him yet and I respect
Chapter Ninety-FiveCamilla’s POV“Tori’s out of rehab.” Skye said.“How’d you know that?” I asked.“Everyone knows it.”“Good for her then. Hopefully, she was able to do some work on herself there.”We continued going through the dresses on the rack. After we were done, we made our way to the fitting room to try them on.“Don’t you hate her?” Skye asked.“Who?”“Tori. Do you not hate her?”“Why would I hate her?”“I don’t know, because she basically took away your life.”“She didn’t do that. She didn’t do anything.”“What do you mean she didn’t do anything?”“Everything that happened was a result of I and Raphael’s choices. We were both unhappy in the relationship and decided to end things.”“But Tori was like the icing on top of the cake. Do you think that if she hadn’t come along, things would have been different? Maybe you guys would have put everything aside and worked things out.”“Help me with my zip.” I said turning my back to her. “I don’t think we would have. I think the spa
Chapter Ninety-FourRaphael’s POVI was going to drop Rory off at Camilla’s place this morning before I headed to work. I was also going to drop Jason off at my mum's house too.“Bye, Rory.” He said.“Bye Jason, bye grandma.” She said and then we drove off.She looked visibly sad to be leaving. I could tell she wanted to spend more time with Jason and also with my mum.“Are you okay, baby?”“Why can’t we all just live in one big house?” She asked.“Who?”“You, me, mummy, Jason, grandma, grandpa, Martha. All of us. I wish we could all stay in one big house.”“That’s not possible right now, baby. Things don’t work out the way we want sometimes.”“I'm going to miss you when I go back to mummy’s house.”“I know, baby. I'm going to miss you too. I’ll call you, okay?”“Okay.”We finally got to the house and we got out of the car. Camilla was already waiting for us at the front door.“Mummy.” Rory ran to her.“Hi, baby. I missed you.” She kissed her on the cheek.“Good morning, Camilla.”“Go
Chapter Ninety-ThreeCamilla’s POVAfter the lunch on Rory’s graduation, the dynamic between Raphael and I shifted again. That day, I kind of realized that co-parenting didn't mean we had to be enemies. If I wanted a healthy co parenting situation for my daughter, I had to have a good relationship with Raphael.Although Raphael and I hadn’t found the time to sit down and talk about the arrangement, things were kind of fine between us. The only thing that our lawyers were taking care of right now was legally changing Rory’s name. We had decided to hyphenate it. Her legal name would be Aurora Faith Brown-Edwards.She was staying in Raphael’s house for the week. Since they were out of school and she had spent two extra days with me, Raphael and I decided to just let her stay at his place throughout the week. She was excited for the sleepovers with Jason.She had called this night before she went to bed to tell me that they were having a sleepover in the living room with the forts that th
Chapter Ninety-TwoRaphael’s POVThe graduation ceremony ended with the kids singing a song. Rory and Jason stood at the front probably because they knew all the words to the songs.We made our way outside to wait for the kids to come out. A few minutes later, Rory rushed outside into Camilla’s arms. She picked her up and gave her a tight hug. I could tell she was still pretty emotional from watching Rory up there. I smiled.Jason came out seconds later.“Are we all ready to head to lunch?” The chairman asked.“Yes. I'm a bit hungry.” Rory said.“Me too.” Jason said.“Let’s go then.” Camilla said.We got into the car and made our way to the restaurant. It was owned by the chairman. It was closed temporarily so that we wouldn’t have any distractions while having lunch.We made our orders and waited for the food to arrive. While waiting, the waiters brought in a cake that said, ‘congratulations Rory and Jason’. They were both excited to see the cake.They were also excited about the gif
Chapter Ninety-One Camilla’s POV TWO MONTHS LATER I finally felt like my life was back on track. I was in a good position in the office. I’d formed a good relationship with most of the staff and proved myself worthy of being there. My life felt peaceful, no drama, no rumors, no article about me. I liked it. As for me and Raphael, we hadn’t really seen each other. All communication between us was through our lawyers and Martha. It was back and forth between our lawyers trying to come up with a custody arrangement. We were currently doing four days with me and then three days with him. On Thursday’s I would drop her off at school and he would pick her up. Then the next time I got to see her was on Monday’s when I picked her up from school. I would say that it wasn’t really fair on her to be alternating like that but there was nothing really to do. I and Raphael would be seeing each other for the first time in a long time at Rory’s Pre-K graduation which was the next day. It w