Chapter 30

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April left them in a blur of a lot more meetings and a lot less 'dates'. She and Camila fell into what was actually quite an easy pattern. The only 'trouble' was, that despite the fact that they saw each other every day, they didn't have time to 'see' each other. With Camila's busy schedule and her sessions with Joanna, they never really had any time 'together'. Still, this isn't a bad thing really. They had been pretty intense in a very short period of time and they both knew it had to cool down.

It also wasn't a bad thing because sheLauren had a lot of things to think about, an awful lot of things to think about.

The evening of her epiphany had resulted in her sitting on Camila's sofa wrapped up in her arms spilling her guts to her about what she'd discovered. The brunette hadn't said much, just nodded and squeezed and patted and kissed her head as they went along the memory path that she'd finally broken through.

It was a strange realization that she hadn't got Luis killed, that it wasn't her actions in letting him take her turn that resulted in that sniper's bullet ending his life. The thing was, despite the realization, it wasn't getting any easier; his accusing face reappearing in her dreams that night.

"It won't happen overnight, Lauren," Joanna had told her in their next session; the one that took place the day after, the day after she woke up screaming on Camila's couch, a blanket pulled over her. "The brain is a funny thing. You've spent all this time blaming yourself, believing your memory of what happened was the truth. That belief has shaped your life for the last few years and it won't just go away like that.

Joanna was right as well, it hadn't; and neither had the guilt over everyone else, her nights being haunted by the nightmares once more, the same old faces, the same old accusations; the same old guilt.

Thinking about things seemed to be making them worse, and she'd been thinking about things a lot. Still, she was making progress according to Joanna, whatever progress meant. From what she could tell, progress meant a barrage of sleepless nights and tired days.


o+o+o


May pretty much brought more of the same, more therapy, more nightmares and less Camila; personally, that was. They still were glued together professionally and that was just how she wanted it. She wanted to make sure Camila was safe more than ever now, and she had a real, completely justifiable, reason for doing so.

"Lauren," Alejandro had said to her one day as she stood outside the boardroom waiting for Camila's meeting to finish. "Can I have a quick word with you? It's about Camila and it's important."

Her heart raced like mad as she nodded at the CPO that had accompanied him to presumably take her place. Camila hadn't told her dad about them, and she wondered for a second if somehow he'd discovered his daughter's dirty little secret, a.k.a., her.

"Take a look at these," he said tossing a stack of papers in front of her as she walked up to his desk. Alejandro turned his back on her as she picked them up. He stood looking out of the window at the city skyline, hands twitching behind his back as she leafed through the documents.

"Have you told anyone about these?" she asked putting down the mail that was addressed to him and Camila.

"Not a soul, not even Camila. Dinah recommended someone checking through our mail before it arrives just in case. Well, just in case this sort of thing happened. I have to admit this is just some of what we've received. I had the rest boxed up and put away, it's been arriving for ages."

She could have strangled him with her bare hands right there and then. She had, in her fingers, some of the most worrying hate mail she'd ever seen. Not one member of the family had been excluded from the bile, not even Sinu; but they'd all been directed at him or Camila. Detailed descriptions of what would happen to them or their family if they didn't stop trading with 'the enemies of Islam'.

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