Lauren's POV
Jame's voice blares into the microphone over the crowd. I pull away from our kiss to see him leap from the stage. His face is bright red and he's fumbling with something at his belt. I'm about to push Camz behind me when a young voice fills the room.
"Hi. My name is Cheryl Martin," the girl says from the stage. "I'm seventeen years old."
The room becomes quiet. Her eyes find mine and I nod for her to continue. Once shit hit the fan, I had Dubois check into the note I'd found in Camila's bag. Turns out, the girl was underage and James had done some serious damage to her. Dubois and I brainstormed on the way back to Washington about what a fuckwit James was, especially around Camz. The timeline of events confirmed my earlier ascertains that it had to have been him that beat the hell out of her, not some fictional blond man as she claimed, and would have had the private access with no video surveillance. Camila had followed Cherry to the bathroom and then she disappeared shortly thereafter. The pieces started to connect.
Then, while all five of us sat around the dinner table after I'd sent Camila to London and I'd explained to my dad my entire fucked up life, Christine's mouth popped open. I mentioned James was the senator of Georgia to which she revealed information about a surprise gift basket of peaches which she'd assumed were from me. But she was confused when Camila reacted negatively to the gift. I vaguely remembered him calling her Peach during the evening of our dinner.
Dubois, shamefully then revealed how she told him she was from Georgia. In an effort to keep me happy, he begged her—to the tune of fifty thousand dollars—to keep up the façade that she was British. By that point, Cartier had pulled up an Internet search on Camila Dixon on his phone and her haunted eyes graced the photos next to that monster. His obsession with "my toy" suddenly made a lot more sense. He must have threatened her in some way in Vegas that had her lips zipped.
Everything snapped together at that point. Her insistence on my selling the company. The way she never seemed to fear me—clearly James had done a number on her, I mean, he was the reason her baby died. In the end, she left to protect me. The same reason that I pushed her away. Yes, she found the scrapbook and what the evidence pointed at, but deep down, she wasn't afraid of me. So, at the same time that I was trying to protect her from a man who was hell-bent on hurting her, she was protecting me from him. It's almost laughable.
While she was on her way to London, Dad called a private investigator he'd hired long ago to search for Mama and me. He was able to trace a trail on James showing that he flew from Seattle to London. I wanted to have a shit-fit but Swan and the other girls took great care of her. Gorgi is a policeman there and had constant eyes on that fucker for me. Knowing that James was there following her made me freak the fuck out but I knew it wouldn't be long before he dragged her ass back to Georgia. A stop on his Facebook page indicated the Senator's Ball coming up, and the bastard is too damn full of himself to miss an event where he'd announce his run for presidency. With my financial clout, I was able to earn a ticket into the sold out event. The healthy donation I offered didn't hurt my cause at all.
Once the clues came together, we could fuck that bastard over once and for all. With the data burned in the fire, Trevor out of our hair, and eyes on James, neither Camila nor I were sitting ducks any longer. The bastard is going to prison. Especially now. One phone call was all it took to Cheryl's mother. I explained about the dating service and my hotel; that I never wanted anything like that to happen. I told them the same man who hurt Cherry was the one hurting my woman. Cherry was already loyal to Camila for what she'd done for her and they were eager to help. Of course the half million I wired to their account didn't hurt either.
