The Ultimate Chance-Chapter 51

"Are you saying Constance sent her to him?" Mina felt it was the idlest thing one could do.

"She’s one of the idlest people I know. What would she do if she found out her son is spending too much time trying to reconcile with the son of the woman she hates the most? Send a similar girl to him and hope it was all about looks!"

"She can’t hold a candle to you. She’s just a cheap substitute. She cannot even get her lipstick color right. Has she taken a look in the mirror?" Mina huffed.

"It’s not a pageant, Mina. Do you want to grab some lunch?"

"It’s 10 a.m," Mina called out her forced attempt at changing the topic. "But if you are hungry, I can get you something to eat."

"Spicy roast Damon head with sweet dipping sauce will be nice, thanks." She sat down to resume working and looked up when the door opened. "I forgot to give you these and returned just in time to hear you ask for my head. I assume you meant raspberry cookies." Damon walked in carrying a bag of what must have been the cookie parlor’s entire supply of raspberry cookies. He had also brought a large tub of ice cream that made her question his intentions.

"If you are trying to kill me, you can do so without going all the way to poison me with too much sugar."

"Kill you? I need you alive." He arranged his purchase, which included different flavors of chocolate, on the snack shelf and brought her one packet of cookies. "You know the drill. Too much of anything is poisonous so you can only have a small amount at a time."

"Okay, dad. Since you went all the way to clear an entire day’s supply of cookies, I have no choice but to reluctantly accept them." Although she claimed to be reluctant, she excitedly tore the package open and dug in, savoring the taste she had missed so much.

"Did you just call me dad?"

She nodded. "Aren’t you acting the part? Bryce Vaillant can learn a thing or two from you."

"I’ll be glad to teach him." He leaned over while she was busy munching on her cookies, stole a kiss, and dashed out of the office leaving her wide-eyed.

Moments later, Mina brought a file and vanished as fast as she had come in, making Avery finally understand how Damon knew she wanted a snack. "Traitor!"

_____

As soon as he got back home, Damon hummed a tune on his way to the kitchen to grab some food and was shocked at the sight of Constance in his living room.

"I don’t like impromptu visitors." Was the first thing he said to her.

Accustomed to her son’s shenanigans ever since he met Avery, he ignored his unfriendliness. "You sound happy. Did you have a good day?"

"It was super awesome." He agreed.

"I knew it. Charlie would never disappoint-"

"Don’t ruin my day by mentioning that woman, mother!" He barked. "Were you out of your mind, bringing an actress to my company in the name of a potential employee? You even gave her a fake resume!"

"So what? As long as she can do the job—and you."

He couldn’t believe his ears. "Do you know the kind of jeopardy you put my company in? This is an outsider and Charlie is not even her real name. Meaning the contract is void."

"Exactly. You wouldn’t need to worry about banging your secretary once the time came. You could simply get another one and keep Charlie in your bedroom."

Putting aside how disgusting it was to hear such profanity from his mother’s lips, he could finally understand what his father’s oldest employees meant when they said the family business started its journey to bankruptcy as soon as he married Constance. All the claims of her being a brainless trophy were not exaggerated. Did she realize that secretive information could have been leaked out by Charlie, who was under no obligation to keep them to herself?

He had only managed to make her sign an NDA by threatening to sue her for malicious identity forgery. Even though he had sent her away, he couldn’t be completely certain she wouldn’t risk getting sued and disclose whatever secret she encountered during the two days she had worked for him.

Oblivious to his anger, Constance followed him to the kitchen. "Forget the fact that she is an actress and you met under a load of pretense. What do you think of her? Isn’t she prettier than Avery?"

"Are you obsessed with Avery?" He was disgusted by his family. "You ruined her life. Haven’t you had enough?"

"That’s because you don’t see the truth, son! That woman is using you. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Mabella met her and that...Angel..." she stopped herself from calling him a little brat when she met his warning gaze. "Do you think they accidentally met at an aquarium exactly a week before your return? I bet fifty bucks that she knew you were planning to come back so she researched everything she could get about Mabella, got in her way, and pretended not to know her, just so you could know about Angel’s existence. She is manipulating you, son."

He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and downed half his contents. "So what if she is manipulating me? Angel is my son who I should have met five years ago. And I didn’t meet him because you and father thought it would be fun to send me away before I could find out." He accused, and the more he spoke, the angrier he became.

"That’s not the point. She doesn’t need you in Angel’s life. All she wants is to trap you." She yapped on.

"Understood. Can you leave now? I’ve had a long day." He indirectly shooed her off.

Realizing she had pushed past his limits, she gave a friendly smile. "Do you think she can let you bring Angel over for a visit? He’s our grandchild after all, and your father and I can’t wait to see him."

"Even if she agreed to it, I don’t want my son near any of you." He made a mental note to get a restraining order. They were his parents and he knew that, but he couldn’t ignore their toxicity.

They might just grab the chance when they had Angel in their vicinity to threaten Avery yet again. Heaven knew hurting Angel wasn’t impossible either and besides, if they ever showed up in his house while Angel was present, it might just trigger Avery to flee with their son.

Damon would never know how late he was.

Avery’s villa was merely a few blocks away from his and Constance knew this. So when she learned that Damon wouldn’t let them meet Angel, she took it upon herself to buy several toys and show up at Avery’s doorstep.

...

Avery had just returned from the company when she met Constance, the most unwelcome guest.

"Speak of the devil and his mother appears several hours later!" She exaggerated her smile. "What do you know? My superpower must be attracting all the people I don’t want anything to do with." She shut the door behind her in case Angel saw Constance.

"You don’t look a day older than you did five years ago. No one would know you’re the mother of a five-year-old." Constance looked her up and down with an equally exaggerated smile. "Your way of dressing hasn’t changed and you even run a conglomerate on your own. You must have a superpower to be able to spend time with your son with all this load on your back."

Although her words sounded like a compliment, Avery knew better than to think of them as one. Constance was making subtle jabs at her, berating her for dressing up the same way she did before she became a mother, and insulting her parenting skills.

She crossed her arms. "Let that not worry you, Constance. My son spends as much time as he wants with his mother. Unlike his father, who barely knew what his parents looked like." She added.

"Well, I’m glad you are still doing well." Constance swallowed the counterattack bitterly and raised her bag of toys. "I would like to see my grandson. I brought toys."

"What grandson? Last I checked, your son was not ready to be a father so his child was killed at the operating table. Didn’t you make sure of that?"

"I don’t know what you’re talking about." Constance trembled but kept a nonchalant front. "Look, whatever happened in the past is in the past. We should bury the hatchet and..."

Avery returned to the house and slammed the door shut. That was enough drama for the day. She ignored the yelling at the door and grabbed her phone off the couch to make a call.

"I would like to report a trespasser. I would also like to file a restraining order against the intruder. She forced me onto the operating table six years ago to end my son’s life and is back, pretending to want to meet him. I have every reason to believe she is trying to hurt him." She reported in one breath, and when she heard an enraged curse on the other side, she pulled her phone off her ear to check who she had called. She had pressed the speed dial and as far as her memory went, that was 911.

She confirmed the settings and cursed. That idiot had set his contact number as the first-speed dial number.