To Walk in Her Shoes

Chapter 13

"After your mother died your father was devastated, he loved her Britney, he was just angry with himself for cheating on her and not knowing what she had gone through with her pregnancy, alone in a foreign land. He was also ashamed of himself and hated himself." Mrs. Jules said while shaking her head and leaning on her husband. Seeing that his wife was so emotional Mr. Jules continued with the story.

"He decided that we break the companies and go our separate ways. I tried to convince him but he was adamant about it. We think that Agnes had a hand in that too. We tried keeping in touch with you but your step mother would not let us and your father had immersed himself in building his business." "He was never like the man he is now my dear" Mrs. Jules added. He used to be a jovial man full of jokes. We also know that you are a major shareholder of the company dear."

Britney looked at them in shock. How, there were shareholders in the company, including their son Lawrence. "Actually, we were meaning to tell you both, the 38% shares that Lawrence owns are actually yours dear. Your mum owned 53% of the shares of the company and she had left them to you. From the 51% your father owns you have 15%, making you the biggest shareholder of the company." Both Britney and Lawrence were shocked. "How?" Lawrence asked the question that she wanted to ask.

"You see when you were born, your mother transferred all her shares to you and entrusted them to me." Lawrence mother said. "We did not buy the shares but just took them back from the people we had put there to play the part of shareholders. We did not trust your step mother seeing that she had convinced your father to break the partnership, so we distributed the shares. We made arrangements to show your mum lost her shares and had only remained with 15% which you have now. So everyone believed it and because there were new investors no one investigated it."

Wow all this just overwhelmed her. She took time and stood up to digest the information. Mrs. Jules stood and went to her side. "Honey, we know all this is hard to take but we just want you to know that we did not abandon you. Remember your nanny Elizabeth that took care of you, and she was like your nurse helping you with anxiety issues? She was our employee, a private investigator. We also have Derrick to look after you too. He is one of our spy's."

Britney was beyond shocked. All this time she saw Derrick as her trusted employee yet he was a spy. Lawrence could not believe that his parents had hid such information from him and let him use Derrick to investigate Britney. He bet his parents knew about that. He looked at his father and he understood his facial expression of you better come clean now.

Lawrence cleared his voice. "I happened to use Derrick to search about you Britney, but he did not tell me much about you only that you are a good person and I should not hurt you." Lawrence said looking down with shame.

Britney could not believe that all this was happening to her and she did not know. What hurt her most was that Lawrence used her employee, well he's not an employee but a spy to check on her. But she realized she had done the same. After he had acquired 38% of the company's shares, she had paid a private investigator to find everything about him, and she had a file of him in her office. She couldn't be angry at him. She sat on the chair digesting all this news while the Jules family waited for her to speak. She checked her mother's photos on the desk. "May I keep this Mrs. Ju...? I mean Emma" "Of course dear, those are yours. You just look like her" She said looking at her fondly with tears in her eyes.

"Thank you so much. All this time I was made to believe that you are the enemies yet you were the ones looking out for me." Before she could forget, she turned to look at Emma. "My mother's death, do you think it was an accident?" Lawrence parents looked at each other then his dad shook his head. "Unfortunately, we think it was planned but we have not found any leads." A sob left Brittney's mouth and Lawrence went to comfort her. She cried for some time and did not realize it was already dark outside.

"It's already 10:00 PM. It seems we have been here for five hours." Mrs. Jules said. "Dear, let's get you something to eat, freshen up and rest. Everything will be fine." She told her while she led her out of the office.

After eating and getting to the room that they had given to Britney, she could not sleep. She kept tossing and turning, thinking of the happenings of the day. Lawrence room was opposite hers and she decided to go and check on him. Lawrence was seated on the coach when Britney came into his room. He had wanted to go check on her but he did not want to upset her especially when she learnt he had hired a private investigator to find out about her.

"Hi" he said to her. She only went and sat on his side and rested her head on his chest. "I can't sleep" "Me either" After a long silence, Lawrence decided to apologize to Britney. "I am sorry for what I did." He mumbled on her head. Britney raised her head and looked at him. He was surprised when she smiled "Touché, I also have a big file with your information in my office so..." She shrugged her shoulders. They started laughing and Britney went to lie back on his chest.

As they remained in silence. Lawrence thought it was a good time to tell Britney about his relationship with Anne.

"I had a baby before coming back." He whispered.