Forever Yours

Chapter 15

Charles POV

"Mum?"

What the fuck is she doing here? Why would make her come up here?

Shit.

Dinner.

I look at the clock that hangs above the TV and see that it's 7:24. Dammit. I rub my face with the palms of my hands as I take a deep breath. Arthur said it was at 7. She's going to be pissed.

"What is she doing here?" my mum says with a sour tone as she looks at Florence and then back to me.

She?

What is that supposed to mean?

"Mum," I say. "Let me explain, ok? I'm sorry about dinner-"

"Explain?" she says with a humorless laugh. "Why would you bring her to your home? After what she did to you. What is wrong with you Charles?"

"Mum," I say to her calmly, "There's a lot that happened but you have to let me explain."

"Charles?" she angrily shouts.

I startle myself as I see something move in the corner of my eye.

It's Florence.

She steps towards Jules who was sleeping on the couch but is now rubbing his eyes as he goes to sit up.

Shit.

This was not how I wanted to tell my mum about him. I didn't want her to just find out about Jules, or Florence for that matter.

I look up from where Florence and Jule are and see my mum looking in their direction.

"Charles?" she says without taking her eyes off of them."What the fuck is going on here?"

"Mamma?" Jules says grogily as he rubs his eyes "What's happening?"

"Come on, amore," she says as she picks him up.

She gives me an empathetic smile before looking in my mum's direction and quickly putting her head down.

"Sorry, Mrs. Leclerc," she says as she walks past my mum and towards a hallway.

"Take the stairs," I say "3rd door on your left."

The only thing down the hallway she was going down was the laundry room so I figured upstairs was better for her to keep Jules while I calm my mum down.

I'm grateful that my mum waited to yell at me until after we heard a door shut in the distance.

"Charles-"

"Mum, let me explain ok," I say, trying to get her to listen to me before she starts to yell.

"Listen to you?" she scoffs "You miss dinner with your family and I come here to check on you, thinking that you must've gotten sick or something, but I find you with that woman."

I go to speak but the way she sour tone says 'woman' leaves me a bit speechless, as if she had just found me in bed with a prostitute or something.

"Mum," I say cautiously "she's not just some woman, she's Florence, mum."

"Florence?" she repeats with a condescending tone "The woman that disappeared out of nowhere all those years ago? The woman that left without so much as a goodbye note? The woman that left you shattered in pieces for months? That Florence?"

"She shouldn't be here, Charles. No," she stops for a moment as if finding the right words "She doesn't deserve to be here."

"Mum," is all I can muster out as I hear her words come out. "She's not a monster."