Camila was in the middle of a war room with her legal team, a three-way conference call with Frankfurt and New York, when her phone buzzed. She ignored it, her focus laser-sharp on the legal intricacies of Helena's injunction. They had found a loophole, a precedent they could use to file a countersuit, but it would require an all-nighter.
An hour later, when they finally broke for a short dinner, she picked up her phone. Her heart sank when she saw the message from Lívia. She read it once, her mind refusing to process the words. She read it again, a cold dread spreading through her veins.
*...I can't be your retirement plan. I need to be someone's real life.*
The words were a knife, twisting in a wound she hadn't even known was there. All her fears, all the insecurities she had tried to suppress with plans and strategies, came roaring back to life. The age gap, the distance, the different worlds—it was all true. She had been a fool to think she could overcome it with a few spreadsheets and a plane ticket.
She felt the eyes of her team on her, but the conference room had faded into a meaningless hum. She stumbled out into the hallway, her breath catching in ragged sobs. She leaned against the cool wall of the office, sliding down to sit on the floor, the phone clutched in her hand.
She didn't think. She just acted on the raw, desperate need to understand. She hit Lívia's contact and pressed the phone to her ear, the tears blurring her vision.
Lívia answered on the second ring, her voice bright and full of energy. "Camila! Hey! I was just about to call you. The directors loved the project! It went so well!"
The cheerful tone was a jarring contrast to the despair Camila was feeling. "What?" Camila managed, her voice a broken whisper.
"What's wrong? You sound... are you crying?" Lívia's voice instantly filled with concern. "What happened?"
"Your message," Camila choked out. "I read your message. How could you? How could you do this now? When things were just so good?"
"What message?" Lívia asked, her confusion palpable. "I haven't sent you a message all day. I've been in back-to-back meetings. Camila, what are you talking about?"
"The one about me," Camila sobbed, the accusation and the pain mixing together. "About me being old. About you not wanting to be my retirement plan. About this being permanent."
There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. Camila could hear Lívia's breathing, quick and panicked.
"Camila, I swear to God, I never sent that," Lívia said, her voice trembling with a dawning horror. "I would never... I would never say that. Hang on, let me look."
Camila could hear the frantic tapping of a keyboard. Then Lívia let out a sharp gasp.
"Oh my God," she whispered. "Oh my God. They're gone. The messages... they're gone from my side. But I can see your replies."
"Replies?" Camila asked, her mind reeling.
"You replied," Lívia said, her voice cracking. "You said... you said you understood. You said you were sorry for being selfish. You said you'd let me go."
Camila stared at her own phone in disbelief. She hadn't replied. She hadn't done anything but break down in the hallway. Someone had replied *as her*. Someone had used Lívia's cruel words to manipulate them both.
"Lívia," Camila said, her voice suddenly clear, the despair replaced by a cold, hard fury. "Who was with you today? Who had access to your laptop?"