I'm In Love With My Bestfriend's Billionaire Fiance!
Chapter 109: Lena’s Mom...

Chapter 109: Lena’s Mom...

(Kira’s POV)

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The fierce sunlight of Lakeview Estate beat down on my shoulders like a hammer. It was so bad that I could feel it through the material of my dress. The air shimmered with heat, thick and smothering, rising off the pavement in ghostly waves. I could almost see the steam rising off the ground as the heat from the sun burned off whatever moisture was on the ground.

I stood frozen in front of Maddie’s door, clutching the plastic bags from Rotary Supermarket like they were some kind of flimsy shield. Yet, I knew very well that they would do ridiculously little to protect me from what was to come. I didn’t need a shield to protect me. All I needed was fast talking and my smarts. Yet, I remained mute and stared at Maddie like a fool.

Maddie.

That was her name. That’s what Lena had always called her. Maddie—never "Mother" or "Mom" in that stiff, formal way. It was always Maddie, said with a kind of reverence and familiarity that warmed every story Lena told me about her.

Over the weeks that Lena and I had been together, Maddie’s face had been etched into my mind, stitched into the corners of my imagination by the countless pictures Lena had shown me. Smiling over birthday cakes. Standing proudly at Lena’s graduation. Holding a newborn Lena in her arms in some faded, sepia-toned photo from a time long gone.

I had heard of all the vacations they went on together, the trials and tribulations they had to battle together. I heard them all. And with how much I knew about her, it was as if I had known her forever.

And now, here she was. In the flesh.

Standing right in front of me as if she had been conjured from a very interesting and loving book, but at the worst of time.

Lena always spoke of her mother with a certain fierce pride. Maddie was her immovable rock, her steady shield against a world that had not been kind. Lena’s father had disappeared when she was just a child, swallowed whole by whatever darkness had claimed him. They never got to figure out why he left, yet it didn’t stop Maddie from doing what she had to for her daughter. It had been Maddie who pulled them both out of the slums of The Abbey, who fought tooth and nail to buy their way into a better life, brick by fucking brick.

It was Maddie who had secured their first modest but safe home in Parallel City, giving Lena a future filled with opportunity, good schools, real friendships—the kind that stuck through thick and thin.

Those friendships had eventually led Lena to Jace’s office... where fate, it seemed, had eventually placed her in my arms.

And yet, standing there now, face-to-face with the woman who had shaped the girl I loved...

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t even breathe properly.

It was as if the world had narrowed to a single, blinding spotlight focused on me, exposing every flaw, every doubt, every fear I had tried to bury. Nothing made sense anymore, and I felt even more exposed than I had ever done.

Maddie stared at me, her face unreadable except for a flicker of amused impatience in her sharp eyes. The bags sagged heavily in my hands, the plastic biting into my fingers as I stood there like an idiot, swaying slightly in the shimmering heat.

Finally, Maddie broke the silence, her voice was dry and laced with humor.

"Uhm... are you gonna stare at me all day?" she said, tilting her head to one side. "Because if you’re looking for something to gawk at, there’s a perfectly good television inside. Pretty sure it won’t mind your eyeballing. Me, though? I do."

Her voice snapped me back to reality with the force of a slap.

"Oh my God... I’m so sorry!" I blurted out, my words tumbling over each other in a frantic rush. I shifted the bags from one hand to the other, trying to find my balance—and my sanity. "I just... I wasn’t expecting to see you."

Maddie’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"Me?" she echoed, stepping back a fraction, as if weighing whether to trust me or shut the door in my face. "This is my house. Who exactly were you expecting?"

Her tone was casual, but there was a sharpness to it, a steel blade wrapped in velvet.

Panic clawed at my chest. My mind raced, frantically searching for the right words, the right lie, the right anything to explain away my sudden deer-in-the-headlights reaction.

The heat from the sun seemed to press harder against my back. A bead of sweat slipped down my temple, itching fiercely, but I didn’t dare move to wipe it away.

I gripped the bags tighter until the plastic groaned in protest.

"I... uh..." I stammered, my throat closing up.

For one terrifying second, I thought Maddie was going to slam the door shut, that she was going to call someone—Lena, the police, anyone

—and that whatever thin, crumbling layer of trust Lena had in me would shatter like glass.

Maddie’s gaze stayed locked onto mine, cool and assessing. I felt like I was being measured, weighed, judged—and found lacking.

"You okay, kid?" she asked after a moment, her voice softer now, almost wary. "You look like you’re about to pass out."

I forced a laugh—a weak, shaky thing that sounded hollow even to my own ears.

There was a long, uncomfortable pause between us. The kind of silence that felt alive, crawling up the walls, slithering under the doorframe, seeping into your lungs.

Just then, my phone vibrated sharply in my palm, its sudden buzz slicing through the heavy silence like a scalpel. My fingers fumbled clumsily as I turned it over, the plastic bags crinkling loudly in the oppressive heat.

The screen lit up.

A message.

From Maven. As expected. But his text sent a chill through my spine.

Give the groceries to her. You went shopping for your girlfriend’s mother!

I stared at the glowing words, my stomach dropping like a stone in a well.

"What the fuck..." I whispered under my breath, the words rasping out of me in a broken hiss. I clutched the phone tighter, as if somehow squeezing it hard enough would erase the message—or strangle the ghostly hand that had sent it.

What the fuck was this?

What twisted game was Maven playing now?

Making me shop for Lena’s mother like some pathetic errand girl? Forcing me to stand here, exposed, vulnerable, in front of the one person who could shatter everything if she so much as caught a whiff of suspicion?

The possibilities twisted inside my mind like a nest of snakes.

Maybe it wasn’t just about humiliation. Maybe it wasn’t about fear. Maybe this was part of something deeper. Darker. A slow, patient erosion of everything I cared about, starting with Lena and her mother.

Was there some vendetta here that I hadn’t yet uncovered?

Was I just a pawn in a much bigger, much more brutal game?

The air seemed to thicken around me, sticky and suffocating. I could feel Maddie’s eyes boring into the top of my head, waiting. Expecting. Judging.

"I’m still waiting," Maddie said again, her voice sharper now, laced with suspicion. Each syllable fell like a gavel hammering against my bones.

Panic surged up my spine.

If I didn’t move—if I didn’t act—it was going to be over before it even began. Maddie would slam the door, call Lena, call the cops, call someone, anyone, and then Maven would win. I could never allow that. Not for anything.

"Oh shit..." I muttered under my breath, my mind scrambling for a solution, any solution. The sweat that had been trickling down my neck now poured freely, soaking the collar of my jacket. The grocery bags felt ten times heavier in my hands, dragging me down, anchoring me to this nightmare.

Think, damn it. Think.

I had to say something. Anything. A lie, half-truth, a distraction—whatever it took to get these bags into Maddie’s hands and get the hell out of here without raising too many alarms.

But if I said the wrong thing, if I tipped her off even slightly...

Lena’s face flashed before my eyes—betrayed, heartbroken, furious.

Maddie was watching me closely now. I could feel the weight of her gaze, like a surgeon examining a patient before making the first cut. One wrong move, and she would see right through me.

"Hello?" she pressed, her voice cutting through the thick, buzzing panic that had wrapped itself around my brain. "You planning to stand there melting into a puddle, or are you gonna tell me who the hell you are?"

My heart slammed against my ribs.

The words tumbled out before I could stop them, driven by pure, primal instinct to be done with the whole thing.

"I... uhm... I’m a friend of Lena’s," I blurted.

Instantly, a wave of regret crashed over me, cold and merciless.

It was too fast. Too desperate. Too wrong.

I could see it in Maddie’s eyes—the way they narrowed slightly, the slight tension that coiled through her body like a spring being wound too tight. She was suspicious now. I could feel it hanging in the air between us like the stench of smoke after a fire.

In that moment, I knew for a fact that I had messed up!

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