Part 117

She hadn't even made it past the gates before the mansion doors flew open. Liam and Debbie hurried down the steps together, shock etched across their faces. Debbie reached her first, throwing her arms around Caro in a fierce, protective embrace. Debbie held on tight, her hands frantically rubbing Caro's back, instantly feeling the unnatural heat of the fever radiating through her clothes.

As Debbie pulled back slightly to keep her steady, Liam stepped in. His heavy brow was furrowed deep with a worry he rarely showed. He scanned her hollow cheeks and the dark circles bruising the skin beneath her eyes. Without a word, he wrapped a strong, heavy arm around her shoulders, taking her weight as he guided her up the steps and into the house.

'Look at the state of ya. You look like you've been dragged through a hedge backward.' Liam muttered, his voice a low, rough growl of pure worry as they crossed into the cool, grand hallway.

'I know, I've felt better,' Caro choked out, her voice raw and cracked from exhaustion. 'But it doesn't matter. I need to see Noel. And the boys, are they ok? Where's Bowie? Is she back yet?'

The words tumbled out all at once, a breathless, panicked rush as she leaned heavily against Liam's side.

'Whoa, calm down,' Liam muttered. He tightened his grip gently, steering her straight into the living room with Debbie at their side and guided her down onto the plush sofa.

Before Caro could even try to move, Liam leaned over her, his face tight with demand. 'How the fuck did you even get here? What did the doctors say? Did they clear you to leave?'

'Yeah..What did the clinic say, Caro?' Debbie chimed in, her face pale as she pressed a hand to Caro's burning forehead. 'You are absolutely roasting, love. You shouldn't be out of bed, let alone traveling.'

'I discharged myself,' Caro finally admitted, her voice trembling as she looked up at Liam's hardening expression. 'I just got into a taxi... all the way from Edinburgh to London. I needed to see Noel. I had to. Where is he?'

She held up her lifeless iPhone with trembling fingers, her pale digits squeezing the dead piece of glass like a lifeline.

'I need my phone charged,' Caro whispered. 'My battery is completely flat. I don't..I don't even know where my charger is. Has Noel called? Has he texted me? Do you know?'

Debbie quickly gave Caro's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. 'I'll get you a charger, love,' she said firmly, already turning on her heel and walked back to the kitchen.

Liam shuffled closer to her, his jaw clenched into stone. He ran a tense hand through his hair and looked down at Caro, his voice dropping into a tight, gravelly register as he explained the situation.

'He's not here, Caroline,' Liam said bluntly. 'He's in central London. He went to some posh restaurant to meet Mel. She requested the meeting herself to talk about Bowie, and she told his lawyers she'd only negotiate if he turned up completely alone.'

Caro's fingers clamped down on her dead phone, the word alone echoing heavily in the quiet room. Her heart hammered against her ribs at the thought of Noel facing Mel completely by himself without a lawyer involved, but she didn't have the breath to voice her worries.

'Oh god,' Caro whispered, her voice cracking with pure, feverish exhaustion. 'I hope Mel finally sees sense and realizes Bowie belongs with her dad and her brothers.'

Liam let out a harsh, bitter grunt but didn't say a word, his jaw remaining clenched tight as he stared toward the hallway.

The quiet rustle of footsteps signaled Debbie's return. She walked back into the living room, holding a white charging cable and a wall adapter.

'I found one, love,' she said softly, kneeling down by the outlet right next to the sofa. She snapped the cable into the charging port of Caro's phone. For a few long, agonizing seconds, the screen remained completely black, until the red battery icon finally flickered to life on the display. 'Oh thank you so much, Debbie, you're a lifesaver'.

The moment Caro switched on her phone, the device began to vibrate relentlessly in her palm. A long stream of notifications flooded the screen, text messages and missed calls from Noel, but before her eyes could even process the words on the screen, the front door clicked open.

The sound was quiet, followed by the heavy, weary drag of footsteps crossing the hardwood floor of the grand hallway. Noel was back. He was muttering under his breath, a low, bitter string of curses cutting through the silence of the house, his voice thick with the exhausting rage of whatever had just happened with Mel.

His low muttering grew closer as his footsteps turned toward the living room.

Then, Noel walked past the doorway.

He was still in the middle of a quiet, defeated exhale, his hair disheveled and his shirt half-unbuttoned. But the exact second he looked up and saw Caro sitting there on the sofa, the words died instantly in his throat.

Noel stood completely paralyzed in the doorway, the bitter words he had been muttering entirely forgotten. His eyes, wide and heavy with the exhausting residue of his confrontation with Mel, locked onto Caro. He blinked once, then twice, as if convinced his mind was playing a cruel trick on him.

The moment Caro's eyes met his, a sudden burst of pure adrenaline cut right through her exhaustion. Seeing him standing there was everything she needed. Forgetting her fever and her heavy limbs, she immediately tried to scramble up from the plush cushions to get to him.

That brief, frail movement broke the spell.

Noel crossed the room in three long strides. He didn't say a word, didn't ask a question, and completely ignored Liam and Debbie. He simply pulled her into his arms, and kissed her like there was no tomorrow.

Caro wrapped her trembling arms around his neck, kissing him back with the exact same fierce, desperate intensity. The long, agonizing hours in the taxi, the dead phone, it all melted away the second his mouth met hers. It was a breathless, fierce reassurance that they were both right there, holding onto each other.

From the center of the room, Liam let out a loud, exaggerated cough, completely breaking the silence in his signature comical way.

'Alright, save some for later, you two,' Liam muttered, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms. 'We've got a bloody crisis here and she's supposed to be an invalid.'

Noel slowly broke the kiss, though he refused to let her go, keeping his hands cradling her face as he looked down at her flushed, feverish cheeks. The initial shock was finally giving way to sheer bewilderment.

'How?' Noel asked, his voice a breathless whisper as his eyes darted over her face. 'Why...what are you even doing here, babe? How are you here?'

Liam shuffled a step closer, running a hand through his hair as he took it upon himself to deliver the explanation.

'This lunatic here discharged herself from the clinic, Noel,' Liam explained bluntly, a mix of mock-annoyance and a hint of worry in his voice. 'She hopped straight into a taxi and rode all the way from Edinburgh to London with a roaring fever just because she needed to see you. Paid a fortune for it, too.'

Noel's eyes widened in pure disbelief as he looked back down at Caro, his heart hammering against his ribs as the sheer scale of what she had done just to reach him finally sank in.

Noel's thumbs brushed gently over her burning cheeks, his eyes locked onto hers with a mixture of awe and profound adoration. The fact that she had crossed the entire country while battling a severe fever, just to get to him, completely shattered the last of his defenses.

'A taxi?' Noel repeated, his voice dropping into a breathless, emotional whisper. 'All the way from Scotland? Caro, the doctors..the hospital..you weren't supposed to leave. Have you lost your mind?'

'When you left, I went completely bonkers,' Caro interrupted softly, her voice trembling as she looked up into his eyes, placing her warm palm over his heart. 'I couldn't just sit in that room anymore. I want to be with you, Noel. Always.'

Noel leaned down, capturing her lips in another deep, lingering kiss that tasted of pure relief and quiet desperation. Caro melted against him, her trembling fingers tangling into the fabric of his shirt as if she never wanted to let him go. He pulled her flush against his chest, murmuring sweet, breathless reassurances against her skin, completely lost in her warmth.

Liam cleared his throat again deliberately, to shatter the romantic bubble.

'Alright, Romeo and Juliet, bloody wrap it up,' Liam barked, bringing them both crashing back down to earth. He crossed his arms, his heavy brow furrowing as he fixed Noel with a sharp, demanding glare. 'We're all thrilled you're reunited, but we're none the wiser about your meeting  with the witch? Where is Bowie? Why isn't she with you?'

The romantic warmth in the room instantly fractured. Noel slowly pulled back from Caro, though he kept his arms securely wrapped around her waist, anchoring her to his side. He let out a low, exhausted sigh, the soft expression in his eyes hardening back into stone as he looked up at his brother.

'She didn't bring her,' Noel confessed, his voice dropping into a dark, gravelly register. 'Mel left her at the hotel. The whole thing was an ambush, Liam. She had the paparazzi swarming the entrance like a pack of starved wolves.'

Caro swallowed hard, the panic for his daughter cutting right through her affection as she squeezed his hand. 'What happened? What did she say?'

'She shoved a thick folder of legal paperwork on the table,' Noel muttered, his jaw clenching tightly. 'She gave me until the end of the day to sign over a massive chunk of my assets into a trust fund under her name. If I don't, she's walking straight out to the microphones to brand me an unfit father and hide Bowie away from me in legal red tape for the next ten years.'

The living room fell into a heavy, suffocating silence as Noel's words hung in the air. Liam was practically vibrating with rage, his fists clenched tight into his pockets, while Debbie stood frozen by the edge of the sofa, her face completely pale. Noel looked utterly defeated, his broad shoulders slumping, letting out a ragged breath as if the weight of the entire world was pressing down on his chest.

They were all reacting with raw, blinding emotion, trapped in a cocktail of fury and panic.

Except for Caro.

As the initial rush of their romantic reunion settled, the familiar, sharp instincts of a highly efficient personal assistant kicked in, cutting right through the haze of her fever. Her skin felt scorching hot, and a cold sweat broke out across her forehead, but her brain, trained to manage Noel's chaotic life and legal battles for years, automatically began to dismantle Mel's trap. She was the only one in the room still thinking straight.

Caro gently patted Noel's chest, her voice calm but commanding despite the feverish tremor in her throat. 'Everyone, please just go into the kitchen and leave me alone for a minute. I have some calls to make.'

Noel looked up at her, blinking in utter confusion, while Liam let out a puzzled grunt. 'What are you on about? You can barely stand up.'

But seeing the absolute, fierce focus in her eyes, Noel nodded slowly. He stood up, guiding a reluctant Liam and a worried Debbie out of the living room and toward the kitchen, leaving Caro alone in the quiet space.

The moment the kitchen doors swung shut, Caro let out a long, shaky breath as she sat down again, the room spinning slightly as the stubborn fever threatened to blur her vision. Pressing her back against the sofa cushions to stay steady, her trembling fingers tapped the screen of her newly revived iPhone. She bypassed the personal messages entirely. She scrolled past their regular legal team and dialed a private number.

It belonged to an incredibly powerful, high-profile family law solicitor, a man who sat at the absolute top of his field. He owed her a massive personal favor from years ago, when Caro had quietly intervened and protected his teenage son's identity after a highly sensitive incident at one of Noel's shows, saving the lawyer's reputation from the tabloids.

The line didn't even ring twice before a sharp, authoritative voice cut through. 'Caroline! How are you? I haven't heard from you in a while'.

'I'm calling in that favor,' Caro said without preamble, her voice dropping into her crisp, professional PA register, completely masking the fever shaking her frame. 'And I need it handled asap.'

She didn't waste time on emotion, even as a fresh wave of chills racked her body. She laid out the cold, hard facts of Mel's ambush at the restaurant, and then she handed him the weapon to dismantle it.

'Six years ago, she concealed the child's existence,' Caro explained, her eyes fixed on the blank wall as her mind raced. 'But more importantly, about half a year or so ago, she legally and physically abandoned a six-year-old minor on Noel's doorstep in the dead of night. No warning. No legal transition. She left a child like an unwanted package with a man she hadn't even legally verified as the father yet. We have the timed CCTV footage, the automated gate logs, and the initial police notification Noel filed around that time.'

A brief silence hung on the other end, followed by the sound of a pen tapping against a desk. 'It's a textbook case of child endangerment and severe parental instability. She has zero standing for an unfit-parent claim.'

'Exactly,' Caro said, a sharp edge cutting through her physical exhaustion. 'Turn it fully back on her. I want an emergency custody application drawn up immediately. Have your office contact her legal team right now. Tell them if she speaks to a single reporter or tries to hide Bowie, we release the abandonment evidence to the High Court and the press ourselves. We will prove she is the unfit parent. Bowie comes back to her father and her brothers, and Noel will provide for everything as he has done all these months. Call me the second it's served.'

'Consider it done, Caroline. My debt to you is officially paid. I'm on it.'

The line went dead. Caro lowered the phone, her chest heaving as the adrenaline began to dip, leaving her skin burning and her limbs incredibly heavy. She forced herself to get up and her legs to move as she slowly walked out of the living room.

The moment she pushed open the kitchen door, the heavy wall of noise inside instantly fractured.

The room was in complete chaos. Noel was standing near the center island, his large arms wrapped tightly around his two boys, who had clearly just cascaded down the grand staircase after hearing the commotion. Their young faces were tight with anxiety, their voices overlapping as they bombarded their dad with panicked questions about where Bowie was. Liam stood a few feet away, his jaw clenched as he stared restlessly out the window.

Everyone froze dead in their tracks the exact second Caro stepped past the threshold.

The boys went quiet, and Noel's head snapped up. His eyes immediately locked onto her, filled with a desperate, protective worry as he took in her appearance. Her cheeks were deeply flushed with a brilliant, feverish red, and her skin was visibly glistening with a cold sweat. She looked fragile enough to tip over, leaning her shoulder lightly against the kitchen door.

Despite the exhausting heat radiating through her body, she gave them all a weary smile.

'It's handled,' Caro said quietly, her voice steady enough to command the entire room.