I stood in front of the door of some conference room. My hand froze in the knocking gesture, an inch away from the door's surface. I could just act like an idiot and open the door just to see that guy's face, but all of my instincts were telling me to run the hell away from there. My heart thundered as I wondered if I should take a gamble and face the person who wanted Aren and me dead. Finally, instead of barging inside, I leaned against the wall right by the door crack and tried to hear more…"I cannot guarantee that this method will work in this specific situation." I heard another voice coming from that room. The voice seemed calm and much softer than the voice of my kidnapper. "What we can be certain of is that the suggestion will stay engraved inside that man's mind, and he will react to the keywords in a certain way...""What way?!" my kidnapper roared. "The whole mission is useless if we cannot even lead him the way we want to!"Whatever it was that they were planning, it coul
I was looking at Aren's phone screen with my picture displayed in the caller ID's place and signed "My Wife" right below the photo. What was his phone doing here? Did someone lure him outside the hotel and then abduct him, making him drop his phone? I knew that Aren knew how to fight, but he wasn't invincible... What if those who attacked Aren were Max and his men?! What if they beat him up and locked him somewhere?! They could have done it before meeting with Haskett!My restless mind quickly became filled with conspiracy theories and the darkest possible scenarios. I placed my hand on my chest and rubbed it, trying to soothe my frantically pounding heart. As I slightly regained composure, I looked around and then up, and noticed that I was standing right under the terrace. Could the phone fall by accident and not crash because it fell on the carpet? It was possible, but what would Aren do on that terrace in the first place? And where the hell was he?!All those questions had only in
The frown painting Aren's face deepened. He kept staring at me as if he was fighting an inner battle about whether to accept my assumptions or not. His expression made me even angrier at him than I was before. Was it so hard to believe that the woman who hurt him so badly before was now collaborating with his enemies? A minute later, Chris and Jack walked into the hall. I saw they were trying to read the situation; smiles vanished from their faces as they registered Aren standing by the bar with a whiskey glass and me sitting on the sofa with my arms crossed. Jack glanced at me, questionably raising his eyebrows. "Yes," I answered his inward question. "Aren is pissed because we didn't inform him that his ex visited him in the clinic as soon as he woke up." Aren rolled his eyes at my sarcastic remark. "It's not about Lanfen, for Christ's sake!" he growled. I jumped up to my feet. "Well, I'm sorry that I thought that I shouldn't stress you out! I'm sorry that I was worried about you!
Did I know what I was signing for? Most likely, no. Had I imagined a life without Aren? Definitely not. Was it insane? Absolutely, yes. Certainly, it didn't mean that I was willing to forget the way Aren acted in front of me, but I was giving him another chance. No, scratch that—I was giving us a chance. Was it a rational thing to do? No, it surely wasn't. I was painfully aware that it had nothing to do with having a forgiving heart, but more with my current inability to give up on him. Call me foolish and masochistic, but perhaps I wasn't ready to leave him and still hoped that he wouldn't screw up again...The consolidating fact was that he felt guilty as if he was genuinely honest when he claimed that he didn't want me to leave him. Again, was I interpreting his behavior in a way it could ease my mind? Of course, I was, but it didn't mean that I was doing something wrong, right? I was walking on cloud no. 9 whenever he held my hand, and believe me, it's hard to make logical decisio
I was sitting, wrapped in bedsheets, with my back leaning against the head of the bed and the laptop on my thighs. I put on my earphone headset and instantly connected with Alan and Norton. They had been woken up by the same alarm and had already logged on when I called them on chat."Don't do anything for now. We need to observe this bastard's moves and find the right moment to put the tracker on him," I said, typing commands like crazy and struggling not to lose him."I see that fucker!" Alan burst through my earphones. "He is going to the bait and trying to open the new projects' folder.""What kind of a password do we have there?" I asked since Norton and Alan were the ones who had prepared the bait folder."It's a standard password with small and capital letters, two digits, and a special sign. We thought that the hacker would become suspicious if the access was too easy," Norton replied. "If it's the same hacker who broke into the system before, then he is good enough to break t
I knew I should have spent that night being proud of myself, but I had spent it crying. I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to fight for this love, but not at the price of losing myself. I was afraid that one day I would wake up bitter and tired of waiting for something that would never happen. Perhaps I was the one being selfish; I wanted him to have feelings for me just because I was filled with feelings for him, but I grew up learning that I had the right to be loved without needing to beg for it. Right now, I felt as if I was on my knees, begging him, waiting like a dog for a bone. It was pathetic. I told Aren that I would wait until after Lan Jing's birthday, but I couldn't understand why that event had to determine our relationship. Was he going to miraculously open his heart for me then? Would a witch cast a spell upon him, and he would realize that he loved me all along? I couldn't deny that my heart fluttered every time I saw him, that every time he touched me I felt shivers,
I spent that short night lying in Aren's arms. There was something bittersweet about it. We were hugging each other without our desires exploding within us or driving us to the edge of sanity. I took pleasure in feeling Aren's warmth covering my body, his strong arms keeping me from falling off the sofa. His heart beat at a soothing rate, allowing me to sleep soundly until the merciless alarm woke us up.He already had his suitcases prepared and was ready to go straight to the airport. I went there with him, watching him get on board his private jet and fly off. My chest suddenly squeezed as if I was saying my final goodbye to him, at the same time knowing that the day I would walk away from him could feel much worse than that.I wanted to shake off that depressing sensation as soon as I could, and there was only one way I was able to do that: by planning Operation Blue Dreamland. I called Jack and told him what we had and what we could get if we went to Blue Dreamland. I was glad whe
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the coffee shop, and Lanfen was sitting in front of me. Did the feeling that it could be a trap cross my mind? Of course, but I wouldn't miss the chance to get to know my enemy. Jack trained me a little about observation, but it didn't look like someone was following us. The people inside the café that Lanfen invited me to seemed normal as well. Nevertheless, I knew that I couldn't lower my guard just because I thought it was safe around. "I'm Cora Lan," I corrected, underlining the last name before I took the first cautious sip from my coffee cup. Her lips curled up gracefully. "Of course, you are, Mrs. Lan," she said, her voice polite and serene. I had to give it to her—she was mesmerizing. From the top of her head to her small feet adorned by Dior black high heels, she was flawless. I couldn't stop staring at her porcelain complexion and her almond eyes with glowing irises in a frame of thick eyelashes, not to mention her ideal jawline and tiny