There had to be a limit to how blind one could get. It had been hours since Gemma saw Livian at the company and she was still unable to process it. There must be a wild coincidence linking up the two men.
One was a model whose career was yet to take off while the other was a billionaire. Had been since they first met. Which brought her to the second difference. There was no way the son of a tycoon like Charles Dumont could be poor. It wouldn't make any sense, especially since Livian Dumont had always worked hard and had taken over the family business long before they met. He couldn't have lost it either, because the man he saw was obviously still the CEO of Dumont Group. She had checked his car at least a few hundred times and it was parked in the spot reserved for the company's CEO. Yet, rationality was screaming at her to see the truth for what it was. That man must be Livian. The differences could have been a lie the asshole came up with to screw with her.&n"Do you think it's finally time to let me know what's going on?" He asked when she stopped her antics. He knew from the panic in her eyes that it had nothing to do with wanting to touch him. Though that didn't mean her touch didn't ignite fire under his skin. It was quite the opposite. Even though her touch meant nothing sexual, her act of impatiently ripping his shirt off sent a jolt straight to his manhood.She pulled her hands away, suddenly realizing what her actions might have passed off as. She was embarrassed as she shook her head.She was acting strange but he nodded. "Okay."She thought he had dropped the matter. He didn't have any scar but it was too soon to tell him anything about his doppelganger. The worst that could happen was him turning out to be that doppelganger, just with the scar long faded. She turned around and stared right into his eyes intently.He wasn't sure what she was looking for but he cupped her face as he looked d
Ten years ago.“Tell me about your past.” Livian said as he settled to sit next to Gemma. The soap opera she had always been hooked onto had just ended and the credits were rolling.She glanced up at him.“Sir,why would you ask about that?” She asked. Although she and her boss were close and talked about all sorts of random things, they had never talked about her past.He smiled down at her. “It’s nothing to be shocked about, is it? You know many things about me,including the name of my teenage crush and my experience with her.”She covered her mouth to stifle a chuckle. “Were you really serious about that? I thought you were joking.”“I wasn’t.” He looked more amused than she was. She had to give it to him. Who would have thought that he had really fallen in love with his middle school teacher? She had thought that he was merely saying that to make her feel better about the f
“Shit!” Livian cursed and almost threw his phone away in frustration. It had taken a while before he realized that the text message he had replied to had been sent to Livian Dumont but on Livian White’s phone. He had wanted to stop himself from sending the reply he had just typed but perhaps his mind was already set on sending it, his finger reflexively tapping the send icon. His first reaction was to delete the message.The ‘message delivered’ notification came just a breath before the ‘message delivered’. Just great. It was too late and there was nothing he could do about it. For a moment, he hoped that Gemma was too busy to see the text message and would not see it until their meeting later. He had decided to come clean today but this was not the best way for her to find out. The hope that had started to form in his heart shattered as soon as he saw the ‘message read’ prompt. He was dead.He rushed to the
"I'm glad you came." His voice was almost a whisper when he spoke.She glared daggers at him and sat opposite him. If she could, she would have remained standing but heaven knew what the man before her was planning. He might just refuse to collaborate with her if she pushed him too hard."Let's forget all about our personal matters for a while and discuss business, shall we?" He suggested."Fair enough." She was slightly relieved. If they were setting their personal matters aside, then he was not going to let what happened a decade ago determine his decision to sell the shares to her.She couldn't entirely trust him so she didn't allow herself to be too hopeful about it, letting her mind think of ways to counter him in case he acted up. She wouldn't put it past him."Scratch that. We cannot completely get rid of our personal matters when discussing this." He said, barely a heartbeat after making the damned suggestion. She rolled her eyes.
"I'll drop you off." He offered when she announced that she had to leave.She grabbed her purse. "You don't need to. My friend is waiting for me." She refrained from saying that she wouldn't want to be in the same car as him even if she didn't have Cora and four bodyguards waiting. The last thing she wanted was to be in the same confined space as him. It was the most brainless thing to do considering what might happen.Thinking about how she had let him drop her to and from work a few times, spent time with him and freely let him into her room, she wanted to give herself a piece of her mind. Heck, she had even shared an overly intimate moment with him, when it was just the two of them in the main mansion. He would have harmed her if he wanted to.It made her start to overthink once again. If he was the same demon that had shown his claws ten years ago, where did those claws disappear to? She was certain that a person's nature could never change. Stra
Gemma wanted to roll her eyes at him. He was taking advantage of this but she couldn't say she blamed him."Fine. I'll see you tomorrow at 6pm. Don't try anything funny." She warned him strictly.A chuckle reverberated through her earpiece. "I don't know what funny thing you think I want to try but don't worry about it. I know better than to piss you off."She was relieved when she hung up. She tried not to think about him but actually keeping him out of her thoughts was a different story altogether. She couldn't focus on anything else. Everything she tried to think about ended up conjuring images of him. She had married her enemy. She had actually married her enemy. Was she insane!___Ten years ago.Gemma jolted from her nightmare and patted her chest in horror. She was drenched in cold sweat from what felt like a whole night of fighting a beast who had tried to gobble her up. She could still feel the beast's fingers on her face even thoug
The restaurant they met at was as its busiest at around 6pm. It was so noisy that one had to lean over the table and shout for the other to hear them. Even then, it would require the listener to know how to read lips so they would fully understand what their companion was saying. Livian's brows scrunched in displeasure as he looked at her as if asking why the hell she had to choose this, when there were so many restaurants in the city.She chuckled with a shrug and because it was too noisy for him to hear anything if she explained, she wrote a text message.[We are here to eat, not to talk.]As if that had not done enough to piss him off, she added, [And for you to sign this.]She watched him read the text messages then glance at the contract she had just slid over the table at him. He looked unhappy but signed it anyway, before replying that she was insane. She chuckled in amusement. If she knew that it felt so good to annoy him, she would have done
Ten years ago.Being in Livian's house even after announcing her intention to leave was making her more anxious than the thought of leaving did. She didn't know what she would do once she left. Would she be employed somewhere else?She was certain that she needed to go to college before she qualified for anything that she could be proud of but that in itself was an unattainable dream. She had saved a lot of money while working for Livian—he had been overpaying her and she was painfully aware of that—but it would not be able to pay for her college tuition fees as well as secure her a place to stay.Nonetheless, she couldn't continue to live off of a man she was neither related to nor close friends with, which was basically what she had been doing since announcing her intention to quit. Livian rarely came home and when he did, she would not even notice it. He ate out or cooked his own quick meals, leaving her with only one role—keepin