Chapter 5

On the opposite of the Lanton company building, inside the five-story premise, Lena had just walked out of the elevator on the fourth floor.

It was where Gary’s clinic, her future workplace was. She had decided to start her new job next Monday. Today, she stopped by to check her office.

Gary was already waiting at the front desk. He showed Lena a big, warm smile when he saw her walking in.

“You came,” he said, walking up to greet her. “I thought you would like to spend more time with Angela. It’s okay to take a break before you start your work.”

Lena replied to him with a polite smile.

“I am accustomed to work,” she said. “Just have to keep myself busy.”

Gary knew as a single mother, Lena had to work overtime to make enough money to raise her daughter. He didn’t try to persuade her anymore, but led her inside the clinic and showed her around.

“We have two doctors here, including myself. Doctor Nina Bennet is a specialist in marriage consulting. I mainly deal with individual clients. Now we’ve got you, we can expand our business to a new level.”

He said and introduced Doctor Bennet to Lena when they walked by her office. Doctor Bennet was a dark-skinned middle-aged woman who had a pair of stern glasses. Lena shook hands with her, then followed Gary to her own office.

It was a bright room at the other end of the hallway with a huge bookshelf alongside the wall and comfy laurel-green wallpaper.

Gary’s tone was filled with pride when he opened the door for her.

“Here it is,” he said. “Exactly as you asked.”

Lena said “Thanks”, and stepped inside the office.

It was a carefully decorated room with her favorite pink lilies in a precious crystal vase on the desk, but Lena didn’t even notice it. She walked straight towards the window behind the office desk, and stared to the tall building on the other side of the plaza.

Back when she and Vince were dating each other, Vince never told her his last name. Not until two years ago did Lena save enough money to hire a PD to carry out some investigations.

There was no trace of both Talia and Vince anywhere, but the detective found Talia’s photo in the United States criminal database.

Apparently, Talia was still addicted to drugs and liked to assault people. But each time, she was bailed out very quickly by one of the richest families in New York. And the legit inheritor’s name of the family was Vincent Lanton, who went by the name of Vince Arkle while in college.

Lena could never forget the feeling when she first got Vincent’s file. It had a headshot of him, and detailed all the assets the family owned. Lena saw countless zeros under the item of the company’s market capitalization, and a string of malls, office buildings, yachts, ranches, even several islands.

All of a sudden, Talia’s behavior of stealing her child made perfect sense. And the lawyer told her that it was impossible to get her son back from such a wealthy family, even if she was proven to be the boy’s birth mother.

“They can hire an army of lawyers to prove you are a disqualified parent. It’s just impossible. Not to mention that you are not an American citizen. You haven’t even been there before,” the bald lawyer shrugged his shoulders to Lena, but actually thought this woman in front of him was crazy.

Lena didn’t argue with him. She went back home quietly and changed her specialization to child therapy. It happened two years ago, and Lena wasn’t sure if her profession would be helpful or not. But she knew she must have a meeting with her son at all costs. That was why she accepted Gary’s invitation when she noticed his clinic was right on the opposite of the Lanton family’s headquarters building.

She wasn’t planning to confront either Talia or Vincent. She didn’t want to have any connection with either of those traitors anymore. But working around Vincent was the best shot she could get to meet her son Lucas who she wished to be healthy and happy…and she was going to try everything she could to make it happen.

She pressed her delicate fingers on the cold glass of the transparent window, staring at that solid, tall building as if watching an unbreakable prison.

Gary noticed her abstracted expression. He couldn’t help but ask, “Is everything alright, Doctor Evans?”

Lena sighed in her heart quietly, then turned around to smile at Gary. She wasn’t blind or stupid. She knew why Gary had been helping her so much, but currently, she had to focus on Angela and her stolen child. It was impossible for her to even consider having a new relationship.

“Yeah, everything is great here, thank you very much, Doctor Anderson,” she replied softly, turning back to the Lanton building.

“It’s a magnificent building,” she said.

Gary nodded his head and walked up to her. Lena never mentioned her past to him. They were just simply colleagues, not even close friends. But Gary noticed every time Lena was in New York, her mood went down and she spaced a lot. The city must have special meaning for her, but that wasn’t his business, at least, not yet his business.

“Yeah, it’s Lanton Group’s headquarters,” he introduced with a light tone, trying to cheer her up. “They are like the richest in the city. Last year, their new boss expanded their health insurance coverage. We made a lot of money from the company.”

Lena’s heart skipped a beat. She knew Vincent had just taken over the company about half a year ago. In five years, it was the first time she heard about Vincent’s news so closely and vividly from a person who wasn’t the private detective. The emotion rose from the bottom of her heart and almost choked her. She could never move on from Vincent’s betrayal until she got her son back. Still, she maintained her polite smile, and said, “It sounds like they have a great boss.”

Gary shrugged his shoulders.

“I’ve never met him in person, but I heard he isn’t an easy-going person, but I guess it’s not my position to judge,” he said.

That was an unexpected but reasonable comment judging by what Vincent did with Talia. Lena forced out a smile to sweep the bitterness and worry in her heart away, then changed the subject.

She sort of had a plan about how to get information about her son. But before carrying it out, there were indispensable preparations she needed to make.

“Could you please show me around the premises? I’d like to know where I should buy my coffee,” she said.

Gary quickly nodded his head and led Lena downstairs.

At the same time, on the other side of the plaza, Vincent had just walked back into his office with a straight face.

The moment he found that his manhood could work again, he was overwhelmed by ecstasy, but soon was overwashed by shame. He couldn’t satisfy his mate but got hard on a strange woman who he didn’t even know the name of. It was like mentally cheating on his mate and it was unacceptable for werewolves.

He sat back in his seat behind the huge office desk, and clenched his fists. The wounds on his left hand burst out again. The pain felt so vividly, almost unbearable this time. But he forced himself not to think about it and got back to work.

To think about another woman was a sin.

To be happy around someone who wasn’t his mate was wrong.

He had to forget about the happiness he had just tasted and get back to his cold, dark status, so he could get back to Talia and love her again.

He buried himself at work without even having lunch. By the end of the day, he got off work on time very rarely to head back home to have dinner with Talia.

While he was driving past the crowded street, a cluster of lovely fresh pink caught his eyes. He couldn’t help but turn around the car at the crossing and search along the road. Soon, he saw a line of pink lilies outside a newly opened flower shop.

The guilt in his heart suddenly eased when those lovely pink jumped into his eyesight. A trace of a smile showed up around his pale lips. Talia never liked flowers. She always asked for customized jewelry as gifts. But somehow Vincent knew she would like those pink flowers. It was an impression branded in his head that his mate loved pink lilies.

He quickly walked inside the store and picked a bunch of blooming lilies on his own. The girl working in the store wrapped it carefully exactly as he asked and handed it to him.

Vincent put the bouquet in the passenger’s seat and started to drive back home. Being surrounded by the fresh smell of those lovely lilies, Vincent found that he could think peacefully as a normal person again.

He didn’t want to fight with Talia anymore. He wanted to have a peaceful, happy life with her. There were so many things he wanted to do with his mate and their child as a family together. It would never work if they kept fighting with each other.

All of a sudden, Vincent decided to see a doctor. As the Alpha wolf, it was impossible for him to admit in front of a stranger that he couldn’t perform as a man anymore. But if it was what it took to make Talia happy, then he would do it without hesitation.

He wanted to have a happy family.

He made up his mind, and stopped his car in front of the big house in the middle of the forest.

The sky had already turned dark. The house was bright with lights, but cold and quiet like a tomb as it always was.

Ever since Vincent woke up, he had started to hate the house. He worked until midnight almost every day and got up and left really early. He took every opportunity and excuse to stay away from his own home. But starting from now on, he was going to change it. He saw the hope of curing his inability and he needed to apologize to Talia for mentally cheating on her.

After closing the car door, Vincent took a few deep breaths before he walked inside the house to face his mate.

The maid was shocked to see him back home that early. She quickly went to inform the kitchen to prepare his dinner.

Vincent walked straight upstairs to Talia’s room and knocked on the door. They were currently living separately.

The woman who stole everything from her own sister was sitting on the bed, boredly painting her toes. She rolled her eyes when she heard the unexpected noise.

“What?!” she screamed in anger, thought it was Mrs. Mead trying to bother her with the issue of that stupid boy again.

Vincent frowned, noticing the impatience in Talia’s voice. The veins on his forehead twitched. The fire and anger were reignited in his heart. But he struggled to suppress it and answered outside the door.

“It’s me,” he tried his best to soften his voice. “I thought we should have a talk,” he said.

Talia rolled her eyes again, recognizing it was her “husband”. They hadn’t officially married yet due to Vincent’s issue. But she was already the hostess of the family.

The first time she saw Vincent beside Lena, she indeed envied her little sister and fell for this handsome young man. But after Vincent woke up from his coma, he became this pathetic maggot who couldn’t even get an erection. Talia just despised him.

“I don’t have the time for whatever your little game is,” she smirked from her bed ruthlessly and insulted the man with a contemptuous tone. “Come back when you can call yourself a man.”

Vincent bit his teeth outside the door. The urge to strangle this vicious bitch emerged from the bottom of his heart again, but he suppressed his dangerous desire and begged his mate as a good partner should do.

“Please open the door, Talia,” he said, placing himself in the lowest position that he had ever been. “Let’s fix the problem together. Let’s have another baby. Let’s start our new family.”

Talia stopped painting her toes after hearing that. Frankly, she had lost her interest in Vincent a long time ago. With all the money she had gotten from the family during the past five years, she could get as many men as she liked.

Compared with those hunky models who worked for underwear magazines, this impotent, pathetic man looked like a bedbug. But she indeed needed to have a baby with him. The mysterious person who taught her to drug Vincent promised her that Vincent would never get his memories back. But it was always wise to have extra insurance.

She needed to have her own baby with Vincent, in case someday in the future he recalled Lena.

She got up from bed and slowly walked towards the door with an arrogant face.

Instead of Vincent, she was now the priority of the family. This impotent worm didn’t even dare to yell at her in their fights. There was no need to give him a good face.

“I swear, Vincent Lanton, if you can’t get your damn junk work this time, I will—”

Her voice was cut off the moment she yanked the door open.

Outside stood the handsome tall man with a frigid, forced, and very rare smile on his pale face. In front of his chest, was a huge bouquet assembled by numerous blooming pink lilies.

Talia’s brain went totally blank at that moment. Her face instantly ran out of blood. It was Lena’s favorite flower and the smile on Vincent’s face looked like he was mocking her, having already found out the truth!

She picked up the ceramic vase on the cabinet beside the door and smashed it on Vincent’s head before she even realized it.

The white and blue porcelain broke into countless little pieces, crushing on the man’s head. Blood immediately ran down his chiseled but haggard face.

The burst broken pieces flew across Talia’s face and cut her cheek too, but she didn’t even realize it as Vincent didn’t fall down after she hit him with that damn vase. He didn’t even take a step back or made any noise for the horrifying injuries.

He just stood there, right in front of her, with those lovely pink flowers holding in front of his chest. The unexpected strike turned his face to the left. He turned his head back after the initial shock.

Talia saw nothing on his blood-stained, pale face, but venom and hatred in his dark eyes. At that moment, the man looked like an insane beast who was hungry for blood.

She couldn’t help but shiver and took a step back. She knew he was going to kill her tonight…