جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 50

ANABEL’S POV Well, at least it seemed like someone in this lounge had a little sense. Someone who actually knew right from wrong. “And you,” one of the bodyguards said, turning his attention to the head waitress, his voice flat and businesslike. “You’ve worked here for years. You’ve trained the new hires on the rules, what to do, and what not to do. So tell me, how are they supposed to learn to follow those rules when you don’t follow them yourself?” he asked. “I don’t understand,” she said, her arms still crossed defensively over her chest. “The boss saw that little stunt you pulled a few minutes ago, slapping the new girl in front of half the lounge. Last I checked, it’s against the rules to lay a hand on a fellow employee,” the bodyguard said. “But didn’t you see what she did, and who she did it to?” the head waitress shot back, her voice rising with indignation. “She deserved that slap, if nothing else, to knock some sense into her because she’s clearly lacking it.” “The bo

ANABEL'S POV I stepped out of the shower, still wrapped in my robe, my hair dripping tiny trails of water down my back as I padded barefoot across the room. The tiles were still cool beneath my feet even after the steam had cleared. The apartment was quiet at this hour, the kind of quiet that used to unsettle me back when silence only ever meant Miles wasn't home. But over the past few days, it had slowly started to feel almost peaceful instead, like a small mercy I hadn't expected to find here. I made my way over to the laptop Chloe had lent me. She wasn't using it much these days since she mostly worked from her phone. I settled onto the edge of the bed with it balanced carefully on my knees. I pulled up my email, scanning through my inbox with the same cautious hope I'd carried for the past week, checking to see if any of the jobs I'd applied for had responded yet. I wasn't just relying on walking into places anymore, not after the disaster at the lounge. I'd started applying on

ANABEL’S POV Even though the call had ended hours ago and I had gone through my usual daily routine, none of it managed to get that conversation out of my head. The funny part was that the conversation wasn’t even anything serious. It’s not like I’d gotten a call from the hospital telling me someone I knew had died or anything. Yet it kept living rent-free in my mind. I kept trying to make sense of something that refused to fit neatly into any explanation I could come up with. Eventually, though, I made myself let it go. Maybe I was overthinking something that didn’t need this much thought at all. Maybe the chairman had simply glanced through a stack of resumes, mine happened to be on top, and that was the whole story. No conspiracy, no hidden motive, just plain luck finally deciding to swing in my direction after a string of days that had felt like nothing but bad ones. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t about to talk myself out of a real opportunity by overanalyzing it to death. As

ANABEL’S POV I stood outside the Ambercaz building the next morning, staring up at it for far longer than I probably needed to. It rose so high above the surrounding skyline that I had to tilt my head all the way back just to catch a glimpse of where the glass disappeared into the clouds. Its dark, tinted panels caught the early morning sunlight and reflected it in sharp, blinding angles. I’d driven past this building more times than I could count over the years, always assuming it belonged to some faceless corporation I’d never have a reason to think twice about. Now, apparently, it was about to become my workplace. My hands were slightly sweaty around the strap of my bag, and I quickly wiped them against my skirt before forcing myself to walk toward the entrance. Everything about the building screamed money and power in a way that made my stomach flutter with nerves—the polished black marble stretching across the plaza outside, the security personnel stationed at intervals alon

DMITRI’S POV"Wilson,” I said, recognizing the last name almost immediately. It wasn’t a name I kept at the front of my mind all the time, not the way I did with certain business rivals or political contacts, but it was still well known enough throughout the city that hearing it out loud made something click into place.A few years ago, I remembered meeting Arthur Wilson at a business proposal dinner, one of those long, tedious evenings filled with handshakes and forced small talk. I recalled being genuinely surprised that a man his age was still carrying the full weight of an entire company on his shoulders, still sharp enough in negotiations to make younger executives visibly nervous across the table. When I looked further into his background afterward, the way I tended to do with anyone whose company might eventually intersect with mine, I remembered reading that he had two or three grandsons, one of whom was apparently being groomed to eventually take over the family business. I d