After driving to the villa, Alexander Cole looked back at Isabella Sheffield, who was sleeping very deeply. He wanted to wake her up, yet couldn't bear to do so. In the end, he could only carefully carry her into the room.
The sleeping Isabella Sheffield seemed to feel she had been moved. She stirred a little in Alexander Cole's arms, showing no signs of waking up, and continued to sleep.
Originally, Alexander Cole planned to put Isabella Sheffield down and go to work. However, he didn't expect the woman to hold onto him tightly and refuse to let go. She even kept whimpering, making Alexander Cole's heart itch.
"Are you awake already?" Alexander Cole half-knelt on the bed, looking helplessly and dotingly at the person lying on the bed, holding onto his arm and refusing to let go, and asked softly.
Isabella Sheffield hummed and didn't speak.
Alexander Cole tried to gently and considerately pry Isabella Sheffield's hand off. He thought he might have used all his patience on her.
"Bro, don't joke around, sleep with me." Before Alexander Cole could pull away, Isabella Sheffield snuggled up to him again, patted his hand, furrowed her brows slightly, pouted, and mumbled softly.
Alexander Cole completely gave up. This woman seemed to regard him as her older brother. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. However, he obediently lay down. Unable to leave, he decided to take a nap as well.
In the presidential suite of the Emperor's Club Hotel, Clara James was shaking as she put on her clothes. Her eyes were red and swollen, no different from a rabbit's. Thomas Sheffield, bare-chested, half lay on the bed holding a cigarette between his index finger and middle finger. Smoke he exhaled was a white fog. Removing his glasses, he looked more handsome but also more debonair.
"It seems like you haven't adapted to your status yet." Thomas Sheffield put the remnants of the cigarette in the ashtray. He licked his lips, his voice slightly hoarse.
Clara James paused as she buttoned her clothes. A tear the size of a soybean fell from her eye. Biting her lower lip, leaving a circle of tooth marks, she felt numb and didn't feel any pain.
What was her status? Was she his lover, or his plaything?
She had always known that he was more dangerous than she imagined. From the moment she agreed to his request, she was no longer herself. She was just one of his many women. He would please her when he was happy and could dispassionately discard her when he was not.
"Mr. Sheffield, rest assured, I always remember my status. You are my creditor. Once I clear my father's debt, we owe each other nothing." Taking a deep breath, Clara James managed to hold back her tears. She turned her back to Thomas Sheffield and spoke.
For some reason, when Thomas Sheffield heard Clara James saying "we owe each other nothing," he felt very irritated. He threw a sentence, "good, you remember," before he went into the bathroom.
As the sound of the bathroom door closing pierced through the silence, Clara James stood still, leaving the hotel before anyone came out.
She wanted to get away from Thomas Sheffield, away from that unbearable place, where it felt like something was always suppressing her, making it hard for her to breathe.
Dragging her suitcase aimlessly on the streets, Clara James suddenly realized that in this massive city, there wasn't one place she could take refuge. The thought of it was laughably pitiful.
A melodious ringtone broke into her thoughts, causing her mind to freeze upon seeing the caller ID.
Swiping to answer the call, she was met with a barrage of vulgarities from a man and the weeping of a woman. "Clara, it's Mum. Your Dad is drunk again. Please come and save me....." The all-too-familiar voice reverberated in Clara James's ears, suffusing her whole being with hopelessness and despair.
Parents, such a divine term, yet they were nightmares that relentlessly plagued her, nightmares she could never escape from.