“Kyran, I’m going to sleep.” Deirdre’s heart raced. What if Kyran heard the waitress?Kyran seemed to look over it. “Alright. You rest early. Good night.”“Good night.”The call ended.Deirdre’s frazzled mind calmed down considerably. She pushed open the door and left the washroom, where the waitress led her back. She barely had a second to settle on her seat when Brendan snuffed out the cigarette between his fingers. “The food’s gone cold from waiting for you. I even had to order a whole new course.”Deirdre ignored him, and he somehow did not take any offense to it either. He just let the waitress serve something new. While waiting, Brendan’s interrogation began. “What took you so long? What were you doing in the washroom?”She glared at him coldly. “I’m having my period, happy? I had to be inside for a bit longer. Are you going to take offense to that?”“You always have yours on the 10th day of the month.”Deirdre was taken aback and scrambled to cover her tracks. “That’s Ch

The door opened, and Brendan stepped inside.His feet shuffled to an abrupt stop, prompting Deirdre to ask, “What?”He turned away. “Nothing.”The couple-friendly hotel certainly had a… design. The lighting was suggestively soft. There was a distinct scent in the air. The ambiance was obvious to any normal adult. As a courtesy of the hotel, clothes of a particular kind were provided on the bed.Brendan could not imagine how Deirdre would look if she put these on…Deirdre stepped inside after him. A thought leaped into her mind. “How many beds are there?”It was bad enough to be stuck in a room with him. Did she have to suffer the pain of being in the same bed just as well!?When things could get worse, they would often do. Brendan’s answer was proof of that. “One.”Deirdre gripped the garment around her chest as it tightened. She felt the compulsion to remind him, “You made a promise. You should stick to it like a real man.”Brendan was already feeling the first wave of desire

For a moment, Deirdre even thought she was touching a block of ice. It jolted her into a realization of what might have happened. Alarmed, she tried to shake him awake. “Brendan Brighthall, wake up! Now!”He answered her with a painful whimper. She tried to touch his face.It was feverish.There was no way he did not have a fever. The man was already half-conscious—if she left him like this, the worst could very well happen. Deirdre felt as though her mind had blanked. It took her effort to wake herself out of her panic and feel her way out of the room. She finally felt the door of her neighbor and opened it. A stranger opened it with marked annoyance.“E-Excuse me! I don’t want to bother you, but I am blind and need your help. My friend has a nasty fever right now, so can you help me call the front desk so they can send a staff member up to our room?”Few people could decline to help a beautiful woman in need—especially on something as urgent as this. The stranger called the

The nonchalance crushed the emotional storm he himself had created in Deirdre. Balling her hands into fists, she willed herself to suppress the urge not to deck her hand across Brendan’s face.“Your conscience? After all the sins you’ve committed? After all the lives you’ve ruined? And all you get is your wimpy conscience burning a hole in your non-existent soul!? Your conscience is worthless!”There was something unreadable and nebulous in Brendan’s black eyes, but he managed to maintain his caustic tongue. “All that is in the past, McKinnon, so can you stop yapping about it? What do you want me to do? Scrap my knees begging you for forgiveness? Grow up.”“Grow… up?” Deirdre could almost see black spots dancing in front of her eyes. She could not stop herself from sneering. “I guess you’re right. I need to grow up and stop being so naive. How could I possibly demand the great and mighty Mr. Brighthall to beg for my forgiveness? How could I commit the sin of making his conscience sl

“I know I called him Bren, but it was just a ploy to ingratiate myself with him. It happens when you really need someone’s help. You can’t sound like a belligerent *ss. “You remember what I said just now, right? I asked him if he still holds a grudge against me. That’s really the crux of our disagreement. I hated his guts, so I left. I didn’t try to explain myself or resolve any conflict between us, which caused him to resent me even more. I even thought he hung up on me because he refused to help me.”Deirdre was nailed to her spot. She did remember the words Declan had used. If she was right about Brendan and Declan’s relationship, then the latter would not have said something like, “are you still holding a grudge”, would he?Her expression relaxed. Pressing her lips tight, she asked, “So… you’re in a bind, huh?”“Yeah.”“Is it… serious?” asked Deirdre, concerned. Anything that could make Declan ask Brendan for help must be some grim affair.He was silent for a moment before f