2025-10-21 18:03:23"Melissa, are you sure mentally okay? You have been in a suspiciously good mood since you returned from work. Like you are you and what have you done to my friend," A girl on a couch was telling Melissa until she showed her what she got from work that day.
"WHAT?! I KNOW YOU CANNOT AFFORD THAT!" The lady barked at Melissa, but Melissa simply smiled. "And you are right to assume that. I didn’t buy it. There was this guy…" Melissa said, keeping the smile on her face, and it turned crimson as she recalled the encounter. "A guy bought you all of that? You know he will expect you to give him your cookie, right?" Her roommate said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. "Don't be such a cynic and a pervert, Rhianon! He has no such intention! I was the one that even gave him my number," Melissa pointed out, but Rhianon was even shocked by what her friend just said. "You, you made the first move?" Rhianon questioned with a raised brow. This isn’t something her friend is capable of doing. Unlike Melissa, Rhianon is a typical hippie with long brown hair covered with scarfs that had psychedelic patterns, wearing a muted coloured shirt with the inscription “NO MORE WARS” Rhianon had piercing blue eyes and was by every means a beautiful lady with quite the bust that almost ripped her shirt apart. "I know! I feel so awkward thinking about it! I don't even think he will call…me," Melissa said, but the excitement in her voice faded as she concluded this sentence. "If he got you all of that and took your number. Girl, he is going to call you, but I am curious to see what kind of man can make innocent Melissa make the first move," Rhianon teased, trying to cheer up her friend. Rhianon was the same height as Melissa, but she was older by a year. She was the one covering the majority of the rent with Melissa helping around with other bills. Rhianon didn't mind the major contributor because she saw Melissa as her sister, her person. She had once joked that if they were both into women that she would marry Melissa. Rhianon sees her as a pleasant person to be around, and this is a great addition to her otherwise sad life. "You can not meet him! You will hypnotize him with that chest of yours!" Melissa barked, prompting Rhianon to giggle. "Lisa, you know, not all men like them this big, yours are just fine," Rhianon responded, but she couldn't help but worry that this man would break her friend's heart. There was no reason for him to buy her all of this, but then again, he didn't attempt to even get her number, which piqued her interest. Rhianon was the lead singer for an upcoming Alternative Pop band called The Spinsters, and she had a gig later that night. Rhianon was a woman who truly believed she had what it took to top billboard charts and tour the world with her music and message of love and peace even though her numbers said otherwise. "OH MY GOODNESS!" Melissa screamed, dropping her phone, but thanks to Rhianon's position and sharp reflexes, she was able to snatch it out of the air before it hit the ground. She was yet to make the transition to her new phone, but Rhianon noticed that the number wasn't saved. Without hesitation, she picked up the phone on behalf of Melissa. "Hello…?" A voice said behind the phone, but before Rhianon could respond, Melissa snatched the phone out of her hand before running to a different room in the house. "You are so extra," Rhianon said with a smile as she watched her friend close the door behind her. ****** Melissa managed to get away from her roommate, but she had no idea what to say as her mind went blank. "Is everything alright?" Harry asked her, and Melissa could feel her heart pound like it was about to tear out of her chest. "I-I am fine… I didn't know you would call so soon…" Melissa said, her voice almost hushed. "It was hard not to. What can I say? I am very much into girls that know what they want and are bold to go for it," Harry responded, and this sent Melissa's mind into a frenzy. She couldn't even give a verbal response, but Harry found this refreshing. "I was thinking, maybe you and I could get something to eat tonight," Harry proposed, and this brought the biggest smile on her face. "I would love that… Harry," Melissa blurted out before covering her mouth shut once she realized that Harry never told her his name. She got it by asking the person who had swiped his card. It showed his name on the pop-up. "Hey, it's cool, you know my name," Harry said, and Melissa could feel the second-hand embarrassment creeping up on her. "You are beautiful, bold, and you are also a stalker…" Harry teased her, and Melissa couldn't contain her giggle. "Text me your address and get ready by 7," Harry instructed, to which Melissa complied as the conversation came to an end. "Damn, he really has done a number on you," Rhianon said behind the door. “Shut up!" Melissa barked, but this was a byproduct of her embarrassed state. None of this mattered right now. She had a date to prepare for. ****** Harry was done with the phone call, and there was a sense of relief that came with it. He didn't know women could act this way around him. When he was in that one-sided relationship with Alicia, she had never been this way with him unless she wanted him to do her assignments It wasn't something he was used to, but he could totally see himself getting used to it. Harry knew at that moment that he needed to go shopping, he didn't have any clothes worthy of a date. But he also had no idea what would be appropriate to wear or even the restaurant they would go to. Harry knew it had to be expensive. It had to be very expensive so he could spend as much money on her as he could. A cyan screen soon appeared as usual, but Harry wondered what this could be about. [Update in affection bar!] [Melissa's affection: 15%] Harry was surprised it went up at all because all they did was have a little conversation over the phone. It couldn't be that easy, could it? Either way, this worked to his advantage, and he planned to milk the heck out of it as he headed to a store to get some clothes for his date with Melissa.
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Chapter 454. The Reunion
The room Harry had arranged was small and unremarkable by design, a quiet corner suite with soft chairs and warm lighting, nothing about it meant to impress or overwhelm. Ricardo arrived first, pacing slightly near the window, dressed more simply than Harry had ever seen him, no armor of expensive tailoring or careful presentation, just a man waiting to meet his daughter.Osaka arrived a few minutes later, quiet and tense, positioning himself near the far wall, close enough to be present, far enough to give the moment room to belong to the two people it actually belonged to.Lily arrived last.She paused in the doorway for a long moment, taking in the room, taking in the man standing near the window who went suddenly, completely still the second he saw her.Ricardo didn't move first. Harry watched him hold himself back, watched every instinct in the man visibly strain against itself, the urge to close the distance, to pull her into an embrace seventeen years in the making, warring aga
Chapter 453. Bringing Her Home
Harry spent most of the next two days on the phone, arranging details with a level of care he hadn't applied to anything in longer than he could remember. A private room at a quiet hotel, nothing flashy, nothing that would draw attention. Security tight enough to keep everyone safe, discreet enough that it wouldn't feel like walking into an armed camp. A back entrance, a scheduled arrival time, contingencies for a dozen small things that could go wrong.It struck him, somewhere in the middle of confirming the third security detail, how strange it was to be applying this exact skill set to something that actually mattered. He'd spent so much of his early life planning dates and gestures with this same meticulous attention, choosing restaurants, timing surprises, orchestrating moments meant to impress. Now he was orchestrating a reunion between a grieving father and the daughter he'd believed dead for seventeen years, and the stakes had never once felt more real.He went to see Ricardo
Chapter 452. The Cost of a Bluff
Harry arrived the following afternoon at Osaka's request, meeting the two of them at the same small café, and found the air between Lily and Osaka carrying a different tension than the warm, careful opening he'd expected from Osaka's earlier message. Lily's eyes found him the moment he walked in, and there was something sharp in them that hadn't been there during their last conversation. "You told him my father already knew," she said, before Harry had even fully sat down. "Weeks ago. Before I had any idea any of this existed." Harry felt the accusation land exactly where it deserved to, and didn't try to soften his way around it. "That's true." "Explain it to me. All of it." He told her plainly, no dressing it up, no framing it in a way that might make it sound better than it actually was. He told her about the tribunal, about being cornered, about needing something, anything, to shift the room's attention away from an accusation that would have ended very badly for him. He told
Chapter 451. Osaka and Lily
Osaka had flown into more airports than he could count over the years, for business, for negotiations, for the quiet, dangerous work his family had trained him into since he was young enough that he barely remembered a version of himself that hadn't known how to disappear into a crowd. He didn't remember any of those landings feeling like this one. His hands shook slightly as he collected his bag from the carousel, a small enough tremor that he doubted anyone around him noticed, but he noticed, and the noticing unsettled him more than the shaking itself. Seventeen years of careful control, and here he was, undone by nothing more than the prospect of a conversation. She had chosen a small café on the edge of the town where she lived, public enough to feel safe, quiet enough for a real conversation. Her choice, all of it. Osaka had learned, through Harry's careful updates, to simply accept that this entire process belonged to her now, every term, every boundary, and something in him r
Chapter 450. What She Actually Wants
The cottage looked different in daylight, less like a stranger's guarded threshold and more like an ordinary home with flowers along the path and a bicycle leaned against the wall, catching the afternoon sun. She opened the door before Harry had even finished knocking this time, no chain across the gap, and stepped back to let him in without a word."I looked into some of what you told me," she said, once they were both seated in her small kitchen, a pot of tea between them that neither of them had touched yet. "There's a man. A researcher who specializes in cases like this, missing children, false identities, that sort of thing. I found him online and paid for a consultation. I didn't tell him your name, or Ricardo's, just the shape of what you described. He said it wasn't impossible. Said it happens more often than people think, children moved and hidden to protect them from something dangerous.""You didn't have to do that on your own," Harry said."I wasn't going to just take a st
Chapter 449. The Waiting
Harry checked his phone for what felt like the hundredth time that morning, the screen showing nothing but the same notifications he'd already read, and set it face down on his desk with more force than the gesture actually required. Five days since England. Five days since he'd stood on that quiet path and watched a stranger's door close slowly between them, and he still hadn't heard a single word back. He'd thought, more than once over those five days, about booking another flight. About showing up again, this time with more patience, more of Osaka's careful documentation, whatever it might take to move things along faster than her own timeline apparently wanted to move. Each time the thought surfaced, he made himself set it back down. He knew what it would mean if he did that. He knew, more clearly than he might have known it a few months ago, that showing up unannounced a second time, before she'd asked him to, would tell her something ugly about how much her own pace actually
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