2026-02-14 15:29:33
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CHAPTER THIRTY -NINE
Ansel stayed by the window for the rest of the evening, his cell phone in hand, as if willing the storm to cease as quickly as he had ceased to want to run away from it all. It didn't and with a slight sigh he turned away again." We're not leaving tonight."Lara looked up from where she had been sitting all this time, serene in the glow of her exhaustion of the day. Her hair was a little messy, her wrist still bandaged, her entire being slumped in an uncooperative posture. She just gave him a tiny nod. "'Okay.'" It was a simple sentence, and Ansel held his gaze on her face for another moment, as if afraid it might change her mind, or the entire course of their evening. Lara then picked up her cell phone as if acting on a half-remembered reflex, and the glowing screen met her eyes in the dim light. She looked at the screen, saw the name flashing before her, Paul, and answered the call.His voice cut through, muffled slightly by the drumming of rain against the windowpanes. "I can
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Ansel walked in, not knocking first. The ceiling in the room was lower than in any other room in the hotel, and the lamplight in here was the same muted gold that gave every impression of appearing far quieter than it really was, seeming muted more than muted. Lara stood up, as soon as Ansel had fully entered the room, looking as if she had held herself together for far too long and one tiny sound had prompted some part of her to snap. For a moment or two, nothing was said. Lara's gaze, hesitant, almost frightened, searched his face for what it held. For several hours she had been alone here, listening to the sounds of people walking down the corridor outside, distant conversations through the thin wall, and imagining any number of different possibilities that lay out of her hands. It was the waiting that was exhausting, far more so than any other factor involved. Ansel closed the door, adjusted his cuff, as if the row had not taken place in the room overhead; as if the things that
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Ansel's office was a controlled emptiness, a space that seemed to expect subdued responses from the air within it. Outside the city had fallen to dusk, a gradient of gold into indigo; inside everything remained crisp and monochrome. Documents were neatly stacked and arranged on the desktop. Despite the stern authority and ordered calm that resided in the room, Ansel's attention kept straying from the file on Taiwan investors that lay before him and, toward nothing he would name.He stared at the folder with the company data, re-reading the same sentence over and over, taking in nothing. These kinds of deals were no new territory for him: negotiation, leverage, control-these were just shifting variables in any number of games he'd already played. But tonight a low, persistent buzz, just beyond him, refused to leave him be. Including Lara in the dinner plans seems okay at first but now it felt like a slap to his face. He pushed the file across the table, opening it and then slamming
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ansel stood at the head of the table looking his same self but something was still and quiet in him that seemed anything but relaxed; it was a sort of controlled reserve that accompanies an equation too overwhelmingly overrun by unaccounted variables.The Taiwanese investor, Mr. Hsu, shifted a cufflink and allowed his eyes to sweep slowly across the room before landing on Lara. His expression was that of such invasive assessment that Lara felt an automatic urge to sit up straighter, not out of anything hostile, but because it was there. Ansel registered the gaze immediately, and his jaw twitched almost imperceptibly."You want her to present?" Ansel asked, his voice carefully controlled but with the implicit demand that came with a question asked to stall rather than gather information.Mr. Hsu nodded curtly, his features blank. "Yes. I would like to speak with her directly on this project."There was something heavy in the stillness that descended.Carlos leaned forward slightly in h
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Lara examined the piece of paper for longer than necessary, her grip on it tightening almost instinctively, as if it might change its meaning if she simply held on longer." A dinner with the Taiwanese investors attendance is mandatory, for observation and alignment of presentations." Lara read out "A corporate dinner like that is a negotiation wrapped up in something else," Paul explained quietly. "So don't be surprised if business isn't all they're interested in." Lara nodded, but she wasn't sure what exactly she was meant to be prepared for, yet she agreed because denying it would mean turning away from something that remained ineffable. That night as Lara stood in front of her mirror and adjusted her dress, she did so with slow, hesitant movements. Her reflection was staring back with a confused uncertainty she couldn't name. Deep down, Lara knew this dinner was more than an additional corporate engagement; it felt like a pivotal moment, though whether good or bad, she didn't
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Ansel ignored the comment, and Carlos had already moved on, his fingers flying across his tablet. "The Taiwan deal went through. They checked in at the hotel." "Excellent," Ansel said. "Although, it might be in your best interest to have a look at them before things develop any further." Ansel's jaw tightened a little. "Set up a dinner reservation." "Tonight?" "Tonight." Carlos entered the information and when the two of them exited the boardroom, the hallway seemed to rewind time and start all over. The moment Ansel stepped outside, however, he stopped. Several feet away, sat Lara, an ice pack pressed to her wrist, Paul by her side talking to her in soft, hushed tones. Lara looked almost human, in a way that troubled something deep down inside him that he refused to identify. Paul said something and she smiled, not an polite, business smile, but a true, natural one, and it hung in the air for much longer than necessary. Carlos's eyes followed Ansel's gaze to where Lara and Pa
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