Gwendolyn scowled at the abrupt manner she had been roused and turned to face the other side.
Jonah kept knocking, seemingly intent on hammering down her door if she did not answer it soon.
Irritated by the racket, Gwendolyn flung aside her quilt. She slipped on her slippers and donned a thick
sleeping gown before answering the door.
“What does he want this time?” she demanded, glaring at Jonah with a look of irritated disgust.
“Mr. Lund isn’t messing around this time, Ms. Harris. He visited a bar this afternoon and spent the day
drinking. He even sent us away. When I went back for him earlier tonight, I found him drunk as a skunk
with your name on his lips. So, the only thing I could do was to bring him here to you.”
Gwendolyn was impassive. Cold, even. “Give him something to sober up, then, or get him a doctor who
would give him a jab. What good will it do sending him to me? I’m not a doctor.”
She was about to shut the door after her speech, but Jonah threw himself against the frame. “Please
see him. He would feel much better in your presence.”
Gwendolyn’s frostiness did not dissipate. “I’m under house arrest because of him. He wouldn’t let me
out of this house. What if he sobers up tomorrow and accuses me of misbehaving? Wouldn’t that be
unfair to me?”
“Uh…”
Jonah was conflicted. He gave the matter a moment of serious thought before suggesting, “Why don’t I
bring him to your room?”
“No way! I can’t stand the stench of alcohol on him. You’d better get back to Alzer Palace.”
Jonah fell silent.
“Gwen. Gwen…”
Charles’ voice, slurred by booze and laced with melancholy, traveled up the stairs from the living room
below.
Jonah was near tears. “Go down and have a look at him, Ms. Harris. I’ll explain everything to him for
you tomorrow. You wouldn’t want him to be keeping you awake, I’m sure. I’m begging you!”
Gwendolyn sighed, doing her best to conceal her irritation. “Wake the maid,” she instructed. “Have her
put together something to sober him up.”
“At once.”
Jonah sprinted down the stairs.
Gwendolyn pulled the thick, furry sleeping gown tighter around her and followed him down the stairs.
Charles was sprawled on the couch. His cheeks were flushed with alcohol, and his wits were hazy.
Covering her nose with her sleeve, Gwendolyn sprayed some organic freshener to mask the stench of
alcohol in the living room.
Arriving beside Charles, she prodded him in the knee several times with the sole of her slipper, trying to
wake him.
“Wake up, Charles! This isn’t a place for you to spend the night. Get lost back to your Alzer Palace
after having your tea!”
Charles’s eyelashes twitched. The haze of intoxication receded slightly.
Instinctively, he reached out toward the sound of Gwendolyn’s voice and caught hold of a corner of her
gown.
No longer able to conceal the disgust in her eyes, she snatched her garment out of his grasp.
“Let go!”
Charles held on firmly. He was brutishly strong.
She took a deep breath, feeling the fury coursing through her head at the thought of seeing Nico
covered in blood from the torture that morning in his dungeon.
Having left to wake the maid, Jonah had not returned.
Raising her hand, she gave him two merciless slaps across his chiseled cheeks.
The two smacks, dealt in quick succession, rang out sharp and deafening.
His cheeks stinging with pain, Charles became thoroughly awake. Only then did he loosen his grip on
her shirt and sat up on the couch.
He massaged his swollen head and stroked his flaming cheeks, tender with pain, while gazing slowly
up at her.
“Gwen?”
Gwendolyn raised her chin haughtily. After striking him, she regarded him with a bold glare. “Are you
aware that you’re disrupting my sleep by turning up here in the middle of the night with a drunken
tantrum? Now that you’re awake, get the h*ll lost!”
Charles hung his head, pretending not to hear her. Suddenly, he began sobbing quietly.
His blue eyes, now tinged red, were filled with helpless despair. Coupled with the handprints on his
cheeks, he looked as if he had emerged from an altercation worse for wear.
Gwendolyn watched his tears fall, yet she remained unmoved. “You can drop your act. Get out. You
stink so badly that not even air freshener can mask this foul odor.”
Retracting her disgusted gaze, she turned toward the stairs, but Charles grabbed her robe again.
“Do you remember the spring seven years ago when I took you to the horse race on the steppes,
Gwen? In the summer, I jumped into the pond and brought you lotuses. In the fall, I taught you to shoot
an arrow, brandish a whip, and aim a gun. In the winter, we made snowmen and held snowball fights.
We were happy back then.”
Gwendolyn froze, though she did not turn around.
Plunged into the depths of nostalgic reverie, Charles felt his tears pouring forth unbidden.
“I am a b*stard. No matter how hard Father tried to conceal my identity, I had no standing in the
Newton family as I had many siblings. Father was too busy to care much about me, so I was forced to
stand up for myself. I have learned something early on—one must fight for something they want. To be
worthy of you, a mighty heiress, I chose to leave you for a while to join the Central Intelligence Agency.
Our days in training were tough, but the thought of you helped me through it. I implored you to wait for
me. In a few short years, when I ascended the ranks within the Central Intelligence Agency, I would
return and marry you, but…”
He choked, unable to go on through a fresh bout of tears.
He had been suffering alone all those years without ever showing this side of himself to anybody.
“To my surprise, something happened the year after that. Somehow, you ended up at Fairlake and,
through a combination of factors, ended up with Cedrick. Imagine my remorse! I regretted not holding
on to you. Why did I ever give you up?”
One disjointed scene at a time, fragments of the past appeared before her mind’s eye.
Gwendolyn sighed silently. “You’ve missed your chance, and there won’t be another. Life is about
moving forward. You are boxing yourself into the past and refusing to see anything beyond that.”
Standing silently, she listened to his tirade.
“Didn’t Cedrick miss an opportunity with you? Why did you forgive him and not me? You know, the
image of you flirting with him at the bar at Fairlake is something I will never be able to unsee. I only
regret that the man seated beside you was not me. Jealousy drove me nearly mad. Though I know that
he would shield you from danger, I had somebody douse him with the serum, in my naïve belief that
you would come back to me if he were dead. However, I never expected him to be the head of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. With the help of the professor, he managed to hold on for another six
months. Even more unexpectedly, that caused you to fall deeper in love with him. All you saw was
him.”
Gwendolyn felt her hatred rising again at the reminder. Icily, she shoved his hand aside.
“You are drunk. The maid will send you some tea to sober up. Have Jonah send you back to Alzer
Palace when you’re done. I’m tired, and I’m going back to bed.”
Without so much as a backward glance, she headed toward the stairs.
Charles let out a groan of despair when she arrived at the stairs.
“What would you have me do to earn another chance, Gwen? Would you notice me if I risked my life
for you just like Cedrick did?”
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