Love’s New Bloom By Simone Hastings - Season 1 Episode 74

“I’m not just saying it because I like you or want to make you happy, Erin! You have to know that every person in this world is unique!” Caleb exclaimed, his void eyes serious.

“Fine, I concede,” Erin sighed.

“I’ll take it that I managed to convince you? If I tell the chairman about your relationship with Chandler, the chairman might come knocking at your door, you know…” he trailed off nervously.

“Why does he want to look for me?” she asked in surprise.

“Knowing the chairman, he’ll definitely use his money to persuade you to leave Chandler. Then all you have to do is to accept it and move on. As for Chandler, the chairman will certainly press him more about this.” He frowned.

“If not for the fact that my insecurities fueled me to earn and save money since a very young age, I think I’d actually be the type to take someone else’s money and run with it once I have been bribed,” she sneered, her tone full of disdain.

“So, you’re telling me…” He trailed off as he wasn’t entirely clear on what she was trying to convey.

“I’m telling you that I don’t agree with your proposal. Although I like money too, it’s not enough to ruin my reputation for it. Even if I take the chairman’s money, it doesn’t necessarily mean Chandler will let me go. Plus, he’ll probably look at me in disgust as a greedy woman from then on,” she said with a serious look on her face.

Her refusal made Caleb fall silent for a while. He then lowered his eyes and thought for a moment before saying, “If staying by Chandler’s side is as bad as you claim it is, you won’t care about what he thinks of you, right? Or are you telling me you want to stay by his side willingly now?”

She didn’t know how to answer that.

The way she averted her gaze made his expression turn a few degrees colder. “I didn’t mean to intrude.” He chuckled nervously.

“Caleb, I-” She, too, was at a loss for words.

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me. If this is what you’ve decided on, then I don’t have a right to say anything. But I’d like to remind you that nothing would come out of your relationship with Chandler. I reckon you haven’t seen how powerful the chairman is yet. He’s the type who would never agree to the idea of you being together with my cousin,” he said, waving his hands as if to brush the matter aside.

She lowered her eyes and said, “I haven’t thought that far yet, to be honest. Chandler has changed recently, so I thought I wanted to give the both of us a second chance.”

“Say no more! I still have a few matters I need to take care of, so you’ll have to excuse me,” Caleb grumbled with a sour look on his face. He then turned to leave.

Erin knew she had embarrassed Caleb with her words, but she couldn’t go against her heart either.

When it was time to leave work, Chandler and Erin rode the exclusive elevator to the parking lot together.

Chandler glanced at Erin, who was busy daydreaming, and asked, “What are you thinking about?” She didn’t answer him, so he grabbed her chin with one hand and forced her to look at him.

That made her return to her senses and ask, “What’s wrong?”

“Seeing as you’re lost in thought, I don’t suppose you’re thinking about other men?” he joked.

“Apart from you, who else can I think about right now?” she pouted.

Her answer put a pleased smirk on his face. “I’m glad you know that well, or else you’d best bet I’m not going to spare the other guy.”

“Chandler…” she called his name.

“Only call my name from now on,” he corrected.

“But” she gasped as she still wasn’t used to being so close to him.

He cupped her chin and ordered, “You’d better keep that in mind!”

“Maybe…we shouldn’t be together, Chandler!” she blurted out in frustration.

Her words instantly made his face turn icy cold. “What do you mean? Why would you suddenly say that?” he growled.

“I” she hesitated.

At that moment, the elevator doors opened, but before she could walk out, he pulled her back in. He then quickly pressed at button to shut the elevator doors, and with a swipe of his card, not only did he lock the both of them in, but he also turned off

the CCTV inside.

He later pressed her against a corner of the elevator and started barking in an icy tone, “You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!”

She couldn’t look away from his piercing gaze, so she lowered her head and mumbled, “Do you want to hear the truth?”

His eyes were seething with a layer of frost now. “Spit it out.”

She let out a long sigh before explaining, “Since the chairman will prevent us from being together in the future at all costs, we might as well go our separate ways now.”

It’d probably be less painful too if they decided to go their separate ways now.

His furrowed brow reflected his impatience as he said coldly, “Who told you that my father would prevent us from being together?”

“That’s not important. If it’s true, you might want to consider my proposal,” she muttered.

“Absolutely not! You shouldn’t think about it either! You’d better erase all those thoughts right now!” he hissed.

“Then tell me, will the chairman really stop us from being together?” she asked quietly, raising an eyebrow.

He hesitated to answer her question for a while. He even thought of lying, but his words were stuck in his throat, and he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

His silence gave her the assurance she needed to believe in Caleb’s words. So, it was true, after all. “Just let me go already. It’s still not too late,” Erin shakily said as she looked at the ground. Initially, she thought she could say that kind of thing in a cool way, but she never imagined that she had fallen deeper for this man than she had originally thought.

Especially when she had fallen for such an extroverted, sunshiny figure like Chandler Frost, she would inevitably get hurt. And it wasn’t like she didn’t understand that either. That was why she kept trying to escape from him subconsciously and kept on telling herself that she didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

He got so angry that his chest started throbbing, and the more he looked at the woman who was less determined than him to keep the embers of their relationship going, the angrier he got.

It prompted him to grab hold of both of her arms and press them against the steel walls of the elevator before lowering his head to kiss her lips. His kiss was so sudden and intense that it felt like he wanted to take out all the anger in his heart on her.

She resisted at first because she was not in the mood to think about that, but another thought suddenly flashed across her mind then. Would she truly be okay with the idea of the both of them not knowing each other at all?

The mere thought was enough to make her heart ache, so she decided to drop her guard and kiss his icy lips back. All she wanted was to cherish their present moment, no matter how short–lived. She refused to give it up for anything in the world.

Her passionate response gradually tamed the roaring blaze in his heart, and he let go of her arms. With one hand on her hip and the other cradling the back of her head, they kissed each other until they lost track of time.

It wasn’t until the air inside the elevator was thinning that he let go of her reluctantly. If not, how could he ever let go of a woman who made him this obsessed?

But when he thought back to her hesitance and then to his autocratic and dictator father, a wave of determination swept over his void eyes. He opened the elevator door and grabbed her hand. “Let’s go home,” he said.

Still in a daze, she followed behind him as he tugged her wrist obediently. What he said just now kept echoing in her mind, ” Let’s go home.”

Did he just say that that luxurious and magnificent villa was her home?

They both remained silent all the way back to the villa as a myriad of thoughts swirled throughout their minds.

The second he parked the car, he rushed to the passenger’s side to pull her out. He then dragged her to the bedroom like at ragdoll. Once inside, he lifted her in his arms like a madman with a sole thought in his mind.

She also felt like pushing aside all the messy thoughts in her head and only thinking of going with his wishes at that moment.

As the excitement in his eyes grew, her full devotion to him made him completely lose control of himself, and they proceeded to indulge themselves in a night of pure and passionate love–making.

When all was said and done, she lay asleep in his arms while he stared at the ceiling, hoping she would get pregnant soon. Once he had a crazy goal in mind, he would not stop until he achieved it!