Chapter 90
Chapter 90:
He opened an auction site for rare antiquities.
Item: 16th Century Hand-illustrated Compendium of Eastern Herbal Medicine. Annotated by the Imperial Physician.
Price: $250,000.
Elias clicked Buy Now. He didn’t even look at the shipping cost.
The rain had turned into a steady, rhythmic downpour by the time they left the Manor. Grandpa Vance had decided to stay for a game of chess with Beatrice, leaving Aurora to ride home alone.
Or not alone.
“I am going your way,” Elias said, opening the door to his Bentley. “It is efficient to share the ride p>
It was not efficient. His penthouse was in the opposite direction. Aurora knew this. Elias knew she knew. Neither said a word.
The interior of the car was a cocoon of warm leather and silence. The partition between them and the driver was up.
The motion of the car and the sound of the rain acted like a sedative. Aurora’s eyelids grew heavy. The adrenaline of the day—the firing of Zack, the meeting with Victor King, the intense dinner—crashed out of her system.
Her head nodded. She jerked awake. Nodded again.
Slowly, inevitably, her head tilted to the side. It came to rest on something firm and warm.
Elias’s shoulder.
Elias froze. His entire body went rigid. He stopped breathing. She was touching him. She was asleep on him.
He could smell her shampoo—something like vanilla and rain.
𝓡𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓼𝓽: ⳑ𝖺𝗅𝗇𝗈ν𝗍𝖊𝗅𝘀．𝖼𝗈𝗺
Slowly, painfully slowly, he relaxed his muscles. He didn’t want to wake her. He carefully moved his arm, adjusting his position to make her more comfortable.
He pressed the intercom button with his free hand.
“Driver,” he whispered. “Take the scenic route. The highway is… congested p>
The driver looked at the GPS. The highway was empty. “Yes, sir p>
The car slowed down, cruising through the wet streets.
Elias looked down at the woman sleeping on his shoulder. Her breathing was soft, even. A small spot of dampness was forming on the shoulder of his $5,000 Italian wool suit where her mouth was slightly open.
He looked at the drool spot.
Normally, he would have burned the suit.
Now, he felt a strange, fierce protectiveness. He reached out and gently pulled the cashmere blanket up over her knees.
At Thorne Industries, Sterling was pacing his office like a caged animal.
“The servers are down?” he yelled at his lead developer. “What do you mean the servers are down p>
“It’s a DDoS attack, sir,” the developer stammered. “Someone is hitting us hard. And… Pulse just announced a new update for their game. Their user base has doubled in the last hour. We are bleeding users, Mr. Thorne p>