She gave herself a pat on the head as if to knock some sense into herself. She wished she was less sentimental because nothing good ever came out of it.
Back in the day, she had been so duped by Dexter’s occasional kindness that she was blind to his other flaws. Now, Richard was being nice to her because it was his duty to protect her, but she was reading too much into it, so much so that she started to fall for him.
She hated that she was so desperate to feel loved.
Closing her eyes, Angela took a deep breath and cleared her mind. When she opened her eyes once more, there were none of the glistening tears or muddled emotions.
Upon returning to base, she fell onto her bed and slept. She had woken up at an ungodly hour that morning, and the arduous hike had left her completely drained.
However, little did she know that Richard had received bad news while she was sleeping.
In the conference room, Richard hung up on the call and clenched his phone tightly, then turned to look at his subordinates. “Angela’s mother just met with an accident. She’s badly injured and she’s been sent to the hospital for emergency treatment.”
The four men working in front of their computers exchanged a worried glance. The accident was not entirely unexpected; the criminals who had recently crossed the international borders were ruthless, and instigating the accident to hurt Angela’s mother was undoubtedly their plan to lure Angela out from hiding.
“Should we tell Miss Meyers about this?” Willy asked.
“She would be devastated, and she’d insist on going back to see her mother,” Jared said sympathetically.
“But she has the right to know,” Sean pointed out.
“Poor Miss Meyers. She’ll be heartbroken!” Trevor said fretfully.
Richard frowned. He had no right keeping this from Angela, which meant he was duty-bound to tell her the truth.
Meanwhile, when Angela had straightened up her bedroom, she sat down on the couch and let her mind. wander. One said wandering, but really it just kept replaying the scene on the hiking trail where she had kissed Richard. It had only been a fleeting moment, but it had left a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach that would not go away.
The more she dwelled on it, the deeper her blush and the faster her heartbeat. That was the first time she had kissed a man on her own initiative, but the fact that he was unfazed by it made her feel like a pathetic loser.
Just as she was drowning in her own embarrassment, a knock came from the door.
She got to her feet and reached to open the door, only to be greeted by Richard, who looked as handsome as he was impassive. The air around her suddenly felt thin, and she blinked as she asked bewilderedly. “What is it?”
“Come into my room,” Richard said in a low voice, then left in the direction of his room first.
Angela opened her door and hurried out of her room to follow him. Judging by the look on his face earlier, he had something to tell her.
When she entered his room, he closed the door behind her and gazed at her darkly. He did not speak right away, and she felt the need to blink to alleviate the strange tension between them. “Anytime now,” she prompted, wondering what he was waiting for.
“I got a call ten minutes ago. It’s about your family,” Richard said.
At once, her heart constricted, and her hand darted out to grab his arm as she urged, “What happened to my family? Are they okay?”
“Your mother got into an accident an hour ago, and she’s now in the hospital emergency room,” he explained gravely.
