After the first time I was adopted, my guardians and foster homes became a blur of faces and places. Each family I went into always mistreated me and I was lucky to be smart enough to always be able to escape. It was like a whirlwind of being scolded and punished by the orphanage officials for either misbehaving with my foster parents or running from my foster home and then before I knew what was happening, I was being adopted again and thrown into another bitter family. Having a sweet quaint family just hadn't been something I was lucky with.Eventually, the officials got fed up with giving me out since I was bound to return or be returned so they just left me there. Even if anyone said they wanted me, they would shake their heads and say, "Sorry, that one isn't up for grabs."I personally preferred life in the orphanage too. Apart from the poor food - oh. The food could be so terrible - and the harsh environment, there was nothing particularly bad about staying at the orphanage. Atl
MARK'S POVMy jaw tightened and I felt my hands trembling by my side before they clenched into fists when I saw the man wrap his arms around Sydney and hugged her tightly.Without thinking, I strode forward, burning with jealousy and pulled Sydney away from the man. Immediately Sydney was out of the way, I connected my first with the man's face.The bastard staggered back, his hands going to his face."What the hell, Mark?" I heard Sydney yell behind me but that didn't stop me. I covered the space between us and dealt him another blow to the face. This time, as he staggered back, he fell to the floor."Mark! Get off him this minute," that was Grandma but I was unstoppable.I straddled him and swung my fists in his face again. Who did he think he was to just waltz out of nowhere and hold Sydney like that?As I pulled my arm back to hit him again, his palm cupped my fist. His bleeding mouth opened and he spat out the most infuriating words I think I would hear that night."Stop while I'
"Sydney, you really look like a lovestruck teenager," Grace teased as she walked into the living room with a bowl filled with strawberries, munching on some of them."I don't know, Grace," I spinned my phone between my fingertips, my lips jutting out in worry, "Should I call him? Should I not call him?"After the whole brouhaha with Mark and Lucas at the party, my time to properly reunite with Lucas had been cut short. He had opted to drop me off at my place but he seemed to be in a hurry. But he made sure we exchanged phone numbers before he hurriedly drove off. And since then, I haven't been able to get him out of my mind or my head. I have been unable to concentrate on work because Lucas was all I could think about.Grace rolled her eyes to the ceiling as she took a seat on the bean bag that had replaced the table in the middle of the room. She stretched the bowl of strawberries toward me, "Want some?" She briefly closed her eyes and sighed dramatically, "They're really juicy."I s
The tire of the car screeched against the floor as it suddenly sped into the moonlit night. Luigi drove fast but roughly. The ride was bumpy and the three of us in the car kept bouncing in our seats.If Lucas had not tightened my seatbelt, my surest bet was that I would have somehow flown out of the open window."Luigi, gosh, can you slow down!" I yelled, tightly grasping the edge of my seat.Luigi's shoulders shook as he chuckled from the front seat, "Of course not." He briefly glanced back, "I used to be a race car driver for F4. If I drove slowly like a grandma, my friends would laugh at me and I would lose the race. Don't worry, just hold on tight. By maintaining this speed, I would make sure we catch that thief!"Then he took a sharp turn with a drift and despite the seatbelt, we all swayed to the side and I uncontrollably fell into Lucas's arms. My face reddened even more as I remained in his arms since Luigi still seemed to be making a wild turn.I thought of our limited time t
He swung our joined hands forward and backward as we wordlessly walked along the park, each of us to our own thoughts as we basked in the tranquility of the night.There was a light shining ahead and there seemed to be a lot of people there. I squinted at it. "Is that a truck?" I muttered and briefly glanced at Lucas who was also staring ahead."I think so," Lucas answered with a feeble lift off his shoulders.As we got closer, it got clearer and I could not have stopped myself even if I wanted to as I screamed, "Ice cream!" I pointed at it and turned to Lucas who was now smiling."Come on," I untangled my hands from his, "let's go get."Without waiting for his response, I ran over to the singing truck. When I had screamed, some of the kids there had turned to me so as I rushed over there, they were still staring.I didn't care one bit for the stares. Right now,I feel so much like their age. I was reminded of when Lucas and I used to take strolls when we were younger and then we would
MARK'S POV"Here is Miss Bella's tracking report," I heard my assistant say.I murmured a response to him, then after a few seconds, I looked up from the files that detailed everything that was to be known about GT Group's latest investors only to catch the back of my personal assistant as he rushed out the door.I stopped, wondering why he was in such a hurry. My eyes back fell on the report I had tasked him to that he came in to drop. Even though I wanted to personally read through every detail of the report, I was too busy so I was going to ask him to summarize the report since he compiled it after the private investigator he hired carried it out but now he was gone.I reached for my my phone, and was about to place a call through to him but I stopped. My gaze traveled to the report lying on one side of my desk, on top of the stacks of files I still had to go through.Going through the report shouldn't take up to, at most, thirty minutes. So instead of calling my assistant and havi
MARK'S POVI rushed after the nurses as they wheeled her inside the hospital with a stretcher. There had been no help when I called for it after Bella started bleeding but immediately I got downstairs, the ambulance had arrived. Immediately, I got into the ambulance and held her hand. I called her name several times and hoped she would wake up but her eyes just remained shut.The doctor burst out of a corner, his stethoscope carelessly hung around his neck. As we both briskly walked after the nurses pushing the stretcher, I explained what had happened to him."I think he must have hit her, because she just suddenly started bleeding."The doctor nodded and stepped into the ward where they had taken her. She was already placed on a hospital bed. I was not allowed inside the ward, so I stayed outside the door and watched through translucent glass in the door.The doctor shook his head as he examined her. Then he said something to the nurses with him. They nodded and rushed out of the roo
SYDNEY'S POVI raised my eyes at the headline of the news that just popped up on my notification bar. The eye-catching headline read, "Scheming Woman Suffers Miscarriage, Loses Her Ticket into Wealth."A photo of Mark carrying Bella who was covered in blood into an ambulance was attached to the blog post. Though their faces were slightly blurred by thin mosaics, anyone familiar with the upper echelons would recognize them at a glance, especially since Bella had been flaunting her pregnancy pictures everywhere on social media."Did they have a fight or something?" I wondered curiously, but the curiosity wasn't enough to make me open the news and get distracted from work.I sighed and swiped the screen to the picture of the sample of the jewelry that a client wanted - it was why I had picked up my phone in the first place. I compared it to the sketch I had made and shook my head. I was satisfied with what I was doing. I was definitely on the right track and the one I sketched seemed eve