080: Repentance (IV)

"What happened, love?" He took a step forward in her direction, wanting to run to her. "You are getting me worried here. Please, say something." 

That was all it took for Ayla to blurt it all out to him.

"You were not there when I woke, so I thought the worse." A frown made itself evident in between her trimmed brows. "I mean, I was right to do so. Given how much I drank last night, you should have been right next to me when I woke up earlier. But, you were not." She was moving her hands animatedly in the air as she continued to ramble on. 

At this point, all of her worries flew right out of the window. She didn't pay the rest of the people sitting around the long conference table in their prim and proper attire. Her eyes were solely focused on Claude; him and him alone. 

"When I didn't see you there, everything came rushing back to me. And since my mind has this really bad habit of making the worst out of situations, I started thinking abo