The following night, after getting ready, Roxanne headed downstairs and prepared to leave to meet Jack. The moment she descended the stairs, however, Archie and Benny stopped her. “Mommy, isn’t Mr. Damaris picking you up?” Despite waiting for a long while, they saw no signs of Lucian. They had no choice but to think of ways to stall for time. Roxanne was confused when she heard their question. “Mr. Damaris wants to meet our collaborators early, so I’m going there by myself. What’s wrong?” Unable to think of a response on the spot, Archie and Benny exchanged a look, then flashed a grin and shamelessly blocked Roxanne’s path. “What’s up with you two?” Roxanne bent down and stared into their eyes. Archie and Benny fell silent again. “But Mommy, Aunt Madilyn hasn’t arrived yet,” Archie said in piping voice. Roxanne glanced at the time. Madilyn should have left work by now. Although they had agreed in the morning that Madilyn would come right after work, she was still nowhere to b
A flash of self-mockery flitted across Roxanne’s eyes. She was worried that Lucian might find trouble with Jack because of her, but it turned out that she had gotten it all wrong.All the while, Lucian was finding trouble with her because of Jack.Seeing the change in the woman’s expression, Lucian realized that what he had just said might have been too suggestive.With his brows knitted together, Lucian was prepared to explain himself, but Roxanne beat him to the punch.“Since it’s business-related, you can reason with Mr. Damaris himself. I’m merely a researcher in this project. Both my words and my presence don’t carry much weight, so even if I’m not there at the ceremony, it can still proceed without a hitch.”Roxanne looked at the man in front of her with a tinge of mockery in her gaze as she continued, “I’m just an insignificant member of the project. If don’t attend the ceremony today, my colleagues will a*sume I’m unsociable and bring me trouble in the future. Mr. Farwell, pl
Roxanne felt conflicted as she realized she had inadvertently betrayed Lucian. I wonder what Lucian will say when he finds out…“Come on, Roxanne. We’re going to be working closely together from now on, so it’d do us good to spend more time with each other,” Larry chimed in as well.Left with no other choice, Roxanne recomposed herself and a*sented with a smile.The three of them left the private room and went straight to the banquet hall on the third floor.Roxanne was shocked when she stepped out of the elevator.Everyone involved in the project was already waiting for her in the banquet hall. It was as though they already knew the signing of the contract would be successful.They all flocked over to Roxanne with their gla*ses raised.“Mr. Damaris says you played a huge part in resolving the issue with our supply of medicinal herbs, Dr. Jarvis! Here’s a toast to you!”“It’s truly amazing how a young woman like you could make such great accomplishments in the medical field!”Just li
Without saying anything, Lucian reached out to grab Roxanne’s hand and pulled her into his embrace. Jack knew his boundaries. Although he was holding on to her, he didn’t use a lot of force, so Lucian was able to snatch her from him with ease.“What are you doing, Mr. Farwell? Dr. Jarvis gave me permission to send her home. How will I explain myself if she finds out I handed her over to you?” Jack asked with a frown.The elevator came to a halt on the first floor.“Roxanne is my ex-wife. Given our relationship, I don’t think I need your permission to send her home. You will stay away from my ex-wife in the future if you know what’s good for you, Mr. Damaris,” Lucian said menacingly without looking back as he helped Roxanne out of the elevator.Jack, who was still standing inside the elevator, had a nonchalant look on his face when he heard that. “Really? In that case, I suppose I’ll have to leave her in your care, Mr. Ex-husband!” he said in the most sarcastic way possible.Lucian pa
Madilyn fell speechless when she heard that. What? I have to go to work early tomorrow? It wasn’t until she noticed Archie and Benny winking at her that she understood what they were playing at. “As much as I would love to stay and look after Roxanne, the workload at the hospital has been pretty crazy lately. Would you be able to look after her for me, Mr. Farwell? If not, I’ll have no choice but to take a day off tomorrow,” she said with a sigh. Feeling satisfied that Madilyn was playing along, the kids shifted their gaze back to Lucian and waited for his reply. Since he had intended to stay and look after Roxanne all along, he simply met their expectant gazes and nodded in response. This is a little strange, though… I remember Archie and Benny being mad at me for a really long time when I casually mentioned their biological father. I thought they’d hate me very much, and yet, they’ve been helping me win Roxanne back lately. In fact, they’re putting in as much effort as Estella.
At the sight of Roxanne’s pale expression, Lucian leaned in to look into her eyes with a frown. “How is it? Do you feel any better?” In her condition, Roxanne couldn’t hear him at all. After vomiting, she collapsed onto her bed and mumbled, “Ugh, it feels terrible…”Lucian’s heart ached for her when he heard that. After getting up to take off the shirt that she had puked on, he went out to wash his hands and poured her a cup of water for her to gargle with.When he returned to the room, he saw Roxanne standing on her feet. She was taking off her clothes as if there was no one around. While doing so, she continued to mumble, “I… I want to shower.”The sight of her stripping jolted Lucian back to his senses. He hurried to her side to hold her back. “Stop taking off your clothes.”Annoyed, Roxanne threw him a look of displeasure and insisted, “I want to shower. Move aside!”While she was speaking, she began to unbuckle her bra.Lucian quickly looked away, stunned.By the time he turned
After watching the children enter the kindergarten, Roxanne turned to Lucian with mixed emotions and started, “The boys told me that it was you who sent me home last night.” Lucian nodded noncommittally. He averted his gaze from her and looked to the side as if nothing had happened.In truth, he couldn’t help recalling the scene from the night before at the sight of her face.Roxanne trailed his gaze, only to see his car that was parked by the roadside.Thinking that he was in a hurry to leave, she decided to get straight to the point. “Can you tell me how we ran into each other last night?”Lucian’s face turned cold when Roxanne mentioned their encounter. “We happened to run into each other in the hotel elevator.”Even though he didn’t describe how he had wrestled her away from Jack’s arms, Roxanne had no trouble imagining it.Given his temper, he must’ve been infuriated to see me together with Jack. It goes without saying that something unpleasant must have happened between them.N
Lucian, however, furrowed his brows tightly upon listening to his best friend’s words. Faced with Lucian’s lack of response, Jonathan urged anxiously, “Our project is about to get up to speed, and Herbscape Group is an extremely important piece. If we can’t acquire them, we’ll have no choice but to back out and wait for the next opportunity.”That was Jonathan’s attempt at questioning Lucian. It was one thing for Queen Group to give up, but Farwell Group had never backed out of anything before.Given their status in Horington, Farwell Group had always gotten their way regardless of the situation. Plenty of companies clamored to collaborate with them.Unexpectedly, with a brazenness that came out of nowhere, not only did Herbscape Group dare to bargain with Farwell Group, but they even canceled the contract at the very last stage.If it was any other company, Lucian would have already taught them a painful lesson.However, Lucian didn’t react at all this time. He seemed to have prepar
Lucian remained at the research institute for the entire afternoon. After he left the building in the evening, he glanced at the time. A brief hesitation flashed past his eyes before he called Cayden and asked him to grab the medicine in his possession for examination. Then he drove to Roxanne’s place.Meanwhile, the children were playing with each other at home.Roxanne was preparing their dinner absentmindedly.It was because she felt a little regretful after Lucian left.After all, he was investigating a matter involving her, and she wanted to be a part of it.Furthermore, that was the main reason she left the hospital in the first place.However, she simply couldn’t leave the house because the children refused to let her go.To make matters worse, she still hadn’t gotten a single text or call from Lucian for the whole afternoon.Hence, she had no idea if he unearthed anything.Just as Roxanne was getting distracted, she heard the children’s voice in the living room.The children
After a while, Lucian shifted his icy look away from Colby, to which the latter responded with a calm sigh of relief. Then, Colby reflexively stepped away and allowed Lucian to take his seat while he stood at the side.Both of them then watched yesterday’s surveillance footage, starting with the experiment Roxanne was performing with Jack.In the footage, they saw Roxanne joking around with Jack.Colby was also in the footage, but he was a few steps behind Roxanne and Jack with an expression completely different from theirs.Overall, it seemed as though Colby was the only one focusing on the experiment while the other two were not involved in any work.Lucian always thought Roxanne was way too intimate with Jack.However, it was the first time he saw the two of them interacting with each other without his presence. They don’t look like business partners at all! It’s completely different from how Roxanne describes their relationship.The longer he watched the footage, the colder his e
A few moments later, Roxanne organized her thoughts and explained, “It’s just standard procedure for acupuncture. If he wants to perform it on me, he can’t do it with my clothes on.” Upon hearing that, Lucian furrowed his eyebrows slightly as a look of dissatisfaction flashed past his eyes. Now that I think about it, Jack did need to remove her clothes to perform acupuncture on her. Still, it was disturbing!His jealous expression amused her.“Setting that aside, Jack’s behavior is still very suspicious,” Lucian concluded stubbornly.That rendered Roxanne speechless.While she didn’t want to believe Jack was acting maliciously, she had to admit that, from an objective point of view, he was pretty suspicious.Lucian frowned at her and informed her coldly, “I plan to investigate this matter in the afternoon. Will you join me?”Nodding, Roxanne was about to accept his invitation when the children pounced into her embrace.Thus, instead of replying to him, she stared at the children, puz
Estella hugged her and refused to let go. Thus, Roxanne explained resignedly, “Your daddy and I haven’t eaten yet. We’ll keep you company after our meals, all right?”Upon hearing that, the girl finally released Roxanne and stared intently at her.Roxanne smiled, patted her head, and turned to Lucian. “Come on in, Mr. Farwell. I’ll prepare some food.”The look in Lucian’s eyes darkened before he ambled into the living room. It’s been a long time since I was invited by her. This feels pretty good.The children were relieved to see the relationship between the two adults improved after Roxanne left the hospital.As Lucian sat on the couch, he watched the children play with each other.Inside the kitchen, Roxanne was preparing the food nonchalantly.As a result of all that, the atmosphere in the mansion became surprisingly heartwarming.Not long after, Roxanne exited the kitchen with two sandwiches and a gla*s of hot milk before putting them in front of Lucian. “It’s nearly time for lun
The rain had stopped when the two reached the parking lot. The custom-made jacket Lucian used to shelter them from the rain was wet. Even his arms got soaked from the rain.Standing by the side of the car, Roxanne watched him open the door and put his jacket on the back seat with no change in expression. After a moment of hesitation, she decided to sit in the pa*senger seat.Soon, Lucian got into the car and drove toward her house.“I wonder what they are doing now.”Feeling uneasy by the silence inside the car, Roxanne quickly searched for a topic.Lucian raised his eyes and glanced at her face reflected in the rearview mirror. “Cayden will take good care of them. You can call him if you’re worried.”Roxanne grinned. “It’s okay. I believe Cayden will take good care of them.”As they spoke about the kids, Roxanne couldn’t help but think of how they left without hesitation this morning.She wondered what was on the kids’ minds when they did that and decided to find the answer when she
Hearing Roxanne’s apology, there was a flash of smugness in Colby’s eyes, but his tone was full of concern. “As long as you get better, it doesn’t matter how tired I get. I thought… Forget it. Let’s not talk about this. Why did you call?”Uneasy, Roxanne said, “I’m afraid I’ll have to continue to trouble you.”Colby was busy since yesterday after she fell unconscious.Recently, they needed to carry out an investigation. Due to that, they had to ask for Colby’s help to grant them free rein.For everything Colby had done, Roxanne felt nothing but sorry for him.Colby, on the other end of the phone, was working overtime at the research institute, handling the surveillance footage of the research facility.He froze momentarily when he heard what Roxanne said but soon returned to normal. “What is it? Go on. I’ll try my best to help.”Roxanne said with a grateful smile, “Mr. Farwell and I want to investigate yesterday’s incident. In the process, we will need permission to access the resear
Roxanne was rendered speechless at that. After all, it was indeed true that the three of them had been in charge of the project since the beginning.Naturally, I wouldn’t shoot myself in the foot, so that leaves only Jack and Colby. That being said, I don’t want to doubt any of them since one of them is the project leader while the other is my longtime partner.Seeing how adamant she was, Lucian felt his anger rise. “If I remember correctly, Jack had something to do with the fire incident at the research institute previously as well.”Hearing that, Roxanne gave him a confused look. Why would he say something like that?She then said, “Mr. Damaris left after delivering those medicines, so what do you mean when you said that incident has something to do with him?”Not wanting to get into an argument with Lucian, she reined in her temper and added gently, “You of all people should know how those medicines came to be, so why would Mr. Damaris do something that won’t benefit him at all?A
After a long pause, Lucian tamped down the emotions in his eyes and said calmly, “I’ve asked the specialists to check on you. They’ll be here soon.” No sooner had he said that, several specialists came rushing over.They were horrified when they saw Roxanne sitting up in the hospital bed. “Ms. Jarvis, please lie down quickly. There’s still residual toxins in your body that has yet to be flushed out. We want to perform a check-up on you, then prescribe some targeted medication.”She was very clear-headed when it came to her condition, and she replied, “There’s no need for that. It has been cleared.”The others frowned, their expressions reflecting their disbelief. “How is that possible?”We all saw for ourselves how serious her condition was yesterday. How could she have gotten better after just one night’s sleep?Roxanne merely smiled and did not say anything.Utterly incredulous, a few of them stepped forward to check on her.After they did so, everyone could not help but feel dumbf
Roxanne patted Archie’s and Benny’s heads soothingly. “Mommy, how are you feeling? Do you feel any discomfort?”Archie and Benny stared at her with concern.Roxanne could see her pale expression reflected in her children’s eyes, so it was completely understandable that they were really worried.Roxanne stated apologetically, “I’m all right now. I must have scared you guys yesterday. I’m sorry for that.”Benny reminded her in his childish voice, “You have already apologized to us yesterday! Also, we don’t need you to apologize because we only want you to be healthy and well!”Roxanne felt touched by their words, and a smile spread across her face.“Essie is also worried about Mommy. She was so scared she burst into tears when she dreamt that you fell unconscious.”When Benny noticed Estella hiding behind the other children, he took a step back so Roxanne could see her.Estella’s head was lowered as she sneaked a peek at Roxanne.She remembered Roxanne flatly refusing to let her call t