Filed to story: The Regretful Billionaire: An Unpredicted Reunion
She followed the advice and called Jade, praying fervently that Jade was safe and that it was all a false alarm.
When they heard Jade’s phone ringing in the lounge room, Danika instinctively knew that her hunch was correct.
Something had happened to Jade! Alfred came to the same realization.
When he entered the lounge and found Jade’s phone lying in a corner, his expression turned serious.
“I’ll get someone to look into it!”
Meanwhile, Danika went ahead to look for the receptionist.
“Where are the customers in Lounge 288?”
“They left,” the receptionist answered without meeting her eyes.
She thought the receptionist was acting weirdly and stared intensely at her.
“They left? Where did they go?”
“How could I possibly know?”
The receptionist shook her head.
Danika demanded, “I want to check the surveillance footage of the cafe.”
The receptionist shook her head without hesitation.
“Who do you think you are? We can’t show you the surveillance footage.”
Feeling worried, Danika did not waste more time squabbling with the staff.She turned around and gave Alfred a look, after which he promptly went up and pinned down the receptionist.
Danika went to the surveillance room and typed furiously on the keyboard to rewind the footage at high speed.
Think Very Carefully
“What do you think you’re doing?! Let me go!”
The receptionist screeched, pinned under Alfred’s hold.
Irritated by her voice, Danika was about to shoot Alfred a look to make him shut the woman up when he instantly shoved a tablecloth into her mouth.
Silence settled in the space.
Danika soon found the footage clip depicting Jade and the client she had come to discuss the business deal with.
To her surprise, there was more than one client, the other turning out to be Jade’s ex- husband, Hayden Lowe.
Danika had heard much from Jade about this man, so she could recognize him from the footage.
She never imagined he’d have the guts to see Jade.
As the panic in her heart picked up, Danika continued fast- forwarding the video.
The client soon left the private room, leaving only Jade and Hayden within, which was strange as there wouldn’t be much to discuss between the two.
What happened next pretty much hit the core of Danika’s anxiety.
Hayden carried Jade out from the room, who looked very much like she was drunk.
Yet Danika knew Jade would never drink alcohol in front of someone like Hayden.
Hayden then brought Jade upstairs.
Not once did he ever reappear again on the first floor.
There were no cameras upstairs, so Danika didn’t know which room Jade had been brought to either.She had Alfred pull the receptionist upright.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t kn—“
“Think very carefully about what you’re about to say.You know that man is committing a felony.Are you sure you want to be convicted as an accomplice?”
Danika warned, staring coldly at the woman.It seemed her threat worked.
“First f-floor,” the receptionist stuttered out.
“Second room to the left.”
She hadn’t stopped Hayden when she brought that woman upstairs because the man was a regular.She’d even quelled her suspicions when she saw the state the woman was in.
But heck, she wasn’t about to become a criminal just to not upset a regular, Danika instantly rushed upstairs to the room, kicking the door down before Alfred could help her.Her fists were already up, ready to attack at a moment’s notice, though the scene before her threw her off completely.
Jade was curled up in a man’s chest, sobbing quietly.
She looked over the moment Danika kicked the door down, gasping out, “What a-are you doing here, Danika?”
“Are you alright?” Danika asked.
She relaxed when she saw it was Max that Jade was holding on to.
Jade shook her head.
“He came just in time.”
By “he,” she meant Max, of course.
Danika scanned the room for Hayden, but he was nowhere to be found.
“He’s with the police now,” Max said, still bristling from what happened earlier.
“Good job!” Danika nodded approvingly.
But Max was still upset.
“You can’t keep doing this to Jade, Danika. Do you know how dangerous it is for her to meet clients on her own?”
If he hadn’t followed Jade to her meeting out of concern, who knows what would’ve happened to her.
“You’re right.It’s my fault.I’ll make sure Jade gets a vacation after this.”
Danika didn’t argue, either.Thank God for Max, or she’d never recover from the guilt of what might happen to Jade.
Is That All I Get?
Jade hurriedly shook her head.
“This has nothing to do with Danika.It’s my fault, really.I should’ve been more careful.”
She only fell for Hayden’s trap because she was desperate to prove to herself that she had surpassed him.Max said nothing else.He didn’t really blame Danika; he was still upset, was all.
After checking to make sure Jade was really alright, Danika suddenly felt like the third wheel in the room.Max’s prickly expression and persistent weird looks at her affirmed her guess that he had planned to further “console” Jade.
Danika chuckled dryly and said, “Get some rest then, Jade.You deserve it.I’ll mark you down for leave for next week, so you don’t need to come to work.I’ll handle things with the police too.Don’t you worry.”
“But I’m fine—“
Before Jade could argue, Danika was already leaving the room with Alfred, shutting the door behind them.Now it was just her and Max again.
Things seemed normal earlier when Jade was still in need of safety, but now that she’d recovered some, she realized how inappropriate things had been.She cleared her throat awkwardly.
“Thank you.”
“What for?”
“Saving me in time.I don’t know what would’ve happened if…”
Max gave her an exhausted look.
“Why didn’t you leave the moment you saw him?”
If Jade had left at first instance when Hayden showed up, she’d never have been drugged and dragged all the way here.Her lack of self-preservation was really concerning to Max. It even made him wonder if she was still into Hayden.
“I…”
The client had clearly wanted her to deal with Hayden.
If she’d left, the deal would’ve failed.
That was the reason she hadn’t left the first thing.
She just never expected Hayden to do something as lowly as to roofie here.
If it weren’t for Max coming to her rescue at the very last second…she didn’t want to imagine what might happen next.
“No matter.Just…I’m really thankful you saved me in time.”
Even after the countless times she’d turned the man down, he was still protecting her however he could.
