Alyssa looked up. The tired expression on Basil’s face brought her back to a cold winter. Back then, for some reason, her father had grounded her and taken her phone away. To see her, Basil had waited in front of her building all day and a night. As a result, the strong man who hardly got sick had a high fever.

The memories filled her with warmth and content. She was so lucky to have his love.

Alyssa took his hand in hers. His hands were so beautiful he could have been a hand model. His fingers were long with fair skin, the knuckles clear and the fingernails full. Blue veins faintly bulged out on the backs. They were so well-preserved Elvira was envious of him.

She played with his hand and squeezed the pulp of his index finger. “I’m fine now. I’ll make Pamela pay. Whoever messes with me will end up being miserable,”

she announced through clenched teeth.

Basil looked at her, worried that she would do something crazy. She always did that when she was mad.

“Aaron asked me to stay. He said he would double my pay, and I said yes,” she told Basil.

He wasn’t surprised. He knew that she wouldn’t leave JK Group unless she was totally disappointed in Aaron.

“That day in the meeting room, I gave him a piece of my mind in front of all the meeting attendees. It felt great!

But he didn’t get mad. Instead, he asked me to stay and gave me a raise. He must be plotting something,” Alyssa went on.

She had been dwelling on this. It just couldn’t have been that simple.

Basil smiled. Just then, his phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and hung up.

Actually he had rushed here from the hospital. His parents had been pushing him to marry Sharon. He wouldn’t agree. His mom had been so angry she had a heart attack and was hospitalized. Luckily they had gotten her to the hospital quick enough. Now she was out of danger.

In the hospital, he had been worried about Alyssa. But he had to take care of his mom and couldn’t go to America to see her.

Since Veronica was out of danger, she had been moved into an ordinary ward. So when Basil learned that Alyssa was back, he called her immediately. Veronica had insisted him stay at her side so that he didn’t have time to see Alyssa. But since Basil’s father, Sharon and her parents were all in the hospital taking care of her, he had left the ward and come here to see Alyssa anyway.

“Tell me, how did you manage to get the right contract?” Basil asked.

On the way, Alyssa had told him that she had solved the problem by herself, but didn’t tell him how.

She told him what had happened in America and joked that a mystery person had helped her generously. Basil got a feeling that the mystery person must have helped her for some reason, and that most likely it was the man who had competed against him for four years in college.

Just like that, the crisis JK Group had faced was resolved by Alyssa. Afterwards, life went on peacefully, and everything seemed to have gone back to normal. However, another storm was brewing.

One night.

“Boss, the woman is here,”

a man said in a hoarse voice as he and another robust man walked in holding a person who was covered by a sack. They pushed the person onto the floor. When Alyssa waved her hand, someone else walked over sack and untied it, revealing Pamela’s beautiful face.

Her hands were tied behind her back, her eyes blindfolded and her mouth gagged. Lying on the cold floor, she struggled and wriggled as her mouth made intelligible noise.

Alyssa jutted her chin. Getting the orders, a man removed the gag from Pamela’s mouth. “Who are you? Why did you bring me here? I’ll sue you. You’ve broken the law!” Pamela shouted in terror.

Alyssa and the man standing opposite her exchanged a glance. Then the man scoffed, “Breaking the law? Sure! That’s exactly what I am trying to do. How can I let such a hot chick get away from me? Bitch, I’ve always hated it when you act so arrogant during a negotiation. Think you are better than me? I’ll let you know how manly I am later. You’ll think you just can’t get enough of me.”

Alyssa did her best to stifle her laughter. The Samuel Xu she knew had always been urbane. She hadn’t expected him to talk dirty. And it turned out he was good at it.