Chapter 435
[ 499 words ]
Chapter 435:
“Should I call you brave, or foolish? To use hands like those for this kind of work. It’s a terrible waste.”
Caroline looked up, squinting against the dust. A man was leaning against a broken wall, observing her. He was tall and handsome, dressed in an impeccably tailored suit that was now ruined, covered in a fine layer of gray dust. He looked completely out of place, a creature from another world dropped into their nightmare.
Her internal alarm bells went off. He wasn’t a rescuer. He wasn’t a victim. He was something else.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice sharp and wary.
The man ignored her question, a smirk playing on his lips. “And who are you? A woman who looks like she belongs on Fifth Avenue, playing in the dirt.”
His dismissive tone, the mocking glint in his eyes, struck a chord of irritation deep inside her.
“If you’re not here to help, then please move,” she said coldly. “You’re blocking the light.”
D𝗼𝗻’𝘵 𝗺𝗂𝘴𝗌 𝗇𝖾w 𝘳𝘦𝗅е𝖺𝘀е𝗌 𝗼𝗇 𝗴a𝗹𝗻ov𝖾𝘭𝗌.cо𝗆
Her blunt dismissal seemed to surprise him. He blinked, then let out a low chuckle. “Interesting.”
He pushed himself off the wall. “Sterling Hendon,” he introduced himself with a theatrical shrug. “I was here to close a deal. My billion-dollar contract and my private jet are now, I believe, part of that pile of scrap metal over there.”
He seemed completely unconcerned, as if it were a minor inconvenience. Caroline felt a wave of disgust at his callousness. She turned her back on him and went back to digging.
He didn’t leave. He stayed there, watching her with an unnerving, detached curiosity, as if she were a particularly fascinating specimen under a microscope. His gaze was a physical weight on the back of her neck, making her skin crawl. She tried to ignore him.
But there was something else. His eyes. Beneath the cynicism and the mockery, there was a depth to them, a look she felt she recognized. The familiarity was a distraction, a puzzle she couldn’t solve, and it made her angry.
She was so focused on the unsettling feeling that she didn’t see the loose section of roofing above her shift.
“Watch out!”
Sterling’s voice was suddenly sharp, stripped of its lazy drawl. Before she could even process the warning, he moved. He stood frozen for a fraction of a second, his gaze lost somewhere far away—on a memory he’d long since buried, a face from a past life that had once looked at him with the same desperate hope he now saw in Caroline’s eyes. Then the moment was gone. He launched himself off the wall, covering the distance between them in a single, powerful stride, and shoved her hard.
She stumbled forward, falling to her knees. A second later, a shower of heavy tiles and splintered wood crashed down on the exact spot where she had been standing.
She looked up, her heart hammering against her ribs. Sterling was brushing dust from his ruined suit jacket, his lazy, unconcerned mask back in place.
And then they both heard it.
.
.
.
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