After the eventful day passed, Elara lay down in her bed, looking at the ceiling, her mind buzzing with everything happening, but mainly with the news.
Busy with her thoughts, Elara swung her legs in the air, stopping when she heard so shuffling outside her room, followed by a knock on the door.
"Co in," she said.
George walked inside the room, his gaze flickering at the stuff that was scattered everywhere before it settled on her.
"How are you feeling?" He asked.
Elara continued swinging her legs, shrugging like nothing in the world was worrying her, as if she wasn’t racking her mind for what she should do next to hasten the investigation.
After all, she didn’t want to involve herself or interfere with the police’s way of working, thus turning herself into a suspect.
"I know everything has been so hard for you. It’s like the world is crashing and has it out for you." George sat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the crease on the bedsheet with his palm.
"They say the almighty cosmos only throws battles towards its strongest soldiers," Elara answered with a smile.
"Who asked you to be stronger than that? There are other elite girls in the rich families, and they are living their lives just fine, being useless and spending money like brainless pigs," George said.
Elara couldn’t help but look at him with amusent, turning herself as she supported her face on her hand.
"And do you want to be soone like that? Useless and weak?"
"Of course not," George grumbled, and Elara chuckled before she sat, crossing her legs.
"In that case, I think I can live like those girls with no care in the world if you allow to work on the Paradise project. I an, I know I don’t have it all in . Just keep as an apprentice?" Elara blinked, rembering how Daniel had given the project to her father.
George’s smile stiffened when he heard those words.
While he was on his way to the company after dropping Candice off at her house, he received a call from his mother, who told him what had happened at the house.
To say he was furious would be an understatent. But he was happy because his father didn’t exactly make a losing deal.
Logan made Sophia sign the agreent that no one in their family would trouble Elara or have any kind of relationship with her. They will leave her alone.
The Paradise project was one of the decade’s projects that didn’t appear now and then, bound to make whoever worked on it extrely rich, but it was nothing compared to his sister’s happiness.
"Have you eaten?" George cleared his throat and looked away.
"Mmm, I did eat sothing, but am I really ever full? I feel like—" Elara stopped talking when she saw her brother shaking his right leg as he pinched his nose repetitively, sothing he always did when he was nervous or hiding sothing.
"What are you hiding from ?" Elara asked, not wasting her ti on contemplating what it could be.
George furrowed his brows.
"Hiding? What do you an? Why would I hide sothing?" George asked.
Elara pursed her lips into a thin line.
"Brother, don’t lie to . You know I always catch your lies. I am already having a bad day. Don’t test my patience. Did sothing happen that I should know?" Elara asked.
George shook his head.
"You are reading too much into things. Nothing happened," George said.
Elara nodded before she stood abruptly from the bed.
"Where are you going?" George looked at her with confusion.
"To find out what really happened because you wouldn’t tell the truth. I’ll ask Xylon and everyone near you, and if that wouldn’t be enough, I’ll go—"
"We don’t have the Paradise project," George said, finally giving in because he did not doubt that his sister would do what she was saying.
Elara frowned.
"What do you an we don’t have? Daniel won the project bid and gave it to us fair and square as collateral for the marriage. What happened? Did he go back on his word? But that doesn’t seem like sothing he would do," Elara asked.
George bit his bottom lip before massaging his forehead.
"Sophiacaandthreateneddadaboutsothingandhehadtogiveitaway,"
George spoke so fast that Elara could barely make out a word.
"Huh?" Elara asked again.
George sighed.
"Let it go, will you? Many such projects will co," George tried to pacify her into dropping the issue, but one look at Elara’s serious face, and he knew there was no way she was giving up.
"Well, Sophia Lloyd ca to the house today in the afternoon because she apparently found out you are a real Frost. She tried sweet-talking our father about keeping so business-connection for the sake of your marriage, but when it didn’t work, she threatened him that she would spread dirty rumors about you sleeping with other n before the divorce. Long story short, she demanded the project in return for silence, and Dad gave it to her," George said.
Elara pressed her lips into a thin line.
The more she heard of it, the angrier she beca.
"Why? Did they not trust ?" She asked.
George shook his head.
"You and I both know that’s not true. He trusts you more than he would ever trust . It’s just... with everything already happening around you, he didn’t want another rumor to spread and you to get worried. With that paradise project, he bought you immunity from those leeches who would want to suck the benefits of your fa later on," George explained everything.
Elara sat on the edge of the bed, feeling bad.
She didn’t feel bad just because they lost the Paradise project, but because the revelation of identity once again made her family lose sothing.
She tried her best to drag this out for as long as she could, but the Lloyds still found a way to irritate her family and use her na to get what they wanted.
"I know what you said is right, and probably I would’ve done the sa. Mom and Dad had been thinking about when they decided this, but honestly, it just makes feel like my identity is a curse to everyone," Elara said.
George shook his head to deny it, but Elara smiled at him through teary eyes.
"Let’s not talk about it," she said, and the man who opened his mouth to comfort her took a deep breath before nodding.
"Okay. Let’s not talk about it," George said.
They didn’t ntion the topic again.
Elara went back to being normal, at least before George, so that he wouldn’t suspect anything.
After spending two hours with her, George left her apartnt and headed straight to his company.
They had really invested a lot of ti in this project ntally and physically. In fact, their managers had already begun talking to various outlets and brokers about the materials they would need.
Now they’ll have to cancel all of it or redirect the tiline so they can use those connections for their next project, which might not start for a couple of months.
At the sa ti, Elara stood by the window of her bedroom, watching the moon, tears glistening in her eyes under the moonlight, making them look like pearls on her lashes.
This wasn’t done.
No. Why must her family always lose just because they have her as their daughter? First it was Arnold, then it was her identity, and now this project?
Was she really ready to give up this project that her family deserved, just like that, to Andrew’s family? To shut their mouths?
Tears of resilience brimd in her eyes before she turned around and picked up her jacket, heading out with her car keys.
She didn’t bother calling Antonio to drive her to his place.
She grabbed her phone in her left hand, her fingers hovering over the man’s na on the contact list that she had blocked long ago.
Elara took a deep, shaky breath before she unblocked the contact and called him.
Andrew, in the middle of a eting, despite it already being 8 pm, was about to silence the call and continue what he was saying when his gaze fell on the caller ID, and his hand on the pen froze.
He blinked his eyes a few tis to ensure he was seeing it right.
"Jason, am I seeing it correctly? It says Elara?" Andrew asked his secretary, and once the man confird it, Andrew didn’t waste a second and excused himself from the eting, walking out of his office to talk.
"Hello, Elara?" Andrew asked, his heart beating fast, which was very unlikely for him.
For a mont, hope brewed in his heart that Elara might have been missing him just as much as he missed her and her presence around him.
However, what Elara said next shattered all that hope in a single second.
"Your family really knows how to make use of connections, don’t they?" Elara asked, getting straight to the point.
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