Lyvana’s eyes snapped open.
She blinked, feeling confused. She was in a small, beautiful cottage room with soft cream walls and thick wooden beams on the ceiling.
A small fire burned in a marble fireplace, making the room feel warm and cozy. Next to the bed was a shiny gold lamp and a soft velvet chair. Everything in the tiny room looked expensive and beautiful.
She sat up quickly, holding the silk pajamas she was wearing. Her head hurt with a dull pain. She reached up and felt a neat bandage wrapped around her forehead.
She tried to rember what happened.
The last thing she could recall was a loud bang as a pickup truck hit her car. She rembered the steering wheel shaking and her car flying off the road into a ditch.
She looked around the quiet room. How did she get here? She got out of bed and walked slowly to the door. When she opened it, she gasped at the beautiful view.
Outside was a garden full of bright flowers. A stone path led to a neat wooden bench, and there was a clear pond where birds were splashing.
It was very peaceful, but then she started to panic. Where was she? For a mont, she wondered if she had died in the crash and started a new life. Or perhaps this is the afterlife for real.
Just then, she heard a sound at the end of the garden. Soone was leaning over a small table. She stepped closer. When the stranger turned around, she saw it was Julian.
She felt a huge wave of relief. Without thinking, she ran to him and hugged him tight. She was happy to be alive and happy he was there. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.
But then, she rembered the morning. She rembered the fancy woman in the bedroom and the word fiancée.
Lyvana pulled away at once. Before Julian could say anything, she slapped him hard across the face. Julian’s head moved to the side, and he touched his cheek slowly.
"I probably deserved that," he said with a grin.
She turned around and walked back inside.
"Liv, wait," Julian said as he followed her.
"Where are my clothes?" she asked, facing him in the middle of the room. "I am leaving. Why did you bring here?"
"Wait, Liv," Julian said. He reached out to touch her but stopped himself. "I can explain everything."
"What is there to explain?" she asked. "That I woke up in your bed and t your fiancée? Or why I am suddenly in a cottage in the middle of nowhere?"
Julian took a deep breath. Lyvana tried to go back outside, but Julian grabbed her waist to stop her. She pulled away from him.
"Julian, let go of ," she whispered.
"If you let , I can explain," he said.
"I don’t want to hear it!" Lyvana cried, almost in tears, feeling hurt by his betrayal.
You are just jealous, a voice in her head whispered.
She sighed. Ok, maybe she was a little jealous.
"Fine," she said quietly. "Explain."
"She isn’t my fiancée," he told her. "Catalina is just a crazy and desperate woman, and she used the situation to try and stake a claim she doesn’t have."
Lyvana frowned. "But your family planned your engagent."
"Yes, but the thing is..." Julian started.
"That ans you are getting married to her." she said, feeling her heart break into a million pieces.
Julian reached out, his fingers brushing her cheek before he pulled her firmly against his chest. He didn’t let her pull away this ti; he simply held her close.
"Yes, I will get married," he whispered, "but only to you. Lyvana, I will marry only you."
Oh she was in love with him, there was no denying that, but there was just too much garbage they had to deal with before they can be together.
"I think things were better when you were just my temporary boyfriend," Lyvana said, her voice muffled against his shirt.
"I think we are way past that at this point," Julian replied, his grip tightening slightly but tenderly. "You are mine, rember?"
"Yes, I’m yours," she admitted. "But let’s stick to the initial plan. Let’s get Mark off my back, and then we see where this goes. I need my trust money now more than ever. Now that I have nothing."
Julian pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, his expression darkening with confusion. "What do you an you have nothing?"
"Julian... soone hacked into my account and took out all my money."
Julian’s entire posture went rigid. "What? When?"
"I was on my way to the bank to handle it when I had the accident," she said, her voice trembling. "I saw the notifications on my phone, and then... the car hit from behind. Everything is gone, Julian. Every cent I had saved."
Julian’s face hardened and he reached for his phone.
"No matter how clean they think they are," he said calmly, "every digital transfer leaves a footprint. I have a team that specializes in recovering ’lost’ assets. If that money moved, we will find exactly where it landed, and exactly where it might have been moved to."
He began typing rapidly, his thumb flying across the screen.
"I’m triggering a forensic audit of your accounts imdiately. We’ll trace the IP addresses used for the login and follow the money trail through the clearing houses. Whoever did this, they made a terrible mistake, they stole from the wrong person."
Lyvana watched him, feeling a flicker of hope amidst the ruin.
"Are we really going to find my money?"
"We aren’t just going to find the money, Lyvana, we’re going to find the person behind this. And when we do, I’ll make sure they have a really tough ti in jail."
Julian finished the last of his instructions to his team and tucked the phone away.
"The money trail will take ti to untangle," he said placing his phone on the table. "You have a business to run. So we need to sort out how to make the company stay afloat."
"My grandma will help if I call her," Lyvana said. "If I can find my phone of course."
Julian reached into his pocket and handed it to her, the screen was cracked but still functioning.
"The police had it," he said calmly. "I made sure it was returned. I’ll need it back though when we go back to the city. I have a new one ready for you back in the suite."
"I won’t be going back to the suite," Lyvana said already flipping through her phone. "I will be going back to my apartnt."
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