Chapter 10

Scott's gaze circled between the two of them. He gave Randy a courteous smile, then looked over at Chloe.

"Chloe, not busy at work today?"

Chloe's heart clenched. She immediately looked at Scott, signaling him with her eyes not to say anything reckless.

They had only agreed to be careful last night. Had he forgotten already?

Randy's mind ran deep and calculating. If he detected even the slightest hint of something, this whole situation would get complicated.

The moment Scott finished speaking, Randy's gaze snapped to Chloe. "You two know each other?"

Worried Scott might say something he shouldn't, Chloe quickly seized the conversational lead. "Scott is my husband's good friend. We all get together quite often."

Randy raised an eyebrow, a measure of doubt written across his face.

At that moment, Scott chimed in with easy nonchalance. "Now that I think of it, I've never once heard Chloe mention knowing Mr. Gordon. It really is a small world."

Randy's expression eased somewhat, and a smile appeared as he explained to Scott, "I live in Atlanta most of the time. Work takes up nearly all my days, so I don't get many chances to see Chloe."

A meaningful little smile rose at the corner of Scott's mouth. His gaze traveled back and forth between the two of them. That entire exchange just now had plainly fallen squarely into his ears.

"It seems Mr. Gordon and Chloe share quite an intimate relationship." A teasing note crept into Scott's tone.

"That's right." As Randy spoke, he very naturally raised a hand and rested it on Chloe's shoulder, his tone breezy. "Chloe is my little sister. We grew up together, and we've always been close."

Scott's gaze swept over the hand Randy had placed on Chloe's shoulder. That smile of his deepened, a spectator's amusement glinting in his eyes.

He picked up the black coffee beside him, took a sip, and said nothing more.

Chloe didn't turn her head to look directly at Scott, but she could feel that blindingly irritating smile on his face with perfect clarity.

Scott was like a ticking bomb that could detonate at any given second. Let him linger a moment longer and heaven only knew what would happen.

Chloe's heart was churning with anxiety when, all of a sudden, deliverance appeared.

"Scott! There you are! What are you doing over here?"

A crisp, bright voice rang out. Chloe looked up to see a vivacious girl in a dress hurrying over, slipping her arm through Scott's as naturally as breathing.

"Have you ordered already?" The tone Scott used with her was gentle, even tinged with indulgence.

"I ordered ages ago! You never finished telling me that story from earlier—don't think you can fob me off. Come on, hurry up, come back with me." The girl shook his arm, her voice coy and petulant.

"All right, all right, I'm coming." Scott agreed with a touch of helplessness, then turned to Chloe and Randy and gave a simple nod. "We'll take our leave, then."

Watching Scott get dragged toward a booth in the far corner of the restaurant, Chloe's tightly wound shoulders finally loosened, and the boulder weighing on her heart finally crashed to the ground.

Only after Scott and the girl disappeared around the restaurant's corner did Randy turn back to look at Chloe and ask, "Are you and Scott close?"

"We merely know each other." Chloe answered very quickly.

Randy clearly didn't quite believe her. He leaned in slightly and lowered his voice. "My main purpose in coming to New York this time is to negotiate with Lumina BioTech—to acquire one of their key drug-patent technologies. This deal is absolutely critical to the Haven Peak Group's entire strategic layout for the next phase of our expansion."

Hearing this much, Chloe already had a vague understanding of his intentions.

Randy had no intention of letting her muddle her way past. His tone was direct and unambiguous. "Listen to me, Chloe. As long as the Haven Peak Group closes this deal smoothly, your mother and brother's life back in Atlanta will get that much better. Their entire future and wellbeing are riding on this one deal."

What had started as a surface-level statement had turned into a pointed reminder—or rather, a form of pressure.

Chloe's face remained calm, but inside, she felt nothing but the irony of it.

She understood Randy's intentions all too well: he wanted to exploit her relationship with Austin to smooth the way for this business negotiation.

What a beautifully calculated little scheme.

"Chloe, we are family," Randy said.

"Scott is with Lumina BioTech?" Chloe pressed.

Randy's brows drew together. "You actually didn't know?"

Chloe shook her head. She wasn't pretending—she truly had no idea, and Austin had never mentioned it to her either.

"All I know is that he runs a few chain climbing gyms and does some personal investing on the side. I don't know anything beyond that."

Randy looked at her, his tone dead certain. "He is the CEO of Lumina BioTech—and the son of the company's founder, Mr. Reed."

The news came as something of a surprise to Chloe, but Randy's intelligence gathering was usually reliable.

In the past, she really hadn't known Scott's background. She only vaguely knew his family was well-off, roughly on par with Austin's—wealthy, but not in the truly top-tier circle.

She had never imagined that behind him stood a family enterprise carrying such enormous weight in the biotech field.

"So that's how it is," Chloe responded evenly. "When Austin and I were together, he never mentioned any of this."

The meaning behind her words was perfectly clear: her acquaintance with Scott was nowhere near deep enough to meddle in a commercial negotiation of this magnitude.

After spending the entire evening fencing words with Randy, Chloe felt utterly and completely exhausted.

Back at her Manhattan apartment, she went straight into the bathroom for a hot shower, hoping to relax her tightly strung nerves.

As she walked out wrapped in a bathrobe, the phone sitting on the living room table was ringing nonstop.

Chloe walked over and picked it up. The word "Mom" flashing on the screen made her heart sink a notch.

She had only just parted from Randy, and already her mother Sandra Price's call came chasing after her.

The timing was so perfectly coincidental that she didn't even have to guess what it was about.

She sighed softly. Her thumb hovered over the answer button for a long moment, but in the end, she still pressed it.

This was one call she simply could not refuse to take.

She sat down on the sofa.

"Chloe, how have you been lately?" Sandra's voice came through, carrying its customary small talk.

Chloe no longer felt anything at these greetings. She knew this was only the opening act. The real point always came later.

"Everything on my end is fine. How are you and Mr. Gordon?" Chloe likewise played along with the routine script of the conversation.

"We're both fine. It's just that he has run into some troublesome projects at work lately, and he's often busy late into the night..." Sandra pivoted with practiced ease. "Oh, that's right—Randy said he had dinner with you in New York tonight?"

Chloe answered with a simple, noncommittal "yes."

"Randy told me the person he wants to work with this time happens to be Austin's good friend." Sandra's tone turned probing. "Chloe, do you think... you could ask Austin to come forward and help make an introduction?"

What was coming had come at last.

Chloe had thought that after all these years she was long since numb and used to it, yet the corner of her mouth still pulled, completely beyond her control, into a bitter arc.

"Mom, I can't help with this matter." Her voice came out clear. "My relationship with Austin is between the two of us. I don't want it dragged into complicated business interests."

"Chloe, you can't only think about yourself in everything." Sandra's voice sank, threaded with a sigh.

"The Gordon family's support back then was a big part of how you established yourself in New York. Even now that you're married, when the family needs you, you should still do your utmost for us. Think carefully about it—back when you were still living in Atlanta, everything Randy, he..."

"All right, Mom, I understand." Chloe didn't let her finish. "Austin has been on a business trip on the West Coast these past few days. When he gets back, I'll mention it to him."

She fobbed her off with a few perfunctory lines and swiftly ended the call.

She threw the phone aside, unable to stop a low curse from escaping, then let out a soft laugh steeped in irony.

All these years had passed, and everything was exactly the same as before.

Chloe had absolutely no intention whatsoever of getting herself mixed up in this matter. She hadn't even untangled the mess of her own life—what did the success or failure of the Gordon family's business have to do with her?

She had expended so much effort, fought so hard, just to put even a little distance between her own life and that family.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm her emotions, but the words Randy had spoken at the restaurant that evening suddenly rang out beside her ears without warning.

He had said his friend saw Austin together with another woman.

If Randy had told Sandra about this, Chloe could almost immediately picture exactly how she would react.

Sandra would surely berate her harshly, nag at her endlessly, dig up old scores, and blame her for refusing to follow the arrangement all those years ago and marry Randy.