chapter2156

Chelsea Rainsworth stepped out of the front gates of Rainsworth Manor and headed for the sedan she always drove. She had just reached for the door handle when the family driver jogged over, breath misting in the cold. "Ms. Chelsea, your father has ordered that none of the household vehicles are to be at your disposal anymore."

His words spilled out in one apologetic rush, but Chelsea did not scold him. Instead, she slipped the cool metal key from her purse, placed it in his work-worn hand, and closed his fingers around it with quiet finality.

"Here you go. Please return this to him for me."

"Certainly."

The driver accepted the key, then watched as Chelsea walked away, her slim figure swallowed by the drifting haze.

At the curb, Chelsea flagged down a taxi, gave the driver the address of Jason's rented apartment, and sank into the back seat.

Inside the car, exhaustion pressed on her eyelids. She let them fall and, in the muffled engine hum, her mind slipped backward through a single tumbling year.

A little more than twelve months earlier, Jason had pulled her out of danger. That moment lit a spark-a small, curious flare that refused to go out.

At first, Chelsea felt no romantic attraction toward the man. Rather, it was puzzle- pieces of fascination. How could someone be so blunt, so absolutely immune to her charms, and so unwilling to bend the way everyone else bent around a daughter of the Rainsworth family?

Later, she kept seeking Jason out. Coffee one day, a brief hello the next. Weeks stretched into months, and somewhere between hello and goodbye, she realized the puzzle had arranged itself into affection.

Once, while she was hunting him down again, a spoiled trust-fund boy cornered her. Jason stepped out of the shadows, cut the confrontation short, and ferried her to safety before fear had fully formed in her throat.

Afterward, she invited him to dinner, late-night movies, and impulsive weekend drives.

Little by little, he stopped refusing, and before they knew it, they had become a couple.

Chelsea's eyes snapped open as the taxi slowed. She pulled out her phone and called Jason.

"Where are you right now?"

Jason's voice drifted through the speaker, thick with sleep. "At home, trying to rest. What's the matter?"

"My parents threw me out," she murmured, her throat tightening. "I'm coming to you."

Sleep instantly fled Jason. He bolted upright, sheets twisting around his legs like startled vines.

"Where exactly are you now?"

She glanced through the taxi window at identical gray blocks. "I think I'm already inside your residential area."

"That fast?" Jason sputtered as he rushed to get dressed, heart thudding faster than his buttons would close.

"What's wrong? Do you not want me to find you?" Chelsea replied, hurt and chill scraped together in her question.

"Of course not. Give me a minute-I'II

be right down," the man quickly answered white scooping clothes off the floor, forcing chaos back into drawers and closets with frantic sweeps.

"Okay. Please hurry. It's freezing out here."

With that, Chelsea waited inside the residential area, breath frosting in short bursts.

The neighborhood was bleak-no landscaping, only bare concrete towers huddled together like forgotten chess pieces.

People drifted past in mismatched parkas. On the ground floor, someone smoked and shuffled cards at a makeshift table, while a street cart hissed oil around battered skewers.

Chelsea rubbed her chilled hands together for warmth and felt irritation prickle beneath the cold.

"Why isn't he down yet?" she muttered, half-plea, half-reproach, the words disappearing into the cold.

The minutes stretched until they felt like hours before Jason finally burst into view, sneakers skidding on the pavement as though the city itself had been chasing him.

"I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to keep you waiting for so long."

His sprint had painted his cheeks a fierce crimson, and each breath rattled out of him in uneven gusts, fogging the evening light.

"Is your place very far from here or something?" Chelsea asked, bemusedly, as she watched the way his shoulders rose and fell. "Why did It take you go long? And why were you running so fast?"

Jason dropped his gaze to the asphalt. Whatever answer he hunted for never made it past his lips, and the silence thick and blushing, began to curl between them.

Chelsea's brows dipped, a tiny storm cloud of suspicion gathering in her eyes.

Upon seeing his reaction, Chelsea frowned, a tiny storm cloud of suspicion gathering in her eyes.

"Don't tell me you're seeing someone else behind my back... Were you stalling me to let her slip away?"

"Absolutely not!" Jason blurted, the denial tumbling out faster than his breath could follow.

Yet the question clung to Chelsea like static, refusing to fall away.

"Then take me home-right now. I'm going to look around. If I discover even a hint of betrayal, you are done for!"

Her voice carried a theatrical menace, but the gentle curve at the corner of her mouth made it clear she still trusted him.

"Okay. Don't worry, if I ever betrayed you, I wouldn't need you to punish me—I'd never be able to forgive myself either."

A bright laugh escaped her. "You're ridiculous. If you really cheated, the last thing you'd do is punish yourself."