Chapter 7
Back when he hung up on Mandy, Joseph had reached up to rub his temples in frustration.
Tessa cooed when she saw that, “Mr. Payne, did I cause you trouble by asking you to come cook for me?”
“No.” Joseph absentmindedly stared at the bubbling soup in the pot.
Suddenly, he thought of me.
In the early days of his law firm, when he was struggling to start up his career, he often went without clients. I was the one who accompanied him to one business after another, helping him connect with various clients.
He would drink until he had stomach problems, and I would suffer right alongside him. But the next day, I still dragged myself out of bed to cook him a bowl of soup to soothe his stomach.
He even got his cooking skills from
Thinking of that, Joseph slowly stopped stirring the soup.
A sudden wave of panic welled up inside him. It was like something was slipping completely out of his control. “Tessa, the soup’s almost done. Turn off the stove in five minutes and have the soup yourself.”
He turned the heat to low before reaching for his suit jacket that was hanging on the dining chair. “I’m leaving now.”
Just as he was about to step out, a pair of arms wrapped around him from behind. “Mr. Payne…”
Tessa bit her lip and switched to a different tone. “Joseph?”
Joseph gulped. His whole body stiffened, but he didn’t push her away immediately. “Tessa, I should go.”
It sounded like Tessa was about to break into tears. “I don’t want you to leave. If you leave, does that mean I won’t ever see you again? Joseph, you know I liked you from the moment I saw you. But since you have a girlfriend, I always had to hide my feelings. If you’re really leaving, then why not…”
Tessa suddenly threw all caution to the wind as she started to close her eyes and undress. “Why not let yourself go and indulge just this once?”
There was no way Joseph could not react to such a bold confession from a young woman. He was painfully aware that his heart had wavered, or he would never have impulsively saved her voice message back then.
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