Chapter 158: Chapter 158: A Waking Dream

Clara Grant found her room, luggage in tow, and swiped her key card to get in.

The room had two beds. A few articles of clothing were lying on one of them, and she knew that was Holly Summers’ bed.

She casually tossed her suitcase aside and flopped directly onto the other bed.

She had been through too many sudden crises that day. Her nerves had been stretched taut the entire time, so she hadn’t really noticed the exhaustion.

Now that it was all over, she felt as if every ounce of her strength had been drained away.

So tired. Utterly exhausted, body and soul.

Clara Grant planned to rest for a moment before heading downstairs to eat. She closed her eyes, trying to relax, but the day’s events began to flash before them like a slideshow.

The traffic jam that almost made her late, the incense sticks inexplicably snapping while she was making her offering, her luggage being taken by mistake…

The traffic jam was caused by an accident, an unavoidable circumstance. That could be dismissed as a coincidence. But the string of incidents that followed forced her to think again.

’If, as I suspected, the luggage incident wasn’t an accident but a deliberate switch by Sandra, then what about the incense breaking earlier?’

’Could Sandra have had a hand in that as well?’

With her eyes still closed, Clara Grant’s brow furrowed deeply. Her mind rewound like a tape, replaying all the events in reverse, finally freezing on the moment Sandra shoved her aside and forced her way in front of her.

She’d stumbled back a couple of steps from the impact, rubbing her bruised arm as she watched Sandra. Sandra reached into the incense basket, but she seemed to take a little too long to pull out a stick. It was only a matter of seconds, but it still felt suspicious.

’It only takes a second or two to grab an incense stick, but her hand was in there for five or six seconds. And her hand…’

Clara Grant’s frown deepened. Beneath her closed lids, her eyes darted back and forth, her long lashes trembling with the movement.

’Sandra’s hand… at one point, it seemed like she pressed down with a bit of force.’

’There were only six sticks left in the basket. Sandra’s own stick was perfectly fine, but the ones I took all snapped…’

’I didn’t pay much attention at the time, but looking back now, it’s highly suspicious.’

’Then, maybe Sandra saw that Seth Quinn’s sudden arrival had interrupted the commotion over the broken incense. And when his incense snapped too, it let me off the hook, so she had to come up with the luggage swap afterward?’

’Luckily, though, both times it was because of Seth Quinn that I had a close call but came out unscathed.’

’He probably didn’t mean to help me, but in the end, a single sentence from him was all it took to resolve the crisis.’

’When it comes down to it, I suppose I should thank him, shouldn’t I?’

Thinking of Seth Quinn made her thoughts even more tangled, and her mind began to wander.

’The first time we met, he thought I was some scheming woman trying to sleep my way into his bed, and I thought he was a scumbag who slept around before abandoning his own child and the mother.’

’The second time, he saved me from that fat man, but then he took advantage of my vulnerability and we had a one-night stand.’

’The third time, I accidentally walked in on him with another woman. He told me he wanted to sleep with me and asked me to name my price.’

’Then, the fourth time, right at the school gate, the first thing out of his mouth was a marriage proposal…’

’The fifth time, the sixth, the seventh… I’ve lost count of how many times since then.’

’Every time he sees me, he acts like a total rogue and a shameless rascal, either forcing a kiss on me or getting handsy.’

As she thought about this, she wasn’t sure if she was just lost in her thoughts or if she had actually dozed off and started dreaming. In that hazy state between wakefulness and sleep, Clara Grant felt a hand on her forehead, which then moved to caress her cheek.

Startled, she snapped her eyes open.

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