Chapter 94: Love or Fear?

Maximilian noticed immediately.

Catherine was supposed to be asleep by now, curled on his couch, lost to the world.

Instead, she was sitting upright, fiercely scrolling through her phone, brows knitted so tightly it almost hurt to look at.

She wasn’t researching. When she researched, she used her laptop.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Uh?” She looked up, startled.

For a moment, she forgot where she was. Forgot who she was speaking to.

“Laurel Creek’s stocks are falling,” she said, voice distant. “I can’t figure out why.”

She didn’t even register that she was confiding in the enemy king from her past life, the man she once believed had taken everything from her. The man she’d wanted dead days ago.

Maximilian stilled.

Then he turned to his laptop.

Catherine went back to staring at her phone, refreshing numbers she didn’t understand. The red arrows looked violent. Merciless.

Her father’s face flashed in her mind. He had a weak heart. The ranch was his life’s work. Inherited, yes, but built into a billion-dollar enterprise by his sheer will.

The losses were already in the millions. And it wasn’t slowing.

“That’s what I thought,” Maximilian murmured a minute later.

“What?” she asked, helpless.

“A short-seller report.”

She blinked. “What’s that?”

He exhaled softly, switching tabs. “Someone, most likely a bad-faith activist, released a rumor to early trading circles. Claiming your ranch culled cattle improperly. If investors believe there’s fraud or scandal, they panic. Automated funds trigger sell-offs. Retail traders follow. It cascades.”

Catherine stared at him, not understanding a single word.

He simplified.

“Someone’s attacking your company. They lied. Now the market thinks Laurel Creek is a fraud.”

Her stomach turned cold.

“Who would do that?”

His fingers tapped once on the desk.

One name surfaced in his mind.

Dorian.

Or perhaps fallout from the Calhoun issue.

He didn’t voice either.

“How does this get fixed?” she asked quietly.

“How much liquid capital can you deploy right now?”

She blinked. “Personally? Around thirty million. But… if money could fix this, my brothers would’ve done it already.”

Maximilian didn’t answer.

He was already typing.

Fast. Focused.

Catherine watched his screen helplessly. Graphs. Trading volumes. Flashing data. It looked like strobe lights—numbers jumping so fast her eyes hurt.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t understand what he was doing. She retreated to the couch and did the only thing she could think of.

She googled: How to buy stocks.

She owned fifteen percent of the company, but she had never actually traded in her life. It took her nearly an hour to even understand brokerage interfaces.

When she finally refreshed the market page… Her breath caught.

“It’s… stabilizing,” she whispered.

The sharp drop had flattened.

Then, her voice shrieked. “It’s rising.”

She stood abruptly.

“Is it?” Maximilian looked up casually, as though she’d just commented on the weather. He glanced at his screen. “Ah. Yes. Good.”

The line on her phone climbed steadily upward.

Green.

Catherine exhaled so deeply her knees nearly gave out. “That got resolved quickly…” she murmured, relief flooding her.

Maximilian returned to answering student emails, the faintest smile touching his lips.

“Markets are like that,” he said lightly.

She didn’t notice the quiet satisfaction in his eyes.

“You invest?” Catherine asked.

“A little,” Maximilian said. Then, with that infuriating smirk, “Who knows? Maybe I’ll hit big one day and have thirty million in liquid cash like you.”

She muttered under her breath. “I never should’ve told you. Are you going to blackmail me?”

He smiled. “That’s a good plan.”

“I’ll kill you before I give you a cent.”

“You can have all my money, though.”

She gave an exaggerated laugh. “Words are cheap, Professor. If it’s not in writing, it’s worthless.”

She curled up on the couch, relieved that her family’s crisis had passed. Sleep came lightly. Not long after, Maximilian nudged her awake.

“Here.” He handed her a sheet of paper.

Still lying down, she glanced at it. He nudged her aside and sat beside her, close enough that she felt the warmth of him.

Her eyes sharpened.

A will.

Handwritten. Properly formatted. Legally valid in this state.

Seventy-five percent of his assets, his brownstone, and his dog, were left to her. The rest were divided among his mother, sister, and niece.

Her heart slammed.

She was just joking earlier.

She wasn’t his wife. Not even his girlfriend. He had no business leaving her anything.

“Are you insane?” she snapped, folding the paper to tear it. “This isn’t funny!”

He caught it before she could rip it. “It’s not a joke, Catherine. It’s my will. I’ll have it notarized.”

The paper slipped from her fingers.

She looked at him.

She was lying on the couch. He sat beside her. The angle, the closeness—it blurred with her dream.

I’ll go with you.

The Maximilian from then and the one before her now wore the same stubborn, almost tender gaze.

As if losing everything for her would cost him nothing.

Her pulse thundered. That reckless, dizzying rush. The strange calm she’d always chased.

He brushed at her cheek.

Only then did she realize she was crying.

“I’m yours,” he said softly, waving the paper. “This is nothing.”

“Idiot,” she whispered.

She slipped past him and walked out, heart racing.

What are you doing to me?

She drew a slow breath, then another, trying to steady herself.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there when William called.

“Someone burned cattle behind the ranch,” he said without preamble. “Tried to make it look like we were culling. We’ve filed complaints. An investigation is underway. That’s why the stock dropped.”

“It’s rising now,” Catherine said quickly. “So it’s over?”

“Yes. There’s still legal cleanup, but it’s stabilized. It’ll be manageable from here.” He paused. “Catherine…”

Her spine straightened. “What?”

“It turned because few were buying. But… someone started buying–fast. A huge volume. If that hadn’t happened when it did…” He exhaled. “We might not have recovered.”

Her throat tightened. “Who?”

A beat of silence.

“BioQuant, Catherine.”

The name landed heavily.

“And there’s something else,” William continued. “Dorian Blackwood met me yesterday. He didn’t say it outright, but he made his interest in you clear. I think he’s planning to propose.”

Her hand trembled. If not for the pearl lanyard looped around her neck, the phone would have fallen on the ground.

Not again.

In her last life, fear of his armies had driven her to him.

This time, would gratitude do the same?

Her heart pounded.

She forced herself to pay attention to the rhythm of it, like Sammy said.

This was not the wild, breathless rush she felt around Maximilian.

This was colder.

Sharper.

It was not love.

It was… fear.

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