Chasing

KIAN’S POV

Three days–that’s how long it’s been since Leslie worked up the nerve to walk out of our home.

As a businessman, a few hours is enough for me to get over losses, as only a fool will continuously mourn a loss when he should be moving on to the next best opportunity to make up for it. It has always been like that with people too, I don’t care who leaves because in the long run, there is always someone better who can replace them.

Yet, it’s been three whole days and I can’t get over this foreign feeling that tightens my chest each time I think of her, I can’t seem to attach my usual logic of loss and replacement to the one person I shouldn’t even care about losing. Unable to accept that the tight feeling in my chest means something, I resort to the ones I can actually cope with. I let the feelings of distress, anger, humiliation and total disrespect take root in my mind because really, those are basically the things Leslie has done against me in the last 72 hours.

The reasons for the feeling of anger, humiliation and disrespect are already quite clear.

Distress is the one I shouldn’t even be feeling but can’t help because Leslie has been gone for three freaking days and I have no idea where

This city might be big, but I am bigger.

I have half if not all of the business owners in the city eating out of my palms. My connections spread through every corner of this city and even beyond; all I need to do is make a few calls and I will have whatever I want at the single blink of an eye.

All I had to do to make Leslie regret leaving home that night was to make a few calls then sit back while she accepts defeat and comes crawling back to me because she has nowhere else to go,

I stayed up all night, expecting that moment to happen, Expecting her to walk through that door with a defeated look on her face. It never happened. Her phone has been off ever since she left and I had to resort to desperate measures, ordering my personal assistant to get every single footage of the surveillance cameras along the route from the house to all the places she passed on the way to her old apartment and the hotels. 1

There has been no results yet as most of the hotels claim that their footage gets deleted every six hours to protect the privacy of their customers which means they have nothing on Leslie. Each hour that passes without any knowledge of her whereabouts, my chest grows even tighter and it becomes hard to keep telling myself that I only care because my pride was hurt by a woman I don’t feel anything for.

I don’t realize how deep in thoughts I am until I feel a light tap on my shoulder that makes me turn around to lack eyes with Beverly

“How long have you been standing there?” I ask, fearing that I have blacked out for a little too long.

“Long enough to know you didn’t hear me call your name four times.” She smoothly gives me the answer | had been dreading while sending me a crooked smile.

I stare up at her as she stands above me, looking comfortable in a slightly showy and suggestive

nightwear. She has been here ever since Leslie left. Her presence in the house doesn’t bother me because I barely have enough time to think about her while also being distressed by Leslie’s disappearance.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were there.” I say, apologizing. This text is property of Nô/velD/rama.Org.

Beverly comes to sit beside me on the couch without an invitation from me. She sits close enough for her naked knees to touch mine as her nightwear already rode up to her thighs in light of her sitting position. I look away, choosing to keep my focus on the door.

“What is going on with you, Kian?” She asks.

“What do you mean? I am perfectly fine.”

“You don’t seem that way to me,” She says with a snort and waves her hand around the living room, “Did you even notice how you have been sitting in the same spot every single time and staring at the door so intently it could actually burst into flames?”

I look around us and I don’t dispute her because what she says is the truth. I refuse to admit it to her though.