CHAPTER 280: CHAPTER 280: LINGERING FEELINGS 10

"I can’t just pretend those three times were nothing! So I ask you not to pretend nothing happened either!

If you didn’t see me as a stand-in, I ask you... let’s be strangers from now on, okay?"

These past few days, Chloe Grant thought a lot.

She knew that the three times they were together didn’t really have much to do with Matthew Morgan; the problem lay with herself.

But...

After all, it already happened, and Chloe really couldn’t act like nothing occurred.

Every day she was with Matthew, she feared him, wanted to get away from him, and sometimes harbored a biased resentment!

"Every day facing you, I’m truly unhappy!"

"Unhappy?" Matthew Morgan chewed over these three words.

Unhappy...

An interesting word.

Chloe nodded, "When I think about what happened, and then think about if grandma knew all of this... I really feel a lot of pressure.

Actually, I want to go abroad, I just don’t want to face all of this. Tell me, if I had gone abroad back then, would nothing have happened now?"

"So, going abroad was just an escape from me? As long as you can get away from me, you’d be willing to give up your dreams, right?"

In the end...

She still feared him, resented him, hated him, and wanted to escape from him.

"Yes!" Chloe nodded.

Though there was still one last thing left unsaid...

Leaving was not only to escape Matthew but also to better abandon her feelings for Lucas.

"Is that so..."

Chloe looked up at Matthew, feeling like his sigh implied some kind of expression...

Unfortunately, Matthew was too inscrutable; Chloe couldn’t possibly discern his emotions or thoughts from his expression or demeanor.

"I... I’m leaving now!"

She felt she couldn’t stay any longer.

"Chloe."

He suddenly reached out and grabbed her arm.

Chloe turned back to look at him—

Matthew lowered his head, "You just asked me how long you’d have to stay by my side."

Chloe looked confused.

Matthew’s lips curled up, "Stay for a lifetime, what do you think?"

"Huh?"

Chloe was dumbfounded on the spot—

At that moment, Chloe felt her mind go blank, and all she saw was Matthew’s rare faint smile.

She was so bewildered!

The kind of bewildered she’d never felt before!

After what felt like forever, a lifetime, Chloe’s instinctive first reaction was—

To break free from Matthew’s grasp and then run out.

Once she sat in the elevator, the frenzy in Chloe’s pounding heart on the left side still couldn’t calm down.

"Stay for a lifetime, what do you think?"

Chloe walked out of the Morgan Group’s building, with Matthew’s words echoing in her mind like a spell, repeating over and over...

"Stay for a lifetime? And you ask me what I think?"

Chloe pointed at her nose, her footsteps quickening...

This is utterly ridiculous!

Of course not!

Stay for a lifetime? What does that even mean?

Chloe stopped, turned around, and looked at the building now far away...

Should she not have run so fast earlier and instead asked him what it really meant?

As Chloe was musing, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

She turned around... and faced a handsome face partially covered by a black mask, only revealing eyes with an intriguing reddish-brown hue.

"Are you Chloe Grant?" he asked.

Chloe nodded, somewhat slow to process.

However, the next second...