CHAPTER 34: CHAPTER 34- INAPPROPRIATE

She wanted to leave quickly, but for a moment her mind was blank with anger, and she couldn’t bring herself to move her legs.

It was a passing employee who noticed her unusual state and, concerned, came over to ask,

"Are... you okay?"

Catherine barely came back to herself.

"I’m fine, thank you..."

Then she lowered her head and rushed out.

At the elevator, she anxiously pressed the "down" button repeatedly, hoping the lift would arrive quickly.

Her thoughts were all on Renata. When the elevator finally came, she stepped in hastily, her eyes red, without noticing the person already inside.

As the elevator descended, more and more people got in. Catherine, distracted and flustered, forgot to step aside to make room, and was roughly jostled inward by the crowd. Losing her balance, she stumbled—only to feel a firm hand steady her at her waist.

Before her eyes was a man in a perfectly tailored light gray suit, the quality of the fabric hinting at his distinguished status.

Catherine froze and looked up at him, her eyes stinging as tears inexplicably spilled down her cheeks.

She raised her hands to push him away, trying to regain her posture, but before she could fully steady herself, another wave of people pushed her back into his chest. He made no move to let her go, and Catherine, exhausted, stopped resisting. She buried herself against him, silently crying.

The elevator teemed with people, yet Catherine was shielded by him, tucked away in the back corner, quietly grieving.

His chest was broad and warm. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, the unique aura of a mature man, slowly soothing her panic and helplessness.

The man was Bert, coming down from the eighteenth floor with his assistant on business.

Bert’s assistant was male. Bert didn’t like overly complicated relationships between men and women, so he deliberately avoided the possibility by hiring a male assistant.

Though he had only been working with Bert for a short time, the assistant was sharp and well aware of Bert’s irritable temperament—especially toward women. When Catherine first got pressed into Bert’s chest, the assistant had wanted to intervene and pull her out.

But he hadn’t expected his boss to glare at him, and so he sheepishly withdrew his hand.

Earlier that morning, he had received hints from HR that Bert had specifically requested a girl named Catherine for an interview and asked if he knew their relationship. He had answered that he knew nothing.

Now, the girl in Bert’s arms seemed to have just come from the fifteenth floor. Could this be that Catherine?

The assistant sneaked a glance at Bert’s expression. His brows were tightly furrowed, and beneath the crease was a trace of harshness. The assistant knew this was a sign of Bert either being angry or extremely impatient—and he felt a deep twinge of anxiety for anyone who had crossed his boss.

Yes, he silently admitted, he truly admired his boss’s temper and his methods of intimidation.

The elevator finally stopped at the first floor. The people in front filed out one by one, and Catherine quickly stepped aside, murmuring a "thank you" as she tried to rush out.

Bert reached out and grasped her wrist. His gaze was deep, his voice cold and steady:

"What happened?"

Catherine froze in place, her eyes red, opening her mouth to speak, only to find she couldn’t get a single word out.

She thought of how Bert had played a part in ensuring Renata’s surgery succeeded. And now, with Renata’s condition worsening because Channing had upset her, all that effort might have been for nothing. Guilt twisted in Catherine’s chest; words tumbled around on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t know how to begin.

Seeing her like this, Bert decisively turned to his assistant.

"Go start the car."

The assistant obeyed promptly and left.

Catherine followed Bert out of the elevator, and he guided her to a secluded corner nearby.

He stood with both hands casually tucked into his pockets, his gaze dark and intense upon her.

Catherine’s panic and worry made it hard to think, and under the weight of his penetrating stare, she finally gave in and spoke with a hoarse voice:

"Channing... went to see my mother—"

That was all it took. Bert immediately guessed what had happened.

Renata wasn’t fully recovered. Channing must have provoked her, causing her condition to worsen. Otherwise, Catherine wouldn’t look so completely distraught. Even having interacted with her only a few times, Bert knew that Renata was everything to Catherine, and only something serious happening to her could have thrown Catherine into such a state of panic.

Bert didn’t know exactly what he was feeling at that moment; it was as complicated and tangled as watching her rush into the elevator earlier, eyes and nose red.

Anger at Channing’s despicable behavior mingled with... a trace of concern?

That was the simplest way he could sum up his emotions.

In the end, Bert drove Catherine back to the hospital himself, leaving the errands he had planned to his assistant to handle alone.

When Catherine rushed back, Renata had just regained consciousness. She was still weak, but the doctors assured her that the emergency treatment had been timely and that there was no serious harm. Still, she must not be subjected to any further shocks.

Bert didn’t follow Catherine into the hospital room. He knew clearly that his presence there would be inappropriate.

His "identity" was essentially no identity at all—appearing abruptly beside Catherine could itself become another source of stress for Renata.

He certainly couldn’t pose as Catherine’s boyfriend either. She had only returned to the country a few days ago; meeting a new boyfriend so quickly would strike Renata as unreliable.

Instead, he stayed in the car in the parking lot outside the hospital building, waiting for her and instructing her to call if anything happened.

While waiting, Bert lit a cigarette.

He didn’t usually smoke; only when something weighed on his mind, or when he hit a creative bottleneck in his design work, would he smoke a few.

Right now, his thoughts were all about Catherine.