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"I know. Just..." Her voice shook.
Chris closed his eyes for a moment, then looked at her again. "Giselle, do as you wish... If you wanna go home, you can. It's your choice," he said softly.
"It's not about having free will," she said taking a step forward. "I know you're hurting, too. But just please be normal with me. I don't need special treatment. I don't need to be bossed around. And I don't need you to be distant with me."
Chris opened his mouth to argue but then stopped, stared at her, and sighed. Maybe, he'd messed up. "Okay, I'm sorry. I will be normal." He placed his hands on her arms and asked softly, "Will you be normal for me?"
Giselle nodded, blinking away the tears.
He grabbed her hand and yanked her toward him, embracing her in a warm hug. She wrapped her arms around him, and he held her tight to himself for a few moments.
He exhaled before breaking the hug to look at her. She looked up at him with her beautiful green eyes. His heart skipped a beat. He reached forward and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, immediately realizing how intimate that was, but also that he couldn't help it.
"Do you want me to order you pasta?" asked Chris.
She looked up at him, a small smile playing on her lips as she said, "I'd like that."
As they waited for their order to arrive, Chris took permission from Giselle to delete all of her accounts from social media and change her number so that if her father's killers had any intentions of finding her, it'd be next to impossible for them to do so. She agreed, and he got to work instantly. A bodyguard was also to be hired soon for her who'd stay in the shadows so evenshewouldn't be aware of or affected by his presence.
The authorities in Petrichor had given him a rough idea of why someone might've been holding enmity against Abbott. His property was one of the main and obvious reasons, and after Abbott, Giselle had inherited everything so she wasn't safe either, hence the bodyguard. He told her about his friend Alex, that he'd be flying into Nicoladafus soon to look into Abbott's case, and that they'll discuss the details later.
That night, once Giselle had gone to her house, he stayed up till one, wondering if she was okay. Was she missing her father? Was it hard for her to stay in the same house, knowing that Abbott would never be there again? Was the house starting to feel too empty?
When he could no longer ignore his worries, he headed toward her house across the street. The guard opened the gate for him without question, as always, and Chris made his way directly into the house and to Giselle's room upstairs.
He knocked.
"Who's there?" Giselle called, her voice tentative.
"Ash," he said.
There was a pause, then she said, "Ash who?" She opened the door for him.
He raised an eyebrow. "Gesundheit."
"Predictable." She gave him a weak smile. "Since when do you knock?"
Walking toward her bed, she resumed working on her laptop.
Chris sat on the sofa opposite her bed and looked at her. She was wearing her loose pink pajamas, her hair tied in a bun. It felt inappropriate for him to be with her at this hour. Things had changed. Abbott wasn't around anymore.
"I just wanted to check up on you." He threw his head back on the sofa and closed his eyes for a moment, exhaustion finally getting to him.
"I'm fine," she said.
He looked at her again. "What's up?"
She kept staring at the screen and scrolling. "I'm just checking for updates from my university."
"What does it say?"
"Nothing much. I just have to submit my research paper by next month."
He nodded. "What's your topic?"
She shrugged. "I wanted to do something on depression, but ma'am wants us to come up with original ideas."
"So, what do you have in mind?"
