Chapter 43 Morgan and His Cunning Ways
Elijah chuckled lowly, his baritone voice flowing softly into Elena's ears. He took the stone and placed it in Elena's small palm. "One of my old Wall Street clients gave it to me this afternoon. He knows I'm accompanying a great designer who's stuck looking for inspiration for The Eternal Spark competition."
"Your client gave away a stone this valuable just as a gift?" Elena stared into Elijah's sapphire blue eyes with a deeply suspicious look.
"Elijah, be honest with me. What kind of client is this rich? You're not involved in anything illegal or money laundering, are you?"
Elijah laughed freely, a genuine laugh he very rarely showed in front of the Blackwood Tower board of directors. He bent down, placing both his hands on Elena's smooth shoulders, partially exposed from her bathrobe, locking their gazes.
"You watch too many crime movies, Miss," Elijah teased, gently pinching Elena's nose. "My client is a legitimate gemstone collector. He gave me this because I successfully secured his investment data that was almost hacked by a competitor. He said, rather than letting this stone rot in his safe, it's better given to a designer who can turn it into a masterpiece."
Elijah took a sketch pencil from Elena's drawing table and tucked it between the woman's fingers.
"Yesterday you said this blue sapphire color is strong like a protector, like my eyes, right? Now, use this stone as the centerpiece of the choker design you drew yesterday. Make the world of New York kneel before your work, and pay me with your victory."
Elena looked at the sapphire in her hand, then shifted her gaze to Elijah's pair of blue eyes, which glittered with thick obsession and intense protection.
The hesitation and insecurity she had felt at Lincoln Center last night slowly faded, replaced by a wave of new determination. Amidst her husband's betrayal and her own family's greed, the young man before her always knew how to give her the world, even if in a mysterious way.
"Alright," Elena whispered, a genuine smile finally etching itself onto her full lips. "I'll finish the 'Sapphire Embrace' design tonight. And if I win, I'll make sure your weekly 'allowance' is doubled, Gigolo."
"A very tempting offer, my Employer," Elijah replied with his deadliest predator's grin. He bent down slowly, landing a warm kiss on Elena's neck, inhaling the intoxicating vanilla scent of her skin before stepping back to give Elena room to start dancing on her sketch paper.
...
The next morning, Manhattan was drizzled with a light rain that made the city feel even colder. Inside the black Mercedes cabin parked one block from the Valora Gems building, Marcus looked at his digital watch showing exactly nine o'clock.
His tablet screen suddenly blinked, displaying a report from the Blackwood intelligence unit in the Hamptons. Marcus took a deep breath, then immediately connected to Elijah's private telephone line.
"Young Master," Marcus said as soon as the line connected. "There's a new development from the main residence. The Grand Master Alaric managed to restrain the Grand Lady Victoria in the Hamptons after a long argument last night. The Grand Lady's private jet and helicopter remain in the hangar under our team's surveillance."
Elijah, who was currently sitting in his Rolls-Royce Phantom preparing to head to the head office, leaned back contentedly. "Good. At least the Old Fossil still has enough brains to guard what's his."
"However, Young Master… there's another problem," Marcus continued, his voice suddenly turning more serious.
"Our spies at JFK airport report that Morgan Valdez's personal assistant just booked an emergency first-class flight ticket from London to New York for this afternoon. It seems the reports of the affair and your photos with Miss Elena on the dance floor last night have reached Morgan Valdez, and he has decided to accelerate his return."
Elijah's pair of sapphire blue eyes instantly narrowed sharply, emitting such a thick murderous glint that the temperature inside the Rolls-Royce cabin felt like it had frozen instantly. His powerful fingers tapped the leather armrest with a slow but deadly rhythm.
"Morgan Valdez wants to come back early?" Elijah hissed in a very low voice, yet laden with terrible threat. "Perfect. Let him return to New York. I want him to see with his own eyes how every inch of what he calls 'his'—from his company shares to the woman in his bed—has absolutely transferred hands into my control."
Elijah turned off his phone with a decisive movement, then looked toward the Valora Gems building across the street, where Elena was fighting to build her future through the tip of her pencil.
The three-year contract they had agreed upon had just begun, and Elijah would ensure that anyone who dared try to damage the little heaven he had built in The Azure apartment, including the legal husband himself, would end up shattered into pieces beneath his feet.
....
Meanwhile, in a luxurious two-story penthouse in the elite Mayfair district of London, the foggy morning atmosphere felt incredibly tense.
Morgan Valdez stood near the large glass window facing Hyde Park, gripping his phone tightly. His face, usually calm and dismissive, had hardened. On the marble coffee table behind him, a digital tablet displayed high-quality photos sent by his personal assistant from New York a few hours ago.
Photos from The Grand Gala event at Lincoln Center. There, Elena—his lawful wife whom he had abandoned on their wedding night—was dancing intimately in the embrace of a tall man wearing a dark silver mask.
Although the man's face was obscured, the way he held Elena's waist and the intimacy radiating between them had successfully trampled Morgan's pride as a man from New York's elite circles.
"Damn it!" Morgan cursed under his breath, his teeth clenching tightly. "That woman—how dare she bring some dirty bar attendant to an event of that caliber and flaunt him in front of all my business associates?"
Marissa, wearing a short, fiery red silk robe, approached from the bedroom. The woman who was the reason Morgan had neglected his wedding night wrapped her slender arms around Morgan's waist, resting her chin on his shoulder coquettishly.
"What's wrong, Morgan, darling? Why are you so angry so early in the morning?" Marissa asked in a drawn-out, sweet voice, trying to soothe her lover's tension.
"I have to go back to New York this afternoon, Marissa," Morgan said firmly without turning around, releasing the woman's embrace with a stiff motion.
"My assistant reports that Elena is starting to act crazy. She hired a gigolo from some bar and brought him to The Grand Gala last night. All of New York's socialite group chats are talking about how the Valdez family was humiliated by a woman from a second-rate family like hers."