Chapter 59: You Want to Let Her Go?
James reluctantly let go of her hand. As he looked at her, his gaze fell on the tablet she'd set aside, which was showing news about Apex Global Enterprises.
He reached over, picked it up, closed it, and set it aside. In a gentle voice, he said, "You're pregnant. Cut down on screen time. Don't worry, Mabel won't get a chance to make a comeback."
"You're not planning to let Mabel off?"
Hadn't Amelia gone to see him in person?
"Do you want to let Mabel off?"
James asked back.
Even if Mia was kind-hearted and wanted to let it go out of sympathy, he absolutely wouldn't.
A flash of coldness flickered in his lowered eyes.
He had plenty of ways to deal with Mabel without Mia knowing.
"No!"
Mia answered without hesitation!
James felt his heart stir. He naturally reached up to ruffle her hair.
"Then we'll make them disappear from Imperial City completely."
Feeling the warmth on top of her head, Mia noticed and immediately moved away.
This gesture was too intimate.
It used to be normal, but now, it wasn't appropriate.
James didn't get angry.
The fact that Mia was willing to talk to him calmly for a few sentences was already progress.
He withdrew his hand and said, "I have an important meeting to attend. I need to head back to the office."
With that, he left in a hurry.
Mia watched his hastily departing figure, speechless.
She waited for quite a while, but James didn't come back.
He'd really left.
Did that mean he'd rushed back here just to check if she was okay?
Mia sat alone quietly for a long time with mixed feelings, when something suddenly occurred to her. She got up from the window seat and headed downstairs.
......
Mia went downstairs to get her phone, then returned to the bedroom.
Sitting on the window seat, she opened WhatsApp, found Louis, and clicked on his chat.
Holding her phone with both hands, her fingers quickly typed a message: [Louis, can you send me those videos you sent before again?]
Before James came to the side bedroom to talk to her, Louis had sent her a WhatsApp message.
Two short videos.
She thought they were related to the child and was about to open them.
Then another new message came through.
[Mia, watch these two videos. James actually cares about you a lot.]
She was hesitating about whether to open them when she heard knocking outside. Her hand shook and she exited.
She casually deleted the conversation.
Now she suddenly really wanted to see those two videos he'd sent.
Mia stared at the message she'd typed for a few seconds, then lightly tapped send with her thumb.
The sound of the message being sent successfully rang softly in her ear.
......
Louis, who was at home bored out of his mind, practically jumped up from the couch when he received Mia's WhatsApp.
Instantly energized, he quickly replied: [Sure, just a moment.]
He didn't ask any questions.
He quickly found the video clips he'd specially cut for James and sent them to Mia.
[Thanks.]
[Mia, we're all family here. No need to be polite.]
This time, Mia didn't argue back.
Louis smugly snapped his fingers.
He knew it! He understood women best. How could his help not work?
It was James, that guy, who'd been holding things back. Mia simply hadn't watched them!
And now, she was actively asking to see them. The meaning behind that was crystal clear.
He wasn't the type of noble person who did good deeds without leaving his name.
He absolutely had to squeeze something out of James, that capitalist!
He scrolled to James's WhatsApp and quickly typed with one hand: [James, quick quick quick, come out. I have something very important to tell you.]
Louis, who'd already decided what to squeeze out of James, got no response to his enthusiasm.
Louis was speechless.
James, that jerk!
He'd find a way to deal with him!
[It's about Mia.]
James replied instantly: [?]
Louis was speechless.
James, who almost never used WhatsApp, sent a question mark, then when he didn't get a response, sent two more messages in succession.
[What is it?]
[What happened to Mia?]
Louis could imagine what expression James had and how he'd sent these messages.
Such a stark contrast!
As if he was afraid Louis wouldn't know how much he cared about Mia!
James, who was in a meeting, frowned deeply. He raised his hand to signal the meeting to pause, stood up, and made a call.
......
Luxe Haven
After watching the videos, Mia couldn't snap out of it for a long time.
Louis had sent two video clips, both surveillance footage.
The first was from Luxe Hideaway. The content was exactly what Amelia had mentioned at the mall—the whole process of James dealing with Ernest.
She saw with her own eyes that when Amelia tried to stop him, James completely ignored her.
She watched how James, expressionless, destroyed Ernest's hand that had touched her.
The James in the video was someone she'd never seen before.
The moment she saw it, a phrase flashed through her mind: fury for the sake of a beauty.
She understood James.
He held a high position and had excellent personal qualities.
Very few people caught his eye. There was no such thing as getting angry for the sake of a man's pride.
Amelia was lying.
James dealt with Ernest purely to stand up for her.
With her emotions stirring, she clicked on the other video.
It was at the hospital entrance. James stumbled as he pushed open the car door and got out, his expression panicked, having lost his usual composure.
He, who always paid attention to his appearance in public, was disheveled that night. He'd lost a shoe but didn't bother with it, just kicked off the other one. Wearing only socks, he carefully held her and rushed into the hospital in a panic.
The video had been edited. The hospital entrance was followed by footage from outside the emergency room.
This scene shocked Mia even more.
The James she knew wouldn't bat an eye even if the sky fell.
She'd only seen him show such raw emotion once—when he was holding Amelia.
Back then, even though she was in so much pain her consciousness was fuzzy, she was absolutely certain that James hadn't been as tense and panicked as what she was seeing now.
She didn't want to compare, but she couldn't help it.
James said he loved Amelia.
It was natural to be nervous about someone you love.
But what about her?
[Mia, James actually cares about you a lot.]
Louis's words suddenly surfaced in her mind again.
Did James care about her?
Mia silently closed the videos she'd watched several times.
She set her phone aside, hugged her knees, and buried her face in them.
The internal struggle became even more intense.
She was now certain that James cared about her—more than she'd imagined.
His feelings for her weren't just about responsibility. She was in his heart too.
But how could this bit of caring compare to his own admission that he loved Amelia?
Could she accept a man who had another woman in his heart?
In her eyes, Amelia was like a ticking time bomb that could explode at any moment.
When that happened, could she handle it?
Mia knew that if she didn't want to get hurt, she should cut through the mess quickly, be firm in her resolve, and not give James any chance to hurt her.
But feelings were never under one's control.
Having fallen in love with him, she'd become indecisive and couldn't be carefree about it.
She clearly knew she shouldn't take the risk, shouldn't gamble.
Ahead might be a gaping abyss.
It could destroy her completely.
But actually making the decision to let go was so difficult.