Chapter 20 “Are You Mr. Archer?”
Thinking about how terribly she had treated him these past few days, Chloe felt a sudden, crushing wave of guilt.
How could she have bossed around a man who had made such massive contributions to human health? He was literally saving lives and winning international awards, and she had been snapping at him over getting a ride to an internship that paid pennies.
Chloe tapped her forehead lightly, then walked over to him, her voice unusually soft. “You’re really here? Did you wait long? I’m so sorry to trouble you. You’re so busy; you shouldn’t have come all the way out here to pick me up.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow, genuinely puzzled.
This morning she had been glaring at him, practically biting his head off. Now she was looking at him with the wide, reverent eyes of a disciple.
Still, he smiled warmly, slipping his hands out of his pockets. “Not at all. I just arrived.”
He naturally reached out, took her heavy bag from her shoulder, and fell into step beside her. “What would you like to eat tonight?”
“Anything is fine,” Chloe replied, keeping her voice incredibly gentle. “I really don’t mind.”
“How was your first day?” he asked, his tone laced with quiet concern.
“Not bad. Just learning the ropes,” Chloe answered smoothly, entirely omitting the fact that she had been brutally scolded by her boss and had spent the last hour pretending to type on a blank screen.
They walked out into the chilly evening air, chatting quietly as they headed toward the parking lot.
Just as Nathan unlocked the car, heavy, rapid footsteps sounded behind them.
Before either of them could turn, a man grabbed Nathan’s arm in an iron grip. His chest was heaving, his face flushed with agitation.
“Are you Mr. Archer?” the man demanded.
Chloe instantly bristled. She stepped directly between them, slapping the man’s hand away and grabbing Nathan’s sleeve to pull him back.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, glaring fiercely at the attacker.
How dare this guy grab a world-class scientist so roughly? What if he injured Nathan’s hands? Those hands developed life-saving drugs!
The man blinked, visibly startled. He looked down at her, his brow furrowing deeply. “Chloe? Do you know Mr. Archer?”
It was Michael.
Chloe didn’t back down an inch. “Not only do I know him, I’m extremely close to him. So let’s talk with our words, not our hands. There is absolutely no need to be so rough.”
Nathan glanced down at the petite woman actively trying to shield him with her own body. A slow, deeply fond smile spread across his face.
He gently stepped around her, freeing his arm completely, and looked at the other man. His expression softened into genuine warmth.
“Michael. Long time no see,” Nathan said quietly. “You’ve grown so tall.”
Michael’s fierce, intimidating demeanor shattered instantly.
“You remember me…” Michael’s voice trembled. He struggled to contain his sudden, overwhelming emotion, his eyes shining with absolute reverence as he looked at Nathan.
He took a deliberate step back and bowed deeply, entirely ignoring the fact that they were standing in a dirty parking lot.
“Mr. Archer. May I please have your contact information? I have been searching for you for years. I desperately wish to repay you for everything you did for me.”
Nathan smiled and patted Michael’s broad shoulder. “There’s no need for that. Seeing a child I sponsored grow into a capable, successful adult is the only repayment I ever needed.”
“Please, at least let me treat you to a meal tonight!” Michael pleaded, his voice thick. “I’ve waited so long to thank you properly. Please give me this chance.”
Nathan opened his mouth to decline again, but Chloe suddenly tugged hard on the back of his coat. He glanced back. She was giving him a wide, meaningful look, aggressively nodding her head.
Nathan sighed silently. He could never say no to her.
“Alright,” he nodded. “A meal would be nice.”
Michael exhaled a massive, shaky breath, breaking into a huge, genuine smile. With the severe scowl wiped from his face, he suddenly looked exactly like the desperate, grateful kid he used to be—a terrifyingly stark contrast to the ruthless manager who had made Chloe scrub the floor two hours ago.
Chloe watched them, utterly amazed.
Who knew middle-aged Nathan was still out here effortlessly charming people and changing lives?
They chose a quiet, high-end steakhouse not far from the business park.
On the short drive over, Chloe couldn’t contain her curiosity. “How exactly do you know Michael?”
“I sponsored him,” Nathan replied, keeping his eyes on the road. “Michael had a very tough childhood. No parents around to support him. He used to help his grandmother scavenge for odd jobs at five in the morning during the dead of winter, right before he went to school. Yet he somehow managed to stay at the very top of his class every single year. When I saw how responsible he was, I started covering his tuition and living expenses.”
He shrugged lightly. “It wasn’t much money, Chloe. Just a small good deed.”
“You are so kind,” Chloe murmured, her heart aching with sheer admiration. “How long did you sponsor him for?”
“Over ten years,” Nathan replied matter-of-factly.
“And you just lost touch after that?”
“No,” Nathan shook his head. “Once he graduated and became independent, there was no reason to stay in contact. When you help someone, you don’t do it to keep them indebted to you.”
Chloe stared at his handsome profile, her eyes practically sparkling with adoration.
The Nathan she knew had always been good-hearted. But she also knew exactly how much he made back then—barely two thousand dollars a month on a junior researcher’s stipend. Supporting himself, maintaining the empty house, and paying a child’s tuition must have bled him completely dry.
She felt a deep, piercing pang of sympathy for the lonely, struggling young man he must have been.
What she didn’t know, of course, was that shortly after he earned his doctorate, Nathan had been aggressively headhunted by a major pharmaceutical giant, and his salary had skyrocketed into the millions. Later, when he launched his own independent research lab and secured a string of revolutionary medical patents, his royalties became astronomical.
Supporting two children? He could have comfortably sponsored half the city’s orphans without checking his bank balance.
Two cars behind them, Michael gripped his steering wheel, his mind violently restless.
As the dark, bare trees whizzed past his windows, he stared fixedly at the taillights of Nathan’s Bentley, his thoughts dragging him relentlessly back to the darkest days of his childhood.
Shortly after the Ford E-350 vanished, the families of the missing passengers had descended on his house in waves.
They hadn’t come for answers. They had come for blood.
Some of them had grabbed his mother by the hair, throwing her to the ground, screaming at her to reveal where her husband was hiding the bodies. Others had cornered him in the kitchen, spitting curses in his face, blaming his father for tearing their lives apart.
He had only been eight years old. He had cowered in his grandmother’s frail arms, too terrified to even breathe.
He hadn’t understood how the world could change so violently overnight. That morning, he had just been waiting for his dad to come home and cook him a steak. By evening, he was the son of a monster.
He still remembered the furious, twisted faces of the mobs that tore through their house. They looked like they wanted to swallow him whole.
Some rummaged through the drawers for cash, screaming that it was the blood money his father owed them. Others simply started carrying out their furniture.
When he watched two men ripping the family’s only colour television from the wall, the young Michael had finally snapped. He burst from his grandmother’s arms, launched himself at the men, and desperately clung to one of their legs.
“You can’t take it!” he had wailed. “That’s our TV! It belongs to us!”
The man had violently kicked him away, sending him crashing into the wall. “Your father sold my wife to traffickers! Keep crying, you little brat, and I’ll sell you too!”
“Yeah! Sell the kid to pay us back!” someone else in the crowd had screamed.
Michael had scrambled backward in pure terror. His grandmother had thrown herself over him, shielding his small body with her own, sobbing hysterically. “Take it! Just take it all! Leave him alone!”
“What the hell is this junk going to fix? Give us back our families! They were in your son’s van!”
“Your whole family is a pack of murderers!”
“Go to hell! Give me back my parents!”
The mob had completely lost control.
Michael had squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in his grandmother’s chest. He could hear the sickening thud of fists pounding into his grandmother’s back as she hunched over him, absorbing the blows meant for him.
He wept uncontrollably. The violence felt like it would never end.
And then, suddenly, a tall, thin young man in a dark coat had stepped directly in front of the mob.
“What do you think you are doing?”
The voice had been steady, cold, and possessed an absolute, terrifying authority.
“This is illegal. If you want compensation, go to court. If you touch this family again, I will personally see every single one of you arrested.”
The rioters froze, startled by the young man’s icy fury.
But a few still shouted back. “Our families are gone! Don’t we deserve justice?”
The young man didn’t flinch. “I understand your pain,” he said, his voice dropping into a register of pure, suppressed agony. “My wife was in that van too.”
The room went dead silent.
“But tearing this house apart won’t bring them back,” the young man continued. “Our priority is finding the vehicle. The truth hasn’t been uncovered yet. For all we know, the driver is dead too. This family has lost a father and a son. We will not target them like animals.”
Young Michael had peeked out from beneath his grandmother’s arms.
He had stared at the young man standing between him and the angry crowd. Nathan Archer’s resolute, unshakable courage—and his impossible, miraculous mercy—had burned itself into Michael’s soul forever.