Chapter 31

"Get in," he said, his thin lips barely moving.

A hint of struggle flickered across Lina Sweeney's face. Her phone was precious, but her freedom was more valuable. She didn't want to be locked in his room for hours, as she had been yesterday. If Grace and Jason hadn't rescued her, she shuddered to think when she might have escaped.

"It's all right," Lina Sweeney said timidly. "I was thinking of getting a new phone. I don't need this old one anymore."

Hadwin Stephenson chuckled lightly. "You don't need all those photos, internet accounts, and your company's internal information? If you don't want it, so be it."

This was a threat.

Lina Sweeney gritted her teeth. The problem was her phone's password protection. Had he unlocked it? Had he seen the photos and information? What about her social media accounts? Could he have decrypted them?

"How could you?!" she exclaimed angrily.

"Get in, or not?" he asked, ignoring her question.

She felt choked, unable to speak. She remembered him as a sweet, cute man. How had he become this after years apart?

Lina Sweeney hung her head, opened the passenger door, and sat beside Hadwin Stephenson. Inside the car, she saw him playing with her phone.

"My phone!" she cried, instinctively reaching for it.

Before her fingers touched it, he grabbed her hand. "You seem to have lived well these past years," he said thoughtfully, tapping the photo album. It displayed countless smiling pictures—travel photos, everyday snapshots, pictures of her enjoying delicious food. Her life appeared idyllic.

But everyone photographed their happy moments, she thought. Who documented their sadness?

"Not bad, I guess" Lina Sweeney replied timidly, trying to pull her hand free.

His touch felt strange, yet strangely warm. She remembered her past infatuation with his fingers. She'd even boldly said, "You have pretty fingers; let me feel them." He'd let her.

As someone with a hand fetish, his touch well, it had been nice.

Wait. What was she thinking?

Lina Sweeney snapped out of it, wanting to slap herself. She was in trouble, and all she could think about were fingers?

She looked up into Hadwin Stephenson's beautiful black eyes, but they seemed clouded with an emotion she couldn't decipher.

Then, he released her hand.

"How are you going to get your phone back?" Hadwin Stephenson asked coldly.