Standing before Love

Will Myra still melt into my embrace if she learns all about this?

Elliot waited for a long time; just when he thought that Tony wouldn’t say another word, the latter spoke flatly. “Spread the word.”

“Okay!” Elliot immediately responded. He and the other two had been rubbing their hands in anticipation and could hardly wait to go all out!

The cell phone in Tony’s pocket vibrated again. This time, however, Tony didn’t hang up the phone.

Meanwhile, Myra took a taxi home.

She would be lying if she said she wasn’t upset, for this was the first time the man had turned down her request so bluntly. Before she realized it, she had grown used to turning to Tony for help—doing so had become a matter of course. However, such a thought made Myra’s heart shudder. Only then did she realize what made her upset wasn’t that she was hurt by both Sean and Lyla, but that Tony had refused to help her!

Such a realization caused her heart to race inexplicably. An unknown feeling lingered in her heart, but she forcibly repressed such emotions.

Suddenly, her cell phone vibrated for a moment. She took it out to see a pop-up notification saying that Elliot had added her into a chat group on Messenger.

Not caring too much about it, she opened the group’s information without much thought, only to find that this group’s members included several influential members of the upper-class families in Bradfort City and some other people who were closely related to these families. When she switched back to the group chat’s interface, she found that a few messages had popped up in there.

Elliot wrote, ‘Let’s welcome Mimi to our group! Everyone, please give her a round of warm applause!’

This message was tagged with a series of emojis. Following this message, Philip, Lucas, and the others also expressed their welcome to her.

Knowing that the members of this chat group were probably Tony’s friends, Myra thought for a moment before replying politely, ‘Thank you, everyone.’

She had just sent out this text message when another message popped up in the group chat. Surprisingly, it was a voice message from Tony.

Everyone seemed to be stunned, for Tony never spoke in the group despite being added to the group by Elliot a long time ago. Right now, he had suddenly surfaced in the group…

Elliot wrote, ‘Hey, Tony! It seems like you’ve really put love before friendship! You never showed up a few days ago no matter how we called for you in the group, but you immediately sent a voice message right after Myra popped up and sent a text message! Let’s see what you’ve sent!’

Everyone in the group probably went to listen to Tony’s voice message; even Myra held her breath as she played the voice message. However, the message, which was only three seconds long, consisted only of the sound of a car driving on the road, and Tony didn’t say a word at all. Just when Myra was a bit disappointed, he suddenly sent a text message containing a word and a question mark. It read, ‘Mimi?’

Everyone fell silent for a while before Philip quickly texted, ‘You’re finished, Elliot.’

Lucas texted, ‘You idiot!’

Philip then texted, ‘You fool!’

Michael Moss, another member of the group, texted, ‘We’re about to watch something interesting now!’

These text messages were followed by gloating text messages from other members of the group.

Everyone in the group knew that Tony was jealous. Even Tony himself called Myra Miss Stark for now, yet Elliot dared to address her so intimately as ‘Mimi!’

Sitting in the back seat, Elliot was overwhelmed with regret when he saw through the rearview mirror that Tony was raising his brow in the front seat. He called Myra ‘Mimi’ to appear more cordial toward her, but who would have known that he would ruffle Tony’s feathers instead?!

He immediately sent three text messages in a row. The first read, ‘I’m wrong, Tony. Please forgive me this time; after all, I deserve some credit for my effort at the very least.’ The second read, ‘We’re buddies, Tony. Keep calm if you have something to say, and don’t resort to violence!’ The third read, ‘Miss Stark, hurry up and advise Tony for me. I don’t want to have him beat the sh*t out of me! I don’t want to lose my handsome face!’

Elliot was still acting humble and cute in the group, but Myra was already too busy to read his messages, for her private chat interface showed a message from a man with no profile picture.

Upon recalling what Elliot had texted just now, Myra blushed slightly and hesitated for a moment. Still, she played Tony’s voice message, and a man’s deep and attractive voice soon came from the other end of the conversation. “Don’t think too much. They won’t do anything to you over this.”

Tony’s voice seemed to be endowed with a kind of magic that could calm people down involuntarily. Upon hearing his voice, Myra couldn’t help tightening her grip on her cell phone. Sending him a voice message, she replied softly, “Okay.”

Meanwhile, Elliot suddenly sent a text message to the group. It read, ‘I heard Tony sending a voice message to Myra in private. Unfortunately, he deliberately sounded the horn just now, so I couldn’t hear anything clearly.’

Myra saw this text message right after switching back to the group chat’s interface, and her face turned redder at once. She closed her Messenger at once, but the initial feelings of upset within her had strangely diminished.

Lyla was still anxious and uncertain when Tony answered her phone call. “Director Hart, regarding the incident yesterday where you went to the construction site—”

Actually, she had wanted those at the construction site to hold Myra up. It would be best if Myra hadn’t been able to show up at Chase Group on this day to refute the accusations against her no matter what, but as luck would have it, Myra ended up being saved by Tony. Even though Lyla planned to have Eve personally discover Myra stealing Chase Group’s confidential documents afterward, she ultimately never expected her scheme to be flawed. As a result, Eve hated Lyla’s guts right now, thinking that the latter was setting Myra up. It wasn’t until Sean showed Eve the CCTV footage that the latter softened her attitude toward Lyla.

However, the key problem was why Tony would save Myra. According to the bargain between them, she thought that he hated Myra. Perhaps Myra could only be made a victim for the sake of interests, but Eve said that Myra was seducing him. Could Myra have succeeded at seducing Tony?!

This idea had been lingering in her mind just now, yet she couldn’t express it. It wasn’t until Sean had gone looking after Eve right now that she had the spare time to call Tony.

Tony’s face turned frosty the instant he heard Lyla’s voice. He said flatly, “I happened to be there, so it was inexcusable not to save her.”

“Oh!” Lyla was quite relieved despite Tony’s slightly unconvincing explanation. After gritting her teeth, she continued to ask, “Director Hart, you’ve promised to help me buy up all the land in Chase Group’s Hilliville, right?! You won’t go back on your word, right?”

“That’s for sure.” Tony’s voice was icy, but his mouth curved into a meaningful smile. “Now that I’ve given you the opportunity, I won’t provide any help for no return again in the future if you still can’t secure the position of Mrs. Chase this time, Miss Fisher.”

“Please be rest assured!” Lyla clenched her teeth. Only she could save Chase Group this time, so Eve would have to obey her no matter how much she liked Myra!

After Tony hung up, Elliot moved close to him again with a wicked smile. “I’ve spread the word, Tony. Now, we just have to wait for the big fish to take the bait.”

The car window opened a crack before Tony took out a cigarette and lit it up. As the curling smoke blurred his eyes, he ordered, “Tell them to keep a close eye on Myra over the next few days. Tell me at once if something happens!”

There was a note of seemingly conflicted grimness in his voice as he spoke. Elliot narrowed his eyes at Tony’s words before raising his brow. “You can count on me, Tony,” he replied. He added, “Myra won’t learn about anything. You just have to be doubly nice to her, Tony—doing so can also relieve the feelings of guilt within me.”

Tony’s face was sullen at Elliot’s words. Just then, Elliot reminded him and said, “By the way, Tony—Old Master Hart called me on my cell phone just now. He told me to pass you a message by telling you to call him back as soon as possible.”