Steal my heart novel (Grace James and Caden Shaw)

Carol took a celadon teacup from the square stool, hold it with a saucer and gave it to the woman. The woman stood up and her hair fell to her waist, it was amazingly long, and it was tied loosely with a hair tie The woman held her hand out and received the tea in the celadon teacup from Carol, she opened the lid, took a sip, and put the lid back on.

"Carol, go get the rental agreement and follow me." She took long strides walking towards the room upon finishing her sentence, her pace was slow.

"I'm here, boss." Carlos hurriedly ran to the cupboard and ran after her. Carol followed the woman's footsteps with a brown paper envelope in hand. The woman was walking leisurely and so Carol walked slowly behind her as well. They went from the corridor to the second floor and took twice as long to get there than an average person, who could probably get there in 2-3 minutes. Carol didn't rush her, even though the woman was slow.

As soon as they got to the corridor on the second floor, they could hear a couple quarrelling loudly.

The woman halted in her tracks and the relaxation between her brows was gone, her expression became indifferent. Carol didn't know why the carefree and amiable boss would lose her usual gentleness and practically change into another person when guests were quarrelling in the homestay.

Suddenly, a crashing sound of a bone China being thrown on the floor came from inside of the room. The woman's face darkened, she took a few steps forwards silently and stopped right in front of the door. She then proceeded to knock on the door.

"Open the door."

The couple in the room was busy fighting and didn't give a damn about the person outside telling them to open the door.

"Carol." She took a step backwards and gave way to Carol, signalling Carol to use the spare key to open the door. The door opened with a crack, the couple was frightened, they immediately stopped quarrelling and looked towards the door in sync.

Outside the door stood two people.

The couple in the room quickly realized that it was the homestay workers, their nervousness dissipated, and they loosened up.

They immediately yelled at Carol and her boss spitefully, "How could you guys just barge in like this? What about my privacy? It is so rude, and you violated me and my boyfriend's privacy!"

The woman standing by the door didn't care about the couple's arrogant statement, she glanced around the room and said, "Both of you, please pack your back and take your leave right now." The couple in the room never would've thought that a worker of the homestay would say something like that. The man's face immediately turned red, "Why should we? We paid in advance to stay for 5 days, how could you just drive us away? Get me your boss, I want to speak to your boss and complain about you guys!"

"I am the boss."

"You are the boss, yet you let your worker behave like this...wait, what? You are the boss?"

"I am the boss." She stood still by the door and stared at the couple emotionlessly, "Now, please pack your bags and leave."

The man's face turned even redder, he flew into a rage, "Why should I? I understand if people who own big business discriminate their guest, but how could you guys do the same when you guys just own a small, lowly homestay?"

The expression in the boss's eyes turned frigid, "Carol, show them the agreement."

The couple took the brown paper envelope from Carol, the woman by the door said, "The reception probably mentioned about it when you two first checked in into the homestay. You can feel free to do whatever you wanted to, but no quarrelling, isn't that right? Both of you signed the agreement before settling in, meaning that you are informed and are willing to comply with the rule."

The couple stared at the agreement on their hands, their face burned with embarrassment.

"We weren't fighting."

"I'm not blind." The woman gaze moved from the floor to the sofa, and then the table. She looked around the room and it was a mess. It was obvious that they fought in the room, there were pieces of evidence everywhere.

The man felt ashamed, he did sign the agreement but getting driven out like that was not something he would take sitting down.

"You'll pay for this, I'll post on social media and expose that you run a morally corrupted business!"

"Do as you like." She dropped just four words, turned around and was about to leave, "Carol, reimbursed their room charge of the 3 days that they are not staying. Also, tell Kayden to keep an eye on them." "There's nothing great about your rubbish homestay, there's a ton of other homestays at the Erhai Lake area. I don't even want to stay here even if you didn't drive me away!"

"I'll expose your misdeed, mark my words! You're running an unethical business, earning dirty money!"

After the woman and Carol left, the man told his girlfriend angrily, "Myla, I will definitely leave them bad reviews and post about them in the forum. They shall mark my words, I'll post about this in forum the moment we get back..."

At the same moment in S city.

Humbert could smell the strong alcohol the moment he pushed open the door!

He looked at Caden sitting on the floor, "Who was the one that says that they would never drown their sorrows in alcohol?"

Caden who was sitting on the floor didn't care, he held his bottle up and gulped it down, bottles of different sizes were rolling around the floor in the room.

"Hey! Say something!" Humbert looked at the person who was shitfaced, he felt sorry for him, but he was angry at him as well. Humbert's anger then took over, he rushed up to the unkempt Caden and grabbed him by the collar, he yelled, "Wake up! Who was the one that said that he was going to look for her even if it would take him a lifetime? Do you know what you look like right now?"

Humbert couldn't believe his ears when he received a call fromWilson. Caden had never let loose and drunk himself silly in the past three years, even when he was going through a very hard time.

Caden told him that he was going to look for her, no matter dead or alive. But there was always a limit to what a person can do, why spent time drinking himself silly and drowning in sorrow when he didn't even have enough time to look for her?

"Stand up! Wake up! You were the one that told me that you would never waste time drowning yourself in alcohol. You were the one that said that you will find her. Where is your conviction?" Did he forget his promise?

Or was he just as useless as Franklin?

Did he give up just in a timespan of three years? Did he become useless just in a timespan of three years?

Humbert yanked Caden's collar, the collar was so dirty that one could never tell that it was an expensive item of clothing. But Humbert didn't care if it was dirty, at this very moment, he just wanted to pull his distraught and dispirited friend, who fell into the deep abyss, back up.

Caden snickered out of the blue.

Humbert was puzzled, "What are you laughing at?" He yanked Caden's collar even more tightly, but Caden didn't stop snickering, he even started laughing brazenly.

"What are you laughing at? What's so funny?" said Humbert furiously.

"...it's funny." Humbert was still holding Caden by the collar, Caden's bangs were so long that they covered his forehead and his eyes. Humbert couldn't tell his expression, he could only see his mouth moving, "It's really funny! I'm the only idiot in the whole wide world who could never see the truth, even though it was just right next to me the whole time."

"Hey, stay focus, I have no idea what in the world you are talking about!" Humbert thought Caden was spouting nonsense just because he was drunk.

"I am wide awake, let go off me!" The drunkard pushed away Humbert's hand and hung his head low, "I'm wide awake, there was never a time that I have ever felt so awake. I'm more awake than when I was lying next to the truth..."

"Hey, I really couldn't understand you."

"It was the worst decision of my life..." The drunkard ignored Humbert, his head was hanging, and he was mumbling to himself. Since just now his fist was tightly clenched, he slowly opened his hand in front of Humbert and showed Humbert what was inside, "Her thoughts, her likes and dislike, her love, they were all written in here. Next to where I always sleep, right next to pillow... Humbert, I'm no superhuman, I cannot move forward courageously after seeing all these."

Humbert looked towards where Caden was pointing, it was the nightstand. Humbert only then realized that the nightstand was moved, the floor, where the nightstand originally was, was pried open. Humbert looked at Caden's palm again.

"I'm no superhuman..." He said with his head hang low...☐☐☐☐☐