The Apple of My Eye

Duke was a little surprised to hear what Damian just said. Duke found that man extremely weird and suspected him to be a rival. He tried to convince Damian that taking any favor from that person would not be of any help to him ultimately.

"Don't be deceived, Damian! Do you even know who he is? Are you sure you need to keep in touch with him?" Duke tried to persuade him.

"Do you think I have any other option than taking his help? Now that Sher doesn't talk to me, and even Isla doesn't help me, I'm getting farther and farther away from Sher. I've done so much for her, yet I have still not been able to win her heart. What do you expect me to do now?" Damian expressed his anguish.

Duke marked the desperateness in Damian. He remained silent for a while and then said, "But your identity is different from others. From what you are telling me, I can see that you have decided to become a puppet in someone else's hands. What if that person uses you for their vested interest? You will be wronged in a way where you will never be able to come out of it. Have you thought about that?" "I'm not afraid of being used. As long as Sher can leave Charles and comes back to me. And as long as I can win her heart, I am willing to accept the worse results," Damian answered determinedly.

Duke shook his head in dismay. He could understand Damian's state of mind. But one thing he could still not understand was how a young and well-to-do man like Damian falls for a mother-of-two in such a way that he can become so desperate to be with her at any cost. In Duke's opinion, it was not worth the effort.

"Well, it's all up to you to decide. But remember, please brace yourself. Make sure not to put yourself into trouble. If anything happens to you, I will not be able to explain to your father," Duke warned Damian. "Okay, I will!" Saying that Damian hung up the phone. Slowly the smile faded from his face, and he looked around with a grim look.

Damian knew that he had chosen a difficult path, and he had to be very careful.

He had followed the instructions to arrive at the abandoned factory. It was a deserted place bereft of any human contact.

At the time when Damian arrived, Rob was yet to reach the place. After ten minutes of waiting, Damian became doubtful about Rob's intention of coming to meet him.

Damian himself was in two minds whether to wait for Rob or leave the deserted place. He took out his phone to make a call to Duke. Just then, he heard a rustling sound behind him.

He turned around at once and saw several huge German shepherds circling him from all sides.

The huge German shepherds stuck out their tongues, and they watched Damian with their lethal and unforgiving eyes, salivating through the dark black tips of their tongues. They stared at him through their dark red eyes, as if they could not wait to feast on him.

Damian felt his heart turning cold. At that time, he could only hear the sound of the heavy breathing of the canines, and all his eyes could behold was their lethal eyes and salivating tongues. The world seemed to be coming to an end for Damian. He had never been in such a dangerous situation ever in his entire life. He had never felt so frightened. However, he made up his mind not to give in to the situation. No matter how scared he was, he decided not to show it on his face.

He knew that such ferocious animals were very intuitive. The more scared you looked to them, the more confident they would be to attack and overpower you.

Hence, for the love of his life, Damian tried not to look so intimidated by the German shepherds. He tried to look around from the corner of his eye to locate some handy tool that could at least help him defend himself from the German shepherds for the time being and avoid being ripped into pieces.

But much to Damian's surprise, the canines were in no hurry to attack him. They just looked at him, as if they were waiting for a special order.

At that moment, Damian thought there had to be a catch. So he decided to calm down and observed the situation. That seemed to be the only survival tactic for him at that moment.

It seemed to be some kind of a movie set-Damian faced-to-face with some fierce German shepherds in an abandoned factory. Indeed, it would make a very unique photo opportunity. If it was clicked by a professional photographer and posted on the internet, it could make Damian emerge as an internet sensation overnight along with those German shepherds.

A few minutes passed in this way. Slowly, drops of cold sweat started appearing on Damian's forehead, and he felt weak in his knees.

Then there came a point when Damian could not take it anymore. At the moment when he was on the verge of losing his nerve, the German shepherds barked suddenly and ran off in another direction. As Damian's eyes chased the canines in the direction that they went, he saw a figure emerging out of the dark.

Damian looked carefully and found it was Rob.

'Oh! So this is the damned man!' Damian thought in his mind.

Rob looked like a heinous demon. He was a strong build man with a face that was bereft of any human expression. His eyes were cold. Damian felt more frightened when he saw Rob in person. Rob's personality was rather more intimidating than that of the German shepherds!

"You have been waiting for so long. You must be getting frantic by now." Rob's frozen face broke into a smile as he approached Damian slowly.

"You have let your German shepherds scare me. What did you mean by all this?" Damian asked as he heaved a deep breath.

"You are wrong! Absolutely wrong! It's a piece of cake for me to deal with you. If I really wanted to kill you, you would have already been eaten by them," Rob growled as he waved an angry finger at Damian. "So what on earth do you mean by this?" Damian asked, sounding offended and furious.

"How did you feel when you almost faced death just now? Will you remember it clearly some years from now?" Rob threw a question at Damian and eyed him like an accomplished master who had just given a lesson to his pupil.

Damian wiped the sweat from his forehead, looking a little embarrassed. He couldn't figure out Rob's motive behind all this.

"What on earth is your purpose behind this?" Damian asked.

"Mr. Li, I just wanted you to get the feel of death. Just now, when you felt that the dogs were going to tear you apart, who is the first person you had thought of? What's that one thing you want to do if you got a lease of life? Just recall it for yourself!" Rob said.

Damian was dumbstruck by Rob's words. Oh, what is the thing he wanted to do most?

Oh! When Damian thought he was about to lose his life, the only person that he could think of was Sheryl. He regretted that he had not confessed his love to her. And he felt desperate and miserable about it. That feeling of helplessness was so profound and painful.

At that moment, how he wished he could survive this onslaught of fate! He wished that he could live to be with Sheryl, to tell her that no one could ever love her the way he did, he wished that he could marry her and take care of her and her children for the rest of their lives.

As Damian fell into deep thought, Rob looked at him intensely. He knew that he had Damian completely under his control.

This was a very powerful psychological tactic that Rob had learned from an expert. In this way, he could defeat his opponent at any moment.

"So, what's your decision?" Rob asked.

By that time, Damian was already thinking in the direction Rob wanted him to think. He knew what to do.

"Just tell me what you want?" said Damian.

"It's very simple. Charles has met with a car accident. He is lying unconscious in the intensive care unit. The only person who is there with him at this time is Sheryl, who is taking care of him. Guess what it means?"

Damian was shocked. Charles met with an accident?

Isla had mentioned earlier that Charles was in trouble. So this was the trouble.

Given the situation, Sheryl wouldn't even go to the company. She would stay with Charles to look after him. It was not simply out of sympathy.

"Old love dies hard. You know Sheryl still loves Charles. It's okay as long as Charles is in a coma. But the day he wakes up, what do you think Sheryl will do? Will they get back together as if they had never been separated?" Rob went on, triggering Damian's flow of thought to instigate him against Charles.

Rob carefully chose his words to echo Damian's apprehensions and insecurities. Damian fell into deep thought. Heart of heart, he knew how Sheryl would choose between him and Charles. He knew that Sheryl could never stop loving Charles. And after this car accident, she would find it more difficult to leave him.

"Mr. Li, I'm just giving you a piece of advice. In fact, there is no such thing as who owns whom. It completely depends on whether you fight for it or not. Sheryl used to be Charles' wife. But since they are divorced now, Sheryl is single. To keep her by your side, you need to break all barriers that come between you and Sheryl. Just play your cards right!"