As she took in the warmth and indulgence that Armand conveyed through his gaze, Genevieve couldn’t help but feel immense jealousy toward Marilyn. Out of nowhere, she felt wetness at the corners of her eyes. The wetness and cool feeling soon spread from her face throughout the rest of her body. Genevieve irritably flicked through the few photos that Maria had sent over.
She did this so many times that her vision soon became blurry from the strain on her eyes, and her arm ached heavily from holding her phone up the entire time. Once more, her gaze fell on Armand’s eyes, and she came to a sudden realization.
She now understood why Marilyn had poured filthy water onto her when she had visited the Faulkner residence previously. She also understood why Armand had found it so difficult and why he had been so reluctant to lecture Marilyn about it.
This also explained why she had always been so jealous of the indulgence that Armand had for Marilyn and why she occasionally felt that Armand didn’t care for her or didn’t belong to her. It was all because she was in love with Armand. For a long time now, she had felt this burgeoning love within her and had buried it deep within her heart.
She didn’t dare to think about it or admit to herself what it all meant. Genevieve was a little numb as she thought about all this and recalled how Armand’s gaze had always been cold whenever he looked at her, yet full of warmth whenever he gazed at Marilyn.
At the end of the day, he only treated their relationship as a purely contractual one, whereas she had completely fallen head over heels for him. Genevieve felt the phone in her hand suddenly vibrate. She looked down and saw that she had just received a WhatsApp message. Armand texted: How far have you gotten in the book?
From just his texts alone, Genevieve seemed to be able to pick up his nonchalant and indifferent tone. She pursed her lips and didn’t reply to the message nor scroll through her phone.
Instead, she switched it off and flung it on the bedside table. That night, Genevieve went to bed without bothering to dry her hair. Coupled with her dreary and depressed mood, this resulted in her waking the next day with several throbbing aches throughout her body.
Patrick met her at the hotel’s restaurant and asked how she had been. However, Genevieve replied awkwardly that she had merely been exposed to the air-conditioning for too long a period of time and would perk up once she had taken some food. She added that she would head over to the center with Elijah’s team to continue their round of negotiations.
Fortunately for Genevieve, their negotiations proceeded rather smoothly this time, and they finally signed the contract just after two in the afternoon. After their successful negotiation, Elijah’s team booked tickets for Genevieve’s and Patrick’s return flight to Jadeborough.
The next day, the group headed over to the airport together to bid the pair farewell. Unfortunately for the pair, the weather at Jadeborough made for difficult flying conditions, and the transit flight the pair were on had no choice but to land at Springwyn. Patrick seemed to be able to pick up that Genevieve was feeling rather sullen.
As such, once they had dropped off their baggage at the hotel, he headed over to knock on the door to her room and suggested, “The weather seems pretty good here at Springwyn. Come on; I’ll take you out to have some fun.” However, Genevieve rejected his offer and replied, “I want to sleep. I’m not going anywhere.”
“You’ve slept so much during the two flights we’ve had to get here. How can you still manage to fall asleep?” countered Patrick. Patrick headed in and saw that Genevieve’s suitcase was open. He reached in, picked out two sets of clothing, and tossed them into her lap.
Following that, he gently guided her toward the bathroom and implored, “Hurry up and change out. I’m sure you’ll be interested in the place I’m bringing you to.” Genevieve turned back and eyed him as she asked, “Surely you’re not taking me to an amusement park just because you think I’m feeling unhappy, are you?
Don’t be so childish.” However, Patrick only closed the door to the bathroom and replied, “You’ll know when you get there.” Once Genevieve was finished changing out, she followed Patrick out and soon realized that he was bringing her to a shooting club.
This shooting club was one of Springwyn’s largest. Its interior was designed and set up under the guidance of retired military personnel, contributing to a great user experience.
As Genevieve hadn’t been to a shooting club before, her interest was suddenly piqued at the impressive sight before her. Under Patrick’s guidance, Genevieve loaded the gun and held it as she got up on the platform and took aim at her target.
Although her starting few shots were rather dismal, especially since she had picked an easy target close to her current position, she eventually improved after some training, and her bullets were soon able to hit the bullseye.
Just like that, Genevieve spent the whole day at the shooting club with Patrick and had the time of her life doing so. Close to half past five in the afternoon, they were about to leave the shooting club, and Patrick saw that her mood had finally improved. With this in mind, he finally relaxed and handed her a bottle of water.
“Wait for me here. I’ll go return the keys,” instructed Patrick. “All right,” replied Genevieve as she took the bottle of water and stood by the side of the entrance. She twisted the cap off the bottle and took a few sips of water. Just as she was about to cap the bottle again, a blur flashed past and grabbed her violently by the wrist.
