「Three years ago...」
Georgia Thorne had just been accepted into Portmire University. Just as she was looking forward to her future, a bolt from the blue shattered her perfect dream.
Her family's company was on the verge of bankruptcy, and Jared Thorne planned to use a marriage alliance to save his business.
By the time Georgia Thorne learned of this, she had already been tricked and brought to a hotel.
The prospective groom was a man well over fifty. She was only eighteen, in the prime of her youth—how could she willingly sacrifice herself to an old man?
Georgia Thorne clutched a paring knife. The old man, terrified of dying, fell to the ground in fear after she managed to cut him.
Georgia Thorne seized the opportunity and fled.
Knife still in hand, she had just run out the door when she collided with a strange man's chest.
His clean, crisp masculine scent instantly overwhelmed the smell of blood on her.
Georgia Thorne lifted her head, craning her neck to look at the man's face, which was cast in shadow.
She recognized him. It was Elliot Sheridan.
The old man pursued her from behind. "Where do you think you're going?!"
Georgia Thorne flinched, her blood-stained hand clutching the man's expensive suit.
Elliot Sheridan recognized her. She was his niece's classmate.
He wrapped one arm around the woman's slender shoulders, pulling her into his protection, and glanced at his secretary standing nearby.
The secretary immediately grabbed Keith Larkin's arms and pinned them behind his back.
"Ow, ow! Damn it, who dares to restrain me!" Keith Larkin hadn't yet processed what was happening.
He looked up and met Elliot Sheridan's eyes. His pupils instantly dilated in fear. "President Sheridan."
"Who gave you the nerve to touch one of my people!"
"..."
Keith Larkin was already too terrified to utter a single word.
His glare was sharp enough to burn holes through Georgia Thorne. 'Jared Thorne clearly gave her to me, so how could this be happening?'
"Do you know what happens to those who touch my people?" Elliot Sheridan's eyes turned ice-cold. Keith Larkin trembled under his gaze like a leaf in the wind.
Elliot Sheridan was the most revered and powerful man in Portmire.
You could offend anyone else, but you could not afford to cross this man.
For those who angered Elliot Sheridan, their fate was as good as sealed with a death sentence.
"President Sheridan, I was wrong! I was a fool not to recognize you, I'm so sorry..." Keith Larkin babbled, but Elliot Sheridan had no interest in listening. "Secretary Sawyer, I'll leave the rest to you."
Elliot Sheridan swept the woman in his arms into a princess carry. His voice was as cold as ever. "From this day on, I don't want to see this man in Portmire again."
This was the second time Georgia Thorne and Elliot Sheridan had met. He had saved her.
In the hotel room, he gently placed Georgia Thorne on the sofa.
Elliot Sheridan took off his blood-stained suit jacket and glanced at her coolly. "What, I save your life, and you're still thinking of stabbing me with that knife?"
It was the first time Elliot Sheridan had ever spoken to her.
The moment he finished speaking, Georgia Thorne immediately dropped the paring knife. Her hand was stained with Keith Larkin's blood. 'It's disgusting.'
"If you were so scared, how did you know to stab him with a knife?"
Georgia Thorne's eyes were wide, their whites and blacks starkly clear. Her lips were pale.
Elliot Sheridan found this immensely interesting. He stood up. "Go take a shower first. It's not good for a young woman to be so disheveled."
Georgia Thorne looked down at herself. Her clothes had been torn open by Keith Larkin, revealing several marks on her fair skin left by the man.