Chapter 10 Nightmare

"Jean? Jean! Wake up! Wake up!"

After Stark called out her name at the top of his voice, there was still no reply. His heart was thumping in his chest, and his dark eyes revealed a touch of panic.

He bent down to pick Jean up and walked with long, decisive steps toward the door as he carried her in his arms.

After only taking a few strides, he paused and looked slightly embarrassed.

Stark listened to Jean's faint snoring. As it turned out, his worry was unnecessary since Jean was only asleep this whole time.

He turned around and gently laid her down on the couch. Then he grabbed the blanket from the bed and covered it on her body. Stark crouched on the floor after tucking her warmly and looked at the sleeping woman with an intricate and complicated gaze.

His face no longer displayed the sneering sarcasm from earlier when they were in the middle of a heated argument.

"You could still sleep soundly in such a situation. How tired could you be?"

Stark's slender fingers caressed the dark circles under her eyes, and a trace of affection reflected on his face.

Jean was standing on a street corner in a strange foreign place while holding a pregnancy test report in her hand. Her delicate face was as white as a sheet after she found out the lab result.

The man's response and the woman's seductive and muffled voice replayed over and over in her mind.

"Come on. Say it already. I'm busy here. What's going on? Are you calling back to tell me on purpose how happy your life is in another country?"

"Mr. Lu, I'm done taking a bath. How long are you going to let me wait? Come here quickly."

With a rustling sound of clothes falling piece by piece, the man's ambiguous tone rang. "Honey, wait a minute. I'm on my way now."

The man's ruthless voice made Jean's dry lips twitch, and she answered stiffly, "Yes."

"Jean! You..."

Jean smiled bitterly, and her eyes were shining with tears. She almost cried out miserably, "Yes! That's right! After spending three months here in the US, I finally realized how stupid I was before coming here. Now I know how happy I could be without you in my life, Stark! Countless men in this world are way better than you. I regret not waking up earlier. It was stupid of me to have wasted my four years in college on a playboy like you, Stark!"

After a lengthy and awkward silence, the busy dial tone beeped through the phone.

Jean looked over the pregnancy test result and walked forward in a daze, looking lost beyond all hope.

She was twelve weeks pregnant, and the baby in her womb was her child with Stark.

Suddenly, an ear-piercing horn sounded. Jean raised her head, and a vehicle came straight toward her.

The car hit her before she had time to make any reaction.

The sudden impact knocked her body up into the air, and she flopped heavily on the ground a meter away.

There were screams of shock and panic everywhere, with lots of noisy footsteps going around.

Jean was lying on the pavement, and her face was full of blood. Her body was in great pain that she felt like it was being torn apart. Her vision was blurry, and all she could see was a faint red light.

She tried to move her thin lips slightly, and she spoke in a faint voice, "Save... My baby...

Please! Help me. Save my child... "

It was almost daybreak, and the dim sunlight was reflecting through the window. The painful mutterings awakened Stark.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw Jean lying on the sofa with a deadly frown. There were dense beads of sweat on her forehead, and her expression looked distressed. She was trying to say something that was hard to make out.

"Help... My baby... Please... Save..."

Stark's ears could barely make out the words from her nightmare. He tried to wake her up, but she was still sleeping. He had no choice but to shake Jean's shoulder hard.

"Wake up! Jean, wake up!"

Jean's eyes suddenly opened wide, and she sat up from the sofa fast. She was still feeling lost in her nightmare and had not returned to her senses yet. She bit her pale lips tightly, and her chest was heaving violently. Her thin body was still trembling from her bad dream.

"Were you having a nightmare?"

The first time she heard Stark's voice, Jean suddenly looked up at him. For a moment, she could not distinguish the difference between reality and dreams, and the hatred in her eyes was intense.

Her expression stunned Stark and he recalled seeing that same reaction from Jean earlier. When Jean slapped him that one fateful day, her eyes looked the same as they were now.

"Jean, wake up. Listen to me. You're no longer having a nightmare. You..."

"Fuck off! Get away from me!"

Jean forcefully knocked away Stark's hand that was reaching out to her, and his face looked perturbed in one blink.

"Is this how you're supposed to treat your hotel's VIP guests? Well, answer me, Manager Jian."

The word "manager" brought Jean back to earth. She bit her lips and lowered her gaze to hide the raging emotions in her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Lu. I'm not feeling well right now. I'll ask someone else to clean the room for you."

As he stared at the ashen-faced woman rushing to get away from him, Stark's expression darkened. He grabbed Jean's pale wrist with great force.

"You're walking out on me just like that? You fell asleep halfway through your cleaning duty last night. Shouldn't you continue your unfinished work first? Aren't you afraid that your careless action as an irresponsible lobby manager will smear Wonder Hotel's excellent image?"

The past scene was so vivid in Jean's mind that she couldn't suppress the resentment from deep within her.

She swung around, shook off Stark's hand, squinted at him furiously, and said through clenched teeth, "Do whatever you please! If you want to file formal complaints to the proper departments, then do it! You want this incident to be published in a famous magazine? Suit yourself! Nobody's stopping you. If you're not satisfied with your time here, then check out and get the hell out of here. There are thousands of hotels in B City. You have the liberty to stay in any place you like!"

After Jean raised her voice to admonish him, Stark's face grew serious.

"You think I wouldn't dare?"

Jean laughed sarcastically. "I'm sure you'll do it. Mr. Lu, haven't you had enough with the bullying using your family's wealth and influence? Would you like me to enumerate them one by one now?"

Stark glared at Jean with evil and intimidating eyes. One could hear the faint sound of his hands clenching into a tight fist.

An abrupt knock broke the oppressive atmosphere.

"Manager Jian, are you in there?"

Jean looked at Stark, and she walked away to open the door. Lina was standing alone outside.

"Yes. Can I help you?"

Lina stole a glance and caught the stern look on Stark's face. She quickly retracted her gaze, lowered her head, and mumbled awkwardly, "Manager Chen is looking for you. He wanted to introduce you officially to all the hotel staff this morning. I went to your room earlier and knocked on the door, but there was no response. I thought you might still be here, so I came over to check."

Jean had already cooled down, and she replied softly, "Okay, I got it. I'll head back to my room first to change my clothes."

Jean walked out of the suite but stopped after taking two steps.

"Ask the housekeeping department to send someone down to clean Room 103. If Mr. Lu wants to check out later, inform the front office department to make it quick. We shouldn't delay Mr. Lu's precious time."

Confused, Lina looked at Jean and then at Stark before replying, "All right."

As soon as the door closed behind him, Stark stormed toward the coffee table and swept all the files and journals to the floor. Afterward, he furiously and helplessly punched the sofa.

An image of Jean with eyes full of pure hatred popped up in his mind again and again.

'Why do you hate me so much?'

What kind of nightmare could she have that made her look so miserable? Was it somehow related to him?