Chapter 51: Jealous
Luna let out a deep sigh, she did not know why but she was terribly afraid for Mina. Regardless if the girl were telling the truth or not, she would undoubtedly be a liability to the Lee family. If she were telling the truth, and they paid her a large amount of money to go away, anyone could pick her up and use her against them. Therefore, she could not be kept alive. If she were lying, she obviously would be kept alive until she revealed the truth and then she would be killed.
Luna really regretted staying in the hospital ward with Mina that day. The girl had been so candid and honest that Luna did not want to suspect her. She had not begged for her life once, and when faced with Ian she only asked him to take revenge on her behalf. She did not even try to escape, nor did she complain. There were so many things that just did not make sense and it was really driving Luna crazy.
Over the last two weeks, specialists from the Lee group were asked to investigate Mina and judging from the small stack of documents she was handed, they did not find much. This made her feel conflicted; Luna was not as ruthless as her brother. She had no qualms about killing guilty parties, but she had never taken an innocent life. She wondered if her brother felt the same way. Could that be why he had been more isolated recently? She had even heard that Lisa stopped coming around him. Could he have told her what happened?
The thought of Ian betraying Lisa in this way flared up old scars that Luna had been nursing. She knew betrayal well; she had experienced it firsthand and even though she had only been with Tavin for two years, it hurt badly. She knew for Lisa it would be worse. Ten years was a long time to wait after someone, even if that person only noticed you for half of the time you waited.
Luna made a mental note to ask Ian about it later. In the meantime, she picked up her phone and gave Lisa a call. She remembered that back when her heart was broken, Zane was the one who reached out to her. He had always treated her like his own sister and he patiently listened to all her heartache and woe. She forbade him from telling Ian because she knew her brother would probably have both Dr. Bell and his girlfriend killed immediately. Zane was the one who picked her up and set her straight, and when she needed a push, he gave it to her.
During that time, Luna leaned on Zane heavily for months before she was strong enough to start over, and for a time, she wondered why she was not interested in him. Then she remembered going through some of the pictures in his phone when they were younger, and she shuddered. There was such a thing as knowing too much about a person. Even if he were interested, she would not be, and vice versa.
Zane was a notorious playboy, and she was really the only woman he was nice to, but she knew it was because he regarded her as an extension of his best friend. Luna recalled a night she drank too much, and she called Zane to pick her up. He scolded her the entire ride home. She flippantly asked him if he had a crush on her, and he unloaded on her with expletives. He nearly gagged from disgust. She was not offended at all. In fact, she was comforted by the fact that she had two older brothers to take care of her. She did not need that useless Tavin Bell at all.
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Ian went straight to the office when he stepped off his flight. He was immediately greeted by a pile of documents on his desk that would have angered him into calling everyone back to the office on a normal day, but this was not a normal day. Ian and Drax were on the same flight, and the whole time, Drax had a goofy grin on his face. Drax's phone was filled with candid pictures of Mills, who appeared to be ignoring him in every photo. Apparently, he followed her around while Ian was tying up the loose ends.
Drax kept showing Ian pictures of Mills and Ian rolled his eyes every time. There was a burning sensation in his chest, and he could not place it. When Drax saw that Ian looked uncomfortable, he leaned over and tightly grasped his shoulder while saying:
"Little brother, don't be jealous. Not everyone can be as lucky as me. Women like this are hard to come by." Ian scoffed and denied being jealous. Drax suddenly remembered something and turned to Ian.
"Hey, don't you have that Lily person?" Ian flashed a crooked smile as he corrected Drax.
"Li Lee," he said.
"Yeah, her. Doesn't she make you feel this way?" Ian did not respond but the look on his face was as good as an answer.
"If that's the case then why are you still with her?" Drax asked. Ian seriously thought about Drax's question and he did not have a good answer. Turning to Drax Ian asked,
"What is it about that woman that you like?" Drax did not even hesitate. He listed out several things about Mills that he admired, then he listed out several more things that he liked about her, then with raised eyebrows he cupped the air in front of his chest. Ian had never seen the man act like this.
"How do you know so much about her already?" Ian asked.
"President Lee, do you think I've been idle while you were working? Who do you think cleaned up the bodies in the warehouse? Thanks to you, she and I spent three days together and I peppered her with questions. If I do not try to get to know her, how else can I show her that I am sincere?" Drax asked.
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Ian was left speechless. Not only because Drax had suddenly taken to calling him 'little brother,' but because based on that logic, he had never been sincere to Lisa. On the other hand, Lisa was always sincere toward him.
Drax's statement made Ian think about how he wanted to know everything about Mina from the first day he saw her. He had even had the security team send footage of her entering his building to his phone. He would secretly watch the video occasionally, although he would never reveal this to anyone. Even the day when he caught Mina, he listened to her babble about without interrupting her once! He was enjoying listening to her speak. He did not care about her scholarship or Miss Maggie, he just wanted to see her vivid facial expressions as she poured out everything to him.
Back then if Mina had the courage to look up, she would have seen him smiling at her, but she never looked him in the eye. He thought about her expression when he threw her against the wall and his heart felt like it was pricked by a needle. Even though he thought she was acting, his heart softened at the sight of her scared face, and he could not hit her again.
It had been several hours since his talk with Drax and Ian still had that weird sensation in his chest. He knew he was jealous. Drax and Mills started off as foes and now, they were dating, albeit by contract, but still. Ian wondered if Mina would be willing to date him. This was probably highly unlikely since she was terrified of him. Even if he presented her with a contract, she would probably feel forced into it, and even if he didn't mean to do that thing to her before, he knew that forcing her to date him was just as bad.
Ian looked at the fountain pen in his hand and realized that it had been sitting in the same spot on the document he was signing for too long. There was a large ink stain where his signature should go, and the paper was completely ruined. Sighing Ian penned a note with instructions for his secretary to reprint the document and decided to go home. There was no reason for him to push himself. All the work on his desk was minor and he could get to it in the morning.