?Chapter 1652:


    All the earlier despair evaporated in an instant. Now her thoughts had already moved on to finding a way to share a meal with the man she had just seen. William hadn’t said a single word on her behalf, yet everyone had already decided that Alisha was someone connected to him.


    William followed Hurst to the dining hall, giving the earlier encounter with Alisha no further thought.


    Throughout lunch, Hurst’s demeanor became noticeably more animated than usual. Several times he made subtle attempts to probe the nature of William’s rtionship with Alisha, but William deflected smoothly each time, steering the conversation back to business matters.


    When the meal concluded, Hurst personally walked William to the elevator.


    As they stood waiting, Alisha appeared at their side carrying two steaming cups of coffee. She extended one toward William with a sweet smile. “Mr. Briggs, have you finished your meeting? Would you like some coffee?”


    William epted the cup without a word. As his fingers closed around the warm porcin, Alisha’s hand lingered just long enough for her fingertips to brush deliberately across the back of his hand — cool against his skin, and surprisingly soft. The moment she seemed to register the contact, she pulled back quickly.


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    The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime. William stepped inside, and when he turned to face forward, he caught sight of Alisha standing next to Hurst, smiling and waving at him. The doors glided shut, gradually obscuring that smiling face from view.


    The moment he reached the ground floor, William tossed the untouched coffee cup into the nearest trash can and wiped his fingers with a tissue. He was halfway through Dixon Group’s revolving doors when his phone buzzed in his pocket. A message from Ste lit up the screen: “Are you still at the office? When should I expect you home?”


    William’s eyes fixed on those words. His grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles ached.


    His anxiety surged. In that instant, the truth struck him with brutal rity — he was terrified of facing her, and even more terrified of what might happen if he lost control in her presence. After a long moment, he swiped the message away as though it had never existed and shoved the phone back into his pocket.


    At that same moment, Ste sat in the study, a thick stack of documents fanned out across the desk before her. Steven upied the chair across from her, his featuresposed and unreadable.


    “Alisha Cooper. Senior at Crossroads University’s School of Economics, twenty-two years old. Both parents work as teachers — nothing remarkable. She’s an only child.” Steven tapped one of the pages and lifted his gaze to Ste. “Her background checks out aspletely ordinary. So how exactly did William meet her?”


    Ste’s lips pressed into a thin line. “They bumped into each other at the hospital yesterday. Pure coincidence, apparently.”


    Surprise flickered across Steven’s face. William had never struck him as the type of man who would entangle himself with random women.


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