Different from the kiss before, it was overpowering, showing his possessiveness of her.


    He quickly pried open her mouth, conquered her tongue, as he fastened the hold of his hands, as if to rub her into his blood.


    After a long while, he finally let go of her with a wistful look. His heart softened as he looked into his arms and saw the dainty woman’s apple-red cheeks. He came close to her and whispered to her ears, “Thanks for believing me. ra.”


    And he was even more grateful for her appearing in his life, when it had been gloomy and lightless.


    …


    ra had been at home resting for half a month before she felt ashamed and pleaded to get back to work.


    After all, she had taken so many leavestely, so she’s afraid that she would get fired.


    When she came back to the office she had been away for long, people came asking her how she’s faring, apparently most of whom had realized their misunderstanding about her, thus the unusual enthusiasm.


    But of course, except for Diane Kirby.


    The first thing she said when she saw ra was, “Oh, look who’s here. Our Miss Selman, I thought you’re well-connected enough to make money by simply lying at home.”


    Diane looked at ra with unspeakable hared.


    She had run into Ashlee the other day at a mall, thinking she could use her to get rid of ra, but for reasons unknown, she just scuttled away, without taking any actions.


    Those rich little princesses were just useless!


    But she herself couldn’t think of any ways to deal with her either, so whining was all she could do.


    ra was in no mood for responding to her, neither did others.


    Sarah caught ra by the arm and said excitedly, “ra, you probably haven’t known yet. The heinous factory that we had exposed was sued and all the workers there have got their pays.”


    “Really?” ra was surprised to hear the news.


    These days, factory workers are an underprivilegedmunity, who could hardly get their pays back unless they made big news out of it.


    “Yeah, and not only that, everybody said we took credit for it, so they gave us an award!” eximed Sarah more excitedly. She searched the news on her phone and showed it to ra. “Something like a social contribution award, not like something big, but it’ll bring more poprity to our magazine! And people on Twitter have been saying that we are a press with conscience.”


    ra fell silent.


    As someone who knew the truth, she was aware that this thing didn’t actually have anything to do with theirpany, but anyway, the magazine became known by more people because of that, so it should help with sponsorship and sales, which was a good thing to them all.


    “That’s great,” she said smilingly.


    “Yeah, and Mr. Kirnd said he will treat us to drinks today. So you muste with us this time. I won’t take no for an answer.” Sarah’s eyes flickered with expectation.


    ra was surprised. “Has he got back to work?”


    “Yeah. What a coincidence, he also took a leave the day you did.” Sarah seemed to have thought of something and added, “But he came back a week earlier than you.”


    ra frowned.


    Darren’s injury was much worse than hers, how could he have returned to work so soon?


    Before she started to think further, Sarah clung to her arm and kept saying, “ra, pleasee tonight.”


    ra was aware that it made her look alien if she kept saying no to all office group activities, so she said yes, thinking that it was just a group of people drinking together.


    At the end of the busy day, ra finally saw Darrening out of his office with gauze on his face.


    He was surprised to see her in the office, but soon he said to people the office, “Let’s take off and head for that Karaoke bar.”


    People cheered and crowded downstairs. They grabbed cabs and arrived at the KTV.


    But when they started trickling into the bar, they saw a fancily dressed woman waving at them, “Darren, here!”


    ra was shocked to see that woman.


    It was Ashlee.


    She looked very sexy in that little ck vest and mini skirt. Her hot body struck the male colleagues numb.


    When they walked towards her, Ashlee soon came up to Darren and clung to his arm in a very natural way. Her red mouth produced a seductive smile and said, “I have booked us a booth. Let’s go inside.”


    Darren, however, knitted his eyebrows tightly as he saw Ashlee, “What are you doing here?”


    “Didn’t you call me about the party? I just thought it won’t hurt for me to join you, so I came.” She smiled brightly and rested her eyes on everybody, “Am I not weed?”


    After a short silence, everybody hastened to say, “You’re kidding. We are more than happy to have you here, Mrs. Kirnd.”


    Ashleeughed even more gaily, and said to Darren, “You see, now that everybody says that, you won’t ask me to leave, right?”


    He nervously took a look at the peaceful-looking ra. With all the people there and her being his nominal fiancée, he had no choice but forced himself to take her into booth with everybody else.


    They have been very busy at worktely, so everybody enjoyed themselves wildly, with some singing and others binge drinking. ra was not interested in those things, so she had been sitting quietly in a corner with a ss of juice, scrolling on her phone.


    After a while, she went out of the booth to the washroom.


    As she got to the door of the washroom, she smelled cigarette, and saw Darren smoking down the hall, with a few butts scattering around his feet.


    She frowned.


    She had never known him to smoke before, yet he seemed to be so addicted.


    But she knew that it had nothing to do her anymore, so she soon skirted around him and headed for the bathroom.


    Darren, however, had already seen her and soon called, “ra?”


    She then halted and turned around resignedly, “Mr. Kirnd?”


    Darren hade in front of her, with the cigarette smell getting stronger. She instinctively wrinkled her nose.Belonging ? N?velDram/a.Org.


    She didn’t know why but she really disliked the cigarette smell of Darren,pared to Horace’s faint smell of cigar. She slightly frowned her eyebrows and said quietly, “What’s the matter, Mr. Kirnd?”