Alexander flinched at the echoing thud of the car door. He watched Adrian stride toward the mall entrance, his back rigid with fury.
"Shit... I'm losing it," Alexander muttered, dragging a hand down his face. His reaction had been instantaneous, irrational, and completely driven by that sharp, sickening twist in his gut when Adrian's phone flashed with the name Ruiyan.
It wasn't professional anger; it was raw, blinding jealousy.
He had planned this trip to the mall to kill time, to observe Adrian, to perhaps regain some of the control the secretary had effortlessly stripped from him in his office. Instead, he'd simply exposed another weakness.
'What is wrong with me?' The question hammered at his skull. He had called Adrian "beneath average" and "clumsy," yet here he was, acting like a teenager over a phone call, consumed by the simple fact that Adrian had a life—and possibly a relationship—outside of their toxic dynamic.
