Honey You Are My Lucky Star (Callen and Chelsea)

Chapter 23

"Chelsea."

Callen walks towards me, his eyes fix on me. He stops two steps away from me and stars at the man beside me.

He and Maisy are the last ones I want to see right now.

I ignore him and want to walk past him, but he grabs my arm. He grabs me so hard that I feel my arm turn red.

"Let go!" I shake his hand off in disgust.

He lets go of me, but the way he looks at me has changed. I guess he didn't expect me to be so resistant.

It's kind of hilarious. Does he still think I listen to him like I used to?

"I'm gonna go." My creditor's ready to leave.

Callen stops him and frowns at me. "Who is he?"

"Why should I tell you?" I ask.

The man isn't happy about being stopped. "She owes me this one million. Go ask her if you have questions. I'm leaving!"

Callen still doesn't let him go.

"One million? Where'd you get so much money?" He looks at me in disbelief.

If he'd have helped me when I went to him, or if we'd met earlier, maybe things wouldn't have gotten this far. It's too late now.

Maybe there's no real connection between us. He didn't care about me when I was his girlfriend or even his wife. At that time, I thought he would mature only after we had a child.

Fortunately, after the divorce, I no longer need his care.

A few days ago, I was outside his house, crying out for his help. I waited for him for a long time, but he just avoided me. Not only that, he allowed Maisy to hurt me.

So who is he to care about me now?

I look up at him with a poker face. "Again. It's my business."

"I'm concerned about you!" Callen defends himself.

"Then I refuse your concern."

He looks at me in silence. The man he's holding screams to call the police. In the old days, Callen would have let him go because he didn't want any trouble.

But now he's just holding on to that man.

It doesn't move me, but makes me feel weird. "What do you want?"

"I want to know how you got the money." Callen says in a low voice.

Oh, ridiculous. For a second there, I thought he felt guilty for not helping me.

Turns out he's just trying to make a big deal out of it and humiliate me.

I look at him, trying to keep my voice as calm as possible. "Now that you're at the top of a company, why do you still think the worst of people?"

"I said I was concerned about you."

What a joke! A man who wanted nothing to do with me when we got divorced is now concerned about me?

I look him straight in the eye and can no longer conceal my disgust for him. "That's a lot of money, right? I didn't rob or steal. So how do you think I got it?"

I've been through so much already. Loss has turned my heart into a stone.

That's why I can be so calm when I should be angry. I didn't lose it, nor did I cry. I said my story so lightly as if I were telling someone else's story.

Callen clenches his fists tightly. He wants to say something but stops on second thought.

I don't care what he wants to say, because he shouldn't have showed up, let alone talked to me.

There's a long standoff. Seeing him no longer speak, I sneered past him. I don't care about the man he's still holding, because I've paid off my debt.

But after I took a few steps, Callen grabs me again from behind.

"I know you well. One billion is just astronomical to you. I just don't want you to have a hard time," he says in a softer voice.

My nose twitches and I almost burst into tears.

If it wasn't for him, how could I be here? Does Maisy's toughness make him miss my tenderness? Men are always like that. They only love what they don't have. But I don't love him anymore.

I feel so much better now that I've figured it out. "Let me go. Maisy's waiting for you at home, with your child."

I'm different from Maisy. I would never break up a family.

Maybe every man has had two such women-at least two. Marry a red rose and eventually, she'll be a mosquito-blood streak smeared on the wall, while the white one is "moonlight in front of my bed." Marry a white rose, and before long she'll be a grain of sticky rice that's gotten stuck to your clothes; the red one, by then, is a scarlet beauty mark just over your heart.

There's nothing Callen can do now to make up for what he did to me.

"We don't have a child. Her second ultrasound revealed it was a daughter. Mom forced her to have an abortion. She hasn't been pregnant since." Callen's talking to me, but it's more like talking to himself.

Whether he's telling the truth or not, I feel better.

Just as I'm lost in thought, he asks uncertainly, "Can we start fresh?"

Facing him, my mind goes blank.

"I realized I still love you. I see you every day when I come home from work."

"What does this have to do with her?" A male voice suddenly comes from behind me.

I turn around and see Harrison standing behind me. "Why are you here?"

"Can't I?" Harrison places his hand on my waist and looks at Callen. "Mr. Gibbs, shouldn't you be at work now?"

For some reason, the moment I saw Harrison, I felt like I was being caught. That's why I didn't break free when he put his arm around me.

Callen frowns and retorts in a weak voice, "Stay out of this!" Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

"What if I say no?"

Harrison puts me into his arms. Next thing I know, his cold lips are covering mine.