In the study.
Nowadays, Juliana doesn’t like him putting himself on her lap at all.
The care without shared memories feels like a stranger to her.
Juliana attempted several times to get off Elias’s lap, but the man held her tightly, making her unable to move.
"Divorce? To go back to the old flame?"
Elias’s breathing was heavy, his chest heaving.
Juliana raised an eyebrow, "Wrong, it’s for a wider sky."
Elias held her hand even tighter.
"I never thought about divorcing you."
Juliana laughed upon hearing this, a hint of moisture at the corner of her eyes.
"Evan didn’t think about divorcing me either. How are you any different from him right now?"
Elias fell silent at her words.
"Do you always have to sacrifice me every time it’s necessary? What am I in your eyes? Who allowed Iris to be intimate with you in front of me? If I still love you, I’m sorry for myself."
After saying this, Juliana once again tried to get up from him.
But in the next second, Elias grabbed her by the nape and kissed her forcefully.
It was a kiss filled with anger, possessiveness, and a hint of despair, aggressively invading her territory, never stopping, never restraining...
While he was absorbed in it, Juliana took the chance to bite his lip hard.
Elias loosened his grip in pain, tasting blood, he paused, then laughed softly.
"So spicy, yet so addictive." His voice was nearly a whisper, "I’ve never liked anyone else, never."
Juliana pressed her fingers against his chest, speaking deliberately: "Is that so? I don’t like Iris, get rid of her now."
"In a few days," he was fascinated by her and approached again, "In a few days, I’ll send her corpse away."
His kiss was about to fall again.
Juliana turned her head to avoid it, struggling and accidentally hitting the edge of the desk with her elbow, knocking over a tray on the table.
Several syringes with medication rolled out.
Elias paused, following her gaze, and explained, "These are the syringes I had Iris keep, I’ve gotten them back, but I haven’t decided whether to use them yet."
Juliana recognized them as the six doses that had been swapped by Raine.
Her eyes flickered slightly, her tone so indifferent that no emotion could be detected.
"You can use it, it’s good for your recovery."
Upon hearing this, Elias unhesitatingly picked up a syringe, loosened his sleeve, and efficiently injected the transparent liquid into his arm.
In fact, he didn’t care if he could regain his memory, doing this was just a direct way to show her: he trusted her, unreservedly.
However, Juliana simply and gently lowered his rolled-up sleeve.
"Elias," her voice was very soft, "Don’t say you’re not the person I knew. Even if he comes back now, time has passed... many things cannot be undone."
Elias’s hand holding the empty syringe turned slightly pale at the knuckles.
This time, Juliana easily stood up from his lap without much effort.
She left his study directly, without a trace of attachment.
Elias’s heart was enveloped in a dull, empty pain, even feeling the air around him becoming suffocating.
He took out his phone and found an encrypted recording.
After unlocking it with his fingerprint, the recording began playing automatically.
"I am Elias Langley, about to lose all memories, there’s not much time. Listen carefully..."
"First, trust no one but Juliana."
"Second, protect her... prioritize her... safety above all."
"Lastly... most importantly... preserve our marriage... no divorce before I return... or I’ll die before your eyes!"
The recording ended abruptly.
After waking up in the hospital, Zachary returned his phone to him, and this recording lay quietly in the phone until he found it in the encrypted section.
Despite having no memories related to Juliana, since his appearance, this woman’s image had deeply embedded in his heart, her every move could easily stir his emotions.
Must he truly reach a point of breaking to solve all the dangers around her?
The next morning in the dining hall, Juliana was having breakfast.
The dishes were very light, just to her taste.
Iris came over, no longer wearing the work clothes of a housemaid, dressed brightly and directly placing her hand on Elias’s shoulder.
"A friend invited me for shopping, I’ll be back in the afternoon."
Elias put down his chopsticks, "This early?"
Iris nodded, "We’ll go after breakfast."
"Do you want the driver to take you?" Elias asked.
Iris shook her head understandingly, "No, I’m an independent woman, I don’t need to cling to you all the time."
Suddenly, Juliana found it a bit difficult to eat and put down her chopsticks.
"Then go ahead," said Elias.
Iris left happily.
Juliana wiped her mouth, got up, took her bag, and headed out.
"Wait."
Elias’s voice came from behind, and Juliana stopped.
The man swayed slightly as he approached her, a playful smile on his lips.
"Darling..."
Juliana shivered at his words.
It was the first time he called her that...
The tone was so ambiguous, a bit unfamiliar.
Instinctively wanting to avoid, Elias took her hand, placing it in the palm of his hand.
"No matter what I do, how I act, please remember, I have never really let go of your hand, okay?"
For a moment, she thought the Elias she had known had come back.
But with his memory damaged, whether he could remember past events was unknown, not to mention his body was currently occupied by this persona, whether the familiar him could return, and when, was a dim uncertainty.
Juliana’s face showed a hint of sadness as she withdrew her hand from his.
"The man I married isn’t you, whatever you do is none of my business."
Finishing this, she walked around him, continuing to leave.
Elias gritted his teeth, the tenderness in his eyes vanished without a trace.
"What a pity, no matter who you married, your husband is named ’Elias Langley.’ Now, this body is mine, I won’t let him come back."
...
Juliana got in the car, Raine reported to her: "Yesterday, the person found in Nathan’s room was Luke."
It turned out the two had colluded.
Juliana’s eyelashes trembled slightly.
"Should we inform Mr. Langley?" Raine asked.
Juliana lowered her gaze, "Tell Caleb."
Caleb would inform him.
"Also..." Raine hesitated a bit, "Old Mr. Sinclair has been released. Dylan Paxton used some means to bail him out."
Getting a convicted person out of detention is never as simple as "some means."
"Old Mr. Paxton took a big risk with this move, what’s that old fox plotting?" Raine was puzzled.
Juliana looked out the window.
Dylan Paxton’s schemes are naturally to get the USB, to pressure Sebastian Sinclair.
A day passed without incident.
At noon, Raine told her, apparently, Iris left early to meet Nathan Carter.
The two spent the entire morning together, seemingly on good terms.
Nathan seemed not to blame Iris at all for Evan’s matters.
Juliana was noncommittal about this.
Stella Windsor was deep and scheming, did she need to warn someone if she wanted to hunt them?
In the afternoon, when Juliana returned to the courtyard from The Innovation Hub, Iris and Elias were chatting and laughing in the yard.
"Elias, I saw a ring while shopping today. Good style, good meaning, just a pity it’s a wedding ring, so I didn’t buy it. Do you think I’ll have a chance to buy it?"
This statement was obviously a deliberate taunt to Juliana.
She and Elias hadn’t had a formal wedding yet, so the matter of wedding rings hadn’t been raised until now; her ring finger was still bare.
Iris apparently got a "good face" from Elias for a couple of days, becoming complacent enough to make such blatant provocations.
But Juliana ignored them, walked straight through the courtyard, her back straight, disappearing behind the door of her room.
In the middle of the night, she was woken by a commotion.
Throwing on a robe, she opened the door to find out it was Iris, somehow crawling from the room to the doorway, letting out a cry before passing out.
Steward Fay called for an ambulance.
Elias had no intention of carrying her back into the house, just looking at her lying on the cold ground awaiting the ambulance, as if freezing to death would be a blessing.
Juliana stood in the shadow of the doorway, her cool eyes skimming a flash of light in the darkness.
Finally... things started to fall apart.