Chapter 286

After that, Henry Smith's workload ramped up like crazy—it was even worse than when the Smith Group faced its biggest crisis. Some days, he wouldn’t come home at all. Ethan Smith kept asking me what on earth he was so busy with, but I honestly had no clue. I could only make up something vague and carry on with my job like usual. This was the longest cold war we’d ever had. Once all those bottled-up words spilled out, neither of us knew what to do next. Xander Lewis didn’t defend Henry this time, nor did he try to smooth things over. Instead, he started checking in on me a lot. That was the first time I seriously thought—maybe he really did have feelings for me. Not that I wanted to lean on him just because Henry let me down. But Xander always kept it classy—gentle when needed, never overstepping, making it hard to push him away. Every time I felt like this couldn’t go on, he’d pull back just a bit, keep things calm, leaving me with nothing to complain about. Then came the bombshell. It