Chapter 8
988words
Francis Foster returned to the villa on the hillside only a week after Jessica Johnson had left.
During that period, he was overwhelmed with the enormous project that would be launched following his marriage alliance with the Stewart family. Countless meetings and endless social obligations had consumed almost all of his time.
In his view, Jessica was just throwing a little tantrum. If he gave her the cold shoulder for a few days, she would naturally return to his side like she had done countless times before.
So when he pushed open that familiar door in the early hours of the morning, dragging his exhausted body, he never anticipated what kind of deathly silence would greet him.
The house was unusually tidy, too clean to seem inhabited. The air lacked Jessica's usual faint fragrance, replaced instead by a cold, unfamiliar atmosphere.
He frowned, walked into the bedroom, and in the closet, all of her clothes, bags, and jewelry were neatly arranged, with not a single item missing.
He breathed a sigh of relief, mocking his own suspicion.
However, when he walked into the living room and saw the neat row of bank cards on the coffee table, along with that cold set of villa keys, an unprecedented panic, like a giant hand, suddenly seized his heart.
He rushed back to the bedroom like a madman, pulled open all the drawers, and searched every corner.
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Her passport, ID card, all those things that proved her existence which he had never paid attention to, had completely disappeared.
For the first time, he realized that this woman who had lived by his side for five years—apart from her name—was someone he knew nothing about.
She had no friends, no family, and all her social interactions revolved around him. He thought he had control over her entire world, but in reality, she had completely closed off her true world from him.
He mobilized all his connections to check her immigration records, to investigate all transportation information, to look up her ID number that he had never memorized.
The result he got was a complete blank.
She was like a drop of water, merging into the sea of humanity, evaporating without a trace.
"Mr. Foster, you want to cancel the engagement with the Stewart family?!" On the other end of the phone, the assistant's voice was filled with disbelief. "Have you lost your mind? All the cooperation agreements have been signed, the press releases have been sent out. If we cancel now, our company will..."
"I told you to do it, so do it." Francis Foster's voice was hoarse and cold, leaving no room for negotiation.
He hung up the phone and threw himself heavily onto the sofa.
Without Jessica, this business marriage had become completely meaningless to him.
The days that followed were the darkest period since the founding of the Foster Group.
The Stewart family was enraged and announced a complete divestment, using all their resources to launch a frenzied revenge against the Foster Group. Stock prices plummeted, projects stalled, shareholders rebelled, and troubles mounted from both within and without... Foster Chentan threw himself entirely into this commercial war to save the company.
By day, he was that decisive and ruthless Foster Group CEO.
At night, he returned to that empty villa, being devoured inch by inch by endless regret and longing.
He began to suffer from insomnia, losing hair in clumps, visibly wasting away, becoming gloomy and silent.
Like a fierce beast trapped in a cage, he numbed himself with frantic work, yet during every quiet moment in the dead of night, he was tortured to the core by that bone-deep sense of emptiness.
His mother, Mrs. Foster, seeing her son reduced to such a state in just one year, was heartbroken.
One night, she pushed open the door to the study and saw Francis Foster drawing something on a sketchpad while drinking whiskey. As she drew closer to look, she saw countless sketches of a woman on the paper—the eyebrows, expressions, all belonging to the same person.
It was Jessica Johnson.
"Francis..." Mrs. Foster sighed, wanting to persuade him to let go.
Francis Foster looked up, his eyes once full of vigor now bloodshot, filled with endless pain and regret.
"Mom," his voice was as hoarse as if scraped by sandpaper, "I lost her."
"I lost her with my own hands."
……
The perspective returns to the present.
Shanghai, the CEO's office of Foster Group.
In front of the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, Francis Foster stood with his back to the light, his figure still tall and straight, yet permeated with an inescapable loneliness.
Over these two years, he had finally turned the tide and stabilized the Foster family's business empire, making it even stronger than before.
But only he knew that his world had already become ruins.
His private detective finally sent him yesterday the photo he had been searching for over the past two years.
In the photo, Jessica Johnson was standing under a gardenia tree with a gentle and refined man, smiling and talking. Her smile was genuinely relaxed and radiant—one he had never seen before.
That smile was like a poisoned dagger, piercing deep into his heart.
She was doing well.
Without him, she was doing well.
She even... was about to start a new life.
Jealousy, remorse, and a maddening desire to possess her surged like molten lava, churning and burning in his chest.
He picked up his phone, called his assistant, his voice unnaturally calm due to extreme suppression.
"Book me the earliest flight to South City."
He had waited for two years, and searched for two years.
Now, he was going to personally reclaim the girl he had lost.
