The Unintended Bond

Chapter 3: The Accident

Rachel Morgan drifted into a sliver of consciousness, her entire body aching as though it had been crushed beneath a relentless weight. Yet that faint flicker of awareness felt like a stone tethered to the depths of a dark sea—no matter how she struggled, it refused to rise to the surface.

A mounting unease twisted within her, her discomfort thickening with each passing second. She fought desperately against the boulder pressing down on her mind, willing herself to awaken, to break free.

But clarity eluded her.

It wasn’t until she felt herself being gathered gently into someone’s arms—cradled, almost—that the pain began to dull. Her awareness sharpened slowly, as if reluctantly returning from the brink. With great effort, she tried to move her body, which was stiff and sore, like it had been locked in place.

She wasn’t sure if she truly moved, or merely imagined it. But then, strong masculine arms slipped around her waist, a hand reached for hers, fingers lacing with her own.

A thumb brushed the back of her hand—once, twice—in a gesture so tender it could only be meant to comfort.

Yet Rachel Morgan felt every hair on her body stand on end.

This touch was foreign. Wrong.

Her unease sharpened into panic. She struggled harder, willing herself to shatter the surface of the unconscious fog and breathe again.

Then a voice—low, muffled—sounded close to her ear.

“Sophie? What’s wrong?”

The name exploded in her mind like thunder cracking over still water.

Rachel Morgan’s eyes flew open.

Whether the power had returned or not, the room seemed just a little brighter—enough light filtering through the window to make out the contours of the man beside her.

A cold sweat broke across her forehead.

“Nathaniel Reed…”

In the very next moment, she wrenched her hand from his.

The sleeping man stirred and slowly blinked into wakefulness.

He stared at her, stunned, breath held.

“…Rachel Morgan?!”

His voice was hoarse—not from drink or overuse, but as if his very body radiated heat.

Even he appeared taken aback.

Outside, the beam of a searchlight swept across the tall buildings, casting its stark arc through the rain-smeared glass.

The light fell across the floor—on scattered clothing. It slid over the edge of the bed—on crumpled sheets. And the instant it touched the headboard, Rachel Morgan yanked the covers up to shield herself.

The room was saturated with a sharp, sterile scent—like disinfectant—stinging her nostrils.

A dull, unmistakable ache throbbed in her lower body, accompanied by a rising tide of unspeakable unease.

“Give me my clothes first,” she said, her voice taut, trembling only at the edges.

Nathaniel Reed froze for a beat, the scene before him sending a cold shiver down his spine.

The searchlight moved on. Shadows reclaimed the chaotic room.

He quickly gathered the strewn garments from the floor and bed, sorting through them to find hers, and handed them to her without a word.

A heavy silence thickened in the dim room, growing like mold in damp air. Both of them, as if by silent agreement, dressed with swift urgency.

Rachel Morgan braced against the searing pain in her body and forced herself into her wrinkled dress. Rising from the bed that now felt like a net woven of guilt, she tried to step away. But as her feet touched the floor, her legs buckled.

Instinctively, the man reached out to steady her.

She recoiled at once, retreating a step to lean against the wall, steadying herself.

In the gloom, her eyes shone with fierce clarity, and the wariness in them was sharp and unmistakable.

Nathaniel Reed hesitated, then silently withdrew his hand.

The searchlight circled back, sweeping once more through the window.

It lit the wall beside the bed—then illuminated Rachel Morgan, standing rigidly against it.

She was thin. The deep blue of her dress swallowed the light, throwing into stark relief her pale, bloodless face and colorless lips.

But what drew the eye was the vivid red mark—raw, newly formed—on the slender curve of her neck.

Only moments ago, Nathaniel Reed had clung to a vague disbelief, a stubborn hope that none of this could be real. But the sight of that kiss mark shattered every last trace of denial.

She stood trembling, unsteady, her fragile frame visibly shaking. Her lips had lost all color. The crimson imprint on her throat burned like a brand.

Bitterness filled his mouth. When he finally spoke, the words were thick and hoarse, his voice rougher, heavier than before.

“Rachel Morgan… I’m sorry… I don’t know how this happened.”

Back in the banquet hall, music changed to a slower, softer tune.

Julia Dawson, breathless and flushed from dancing, declined the next invitation and set off to find Rachel Morgan.

“Did she catch the flu too?” she murmured, asking a server for directions.

As she made her way toward the guest wing, she caught sight of Sophie Hawthorne and Richard Hawthorne hurrying there from the opposite end.

Julia Dawson, being of the younger generation, immediately stepped forward to greet them.

Mr. Hawthorne, slightly inebriated, mentioned he was heading to the guest rooms to rest for a while.

Richard Hawthorne and his wife, old friends of Julia Dawson’s father, inquired about how he was doing.

“He hasn’t been involved with the firm for a while now,” Julia replied. “His health hasn’t been great—he’s mostly at home these days.”

Richard Hawthorne sighed with a touch of nostalgia. “Your father used to be the healthiest among our peers. Never thought he’d be the first to retire. I wonder when my turn will come.”

Julia smiled. “Uncle, you’re in much better shape than my dad. I don’t see you retiring for another twenty years.”

He pointed at her, amused. “You cheeky girl, trying to sentence me to two more decades of work.”

His wife, Eleanor Hawthorne, laughed softly beside him, while Sophie Hawthorne rose from her seat to greet two women approaching from the distance.

One of them was Lily Hart, Sophie’s old high school friend; the other, Lily’s cousin, Sasha Monroe.

Unfortunately, Julia Dawson and Sasha Monroe had always had a somewhat tense relationship.

It seemed the two women had accidentally spilled wine on their clothes and were heading to their room to change. They greeted the Hawthornes politely.

After a brief exchange, a staff member led them toward their reserved room. With the power finally restored, they took the elevator directly to the third floor.

Room 321.

No one had yet turned on the lights. The dim interior, cold as a walk-in freezer, seemed to strip the chaos from their minds, leaving only clarity and unease.

Both were now dressed, though Rachel Morgan’s dress bore a damaged zipper along the side. It jammed halfway up, leaving the back imperfectly closed.

Bathed in the faint spill of light from the corridor outside, she tilted sideways, struggling to fix it with trembling fingers.

What had just happened felt like a blackout to Rachel Morgan. But for Nathaniel Reed, fragments of memory clung with disturbing persistence.

His eyes lingered on the broken zipper. Wordlessly, he began to unbutton his shirt, intending to offer it to her—but his hand froze at the collar.

“You… maybe borrow something from the staff in a bit?”

Rachel Morgan gave up on the zipper at last. She lowered her head in silence for a moment, then pulled a binder clip from her bag and used it to fasten the side of her dress temporarily.

Silence fell over the room once more.

The incomprehensible had already become irrevocable.

How had they ended up in the same room? How could both of them, inexplicably, experience such strange physical symptoms? And how had it come to… that?

Every detail was laced with a maddening intrigue.

The air in the room was thick with the damp, oppressive humidity of Silverridge’s rainy season—yet beneath the moisture lingered a subtle, peculiar scent, one both unfamiliar and oddly complex.

Suddenly, Rachel Morgan looked up at Nathaniel Reed.

Her voice was low, almost hoarse.

“Can you explain any of this now?”

Nathaniel Reed hesitated, then slowly shook his head.

Rachel’s gaze settled on his half-lowered eyes and the bitter tension tugging at the corners of his mouth—something too heavy to be smoothed away.

To both of them, this was a calamity that had descended without warning.

She said nothing more. Her lips pressed into a thin, resolute line, and after a single second’s pause, she turned, picked up her bag, and moved to leave.

The spotlight outside swept back through the room, casting the tall silhouette of the man onto the white wall behind her.

“Rachel Morgan,” he called out. “I’ll give you an explanation. Eventually.”

She halted for two seconds.

No reply.

Enduring the ache radiating through her body, she walked out.

The beam of light shifted across the room, then disappeared.

But just then, footsteps echoed from outside the door. In the darkness, the two exchanged a quick glance.

A soft chime sounded—the elevator doors opened on the third floor.

Julia Dawson stepped out first.

“Where’s Room 321? I’m going to find Rachel Morgan,” she said, glancing at the room number in Rachel’s message on her phone.

A staff member pointed her in the right direction. Coincidentally, a housekeeping lady was cleaning just outside Room 321.

But Sophie Hawthorne frowned. “Room 321? That’s Nathaniel’s room.”

The words stunned Julia Dawson.

“Attorney Reed is staying in 321? That can’t be right. Rachel messaged me just now and said she’s in 321. Sophie, you must be mistaken.”

After she finished speaking, an odd hush settled around the elevator.

Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe exchanged a quick, meaningful glance.

Richard Hawthorne’s expression remained unchanged, but his wife turned to Sophie Hawthorne and gently called her name.

“Perhaps you should double-check? We wouldn’t want to disturb someone’s rest unnecessarily.”

Sophie Hawthorne promptly asked the staff to contact the front desk for verification.

The receptionist’s voice crackled through the intercom.

“Room 321 was assigned to Mr. Reed.”

Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe both cast curious looks, but with the Hawthornes present, they refrained from voicing their suspicions aloud.

The rooms assigned to the rest of the party were all in the same direction as 321, so they continued down the hall together.

Only Julia Dawson lingered behind, visibly awkward. She requested the staff to check again—for Rachel Morgan this time.

The front desk responded once more, this time via telephone.

“We’re sorry, but we have no record of a Ms. Rachel Morgan checking into any room. There’s no reservation under her name in our guest registry.”

“What?” Julia Dawson was visibly startled.

The group ahead paused mid-step.

The look in Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe’s eyes grew even more overt—openly suspicious now.

Lily nudged Sophie Hawthorne, murmuring under her breath, “Sophie, you’d better go take a look.”

A faint crease formed between Sophie’s brows.

At that moment, a door suddenly opened—not Room 321, but the adjacent 323.

It wasn’t Nathaniel Reed who emerged, but Owen Hayes.

Another man followed behind him, moving at a leisurely pace. He wore thick glasses and appeared to be around the same age as Attorney Hawthorne.

Unaware of the others approaching, the man clapped Owen Hayes on the shoulder.

“You really ought to visit more often.”

Owen responded at once, a hint of sheepishness in his tone.

“I know, I’ve been too caught up in work. From now on, I’ll come see you in Silverridge every month.”

As the words fell, both men finally noticed the gathering by the elevator.

It was Mrs. Hawthorne who spoke first, addressing the older gentleman from Room 323.

“Stephen, are you feeling any better?”

The man was none other than Stephen Wallace, the other founding partner of Hawthorne Legal Group.

Older than Richard Hawthorne by a few years, Stephen Wallace had largely withdrawn from the firm’s affairs in recent years due to declining health.

Even tonight, he had spoken only briefly at the banquet before retiring early to rest.

As people began to gather in the corridor, polite pleasantries were exchanged, but the atmosphere grew faintly stifling.

A server went down the line, unlocking the doors for each guest.

Yet no one entered immediately. Instead, conversation lingered in the hallway.

Julia Dawson offered her greetings to Mr. Wallace, who in turn inquired after her father with courteous familiarity.

Just then, someone murmured,

“Do you think all this chatter might disturb Mr. Reed’s rest?”

That single comment brought the gathering’s attention back to Room 321—where Nathaniel Reed was supposedly resting.

They were now standing just outside his door.

Yet the door remained firmly shut, with no sign of activity within.

Julia Dawson, momentarily distracted from the matter of Rachel Morgan, was startled once more by a soft voice from somewhere in the group.

“Isn’t that attorney Rachel Morgan… also in Mr. Reed’s room?”

Though spoken in a whisper, the words dropped like a stone in a still pond, and silence immediately swept through the corridor.

Inside the room.

The spotlight once again cast its glow, pinning the silhouettes of Rachel Morgan and Nathaniel Reed against the stark, white wall.

From beyond the door, someone outside called her name.

The pressure within the room seemed to thicken with each passing second.

Outside.

Julia Dawson felt her eyelid twitch involuntarily, an ominous sense creeping in.

Beside her, Sasha Monroe gave her a glance that was equal parts amusement and intrigue, while Lily Hart failed to conceal the wry smile tugging at her lips.

Sophie Hawthorne stepped up to Room 321, offering a gentle explanation to those present.

“Nathaniel’s not feeling well,” she said, even as she rapped lightly on the door.

“Nathaniel?”

She knocked three times in succession—still, no response.

Lily Hart let out a low, amused “Oh?”

Sasha Monroe’s glance at Julia Dawson grew all the more mocking.

Lily added casually, “Mr. Reed and Ms. Morgan probably haven’t seen each other since college. They must be deep in conversation.”

Julia Dawson’s brows shot up in fury—if she could, she would have sewn Lily’s mouth shut.

The atmosphere grew ever more strained.

Eleanor Hawthorne furrowed her brow. Even Richard Hawthorne cast a silent glance toward the door of Room 321, though he said nothing.

A trace of unease flickered across Sophie Hawthorne’s face as she knocked again.

Still, no answer.

It was Stephen Wallace who finally spoke, attempting to ease the tension. “Perhaps Nathaniel didn’t hear us. Let him rest.”

Owen Hayes nodded in quiet agreement, trying to smooth things over.

Yet the situation remained precarious. The door to Nathaniel Reed’s room stayed closed, and as fate would have it, Rachel Morgan was supposedly staying there as well.

If left unclarified, the incident could very well tarnish both their reputations.

And with the entire Hawthorne family present, it was simply unseemly.

Julia Dawson reached for her phone, intent on calling Rachel Morgan.

But before she could dial, Richard Hawthorne spoke, his voice low and commanding.

“Open Room 321,” he instructed the server.

In an instant, all eyes in the corridor turned to the door.

Julia Dawson felt her heart skip a beat.

And just then—click—the lock on Room 321 turned from the inside, and the door swung open.

Nathaniel Reed stepped out from the dimness within.