The Unintended Bond

Chapter 4: Where Is the Problem Truly?

Nathaniel Reed’s gaze swept over the faces gathered outside the door, his expression composed as he exchanged polite greetings. Finally, his eyes settled on Sophie Hawthorne.

“What brings all of you here?” he asked, his tone even.

Sophie Hawthorne paused, seemingly caught off guard by the question. Nathaniel’s eyes, however, had already noticed the box of headache medicine in her hands.

His voice softened as he offered her an apology. “Sorry, I must have been groggy from sleep.”

His demeanor prompted a flicker of uncertainty among those in the hallway.

“Were you all just here to rest?” he asked.

Sasha Monroe confirmed as much, but Lily Hart gestured toward Julia Dawson. “She came looking for someone. Said Rachel Morgan was in 321.”

Julia shot her a sharp look, but Lily remained oblivious.

“Mr. Reed,” she continued, “have you seen Rachel Morgan?”

All eyes turned to him as the question hung in the air. The corridor light flickered.

Nathaniel took in each expression, calm and unreadable. Then he shook his head. “I haven’t.”

His denial caused another shift in the group’s expressions. Julia Dawson readied herself to speak, intending to claim she’d simply misremembered Rachel’s room number.

But before she could open her mouth, Sasha Monroe commented casually, “Julia Dawson insisting Rachel Morgan was in your room—it’s rather odd, isn’t it?”

Julia’s hands clenched into fists, ready to lash back.

Owen Hayes chuckled. “Hard to say for sure.”

He meant it in jest, but everyone’s attention drifted toward Nathaniel Reed’s room—still cloaked in darkness.

Though the power had been restored, his room remained unlit, as though the darkness served to conceal something.

The expressions on Richard and Mrs. Hawthorne’s faces grew more serious. Stephen Wallace took a call.

Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe made no move to return to their own rooms.

They lingered outside Room 321, the tension hanging heavy—especially above Nathaniel Reed.

Julia Dawson, momentarily forgetting her anger, found herself inexplicably clenching her fists on his behalf.

Yet Nathaniel neither responded to the vague implications nor attempted to close the door and hide anything.

Instead, with the same unruffled calm, he called out to Sophie.

“Sophie, could you bring me the suit on the bed? It’s time to return to the banquet.”

The gesture lit a spark in Julia Dawson’s eyes.

The one most entitled to verify whether Rachel Morgan was in his room was none other than his fiancée, Sophie Hawthorne.

If Sophie Hawthorne found nothing amiss, then there was nothing to question.

With a quiet nod, Sophie stepped inside.

Nathaniel Reed’s gaze, however, sharpened the moment she crossed the threshold.

Sophie made her way to the bed and draped his suit over her arm.

Though the room was cloaked in darkness, the interior remained faintly discernible—no sign of anyone else. With the suit in hand, she turned to leave.

Just as she reached the wardrobe, she murmured to herself, “Where’s the tie?” and, without pause, opened the closet.

Nathaniel pressed his lips together.

Yet when the doors swung open, Sophie glanced inside, then calmly closed them again.

“It’s not in the wardrobe.”

“In the bathroom,” he replied.

She retrieved the tie from the washroom and exited Room 321, unruffled.

From beginning to end, nothing happened.

Nathaniel Reed cast one last look at the dim room before quietly closing the door behind him.

At last, the expressions in the hallway shifted.

Julia Dawson looked as though she’d won a hard-fought battle, tilting her chin with renewed pride as she glanced back at Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe.

The former scoffed. The latter avoided her eyes.

No one mentioned Rachel Morgan again.

As long as she wasn’t in Nathaniel Reed’s room, her whereabouts hardly mattered.

Richard Hawthorne rubbed his temples and turned to his wife. “Let’s get some rest.”

Stephen Wallace had just ended his call. The timing felt like a baton hand-off—one going to rest, the other heading downstairs with Owen Hayes, lost in quiet conversation.

Lily Hart and Sasha Monroe followed suit, saying nothing more as they briskly returned to their rooms.

The hallway fell silent, leaving only Julia Dawson, Nathaniel Reed, and Sophie Hawthorne behind.

Julia dared not speak of Rachel Morgan now.

Instead, she moved to the side and attempted a call. Rachel didn’t answer.

Julia frowned.

Nathaniel Reed turned to both women. “Let’s head back downstairs.”

The three of them reached the elevator. As the doors slid open, a sudden thought crossed Nathaniel’s mind.

“I think I left my watch in the room. You two go ahead,” he said, closing the doors for them.

As the elevator descended, Nathaniel turned and strode swiftly back to the room.

It remained cloaked in darkness. He made his way to the window.

The curtains swayed faintly, stirred by the wind from outside. From within their folds, Rachel Morgan emerged.

Shrouded in the long, flowing drapes, her frame appeared even more slender and delicate.

“I’m sorry you had to endure this…”

Her head was bowed, and she gave no reply.

The breeze caught the sheer white curtains behind her, sending them billowing with a rustling whisper. Her tousled short hair was lifted by the wind.

She raised a hand to tuck a stray lock behind her ear and finally spoke.

“May I leave now?”

“You may.”

She turned and walked away—

Never once looking back.

Downstairs, Julia Dawson was frantic, flushed with the effort of searching.

The moment she spotted her, she rushed over.

“You scared me half to death! Why didn’t you answer your phone?” Julia exclaimed, grabbing Rachel Morgan’s wrist.

Rachel flinched slightly.

From a distance, Nathaniel Reed followed, his gaze briefly falling on the faint red mark on her wrist.

Julia, oblivious, asked where she had gone. “Didn’t you say you were in 321?”

“I got it wrong,” Rachel replied. Her face was pale.

Julia let out a long sigh of relief, then asked how she was feeling.

“I’m not well,” Rachel murmured, her voice barely audible. “I’ll head home first.”

Julia noticed nothing unusual. “Why don’t you lie down in the room for a bit? Once everything wraps up, I’ll leave with you—I can drop you off.”

“There’s no need. It’s out of your way anyway. I’ll go now.”

Before the last word had fully settled, a low voice cut through the air.

“It’s too late to go alone. I’ll have Ethan Brooks drive you back.”

Julia glanced at him and nodded, finding it reasonable. “Rachel lives quite far.”

But Rachel turned slightly, her eyes deliberately avoiding his, landing instead on the wall behind him.

“That won’t be necessary.”

Nathaniel paused. “It’s too late, and the rain’s getting heavier. It’s not safe for you to go alone.”

From the grand banquet hall floated a few notes of lively, soaring music.

Rachel Morgan finally lifted her gaze to Nathaniel Reed.

“There’s no need to trouble Mr. Brooks—I’ll take the subway home,” she said.

No mode of transport was safer or more efficient than the subway.

Her voice was quiet, tinged with cool detachment. Her eyes slipped past him as she turned to bid Julia Dawson farewell. Then she walked away without once looking back.

—

Everything inside the banquet hall was proceeding precisely as Nathaniel Reed had planned.

No chaos. No surprises. Not even the faintest ripple.

Had Rachel Morgan not walked away, he might have convinced himself that everything that had transpired between them had been no more than a fleeting dream.

But it hadn’t been.

So where, exactly, had things gone wrong?

Nathaniel’s eyes swept over every guest in the hall.

The faces blurred into the memory of those who had gathered outside his room not long ago.

A faint heaviness settled in his chest.

The evening soon reached its close.

The founding partners of Hawthorne Legal Group emerged to offer a few closing words of gratitude and good wishes. The banquet concluded in an atmosphere of gentle harmony and muted joy.

By the time the last guests were seen off, it was already ten o’clock.

And the thought of that earlier incident returned to him.

Seeing his fiancée again only made his emotions more entangled.

He approached and gently took Sophie Hawthorne’s hand.

“Come home with me tonight,” he said softly. “There’s something I need to say.”

“No, Nathaniel,” Sophie shook her head. “Uncle’s had too much to drink, and Aunt can’t manage him alone. I need to take care of him tonight.”

Her uncle, Richard Hawthorne, had been a mentor to Nathaniel Reed—almost like a second father.

He could only nod. “Alright then. Take care of him first. I’ll come see you tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

Outside, the rain showed no signs of letting up.

The neon lights of Silverridge still shimmered through the downpour.

Across two streets, the spotlights on the tall building continued to sweep the night sky, casting beams over darkened windows—

Until precisely ten o’clock,

When they suddenly, all at once, went dark.

Rachel Morgan stepped off the subway at a station in the suburbs. Tilting her umbrella against the wind, she made her way toward the bus stop—three more transfers stood between her and home.

The flimsy, transparent umbrella in her hand was no match for the intensifying storm. Rain lashed against her legs, soaking the hem of her dress. She took shelter beneath the overhang of a nearby storefront, waiting.

Then she noticed the towering red character for pharmacy glowing above her. Something occurred to her.

The shop was closing. An elderly woman was tidying up behind the counter. Rachel Morgan hurried inside.

“One box of emergency contraceptives, please.”

The woman frowned when she saw it was a young girl. Muttering under her breath, she retrieved a box containing two pills and passed it to Rachel.

“Will this one work?”

Rachel gave a small nod.

While Rachel paid, the woman gave her a sharp once-over, unable to restrain herself any longer.

“What’s wrong with young girls these days, huh? Don’t you know this kind of medicine hurts your body? Your parents didn’t raise you so you could hurt yourself—or let others hurt you! Don’t buy this again!”

She took the money with a final glare, making it clear she didn’t want to see Rachel again.

Rachel walked out, feeling thoroughly humiliated.

Her bus wouldn’t arrive for another five or six minutes. She wandered over to a nearby vending machine to buy some water and take the pills.

A group of college students had gotten there before her—boys and girls alike, chatting casually about which drinks were sweet and which were too bitter to swallow.

Rachel waited quietly at the end of the line.

And just like that, she thought of Nathaniel Reed.

Back in college, Rachel Morgan and Nathaniel Reed had been classmates at Harvard Law School.

The top two students in their program, often spoken of in the same breath—though Rachel had never been particularly close to him.

She only knew that he was gifted. And well-known. Of course, Harvard, being the most elite school in the country, had no shortage of brilliant students. But since freshman year, he had won award after award in every competition, aced every exam, never once faltering.

He also played an impressive game of basketball.

A tall boy drenched in sweat on the court—what girl could resist that?

By junior year, Nathaniel Reed’s name was known across the department, perhaps even half the university.

Countless girls had secretly fallen for him. But he never dated. Not only did he avoid relationships, he turned down every single confession without hesitation.

Back then, Rachel Morgan had only known of him through the hushed whispers of girls around her.

But during the winter break of their junior year, the legal aid society she had long been a part of—backed by the university—hosted a joint legal aid competition among four prestigious schools.

As one of the society’s core members, Rachel was naturally nominated to participate. The competition required team registration, and alongside the four key members of their society, the president somehow managed to recruit an external teammate—Nathaniel Reed.

Over the course of that winter, they devoted themselves entirely to their legal aid case, barely returning home. In the end, their team took home the competition’s top prize.

It was then that Rachel Morgan finally came to know Nathaniel Reed—not the version that lived in rumors and admiration, but the one she had come to understand through her own eyes.

Shortly after their victory, it was Nathaniel’s birthday. The president of the society proposed they throw him a celebration. Rachel Morgan took out the two hundred yuan she had painstakingly saved and bought a luxury fountain pen.

The pen had a deep navy barrel and a gleaming golden cap. When uncapped, the nib bore the initials of the brand—NR.

She carefully tucked the pen away, hiding it in the farthest corner of her drawer.

But one day, while her best friend Erin Blake came rummaging through her things to borrow something, she somehow unearthed the JH fountain pen.

Erin Blake had grown up with her, their families living side by side. If anyone knew Rachel Morgan’s circumstances, it was Erin.

Rachel came from a modest town. Her mother co-ran a small family-owned restaurant, while her father worked far from home. After he tragically passed in an accident, Rachel and her mother struggled through years of hardship—until Rachel made them proud by earning admission to Harvard.

Given her background, a fountain pen that expensive was far beyond her means. And Rachel was not the kind of girl who would accept such a costly gift from anyone, either.

With the sharp eye of a future medical student, Erin pounced. “Spill it. Who’s it for? NR? Let me guess—it’s for that Nathaniel Reed, isn’t it?”

Rachel snatched the pen from her hands, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Oh my god!” Erin stared at her in disbelief. “Why do you always fall for the most impossible guys? Are you just trying to challenge yourself?”

Rachel shoved the pen back into the drawer. “It’s just a birthday gift.”

Erin promptly fished it out again.

“I’ve never even heard of this brand. You really went all out just to find one whose initials matched his name…”

Rachel Morgan frowned, though a flush crept up her ears.

Erin Blake gave her a once-over, her expression one of exasperated affection.

“If you like him, just admit it. After all this effort, the least he can do is say no to your face. Otherwise, you’ll have loved him in silence, and he’ll never even know. Isn’t that the real loss?”

As she spoke, a sudden shout echoed up from the basketball court below the dormitory.

“Nathaniel Reed, heads up!”

Erin Blake laughed, and Rachel’s ears turned scarlet.

Her skin was pale to begin with—when she blushed, it seemed as though her ears were lit from within.

Erin tucked the fountain pen back into Rachel’s palm.

“I’ve got med school classes to catch. No better time than now—go confess on the basketball court!” With that, she slung on her backpack and strode out.

The dorm room was quiet once more, leaving only Rachel Morgan behind.

From the court below, the rhythmic thud of a basketball reached her ears.

Someone shouted, “Nathaniel Reed, pass it here!”

But the boy with the ball hadn’t yet found an opening.

He kept dribbling, each bounce reverberating like a beat against Rachel Morgan’s chest.

Her heart suddenly quickened—loud and erratic.

And in that moment, Erin Blake’s seemingly absurd words didn’t sound quite so absurd after all.