Back to Love: A New Beginning
Chapter 256

Chapter 256:.

“You… You cheated?” my jaw dropped in amazement.

Derek smiled and shrugged nonchalantly. “No one can guarantee victory when it comes to games of chance. I only took things that belonged to me. I don’t feel guilty.” I still couldn’t believe it.

I remembered how terrified I was as I sat next to him at the gaming table. My heart was in my throat the whole time.

“But I was sitting next to you, why didn’t I know anything? Besides, the bald guy looked like an experienced player – weren’t you afraid he’d replace out?”

Derek’s face darkened when I mentioned the bald guy.

“You were sitting closer to me, but even you didn’t know that. As for the bald guy-Keith Blakely-he’d won a lot of rounds, so he was overconfident. Losing the game wouldn’t have crossed his mind.” I understood that Derek had deliberately lost in the previous rounds so that the bald guy named Keith Blakely would underestimate Derek and relax his vigilance, then defeat him at the opportune moment.

Derek flicked his cigarette butt out the window and snorted coldly. “He wasn’t an honest person either, so there was nothing wrong with cheating him.”

He hadn’t asked him what was on the usb drive, but he could tell it was something important. Otherwise Derek wouldn’t have put his own company, the fruits of all his labor, on the line.

“I’m hungry.” He turned to give me a look. “Have you eaten yet?”

I bit my lower lip guiltily; I couldn’t look him in the face.

“No,” I replied, shaking my head.

“Then let’s have dinner before we go home,” he suggested.

I didn’t eat much when I had dinner earlier with Alvaro because I was worried about Derek. However, now that all the problems were solved, I noticed my stomach grumbling.

“Can you tell me before you go somewhere? If not, I’ll worry,” I grumbled as I rummaged aimlessly through the food on my plate.

Although Derek seemed relaxed when he talked about the bet, I knew I had risked everything in the process. If he wasn’t careful enough, he would have lost not only his money and his career, but also his glory and his pride.

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Derek paused for a few seconds. Then he put the rib on my plate and gave me a look.

“Sorry, I haven’t had time to fill you in. I thought you’d be more worried if I told you. I didn’t want to upset you in any way.”

“If you had lost everything, what would you have told me?”. I asked, staring into his eyes.

“Well, I don’t think it would have been hard to tell you.” He laughed. “I know for a fact that you would end up liking me more. You always feel a gap in our status and feel inferior, don’t you?”

It was true, but I certainly didn’t expect that the reason we were on equal footing was because he lost everything.

It was nine o’clock at night when we arrived home after dinner. He got out of the car and went to the trunk.

Then, he grabbed something out of the trunk and threw it on the ground, whatever it was seemed to move. I took a step back and screamed in fear.

However, when my racing heart calmed down, I realized it was a cat.

The cat looked like Ugly, and I instantly understood what he meant.

Derek bent down, picked up the cat and petted it. The cat purred and cowered in Derek’s arms; it was afraid of the strange surroundings. I looked at him and the cat. He cradled the cat as if it were a baby. It melted my heart to see him show such tenderness toward a small animal.

“Well, the cat is scared because he’s new to this place. He’s a little shy, but I’m sure you’ll soon get along with him.”

But I didn’t think I could get along with the cat very soon. It suddenly dawned on me that pets, like people, were irreplaceable. I couldn’t accept this new cat in place of my Ugly, but I was touched by Derek’s thoughtfulness because he still remembered that I missed my cat.

Derek walked into the house with the cat in his arms. After a moment’s thought, he stopped short and turned to look at me.

“By the way, she doesn’t have a name yet, can you think of anything good?”.

My thoughts instantly went to Ugly. At the time, I had named my cat Ugly not because he was ugly, but because the name sounded good to me. However, I couldn’t call this cat Ugly just because he looked like my old pet .

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