New beginning: Billionaire love story (Claire and Alex) novel Chapter 359

The past few days had been a whirlwind of chaos and frustration for Claire. Honestly, she was on the verge of losing her mind. First, there was the drama with Claudia—twice, no less. Then there was Lisa, followed by Alexander’s nonsense.

Every single thing seemed to pile up, each issue more maddening than the last. Her head throbbed from the stress. Claire was sure that if one more problem came her way, she’d explode like a pressure cooker.

But there was one bright spot in all of it: Adrian. Dating him was probably the only thing keeping her from losing it entirely. No matter how insane everything else got, at least that part of her life was going right. That small piece of happiness made everything a little more bearable.

At the moment, Claire was at Cryptonic, her little safe haven away from the madness of Metacortex. She’d had enough of being buried in work and dealing with people for a while. All she wanted was a moment of peace.

To clear her head, she decided to dive into one of her favorite pastimes—surfing the web and indulging in a bit of harmless hacking. Today, she was in the mood to create a little challenge, so she whipped up a complex firewall quiz and posted it online to see who would manage to break through it.

As she coded and set up the challenge, Claire felt an odd sense of calm wash over her. It had been a long time since she’d done something purely for fun like this. She was always so wrapped up in work, in meetings, in drama, that she rarely made time for her hobbies.

But now? Now she was in her element. With a final keystroke, she leaned back in her chair, feeling the familiar thrill of having completed something just for herself.

She pulled up the dashboard and started monitoring how many people were already trying to crack her firewall. Comments flooded in almost immediately, and one in particular made her grin: "The Raven is back!" Ah, her old alias still had some weight in the hacker community. Everyone seemed excited to crack the code, eager to prove themselves worthy of the challenge she’d set up.

As she basked in this moment of peace, her phone rang. It was Matthew.

“Hey, Claire,” he greeted, amusement lacing his voice. “Why the heck did you post a quiz?”

Claire chuckled. “I was bored,” she admitted with a smirk. “And honestly? It’s the only thing making me feel at ease right now.”

Matthew laughed on the other end. “Of course you’d come up with something ridiculously complicated as your idea of fun.”

Claire leaned back in her chair, spinning slowly as she spoke. “What can I say? I’ve got a weird way of relaxing.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Matthew sounded more amused than surprised. “Anyway, how’s the day off treating you? Enjoying some peace and quiet away from the circus?”

Claire laughed softly. “Oh, it’s glorious. Speaking of which, how’s work? You’re surviving, I take it?”

Matthew groaned dramatically, making Claire grin. “It’s so boring. Paperwork, meetings, more paperwork. I don’t know how you do this every day.”

Claire laughed, not the least bit surprised. “Hang in there. It’s not fun, but it keeps the lights on.”

“Ugh,” Matthew sighed, obviously unimpressed. “Why did you make me fill in for you again? What did I ever do to deserve this?”

Claire smiled. “Because you’re the only one I trust with this stuff. If there’s anyone I can count on, it’s you.”

Matthew felt a warmth spread through him at her words, though he tried not to show it. “Oh, so you trust me, huh?” He leaned back, propping his feet up on Claire’s desk as if she were there to scold him. “Or is it because you just didn’t want me tagging along on your day off?”

Claire let out a laugh. “Okay, maybe it’s a little of both.”

The two of them laughed together, a welcome break from the intensity of the last few days. But then something on Claire’s screen caught her attention, and her laughter quickly faded into a frown.

“What the…?” she muttered, leaning in closer to her computer.