The Day I Stopped Waiting Was the Day He Started Begging novel Chapter 26

Madeline locked her phone screen and calmly stepped into the elevator to head down to the lobby.

Outside, a torrential downpour had started without warning. The heavy rain battered the glass awning, washing away every last trace of warmth and hesitation that had just flared up in her chest.

She realized York would never change.

Just as the rainy season was inevitably miserable, York would never be the one to hold an umbrella over her head.

Madeline had left the office in a rush and forgotten her umbrella.

She was wearing a blush-pink, off-the-shoulder top that highlighted her delicate collarbones. A sudden gust of damp, biting wind swept through the sliding glass doors, leaving a dusting of pink across her luminous skin.

Just as she braced herself to make a run for it through the storm, the heavy weight of a coat draped over her shoulders. A crisp, woody cologne instantly flooded her senses.

Madeline turned around and met a pair of eyes that were simultaneously familiar and entirely foreign.

Hunter narrowed his gaze behind his gold-rimmed glasses. It had been five years, yet time seemed to have barely touched him, only refining him with a mature, commanding edge.

He lightly brushed a few stray raindrops from her shoulders, his voice incredibly soft. "Aren't you freezing?"

Without waiting for an answer, he began buttoning the suit jacket he had draped over her.

The motion was so fluid and natural, as if he had performed the same action a thousand times before.

The gesture instantly dragged Madeline back to the chaotic days right after she had escaped the Monroe family's clutches. It had been during a dreary, rain-soaked spring just like this.

Her arm had been fractured, and she had been so terrified of strangers that anyone stepping close triggered uncontrollable tremors—anyone, that is, except Hunter.

After firing the third caregiver for incompetence, Hunter had resorted to feeding her and buttoning her coats himself. Even when working back-to-back shifts to keep his company afloat, he always rushed back in time for her meals.

But by the time her arm finally healed, the sheer exhaustion had caught up to Hunter, and he collapsed.

Madeline hadn't shed a single tear when she was locked in the basement, nor when the Monroes had laid hands on her.

But seeing Hunter unconscious in that hospital bed, she broke down crying for the very first time.

What she couldn't see was the figure standing just outside the glass doors.

The umbrella in York's hand slipped from his grip, crashing onto the wet pavement.

He stood frozen in the deluge, the relentless rain instantly extinguishing the cigarette he had just lit.

He looked entirely numb, letting the torrential storm batter him as icy water slid down his jaw, completely soaking through his dress shirt.

She quickly dropped her eyes to the pavement.

"Hunter... people change." Desperate to shift the focus, Madeline pressed on. "I only agreed to dinner tonight because the magazine wants to feature you on our next cover. I'm married now. I can't run around causing reckless trouble like I used to."

Her voice was slightly hoarse.

She was immensely grateful to him. She had once leaned on him for survival.

But that was strictly in the past.

Hunter looked at the woman he had practically raised out of the wreckage of her past and offered a gentle smile. "Alright. But we can talk about business after we've had a proper meal."

Across town.

By the time Caleb pulled his car up to the mountain racing circuit, York was just climbing out of a modified sports car after completing a blistering lap.

He was completely soaked to the bone.

Caleb was temporarily speechless. "Bro, did you take a shower in the damn car?"