The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 167

Janie stood up and walked over to Nora.

Seeing the blood drained from Nora's face, a heavy ache seized her chest. She didn't know how to comfort her, so she simply reached out and gently squeezed Nora's ice-cold fingers.

"Nora..."

Janie's voice trembled with unshed tears.

Snapped back to reality, Nora took a deep breath, forcing down the suffocating wave of emotions.

She turned her head, looking at Janie's bruised, disfigured face.

The South African rough diamonds were cut off, the manufacturers had halted production, and the banks were calling in their loans. To avenge Giselle, Gideon had severed all of Lawrence Atelier's lifelines. And to protect her, Janie had suffered this senseless disaster.

She couldn't collapse now. She had to finish The Solaris Project and patch the studio's bleeding cash flow.

Reaching out, she gently patted Janie's shoulder, softening her voice to comfort her.

"Don't worry, I'm here. Leave the project to me, I'll figure it out. Go home and rest for a few days until you heal."

She exhausted every ounce of her strength to soothe Janie, ensuring the girl felt safe enough to go home.

Dusk fell, and the city's neon lights flickered to life one by one.

Nora sat at the desk in the second-floor guest room of the villa. The desk lamp cast a stark, cold light over the mountain of liquidation documents and breach-of-contract notices.

Staring at the dense rows of numbers and text, her eyes burned with dry exhaustion.

During the day, she had forced a brave face for Janie, giving her a promise to handle it.

But now, in the dead of night, left alone with these merciless documents, she finally felt the suffocating despair of having nowhere left to run.

She had to raise the money. She had to find alternative manufacturers.

Pulling out her phone, Nora scrolled through her contacts, desperately searching for a single ray of hope in this dead end.

Hundreds of names blurred past, yet there wasn't a single number she could call.

Beg Gideon to rescind his order?

The thought was violently crushed the second it surfaced.

She would rather die than beg that man again.

If he could stand by and watch Janie get slapped a hundred times for Giselle's sake, if he could let the people who humiliated her off the hook, then even if she got on her knees, she wouldn't earn a shred of his mercy.