The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 296

Liam York's voice came through the line. "Lawrence Atelier took on a batch of custom orders, and Mrs. Hayes went over personally to verify the cutting techniques."

The Suburban Gemstone Refinery.

The place was loud, filled with heavy machinery and a chaotic mix of personnel.

Gideon Hayes glanced at the time on his wristwatch.

"Get the car ready. We're going to the refinery."

He grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair and strode out of the office. He planned to check on things himself and pick her up from work while he was at it. Once he saw with his own eyes that she was safe, this inexplicable sense of panic would surely fade.

The Suburban Gemstone Refinery.

Inside the massive facility, the roar of machinery slicing through stone was deafening. The air was thick with the scent of dust and gravel, while harsh white incandescent lights cut through the haze in countless beaming columns.

Nora Xavier wore a white protective coverall, holding a metal clipboard in her hand. She stood in front of a towering row of heavy-duty metal shelves, verifying a newly delivered batch of rough stones with the refinery's manager.

The storage racks stretched nearly twenty feet high, with each tier holding hundreds of pounds of uncut, unpolished natural ore.

Nora lifted the jeweler's loupe hanging around her neck and leaned close to a rough sapphire that shimmered with a deep blue luster. She narrowed her eyes, carefully observing the inclusions and the direction of the veining.

"Manager Whitaker, the quality of these Ceylon Sapphires is exceptional."

Nora lowered the loupe, quickly jotted down some data on her clipboard, and turned to the middle-aged man beside her. "The cutting process must strictly follow the blueprints I sent you yesterday. The main stones need to retain their maximum carat weight using a step cut, and there can absolutely be no deviations."

The manager wiped the sweat from his forehead, nodding repeatedly.

"Don't worry, Designer Xavier. Our refinery has been doing this for over a decade, and our craftsmen are incredibly steady. As long as the blueprints are solid, I guarantee we'll cut them beautifully without delaying Lawrence Atelier's delivery schedule."

She stood there quietly, completely unharmed, focused, and vibrant.

Looking at her back, Gideon let out a long sigh of relief.

The tightly wound nerves from his frantic drive over finally unwound. The heart that had been lodged in his throat settled firmly back into his chest.

He found his reaction this morning genuinely ridiculous. Just because he had spent a little extra time with her last night, he had actually rushed all the way out to this grimy industrial site today over some baseless wave of panic.

Gideon stood in place, quietly observing her focused profile.

He even began calculating in his mind that once she finished her work, he would take her to that newly opened French restaurant downtown for dinner.

The rigid line of his jaw softened slightly, and he was just about to step forward and call her name.