The Real Heiress Is Coming Back (Hannah Carter) novel Chapter 236

Chapter 236 Almost Tripped Herself Up

Chapter 236 Almost Tripped Herself Up

Barnaby thought Hannah was just tagging along for a day, a whim that would fade by tomorrow.

But to his surprise, Hannah accompanied him to Ascent Ventures every day for the next four days, clocking in and out with him like it was her new routine.

The folks at Ascent Ventures started out walking on eggshells, but soon their nerves were mixed with a whole lot of curiosity.

‘What’s up with Barnaby these days?’ they thought.

‘Four days in a row? Seriously?

‘And he’s even bringing his girlfriend with him!’

Barnaby couldn’t help but wonder, ‘What on earth is Hannah trying to do?’

These past few days, every time he settled at his desk, Hannah would sit quietly on the couch, her chin propped in her hands, just watching him work from a distance.

Her gorgeous eyes, sometimes playful, sometimes serious, stayed locked on him the whole time. At first, it felt sweet, but after being stared at for so long, Barnaby couldn’t help but feel a bit self-conscious.

‘Did I let something slip and make Hannah suspicious?’ Barnaby wondered.

But John said Hannah didn’t ask about anything that day. She just stayed in his office for half an hour and then left.

Half an hour was plenty of time to get up to all sorts of things.

Still, there was nothing suspicious in his office. Even when the Thole family sent people to inspect, they never found anything out of place.

But the fact that Hannah kept coming back for several days meant she must’ve caught onto something.

‘Damn, what do I do now?’ Barnaby thought to himself.

‘Am I really going to keep hiding this from Hannah?’ he wondered.

If she figured out who he really was and he only confessed after that, it’d change everything.

But honestly, Barnaby wasn’t exactly eager to come clean.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Hannah. The problem was, if he told her, he’d have to let the Scepter House’s shadow guards know, and that would basically pull Hannah into the Scepter House’s dangerous game.

If anything ever happened to him, everyone who knew about the Scepter House would get snatched up by the shadow guards.

They’d be hypnotized, have their memories wiped, or get put through all kinds of experiments, whatever it took to erase any trace of the Scepter House from their minds and keep its secrets safe.

And if someone had learned of the Scepter House without being officially reported, the shadow guards would arrange for them to have an “accident”, the kind one didn’t walk away from.

Barnaby was really torn. He didn’t want to lie to Hannah, but he also didn’t want to get her mixed up in the dangerous mess that was the Scepter House.

“Barnaby,” Hannah called out from the couch, breaking the silence.

“Hmm?” Barnaby snapped out of his thoughts and saw Hannah walking over to his desk.

“Don’t you ever go to any business dinners or parties at work?” Hannah asked.

‘Shouldn’t a place like Ascent Ventures be all about schmoozing, wining and dining clients?’ Hannah mused to herself.

But after a few days of watching Barnaby, she’d picked up on a few interesting quirks.

Forget about business dinners, Barnaby barely left his office. He only took the occasional call, and those calls Successfully unlocked!

1/3

Chapter 236 Almost Tripped Herself Up

were always super short.

He never held meetings either. The only person who ever came in was John, and he only showed up three times. Not a single other employee came by to report anything, and even that male secretary from before was nowhere to be seen.

But the real giveaway was that Barnaby never used the desktop computer on his desk. He only ever worked on his laptop, the one he always carried with him.

Piecing all these things together, Hannah realized Barnaby probably already knew she was onto his secret. But instead of confronting her, he was just going along with her little game, changing up where he worked and pretending nothing was up, just to mess with her.

“I let John handle all that stuff,” Barnaby said.

“Looks like being the boss is pretty chill for you,” Hannah teased.

“Yeah, the stuff I learned in the military doesn’t really help me much with the Thole family, so I’m just the figurehead of a small company,” Barnaby lied off the cuff, not missing a beat.

Hannah was speechless.

‘There he goes again, faking it. Go on, keep up the act, Barnaby, she thought.

“What’s wrong? Getting bored? Want to head out for a bit?” Barnaby teased, pulling Hannah right onto his lap.

The move was seriously flirty, if anyone happened to walk in, Barnaby’s little office romance would be all the company could talk about.

Hannah was just about to get up when her gaze caught the laptop screen on his desk, and she paused mid-

move.

‘That laptop never leaves Barnaby’s sight. There must be all kinds of secrets hidden in there, Hannah thought to herself.

“Let me check out those tutorials you learned from the hacker forum,” Hannah said, reaching for the mouse on his desk.

Just as her slender fingers reached for the mouse, Barnaby’s big hand pressed down on hers. “Wait, not right

now.”

Hannah’s eyes lit up. ‘Ha! I knew it, he’s definitely hiding something,’ she thought.

“Why not?” she asked, feigning innocence.

“I’m watching the trades right now. Let’s wait till the market closes, then you can take a look,” Barnaby replied.

As he said that, he flipped his laptop screen to the live market dashboard, full of real-time trading data.

Hannah was speechless.

Right then, Barnaby’s phone buzzed. He checked the caller ID, his expression shifting slightly. “Gotta take this call outside,” he said, heading for the door.

Hannah saw her chance and immediately got up, making sure Barnaby left the room.

As soon as the office door shut behind him, she wasted no time, grabbed the mouse, and her left hand fished out the USB drive from her pocket. But just as she was about to plug it in, she suddenly froze.

‘Hold on, if Barnaby already knows I’m testing him, then him acting all casual right now, could this be a setup?’ Hannah wondered, suspicion creeping in.

Still feeling suspicious, Hannah clicked open the computer’s start menu, and sure enough, there it was: a monitoring software installed.

This program could track every single thing done on the computer and instantly broadcast it, with multiple screens, straight to another admin dashboard.

If she hadn’t paused to double-check, Barnaby would’ve caught every move she made, no secrets, nothing hidden.

2/3

Chapter 236 Almost Tripped Herself Up

Her whole act about learning hacking would’ve fallen apart in an instant, and her identity as Raven would’ve

been out in the open.

She didn’t even bother asking why she knew that stuff inside out.

This was precisely what had been developed from the mission Van accepted for her on the hacker network

two years ago.

She almost played herself, one more second and she would’ve walked right into her own trap.

Thank god Barnaby hadn’t installed that software on his desktop, or all her sneaky moves would’ve been out in the open.

After finishing his call outside, Barnaby glanced at the monitoring dashboard app on his phone, nothing seemed off, no weird activity at all.

He deliberately hung around a little longer, just to see if Hannah would try anything sneaky.

Inside the office, Hannah let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Just then, her phone buzzed, a call from an unknown number in Kinswood.

“Hello? Is this the Nameless Healer, Ms. Carter?” Stanley’s nervous voice came through the line as soon as she picked up.

Hannah recognized his voice and asked, “What’s the matter?”

‘Wasn’t the follow-up appointment supposed to be tomorrow?’ she wondered.

“Nameless Healer, it’s bad! My wife’s stomach suddenly hurts and she’s bleeding! Can you come to the Thole family house right now? The family doctor says she might be having a miscarriage,” Stanley said, his voice shaking with panic.

Stanley sounded so anxious, like he was on the verge of tears.

Hannah jumped up, her brows furrowed. “What’s going on? Has she been taking the meds I gave her like I told her to?”

“She has! But ever since she started, her stomach’s been hurting, and now she’s suddenly bleeding,” Stanley blurted out, totally panicked.

“I’m not in Kinswood right now, but I’ll have my grandma head over and check on her first. You stay with her, and make sure no one touches her before my grandma arrives! I’m coming as fast as I can!” Hannah said urgently.

She hung up, wasted no time, called her grandma, filled her in on the situation, and started packing up to rush out the door.

Subscribed

0 Likes