Three Years Later, He Came Back Begging novel Chapter 400

Twenty minutes later, Lawrence arrived at the Highvale base camp alongside a convoy of supply trucks. He had fully intended to keep his arrival a total surprise, but he hadn't been able to resist texting her.

A grown man, and he couldn't even keep a simple secret.

Gripping his phone, a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. She hadn't replied yet, but he figured she was just busy.

Shrugging it off, he stepped out of his vehicle, ordered the crew to start unloading the supplies, and grabbed his own luggage to head toward the task force dorms.

Abbot trailed right behind him, reading off a relentless schedule of upcoming logistics and meetings.

Lawrence gave him half an ear, but his absolute focus was locked onto the neat rows of prefab housing ahead.

Bonnie should be drafting right now. He could picture it perfectly: her sitting hunched over her desk, pausing every now and then to take a sip from her thermos.

She was going to be ecstatic to see him. She would probably throw herself into his arms while giving him that adorable, stubbornly shy look to admit she missed him.

His pace quickened automatically, leaving his assistant in the dust. Cut off mid-sentence, Abbot let out an exasperated sigh and jogged to catch up, only to find his boss abruptly frozen in his tracks.

A heavy padlock hung on the outside of Bonnie and Yvonne's door.

Abbot glanced at it. "Boss, it looks like she stepped out. Want me to go track her down?"

Lawrence unlocked his phone. Still no reply. He pressed his lips into a tight line. "Go ask the rest of her team where she went."

Abbot nodded and jogged off toward the main office. Lawrence walked back to his own quarters and popped open his suitcase. Barely a minute later, Abbot returned.

"Boss, she's out on a site inspection with Dale and the others. They won't be back until this afternoon."

Disappointment gnawed at Lawrence, but there was nothing he could do about it. He forced himself to sit down and tackle his own workload, though his eyes constantly darted to his phone screen, silently begging for a notification.

Hours ticked by, and it remained dead silent. Maybe she was in the middle of a complex evaluation. Maybe the signal out there was completely non-existent. Lawrence aggressively pushed down the irrational anxiety creeping into his chest and forced his eyes back to his laptop screen.

He was determined to find out exactly which site they had gone to. But before he took three steps, he saw Abbot sprinting toward him, looking utterly panicked and gasping for air.

A heavy stone plummeted into Lawrence's gut. He strode forward. "What's wrong?"

Abbot couldn't even form a coherent sentence. His chest heaved like a broken bellows. "B-Boss... something happened. A—a 5.2 magnitude aftershock just hit Harper Street... That's exactly where Bonnie's surveying team is..."

Before Abbot could even finish his sentence, Lawrence's massive frame swayed violently.

Abbot lunged forward to steady him, watching in horror as every last drop of color drained from Lawrence's face.

He looked like a ghost.

Gripping Abbot's arm with bruising force, Lawrence demanded hoarsely, "What did the command center say?"