One Wild Night

Although it was almost closing hour, Harry remained seated behind his desk with a puzzled frown on his face as he stared at his laptop screen blankly.

He had been busy all day, moving from one meeting to another immediately after they returned to the office, so he had been unable to give some thought to what had happened earlier in the day.

Now that he had some time to himself alone in his office, he was able to think about Tom's strange behavior as he recalled their meeting with the investors and the strange exchange with the lady in front of the restaurant.

What could be so serious that Tom couldn't tell him about? Did it involve him? The more he thought about it, the more he couldn't shake off the strange feeling that whatever had happened there was about him.

One minute Tom had been smiling at something one of the investors had said, and the next minute he was busy on his phone and asking that they leave because he needed to help Lucy with something at the office.

What struck him as odd the most was the urgency with which he had said they should leave, only to later explain that what he wanted to do at the office was help Lucy talk to the human resource department to put out an ad for a part-time secretary.

Something was up, and his only relief was that it had nothing to do with his father, since he had just gotten off the phone with Lucy a moment ago, and she assured him that his father was sleeping in his bedroom.

Harry sighed as he rose from his seat and paced around his office. So if it wasn't about his father what else could Tom be hiding from him?

What worried him more was the fact that he had called the head of the human resource department and the man told him Tom did not ask him to put out any ad, and there was no need for it since Lucy had already requested he do so the previous day.

To the best of his knowledge, the people he cared most about were his father and Jade, and those were the only two persons that he believed something could happen to and Tom would try to hide it from him, even if it didn't completely make sense that Tom would hide something like that from him if that were the case. Still, he couldn't be too sure.

After thinking about it for a while, he arrived at two conclusions. If he called Jade and she was fine, that meant whatever Tom was hiding was related to him, and the only thing he could conclude was that Tom had wanted to get him out of that restaurant quickly.

But what could be Tom's reason for wanting him to leave there? It wasn't like Jade was going there on a date with anyone and he was trying to stop him from seeing her, was it?

His mind returned to the woman they had met in front of the restaurant and how Tom had behaved and dragged him away from there. It wouldn't make sense to think that Tom knew the lady and she was the reason Tom was in a hurry to leave.

Harry thought about it for a moment before picking up his phone, deciding to give Jade a call to find out if everything was okay at her end. If everything was okay at that end, then he would have to find out who that woman was to know if she was the reason Tom had dragged him away from there.

If she was fine, as he hoped she was, then he could just tell her he was calling to find out what she had heard from the police about the arrest, and maybe if she had the time to talk, then maybe they could continue their conversation from where he stopped that morning asking her what she meant by wanting to leave rent-free in his head.

He held his breath as he dialed her line and waited for her to receive the call. He frowned when he heard the disconnect tone after she failed to receive her call, and he dialed her line again. This time it rang again but she didn't receive the call. He tried three more times, and when she still didn't receive her call, his heart began to race.

Did something happen to her? Was that really what Tom was hiding from him? But there was no way Tom would be in his office if something was wrong with Jade, was there? Harry wondered as he began to pack up his stuff, planning to fly down to Varis, but paused when he remembered that he couldn't leave just like that. His father needed him.

But what if something had happened to Jade? He wondered anxiously as he tried to think of anyone he could call to check on her. If only he had Candace's phone number then he would have called her, but unfortunately, he didn't. And he couldn't ask Tom for it either.

After worrying about it for some time he dialed the line of the hotel manager.

"Hello, sir!" The hotel manager greeted nervously, wondering why Harry was calling him.

"Please go over to my suite and check on Jade. Find out if she's in there or not," Harry instructed urgently, and the man raised a brow wondering why Harry couldn't just call the telephone in the suite instead.

Unfortunately, Harry wasn't the type of man he could question, "Yes, sir. I will call you back..."

"No. Stay on the line. I want to speak with her if she's in the suite," Harry cut in sharply, and the man glanced at his phone when he heard the worry in Harry's voice.

He couldn't help but wonder what the relationship was between Harry and the CEO's sister.

"Yes, sir. I'm heading over there now," he said as he rushed out of his office. There was no greater pressure than knowing that Harry Jonas was still on the line waiting for a response.

By the time he got to the suite, he was panting for breath as he pressed the bell on the door. Thankfully, because each room was soundproofed, only the occupant of the suite would be disturbed by the sound of the bell.

Jade who had been struggling to stay awake or move because of the sleep paralysis she was suffering at the moment, groaned at the persistent sound of the doorbell as she tried to keep her eyes open. She felt very weak and lazy, and the sound of the doorbell worsened her headache.

"Miss Hank, are you in there?" The man called out even if he knew he would likely not hear her if she responded.

Curious to know who was at the door, Jade slowly tried to move her hand and her leg until she was able to sit up. Despite the air conditioner in the bedroom sweat trickled down her back and forehead and she managed to stand up.

She quickly headed for the door while wondering who was at the door. Thanks to the person's disturbance with the doorbell she had managed to overcome the sleep paralysis.

Once she opened the door, she raised a brow when she saw the manager, "Is there a problem?" She asked with a slight frown.

"I'm not sure," the manager said with an apologetic smile when he noticed how she looked. He could tell she had been sleeping.

"Mr. Jonas sent me," he said as he raised his phone.

"Harry?" Jade asked as she looked at the phone curiously and then took it from him.

"Uncle Harry?" She asked, and Harry let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding when he heard her voice.

"What were you doing? Are you okay? I've been trying to reach you but you were not receiving my call," Harry said, and Jade's lips twitched in amusement.

"Were you worried about me?" She asked, and then when she noticed the way the manager stood there staring at her she cleared her throat.

"I'm giving his phone back to him now. I will call you back with mine," Jade said and before Harry could respond she returned the phone to the manager.

"Thank you," she said with a polite smile before shutting the door.

She quickly hurried to where her phone was and picked it up. She smiled when she saw the five missed calls notification on her screen and they were all from Harry. She had heard the sound of her phone's vibration but she had been unable to reach for it because of sleep paralysis.

She dialed Harry's line and received the call immediately, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. I couldn't sleep for most of last night, so I was having a nap. And then I couldn't wake up because I was having sleep paralysis. Thanks to the persistent sound of the doorbell I was able to stay awake long enough to snap out of it," Jade explained with a yawn, and Harry sighed.

"Sleep paralysis? Are you okay now?" He asked with concern.

"Yes, I am. Sleep paralysis is not a stranger to me," she assured him, and Harry made a mental note to read on it later and find out how serious it was.

"Is Candace not with you? She could have answered the door. Perhaps you should send me her number so I can reach her when next I'm unable to reach you," Harry said, and once again the resemblance between Harry's mom and Candace flashed through her mind.

She contemplated whether or not she should tell Harry about it, and sighed when she remembered how upset Aaron had been over the phone, "She is not here right now, but I will text her number to you after the call," Jade said, thinking that it wouldn't be a bad idea of Harry to know Candace.

"Where is she? Is she okay?" Harry asked, feeling weirdly concerned about her.

"She is fine. Jero is hospitalized so she's taking care of him," Jade said, reminding him that she was yet to fill him in on the arrest details.

"Hospitalized? What happened? How did the arrest go? You didn't call back after you heard from them," Harry reminded her.

"Oh, sorry about that! It must have slipped my mind," Jade said, making Harry's brows pull together.

Wasn't she the same person who had promised she was going to call him every day? How could returning his call have slipped her mind, especially considering what they had been discussing before she hung up?

"Slipped your mind?" Harry asked, and Jade bobbed her head as though he could see her.

"Maybe not. I remember I was going to call at first, but then I thought about it and changed my mind when I decided it was a bad idea," she said honestly.

"A bad idea? Why?" Harry asked in confusion.

"Well, I didn't think I should be talking to someone else's boyfriend so often. You know how jealous ladies can be," Jade said, and Harry's frown deepened, and he glanced at his phone's screen when he received an awaiting call notification. It was Philip. Why was Philip calling him?

What was she talking about? "Someone else's boyfriend?" He asked, and this time Jade rolled her eyes.

"Why do you keep parroting everything I say?" She asked, and Harry sighed as he massaged his temple.

"What are you talking about, esquire?" Harry asked, thinking that between Tom and Jade he didn't know who was stressing him more at the moment.

Here he was, trying to figure out what Tom was hiding from him, and Jade was also at the side playing games with him. Between dealing with his father's secret, Tom's secret, and Jade's games, he was feeling mentally exhausted.

"Well, I received your message from Aurora. She sounded so jolly that she could be mistaken for a newlywed bride. So I figured since you're in a relationship now, I should keep my distance. I would hate to be the cause of any misunderstanding in your relationship," Jade said with a shrug even though her heart ached as she said the words.

Harry sighed as he rubbed a hand over his face. Seriously? This was the best she could do.

"Listen, esquire. I'm tired of the back-and-forth games. Are you interested in..." His words trailed off when his office door was suddenly pushed open and Tom walked in.

He hung up without finishing his sentence.