I Stopped Waiting and Started Loving novel Chapter 1

"Parrish... your legs are so tense."

Inside the presidential suite, a woman's soft, seductive voice drifted through the half-open door.

Bonnie Hayes stopped dead in her tracks, the tray holding the detox tonic trembling in her hands.

Tonight, the hotel's top floor was exclusively hosting VIPs. The manager had repeatedly warned them that the man inside, Mr. York, was of utmost importance and could not be slighted.

Just as she raised her hand to knock, her gaze slipped through the crack in the door.

One glance was all it took to freeze her in place, her blood running completely cold.

In front of the luxurious black leather sofa, a woman in a pristine, haute-couture gown crouched on the floor, leaning intimately between the man's legs.

The position was so suggestive it made the air feel thick with tension.

The man leaned back lazily against the sofa. The top two buttons of his black dress shirt were undone, revealing a sliver of pale collarbone.

Gold-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of his nose, his features relaxed, exuding an air of untouchable, arrogant wealth.

Bonnie's mind reeled, a deafening ring echoing in her ears like a bomb going off.

She knew that profile better than her own.

Even dressed in an expensive shirt, lounging in a presidential suite she could never afford to step foot in, she recognized him instantly.

Parrish.

Her Parrish.

Five years ago, she had found him covered in blood in a ditch behind her town. She had carried him home on her back and stayed by his side for three days and nights, pulling him back from the brink of death.

He had lost his memory and had nowhere to go, trailing after her like a devoted golden retriever for the next five years.

Just last night, he had held her in his arms and promised, "Bonnie, once I make enough money, I'll give you the life you deserve."

Yet here he was, sitting in a suite that cost thousands a night, with another woman draped over his lap.

"I told you not to push yourself when you twisted your ankle earlier," Seraphina Miller murmured, looking up at him as her fingers massaged upward along his tailored trousers. "Does it still ache here? Let me rub it a little more."

The roaring in Bonnie's ears drowned out the rest of their words.

A suffocating chill swept through her, and her fingers trembled uncontrollably.

Crash!

The tray slammed against the marble floor. The porcelain bowl shattered instantly, spilling the piping hot detox tonic everywhere.

A group of young men laughing and walking down the hallway stopped, their expressions darkening at the mess.

"What's wrong with you? Clumsy idiot!"

Bonnie snapped back to reality, slowly lifting her head.

From behind the door, steady footsteps approached.

Parrish York walked out, one hand casually tucked into his pocket, his expression impeccably stoic as if the intimate scene moments ago had never happened.

But the second his eyes landed on Bonnie, his pupils constricted, and his steps faltered.

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