"Mr Van Holt," Mark stood up and shook the man's hand while Natalie gawked at him, taken aback by the uncanny resemblance to his son."Mark, Son, we've received complaints of a public disturbance. If you don't keep it down, I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave.""Our apologies, Mr Van Holt. We got carried away a little," Mark apologised as he sat down again."Son? What do you have to say for yourself?"Levi scoffed and stared into the distance. When it was obvious he wouldn't get an answer from him, Levi's father turned his attention on Natalie."And who do we have here? Could the young lady perhaps be responsible for all this chaos?"Natalie was about to introduce herself when Levi looked up and glared at his father. "Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with any of it."The older man stared at her for some time, his eyes shifting between her face and Levi's arm wrapped possessively around her shoulders, and all Natalie could do was squirm in her seat, unsure what to say
After the crazy morning she'd had, Crush was everything Natalie didn't need. Noisy, packed and chaotic. She wanted to bail as soon as she arrived, and if it wasn't for her curiosity about Colleen, she wouldn't even have set foot inside.But her compulsion to get to the bottom of the truth far outweighed her desire for peace and silence. So she bravely waded through the packed room and did her best to avoid bumping into the sweaty, intoxicated crowd swaying to the latest anthem on the dance floor.She'd almost reached the VIP booth where Emily and the other three ladies were waiting for her when a long shadow loomed over her, blocking her path.Sheer terror rooted Natalie in place when she looked up and found herself ensnared in the moss-green pools of Andrei's eyes.His lips twitched upwards in a slow smile, but the rest of his devilishly handsome face remained as cold as ever. "Well, well, what have we here?""Mr Ivanov," Natalie managed to say in a surprisingly steady voice. But the
"Please, Daisy, this is important." Natalie gently touched her arm and gave her a pleading look. "Did Jewel overdose that night? You don't have to give us the details. Just a simple yes or no will do."Whatever Daisy had seen that night must have been so horrifying because she'd turned as white as a sheet of paper, and the fear in her eyes was almost palpable. "I can't—I'm sorry. Aunty Viv…She made me sign an NDA, and if she finds out I told someone, she'll kill me."A month ago, Natalie would have thought she was exaggerating, but after seeing firsthand what Aunty Viv was capable of and the crowd she hung out with, she didn't blame Daisy at all for wanting to keep her mouth shut."I thought this was just a normal meet up, and you wanted to trade tidbits about clients," she said as she reached for another glass and gulped it down in one go before she grabbed her Chanel handbag and draped it over her shoulder. "But I can see you're about to dig your own graves. I want no part of this!"
When Levi came to pick Natalie up from Crush after his meeting with the security team wrapped up earlier than he'd anticipated, her plan to piece together Colleen's timeline before she vanished was still that—a very vague plan.She didn't want him to panic or raise his hopes until she had solid proof or a promising clue, at the very least. So when he asked about her afternoon, Natalie was evasive."How did your meeting go?" she asked as she followed him out of the club to the waiting car at the entrance."Not as well as I'd hoped. We don't have any new leads, but at least we know now Colleen's not locked up overseas." Levi opened the door for her and gently pushed her inside.They were on the move as soon as he slipped in beside her. Zachary and Carlos made small talk with her for the ten-minute ride to Green Point.Levi invited the two men in for a nightcap, but they declined. They were eager to get home and get some shut-eye."Are they married? Do they have kids?" Natalie asked as t
Still not sure what she was looking for this time, a disappointed Natalie scanned through Colleen's Instagram again. She and Emily had spent most of their afternoon scouring the socialite's page for clues, but nothing in the missing woman's posts before her disappearance had given them any hints as to her fate.After a few minutes of mindless browsing, she scrolled through her phone and sent Seth a text, asking for a copy of the file he and Mark had shown her earlier.Natalie couldn't believe her eyes when her email chimed with the attachment. She'd expected the PI to give her a hard time or at least refer her to Levi."Okay, let's see this," she murmured as she accessed the file and opened up a PowerPoint presentation to plot out Colleen's timeline.For two hours, Natalie lost herself in Seth's detailed notes on the case and the report from the doctor in Smiths Town. By the time she pushed her laptop away, she was still no closer to the truth, but she had a starting point.October 28
After his fight with Natalie, Levi wasn't in the mood to keep working. In fact, he wanted to storm back into her room and demand they talk things through. But, duty called. The server wouldn't bring itself back online.So he drifted back to the kitchen, grabbed a few slices of pizza and an ice-cold beer from the fridge and logged back in.He spent the next two hours barking instructions at the dev team to get the server up and running again. The longer they were offline, the more money he lost. And if there was anything he hated more than fighting with Natalie or not knowing where his twin was, it was losing money.He was still on the phone, lost in the abyss of troubleshooting and patch deployment when a vacant-eyed Natalie strolled past him in the living room in that same eerie way she'd done the night before.Tonight, though, Levi was prepared for her. He cut the video call, sprung to his feet and dashed after her, stopping her before she could slip out of the front door.Careful n
When they arrived at Rock Union's racetrack just after 9:00 AM, the marketing team and filming crew were already hard at work, setting up the place for the shoot.Angela led them to one of the VIP rooms they'd booked for the Andersons."There he is!" Liam exploded with excitement as soon as he saw them, pulling Levi in a bear hug."Damn, did you miss me that much?" He chuckled as they shook hands and hugged again. Turning to Liam's wife, he smiled. "It's always good to see you again, Eden!""Likewise, Levi," she returned his smile and hugged Natalie as she introduced herself. "I'm Eden, Liam's wife and mom to those two rascals over there."She pointed to the far end of the room, where Liam's mini-me was having the time of his life taking care of his little sister still strapped in her car seat.Shaking her head at her son's antics, Eden carried on, "that's Aiden, he's turning three in a couple of months, and that's baby Riley; she's almost six months old.""You have a beautiful family
Natalie snuck out of bed really early on Monday morning, and by the time the sun peaked on the horizon and Green Point stirred to life, she was already in an Uber, halfway across town and on her way to work.Levi called just as she swiped her access card and entered the building."Where are you?" he asked as soon as she answered his call, his confusion dripping through his voice."At Chassis.""How did you get there? And when?""I took an Uber, and I've just arrived," she replied."Why didn't you wait for me? You knew I'm coming in today."Yes, she knew he was returning to work today; he'd told her last night when he came to bed. But she had too many reasons for sneaking out on him, and it would take her the whole day to go through them all, so she settled for the easy one. "I have a tight deadline. Finance is expecting their month-end report by midday.""I see," Levi said. But his tone told her he didn't see at all. "We'll talk about this when I see you."Before Natalie could tell hi