The Billionaire's Secret Quartet

Lydia, seeing Alaric shake his head, decided not to get up to answer the door.

The doorbell rang for a while and then stopped.

Just as Lydia was about to breathe a sigh of relief, her cell phone buzzed in her pocket.

Checking the caller ID, she saw it was Thalassa calling and quickly answered.

"Lydia, did you swing by Alaric's place to check up on him?" Thalassa's concerned voice came through the phone.

"Yeah, I did. Gave him a shot," Lydia replied.

"Have you left yet?" Thalassa inquired.

"No, still here," Lydia said.

"We're at his doorstep, rang the bell but got no answer," Thalassa explained.

was you ringing? Hold on, I'll come open

quickly got up and headed for

by Angelina and Georgia, instinctively

it was

saw Thalassa and Hertha standing there. She was briefly surprised but quickly stepped

and Hertha entered, Thalassa asked,

Not like

overhearing Hertha's voice, felt a jolt in his heart and

voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, too

disdainful look Hertha had given him when they fast parted, along

swallowed the words back down, a look of dejection and melancholy on his

thought, Alaric's briefly recovered energy faded, and he slumped back onto the bed, disheartened. "You've got it all wrong. Alaric genuinely almost kicked the bucket this time," Lydia explained to Hertha. "What? It was

to check on him, Alaric quickly lay back down and closed his eyes,

did, footsteps approached