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

and headed for

Georgia, instinctively

out, it

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

Hertha entered, Thalassa asked,

flu. Not like

felt a jolt in his heart and excitedly

His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, too soft for

look Hertha had

words back down, a look of

could never be anything between them. With that 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 that serious?" Hertha was shocked. "Where is he? I want

check on him, Alaric quickly lay back down and closed

footsteps