The Royal Contract

Chapter 1370: A white knight in a black waiter uniform

"Uhh!" Haley could feel her frustration while the blood in her veins circulated through her body.

She sat inside the cubicle of the bathroom, relieving herself. But how she wished her fear would go with her pee and she could flush it to the toilet.

But unfortunately, she could still feel the butterflies on her stomach and the sweat on her skin. As much as she did not want fear to take over her body, she could not help it.

"Why do I have to pee at a time like this?" She complained to her companion after she had exited the adjoining bathroom in the room.

But she knew the answer to that. First, she was pregnant. While her baby grew, her uterus pressed on her bladder.

Then, she could not discount that her nerves were at their end. Her heart was palpitating so fast that she was scared it would leave her.

"Just relax. We will figure this out." Mike appeared calm, but she knew that was just an act for her benefit.

But she was not just nervous for herself, her baby, and her friend. She also could not stop thinking about Gerald. And what her father would do to him if he captured him.

Until now, they had not heard anything from her father or Gerald. She could not help but imagine if her father was already torturing Gerald or burying him alive somewhere in a ditch.

But she could still hear the music outside and occasional loud collective laughter. Therefore, it was safe to assume that the party was still ongoing.

"I am relaxed." She told him, but her shaking hands told him otherwise. "Okay. I am not. But can you blame me?" She wished there was something else she could do.

"What if Dad already has Gerald in his custody? What if he is already dead?" The more she said her fears out loud, the more it sounded and felt undeniably real.

"You know your father. He would never leave a party unattended. So, if he had Gerald, he would not do anything to him until the party is through." Mike proclaimed.

But truthfully, his attempt to calm her down did not work. "It doesn't help, Mike." She told him. But she still realized he was right.

His father would never leave his guests unattended. He always thought of himself as the light of the party. Therefore, if Gerald was a captive, chances were. He might still be alive.

"But it does. It meant that Gerald had a way of getting away. And he might be already on his way here." Mike concluded, appearing confident with his analysis.

Of course, that was what she also wanted to believe. But how could one man save them from her father's army? She did not peg Gerald as a "one-man" team.

"How sure are you that he could get past my father's security, much alone escape them?" She could not help but doubt this possibility no matter how much she wished it was true.

She believed this was not a movie scene where the hero charged into a room with guns blazing. And come out alive as the victor.

"I do not have any doubt in my mind." Mike laughed. He had a look telling her to trust him.

Suddenly, she could not stop thinking of how much she knew about Gerald and Mike. It appeared she barely scratched the surface of who they were.

She wished she could be as confident as Mike about this. But she also knew what her father was capable of. Although she did not know him as a criminal, she knew her father as a relentless, determined man who would never accept defeat.

"But you can't underestimate my father." She reminded him, knowing he would not give up that easily.

Therefore, Gerald, or whoever he was, would have difficulty beating her father in this game. But if Gerald was as good as Mike claimed he was. She hoped he would win.

Nothing was more important to her than to get out of this place and keep her child safe. But, of course, she also wished that Gerald and Mike would come out of this alive.

"We know that. I am sure Gerald has this under his control." Mike said as he rummaged through the drawer, searching for anything he could use to unlock the door.

But so far, he could not find anything useful. But he was not giving up as he turned to look around the room. Then, his eyes stopped on Haley's head, more accurately, her hair. He noticed that something held her hair to keep it from falling on her shoulders.

"Hey, do you have a pin?" Mike hastily asked, but she only looked at him, confused. His question did not register right away in her mind.

"What?" She felt lost, unable to connect her statement with his question.

"Your hair." He pointed to her bun as he moved closer to her. "Do you have pins buried in them?" He clarified, eyeing her hair for whatever he was looking for.

She automatically moved her hands on her head, feeling her hair for the pins holding them together. "I have. Why do you ask?" She asked, seeing no reason for it.

"Give me one." He ordered as he stood just a foot away from her. "I need it." But he did not bother explaining it to her.

Without another word, she pulled one from the bottom of the bun and handed it to him. Some of her hair fell, but she did not care. She was more interested in what he would do with it.

"What are you doing?" She asked as she watched him walk toward the locked door. But from her angle, she could finally guess. "Do you know what you are doing?"

She again acted surprised about what she was discovering about this man. Mike was supposed to be defending the law, not breaking it.

But then again, she realized that he and Gerald had already broken many of them, even the law of God. Therefore, she could only assume that he knew what he was doing.

"It had been a while since I have done something like this, but I think I can still do it." He confidently said as he inserted the pin he had reshaped into the keyhole.

Then, he started pushing, pulling, and twisting the pin, working on unlocking the door. It had been a minute, then a few more, but nothing happened. The door remained locked.

"Are you sure you have done this before?" She could not help but ask since he seemed to be failing miserably.

"I am sure this is how they do this. As I said, it had been a very long time. I was still in my early teens when I last broke into a house." He confessed to her, which once again surprised her.

"Why would you break into a house? You are a lawyer, for fuck sake?" She could not help herself as her emotions got the better of her.

"I was not a lawyer back then, but a child who only wanted to survive." He admitted to her. He partly told her a story about his youth.

Likewise, it was something she never knew about him. She always thought, like Gerald, Mike might have grown up with an affluent family.

But, once again, she was wrong about her assumptions. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

"I had to do what I could to put food on my belly. I had to fight for my life." He continued as he tried to figure out how to open the door.

"It was not easy, but I learned how to use people to get what I want. I am not proud of it, but I did what I did because I had to." Mike appeared convinced that it was the right thing to do.

But what did she know about survival when everything she needed her father served to her on a silver platter? She did not need to earn anything to have food on her plate.

She only learned about hard work when she wanted to prove to the business community that she was not just her father's daughter.

"Then, I met Gerald. After our first case together, we hit it off. We are unbeatable." Mike seemed to be talking in a trance, remembering a moment in his past.

"Eventually, he saved me from myself. I was about to commit a grave mistake in a case, and he stopped me. He showed me another way. After that, he has been mentoring me ever since."

"I owe him my life." He continued as he tried the lock again, twisting the knob to open.

And by some luck, it turned, making her gasp in delight. They were free, she thought. But she quickly crushed the idea into pieces, realizing that it was just the first step. They still had many hurdles to climb.

But she was startled when the door suddenly burst open. Then, her hopes crumbled into bits and pieces as she stepped away from the door.

"Mike, where is Haley?" She heard his voice. Or was that just her imagination conjuring what she wanted to hear?

But what if he was real? What if he had managed to escape and get through the guards? What if he was truly here to her rescue?

Then, her eyes saw the movement by the door as a man revealed himself.

He was here, her Prince Charming, a white knight in a black waiter uniform.

*** To my Royal Contract readers.

I will take a few days break from writing this story.

And I might not be able to write a chapter every day.

But rest assured that I am still determined to give you a good ending for this story.

Then, I will resume writing the continuation of Lance and Eida's story with The Royal Arrangement.

In the meantime, you might want to try my new book, A Contract to Marry the Cold-hearted CEO.

It is a new book that is different from this one. But I assure you it will be a nice story you might enjoy like this one.

Anyway, I do hope you will understand.

Again, thanks for all your support.