Billionaire Lawyer's Secretary - Chapter 102: Chapter 102

Adrian raised an eyebrow, calmly responded with an "okay", and locked his phone screen.
He picked up his fork and kept eating. "Do you watch the series of this film every year?"
Elara took a bite of the food and said, "I watched the second season back in high school and got hooked on racing. After I graduated from high school, I even participated in a national racing competition."
"In 2020?" Adrian asked.
Elara nodded. "Yeah. Wait. How do you know that?"
Adrian smiled and said, "Because I was there too."
Elara was surprised at first, but then it all clicked. She thought, 'He is a thrill-seeker of racing. He wouldn't miss the most famous domestic racing event. Maybe he was a sponsor of it.'
"I was a sponsor," Adrian added.
Elara was speechless. She remembered that the first prize for the race back then was a supercar worth tens of millions of dollars. She and Julian hadn't even made it to the finals.
After all, they had only gotten their driver's licenses right after finishing high school. They were just newbies who had no idea how out of their depth they were. She had even raced in Janice's Audi.
For Elara, it was never about winning. She just liked trying something new and was a sensation seeker. Thinking back on it now, she kind of missed how that felt.
"So, what place did you get that year?" Adrian asked.
Elara pouted. "I didn't even make it to the finals."
Adrian snickered and said, "Wow, that's impressive. What happened after that?"
Elara answered, "Well, since I couldn't get into the finals as a racer, I signed up as a volunteer just so I could watch. Julian and I ended up assigned to different sections of the track as supervisors."
Elara paused, with her fork hovering in the air. Her mind drifted back to that day.
On the day of the finals, a sudden downpour hit. Most of the track wound through mountain roads, and with the rain coming down so hard, one could barely see anything. A lot of people dropped out of the competition.
Elara remembered standing safely at the edge of the track in a bright green raincoat the volunteer association gave her, waiting for the racers to speed past, with the thunder rumbling overhead in the muggy August air.
Adrian took a sip of his bottled water and said, "The weather was so awful that day. Why didn't you withdraw like the others?"
Halfway through the race, the walkie-talkies kept cutting in and out. Someone announced that staff could pull out and let drones handle the monitoring instead. However, Elara didn't leave. She stayed at her post.
"Because that was when the Racing God, Noah, was about to come by," she said.
Noah was a total Racing God back then. Not only was he insanely skilled, but he also had a strikingly handsome face. He was the champion every single year.
Adrian's face turned a little cold. He asked, "Do you like him?"
"Of course I do. He's devilishly handsome," she said.
Adrian let out a cold scoff. "You seriously have no taste."
Elara simply chalked it up to the guy's rivalry and tried to comfort him. She said, "Mr. Hartley, you're good-looking too, just in a different way."
"But why haven't I ever seen you fangirling over me like that?" Adrian asked.
Elara set down her fork, twisted open her bottled water, and declared with a straight face, "I've sworn off lust."
Adrian looked at her and didn't believe it. "You?"
"What? Haven't I always kept it together around you?" she shot back.
Honestly, even when Adrian had been stark naked in front of her, she had still managed to keep her cool.
But Adrian didn't believe her. He thought, 'She is a minx, and with a dirty mind.'
"You might keep your cool around me, but didn't you always use your little toys when you got home?" he asked.
Adrian went straight for the kill. Elara immediately buried her face in her food, looking guilty.
Adrian totally called it. He asked, "Why don't you give up those toys and get yourself a real boyfriend for a change?"
Elara muttered, "I'm looking for one. I just haven't met the right guy yet."
Honestly, ever since she got back home, she had barely had a second to herself, let alone time to meet any new guys.
Adrian put his fork down angrily. He let out a heavy sigh and reached into his pocket for a cigarette, but his fingers brushed against the pendant she had left with him earlier.
Adrian handed the pendant back to her and said, "Take it back. Why do you keep leaving this with me?"
Elara didn't take it. "It's not mine. You keep it, or give it to Josie or your aunt."
Adrian set the pendant down next to her hand, lit a cigarette, and leaned back in his chair. He said, "You are the one who took it. You should return it yourself."
Elara felt helpless. "Can you just hold onto it for me for now? I'm going to a movie tonight. You don't seriously expect me to carry something this expensive all night, do you?"
She just felt awkward having it around. Though it was expensive, Elara didn't want to wear this pendant. If she tossed it in her bag, she was afraid she would lose it. After all, it was probably worth at least tens of millions of dollars.
Adrian didn't respond. He lingered his gaze on her and said with a voice colder than before, "Not my problem if I lose it."
Elara knew exactly which comment had ticked him off, but she wasn't about to try to make him feel better. "I don't want it anyway. Do whatever you want."
The conversation just died, and the two of them sat there in silence.
Elara lost her appetite. She set down her fork, grabbed her drink bottle, and gulped down some water.
After clearing away the takeout boxes, Elara noticed that Adrian still hadn't said a word. Finally, she broke the silence. "Even if I haven't exactly gone celibate, I'm just not into Noah anymore."
Adrian shot her a skeptical look. "Really? Weren't you just calling him some kind of pretty boy?"
"Well, even the hottest guys can't fight off time. Noah is probably getting old now," she replied.
After all, it had been five or six years, and men didn't stay in their prime forever.
Adrian's face got even darker. "You call a twenty-eight-year-old man old?"
Elara didn't expect Noah to be the same age as Adrian. Back then, she was fangirling on a whim and never bothered to look into the details.
After she went abroad for college, Alex wasn't a fan of something as risky as racing, so she gradually lost interest.
"He's only twenty-eight years old? I thought he'd be well into his thirties by now," Elara said.
"So now that you know he is twenty-eight, you're interested in him again?" Adrian asked.
Elara shook her head. "He's still not that young anymore. He might even be married and have kids now."
"What if he's not?" Adrian asked.
Elara frowned and felt that it didn't matter to her anyway. She said, "Mr. Hartley, you and Noah seem pretty tight."
Adrian said lightly, "Yeah. We grew up together. What do you think?"
Elara paused as she tightened the bottle cap. She then looked up to meet Adrian's scrutinizing gaze and asked, "You and the Racing God are that close?"
"Yeah. What? Do you want me to help you hook up with him?" Adrian teased.
Elara looked away and restarted what she was doing. She said, "I'm not interested."
"Even if you were, it's too late. He is dating Josie now," Adrian said.
Elara was speechless.
Seeing Elara go quiet, Adrian assumed she was upset. He asked, "What's wrong? Are you feeling down because your idol is off the market?"
"You're overthinking it, Mr. Hartley. I was only into racing for a while back then. After that summer race, I went abroad to study and only returned recently. I honestly haven't paid any attention to Noah since," Elara replied.
"Why did you suddenly stop following him?" Adrian asked, genuinely curious. He felt going overseas didn't mean she had to give up her love for racing.
"Maybe it's because something happened on the track that left me a bit traumatized. Plus, Alex didn't want me to do something that risky," Elara admitted.
Adrian's deep-set brows lifted ever slightly. He asked, "What happened that year?"
Elara tossed the takeout boxes into the trash bag and grabbed a wet wipe to clean her hands. She said, "Noah wasn't supposed to win that year. There was another racer way ahead, with a huge lead. But..."
Adrian's eyelids drooped slightly. He asked, "But what?"
"But that car crashed," Elara replied.