The Hide and Seek Game That Lasted a Lifetime novel Chapter 20

Chapter 10

Camila had spent the entire night waiting at the restaurant, her eyes heavy with exhaustion, watching the hours slip by from dusk until dawn. But Chase never showed up. The silence gnawed at her, each passing minute deepening the dark circles beneath her eyes. Just as the first light of morning crept through the windows, her phone finally rang.

“Come to the Whitmore estate. I need to talk to you,” Chase’s voice was cold and urgent.

When Camila arrived, the atmosphere was thick with tension. Without a word of warning, a vase hurtled toward her. She stumbled backward, heart pounding in shock.

“Chase, what the hell are you doing?!” she exclaimed, eyes wide with disbelief.

He didn’t respond with words but instead flung a flash drive down at her feet, his voice icy and distant. “See for yourself.”

With trembling fingers, Camila plugged the device in. Suddenly, a woman’s anguished sobs poured from the speakers, raw and heart-wrenching. The sound was so unexpected and piercing that she dropped the drive in surprise.

“W-What is that sound?” she whispered, instinctively reaching out to grab Chase’s arm—only to be shoved aside roughly.

“You’re shaking just from hearing it? What about when you sent those men to harass her?” Chase’s glare was sharp and unforgiving.

Camila froze for a moment, then quickly regained her composure. “I didn’t! Weren’t those men sent by you? What does that have to do with me?”

“I told them to scare her, maybe shake her up a bit—not to touch her!” Chase’s suspicion darkened his eyes. “Tell me now—was it you?”

“No!” Camila’s voice was firm, unwavering. “This has nothing to do with me. That video could be fabricated. Nora probably staged it to frame me, to make you feel sorry for her.”

“You know how she is—she’s never liked me. Always trying to destroy me. This is just another one of her manipulative games, twisting the truth, playing the victim.”

“If you believe her, you’re falling right into her trap.”

Chase’s previously unwavering resolve began to falter. Camila’s words made a disturbing kind of sense. Nora had been acting strangely lately—hostile, unpredictable. Maybe this was just another performance, a carefully crafted act designed to pull him back in. And that surreal moment where she seemed to float in mid-air—how could that be real?

The more he pondered, the more his earlier panic and guilt started to fade. “I’m sorry, Camila. I lost my head. Please forgive me.”

A flicker of bitterness flashed in Camila’s eyes, though her smile remained sweet and disarming. “It’s okay. She’ll come back once she calms down.”

“And you left me stranded at the restaurant all night. You owe me today. Big time.”

Her playful grin melted away the last of Chase’s doubts. “Alright. What kind of apology do you want?”

“I want you all to myself. The entire day.”

“You got it.”

Just then, after the latest call, his bodyguard sent over a second video—this time with audio. The evidence was clear and damning: Camila’s involvement, her orders, her cruelty.

All this time, he’d been nothing but a fool.

“Chase, what are you doing? Don’t come any closer!” Camila’s desperate plea was cut short by a strangled gasp as his hands closed tightly around her neck.

Her face flushed purple as she clawed at his arms, struggling to breathe. “It wasn’t me… Chase… it was her… she framed me… she’s jealous… jealous of your love for me—”

Suddenly, her body went limp, collapsing like a marionette with its strings cut. Chase threw her into a corner of the amusement park without a second glance.

People nearby stared and whispered, but he didn’t care. As he walked away, already on the phone, he was mobilizing every contact, every resource under the Whitmore name to find Nora.

Camila lay crumpled on the ground, her fingernails bent and digging painfully into her palms. Her eyes burned—not with sorrow, but with a fierce, bitter hatred.

Why? She had finally pushed Nora away. So why was Chase still obsessed with that woman? What did Nora have that she didn’t?

She refused to lose—not to Nora. Not again.

That evening, Chase received a breakthrough. His secretary’s voice was tense as she reported, “Sir, sources say Mrs. Whitmore was seen at the Faulkner Estate—with Dominic Faulkner himself.”