The next morning, the early sun rays filtered through the heavy curtains, casting a faint glow in the cabin. Outside, the distant roar of the cruise ship engines echoed as they returned to port.

Holden woke up and slowly opened his eyes, frowning at the dull pain pounding in his head. As he became aware of his surroundings, he noticed the warm body of a woman pressed against him under the sheets.

Holden's eyes widened as he gazed at the woman's bare back, marked with the red imprints of passion. The memories suddenly came back to him. He remembered their frantic antics of the previous night, and their tangled bodies.

Holden froze, and his confusion quickly gave way to anger.

How dare this woman sneak into his bed and take advantage of his faintness to drug him and use his body for her own ends? Her scheming went beyond cheekiness. She even had the nerve to moan the name of another man during their Lovemaking!

Just as Holden's fury was building, the woman next to him subconsciously whispered again, "Theodore!

She said that name, again! A searing rage consumed Holden's mind. He wanted to shake her violently to wake her up and force her to see clearly the man she had kissed so passionately the previous night.

But just as Holden was about to grab her, the woman rolled over in her sleep and faced him. In the dim light, he could see her face clearly. Holden's body froze and he had an intense feeling of familiarity.

As he remained motionless, Holden became aware of his own pounding heartbeat which was so loud he could clearly hear it. His heart seemed to be pounding against his ribs, and he was filled with excitement, hope, fear.

Holden himself didn't understand what was happening to him. However, something in him urged him to illuminate the woman's face even more,

Just then, the high-pitched buzz of his cell phone broke the heavy silence in the cabin. Holden frowned, and looked both hesitant and disappointed. After a while, he forced himself out of the intoxicating warmth of the bed to grab his clothes from the floor as well as his phone which was ringing insistently.

As soon as he unlocked his phone, his screen was filled with missed call notifications.

Holden replied laconically. His interlocutor must have told him some rather important news, because his expression darkened, After hanging up the phone, he got dressed in no time and headed for the door. Just as he was about to open the door and walk out, he suddenly stopped and thought of something. After a few seconds, he turned around and scribbled a note, which he left on the bedside table along with his business card before rushing out.

A few hours later, Ariana also woke up. Her whole body was sore and fragments of the night before flickered through her mind, She remembered the heated passion, the stranger's moans..

Confused, she thought it was all a dream and was amazed at how vivid dreams could be.

However, as her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she noticed the rumpled and untidy sheets as well as the clothes strewn on the floor. At that moment, she could no longer ignore the truth.

It wasn't a dream!

Ariana sat bolt upright in bed as the reality dawned on her. She had slept with someone last night. A stranger.

Ariana was seized with a wild panic that constricted her chest. She remembered staggering dizzily into this room the previous night and collapsing limply on the cool sheets. She fell asleep almost immediately. But shortly after she had fallen asleep, she felt an intense feverish heat coursing through her veins. She vaguely realized that something was wrong, and it was as if something had been injected into her and her consciousness was fading away. Soon, her body was no longer under her control. She only vaguely remembered desperately holding a man. In her delirium, she even called him by the name of her dear Theodore.

Ariana froze in place because of the shock. Not only what she had believed to be only a dream turned out to have been indeed real, but in addition she did not even know the identity of the man with whom she had slept last night! Ariana was particularly afraid of illnesses. She had to get examined as soon as she disembarked.