My Mirror Image by Maybe Not (Candice And Alex’s)

Chapter 0557

Alex glanced at Candice sideways. The warm yellow light inside the car softened her features. She pursed her lips and shifted her gaze away. After hesitating for a moment, he took out a very small box and handed it to her.

Actually, he hadn't planned to tell her about this matter. After all, it wasn't something to be proud of, and it might make Candice feel that he was being pitiful and weak.

But...

Alex thought somewhat self-deprecatingly in his heart and decided to speak up.

"Daniel is someone with strong control desires, you should know that. When I first joined Aether Corporation, he placed this pinhole camera on my desk."

He paused for a moment.

"You asked me before why I didn't like going back to the manor. There were three cameras in one room. What's the difference between such a place and a prison?"

Alex's expression was indifferent as he closed his eyes and leaned back against the car seat, seeming to recall the times when he moved out of the Elysian Manor.

Oscar had mentioned before that he envied Alex for being able to come and go freely in the Elysian family's manor, but Alex envied those who had never been inside the house.

Daniel was extremely suspicious, especially after hearing about a certain family where a son killed his father to fight for the company. This had intensified his desire for control and vigilance toward Alex.

A father being suspicious of his own son was something no one would believe if said out loud.

But Daniel not only thought this way but also acted upon it.

When Alex was around 15 or 16, Daniel had installed three cameras in his room.

Under the pretext of doing it for his own good, Daniel turned his life into one where he felt like he was being watched every day. He felt less like a person and more like a monkey locked in a cage.

The oppressive atmosphere had continued into Alex's adulthood, prompting him to move out of the manor directly.

But shortly after he started working at Aether Corporation, Daniel repeated the same tactic and placed cameras in his workspace and office again. Whether it was the cameras in the room or the ones in the office, Alex had tried to remove them, but they would always reappear in their original positions the next day.

It wasn't until later, when he gradually made some achievements, that Daniel couldn't control him as tightly anymore.

He had removed all those cameras until Candice appeared.

Alex always kept his emotions hidden deep inside, but when it came to her, he couldn't hide much.

He still remembered the night when Daniel called him into the study and threw a video clip in front of him, coldly questioning him about it.

Daniel's desire for control was so strong that every step Alex took had to follow his plan, including his marriage.

And Candice's appearance made Daniel feel challenged once again. He warned Alex that if he couldn't distinguish between priorities and didn't focus, he wouldn't mind helping Alex deal with Candice.

And Daniel's way of dealing with things...

When Alex was a child, he'd had a cat. The kitten was very affectionate, but Daniel said it was distracting him from his studies and asked him to get rid of it. Alex refused.

But the next day, when he came home, he found the cat in a garbage bag about to be thrown out.

Its limbs were stiff, motionless.

So when Daniel said he wanted to help Alex deal with Candice, Alex's first reaction was to reply, "I'm just playing around, why are you taking it seriously?"

He didn't know if Daniel was still watching him somewhere, or when Daniel would act on Candice like he did with the cat.

He had been smart since childhood, but no one taught him how to deal with such situations.

So he could only use his clumsy and vigilant ways to try to find a way out under that shadow.

In the years of his silent planning, he always wished time would pass faster, so he could quickly resolve all the troubles and be with Candice.

After Alex finished speaking, the car fell silent. He felt his throat tightening more and more.

Finally, he could only speak with a dry throat, "It's my fault. I didn't know what to do. I thought I was protecting you, but in the end, you got hurt the most.

"Describing it as self-pity is wrong. I was just too arrogant. I thought I could handle everything, but I forgot that I'm just an ordinary person and not that capable."

With each word Alex uttered, his voice became more painful. He had thought he could bury this terrible thing in his heart forever.

He rarely reminisced about the time before he met Candice.

He loathed himself back then and hated Daniel as well.

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But when he laid out all these things in front of Candice, he thought he wouldn't want to face it, but unexpectedly, he meticulously refinedit, trying to polish away the most unbearable parts, just to show Candice a less intimidating side. Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

He was afraid that after Candice knew he had grown up in such an environment, she would see him as a lunatic.

After all, who would like someone who grew up oppressed and dull?

No one.

Not even himself.

After listening to Alex's words, Candice remained silent.

Her heartbeat quickened. To be honest, everything Alex said felt like scenes from a TV drama.

Alex hesitated to speak, "I..."

Candice still looked out the window. Alex couldn't see her expression, only her profile through the car window. She said, "And...what about Sonia? Was she arranged by Daniel too?"

Alex closed his eyes. "No."

Candice chuckled lightly.

Alex said, "She came on her own."

Even though Alex had changed people around him a lot, Daniel never believed that he had truly tet go of Candice, as she had always been by his side, a position no one could shake.

Sonia had appeared at this time. She said that Alex had helped her before, so she was willing to help him now, to be his smoke bomb and confuse Daniel.

Alex had been busy with many things privately at that time, so he agreed after Sawyer checked Sonia's background information.

He needed a cover-up, and anyone would do.

He had known about the connections between Sonia and Candice, and had considered whether to replace Sonia.

But unfortunately, Daniel kept a close eye on him at that time. Any slight bias towards Candice would arouse suspicion.

Although the branch was his own, it was still established by Aether Corporation. Alex couldn't be sure how many of Daniel's spies were there.

And somehow, Sonia's matters had also stirred up trouble at home. Daniel came to ask him if he had taken a liking to a new secretary.

At that time, Alex had felt like everything was deviating step by step from his expectations, giving him a sense of imminent loss of control. And indeed, that had been the case.

By the time he came back to his senses, everything had already deviated from his original plan.