2025-01-20 14:19:41“Then why are you here?” she demanded, believing he was just lying.
“To attend the auction,” Raymond replied simply, his voice steady.
Immediately Dahlia’s jaw tightened, disbelief flashing across her face. “You’re attending the auction?” she repeated, as if the words themselves were ridiculous. “Raymond, do you even hear yourself? You’re making a fool of yourself. Just return the card and stop this before it gets worse.”
Raymond’s gaze remained steady, his voice calm but firm.
“I don’t need your concern, Dahlia. You’ve already made it clear where we stand.”
Seeing Raymond's attitude Caleb smirked with disdain.
“You should leave,” he said, his tone dripping with superiority. “This place isn’t for people like you. You’ll only embarrass yourself further. And Dahlia—stop wasting your time on him. The last thing you need is to be associated with his mess. It’s wise of you to have dumped him. No women would like to be with such trash!”
However, before Raymond could respond, a voice cut through the noise like a blade.
“Darling, sorry for keeping you waiting!” the voice said, warm and intimate.
Immediately the crowd turned in unison as Malisa stepped into view, her presence commanding instant attention.
She was strikingly beautiful, her tailored dress highlighting her graceful figure. Her sharp eyes carried a quiet authority.
Compared to her, even Dahlia’s polished appearance seemed dimmed, her usual poise suddenly overshadowed.
Malisa’s strides were confident, purposeful, and as she reached Raymond, she slipped her arm through his with effortless familiarity, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, her smile teasing but affectionate.
Immediately Raymond’s eyes widened for a moment, but he quickly understood her intent.
She was trying to help him. He said nothing, choosing instead to play along, though the unexpected closeness sent a faint ripple of unease through him.
At that moment Celeb’s smirk froze, his confidence faltering as he processed what was happening. His eyes flickered between Malisa and Raymond, disbelief clouding his expression.
Dahlia’s lips parted, her voice barely above a whisper. “Darling?” she echoed, the word hanging in the air.
Malisa turned to face her, her sharp eyes gleaming with an almost imperceptible smirk. “Yes, darling,” she said, her tone dripping with gentle mockery. “Is there a problem?”
The crowd, initially silent, began whispering in shock and envy.
Malisa’s beauty and elegance were impossible to ignore, and the way she clung to Raymond with such intimacy shattered the image they had of him as “just a nobody.”
“She’s stunning,” another murmured, their eyes fixed on Malisa.
“How did he…?”Caleb, standing stiffly beside Dahlia, clenched his jaw.
Dahlia’s composure faltered, her fists clenching at her sides. “Raymond,” she began, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and something else—jealousy. “So, this is why you’re here? You’ve… moved on so quickly?”
Before Raymond could respond, Malisa tightened her grip on his arm and leaned closer, her head tilting toward his shoulder.
“We were planning to keep things quiet for a little while,” she said smoothly, her eyes twinkling with feigned innocence. “But I suppose there’s no point in hiding it now.”
Dahlia’s face flushed red, her jealousy barely concealed beneath her anger.
Caleb stood rigid, his eyes narrowing as he watched Malisa lean into Raymond with an easy familiarity. The way she rested her hand lightly on his arm, the warmth in her tone when she addressed him—it all struck a nerve.
He couldn't believe that right after being dumped by Dahlia, Raymond was, already appearing close to a woman who was, frankly, breathtaking.
However he couldn't hide his anger anymore.
“ Well I will advise you to stay away from that man.”
Celeb pointed at Raymond.
“He's poor and useless, and I don't understand whatever he must have said to you, he's a liar and don't allow him to trick you.”
At that moment Malisa's jaw tightened.
“ Do I look like someone who can be tricked in your eyes? Malisa Black, senior director of Sky High Bank, I'm smarter than that.”
Upon hearing what Malisa just said, Caleb’s eyes widened in shock.
“Senior director of Sky High Bank?”
He couldn't believe what he just heard. Sky High Bank is just the largest in the country and has businesses spanning all over the world. Though his family was one of the four major families in the city, they were still nothing compared to the Sky High Bank, that’s why he only managed to get their platinum card.
While as the senior director of the bank, Malisa even has the power to decide on major investments and partnerships in this city.
And he couldn't believe such a woman was clinging onto that bastard!
He glanced at Raymond, his eyes narrowing, then whispered to Dahlia who was still in shock.
“It all makes sense now,” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “He was able to get away from the card thief, and get his way here all because of her.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 362
And then with the easy, unhurried calm of someone who is about to say something entirely ordinary, something that requires no fanfare, no buildup, no performance she looked at the table, at the assembled faces of the people she had known for years, at Penelope's bright, calculating smile and Serena's frozen neutrality and Eric's carefully controlled expression and Derek's genuine curiosity, and she said:"Raymond is my fiancé."The words landed in the center of the room like a stone dropped into still water.Not thrown. Not hurled with dramatic force or delivered with theatrical timing. Just—dropped. Released from Melissa's mouth with the same casual, unhurried ease that she might have used to announce the time of day or the color of her dress."Raymond is my fiancé."Five words.Twenty-three letters.And in the space of approximately two seconds, the entire social architecture of the room the careful hierarchy that had been built over years of interactions, the established narratives
Chapter 361
Melissa and Raymond were moving toward the section of the room where the principal table was set, where Melissa's place had been held by the implicit social reservation that operates in groups of people who know each other well enough to maintain each other's spaces.They sat.Side by side.Serena watched them sit.Her expression was doing several things at once—processing, calculating, resenting, and performing a neutrality that was not entirely convincing.Penelope leaned slightly toward her."I thought she doesn't bring men anywhere," Penelope said, in a voice pitched below the general ambient noise of the room."She doesn't," Serena said."Then who is—""I don't know."They looked at Raymond.Raymond, who was looking around the room with the mild interest of someone taking in a new environment, happened to glance in their direction at that moment.He met Serena's gaze briefly.Held it for exactly as long as was socially natural.Then looked away.Serena felt, unreasonably and irri
Chapter 360
At the other end of the table, Serena was still talking. Something about the fine that should be imposed for late arrivals—the group had established a tradition, early in their years together, of charging small fines for various social infractions, mostly as an excuse for humor, mostly as a way of generating the kind of low-stakes conflict that gives gatherings their energy."Honestly," Eric said, not loudly, not with particular forcefulness, but with the quiet authority of someone whose relative silence has given their words a weight that louder people in the room have not accumulated, "since Melissa is late, we should start the event. This attitude has gone on for too long. If she comes and we've started without her, maybe that's the message that actually lands." He paused. "We call it out. Properly. Tonight."Around the table, heads nodded.There was the particular satisfaction of a group that has been waiting for someone to say the thing they had all been thinking, and here it was
Chapter 359
Then at the people around her, ensuring she had an audience, which she did."Melissa ought to have been here by now," she said, and her voice carried the particular quality of someone making an observation that is also a performance aimed at the room as much as at the specific people around her. "Why would she be keeping everybody here waiting? She's supposed to be here. She's already five minutes late." She looked around with the expression of someone who is managing a reasonable inconvenience with admirable patience. "She's supposed to be here. Why is she keeping everybody waiting?"The question landed in the air of the room, and several people who had been engaged in their own conversations looked up not because they were particularly concerned about Melissa's tardiness, but because Serena's voice had the projection and timing of someone who has learned how to command a room's attention.The response came from the other side of the table.Penelope.Who was, if Raymond's reading of
Chapter 358
He moved away from the window.Began to pace not the agitated, emotional pacing of Benjamin on the other side of the city, but the deliberate, rhythmic pacing of a man whose mind works better when his body is in motion, who has known this about himself for decades and has stopped apologizing for it.His thoughts moved.Connected.Stretched between points, the way a spider's web stretches between anchor points—thin, nearly invisible, but structured, purposeful, holding a shape that is designed to catch things.*Jefferson's grandfather,* he thought. *The old man told me. He told me that he was going to Flame Fire Mountain. That there was someone he was waiting for. He asked me to come along.*He stopped pacing.*I was busy. I couldn't go. And he went alone.*He resumed.*And the person who killed Jefferson's grandson—the account was that the person ran. Ran into Flame Fire Mountain. Ran directly into Flame Fire Mountain as if it were somewhere they were going, somewhere they intended to
Chapter 357
Not what had he done. Not whether he was guilty of the thing that Mr. Black suspected him of. But fundamentally, essentially, at the root of everything: *who is this person?*Because Aldous Mercer had spent fifty years reading people had built his entire career, his entire survival, on his ability to look at a person and understand what they were and Raymond was someone he could not read.Could not place.Could not fit into any of the categories that fifty years of experience had taught him to use.That, more than anything else, was what bothered him.That, more than the suspicion, more than the picture, more than Mr. Black's carefully hedged intel—that was what made him reach for his phone without wasting another second and dial.The line rang once.Twice.Then Mr. Black picked up, the way he always did—without a greeting, without an acknowledgment, simply present on the line and waiting."I know this person," Aldous said, and he said it without preamble, without softening, because s
You may also like
Son-In-Law: Love and Revenge
Mas Xeno87.5K viewsRise of Power: Return of The Pathetic Commoner
Iwaswiththestars76.9K viewsFrom Trash Bag to Cash Bag
Zuxian125.3K viewsAn Understated Dominance
Marina Vittori11.7M viewsThe Secret King of River City: Heir to the Trillion-Dollar L
Olivia Hart302 viewsThe Last Minute of Poverty
Dark Sovereign54 viewsRebirth of the Sovereign: God-Level Wealth System
Nita Benedicta239 viewsGODSFALL
Elight178 views