Chapter 485

Bianca Savigny's face twisted with rage, her eyes flashing viciously. "Didn't you receive the photos? Ethan and I have already slept together."

"Oh?" I adjusted my cuffs idly. "What number were you in line?"

Her fingers trembled with fury, but she swallowed her anger, aware of Ethan Roscente's presence nearby.

"Miss Lowell, you don't know, do you?" She suddenly smirked, pointing toward the distant flower fields. "Napa Valley is my hometown. My brother is buried there—he died saving Ethan."

Following her manicured finger, I gazed at the graves soon to be demolished for the overpass. So that was the story hidden beneath.

"You think he came here for you?" Bianca leaned in, her perfume cloying. "He visits my brother's grave every year. This time, he's even moving it to the best cemetery in Seattle. Know why he bought the village's flower fields? To repay the locals for taking care of me, a martyr's orphan."

A fifteen-year-old girl who'd followed him for a decade—of course she knew him better than I did after just two years.

The mountain breeze brushed my hair, and I finally understood why he knew that winding road so well.

"Miss Savigny, you came all this way to tell me this," I mused, watching the drifting clouds. "What are you afraid of?"

Her face stiffened.

"Let me teach you something." My skirt swished against her stilettos as I turned. "If you want to stay by his side, learn to play deaf and dumb. Someone as impatient as you..." I glimpsed her clenched fists. "...won't last three months."

On the way back, Bianca squeezed into Ethan's passenger seat.

I slid into Zachary Evans' car without hesitation. The black Maybach didn't even pause in the rearview mirror.

"Miss Lowell..." Zachary gripped the steering wheel, hesitating.

I closed my eyes, pretending to sleep, and heard his resigned sigh.

By dusk, we reached my apartment.

"Thanks for the ride, Zachary." I cut off his unspoken words and strode inside without looking back.

My phone buzzed. A message from Ethan: [How long are you going to stand there?]

Glancing up, I saw the curtains flutter on the 21st floor. Clutching my phone, I laughed bitterly.

This bastard never learned to knock.

The elevator numbers climbed. The fingerprint lock beeped, and I was yanked inside before it finished.

"Avoiding me?" Ethan pinned me against the foyer wall, his tie loose around his neck. His scent—foreign perfume mixed with faint tobacco—clung to him.

I turned my face away from his breath. "Shouldn't you be with Bianca?"

His hand gripped my waist, and his cold laugh brushed my ear. "Now you're jealous?"