No one had ever informed me about this.
I glanced at the smug look on Ryan Morgan’s face, and in an instant, I understood everything.
“Claire, I’ve heard that many people, in order to climb to the top, will think of all kinds of ways to attract the attention of the wealthy. Could it be that he wants to…”
Ryan trailed off, tears streaming down his face as he spoke.
Claire Morgan would never allow Ryan to suffer such humiliation.
She shot me a look full of disgust, then wrapped her arms even tighter around Ryan’s waist.
“In that case, I’ll have someone give him ninety-nine slaps. Consider it a celebration of us getting our marriage license.”
Hearing her words, my eyes flew wide open.
“Claire Morgan!”
But before I could even finish shouting her name, the bodyguards hiding in the shadows rushed out.
A slap landed so hard it made my head spin.
Smack!
Smack!
Each strike was louder than the last.
It wasn’t until blood seeped from the corner of my mouth and I was about to lose consciousness that they finally stopped.
Even though my headpiece had fallen off, leaving only smears of melted greasepaint on my face, Claire still didn’t recognize me.
She looked down at me from above, her eyes full of contempt and loathing.
“People should know their place. Don’t dream of reaching a class that isn’t yours. Consider today a little lesson—if you dare to harbor such foolish hopes again, you won’t be so lucky next time!”
She finished speaking, lifted the high heel pressed on me, and kicked me hard.
Watching the two of them walk away arm in arm, I suddenly laughed and spat out a mouthful of blood.
Claire Morgan, perhaps the most foolish, wishful dream I’ve ever had was to see the day you’d fall in love with me…
Claire had all the haunted house surveillance from that day destroyed.
But she didn’t know—I had already backed up every single video.
I sat on the couch, torturing myself by replaying over and over the footage of their lips and breaths entwined.
Finally, I pressed a hand to my chest.
It turned out that the heart which had once pounded so fiercely had already grown numb.
Before switching off my phone, I dialed a number to New York.
“Miss Summers, hello. I agree to go to New York to ward off disaster for you.”
There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end, followed quickly by an ecstatic female voice.
“Great! I’ll send someone to San Francisco to pick you up right away! And I’ll transfer the ten million deposit to your account immediately!”
I paused. “Miss Summers, could you also arrange a private jet? I don’t want my travel plans leaked.”
If I wanted a clean break, there was no need to let unrelated people know my whereabouts.
But before I could hang up, Claire Morgan’s voice rang from the entryway.
“What do you mean, ‘don’t want your travel plans leaked’? Where are you going?”
Emily Summers, the little princess of the New York Summers family, had been told by a master that she would face a major calamity. To avert it, she needed to find someone whose birth chart perfectly complemented hers in yin, yang, and the five elements.
And I happened to be that person.
But I hadn’t told Claire. I only said I was going to inspect a branch company in secret.
Before she could think much of it, she caught sight of my badly swollen face and froze.
“Adrian Foster! What happened to your face? Did you get into a fight with someone?!”
Claire sat down beside me, reaching out as if to touch me but pulling back at the last second, afraid of hurting me.
The concern in her eyes wasn’t an act.
But I didn’t know whether she was worried about me—or about this face that so resembled Ryan Morgan’s.
When I was first sent to Claire’s side to take care of her, I had naively thought I was chosen by Margaret Morgan to be her live-in son-in-law.
But the moment Claire saw me, there had been emotions in her eyes I couldn’t understand.
