Unwelcome Visitor

Cleo decided to stay put and wait for Vaughn to contact her just as he had promised. Her sole intention was to ambush him and get him to attest to the true recipient of the check. However, another agonizing week passed in dead silence.

The crushing weight of her financial ruin bore down on her shoulders. She desperately needed that massive sum of money back. She had risked her own life and sold her body just to save Corbin. She refused to let the greedy Vance family take advantage of her traumatic sacrifice.

Returning exhausted to her cramped apartment, Cleo prepared to settle for another pathetic meal of cheap instant noodles. Tessa lounged on the living room couch. She peered at Cleo through the slimy slits of a facial sheet mask and snorted in derision.

"You look like a literal ghost. Are you still waiting and thinking about the billionaire Vaughn Lockwood? You had better stop having your head in the clouds and wake up to reality."

Cleo peeled the foil lid off her steaming noodles. "Do you ever see the CEO at work?"

Tessa scoffed. "There are thousands of low-level employees swarming the Lockwood Group building. Do you genuinely think it is that easy for a nobody to meet the supreme boss?"

Tessa sat up, shifting the topic with a blunt tone. "The rent deadline is looming. I will personally kick you out onto the streets if you do not pay up immediately."

Driven into a corner with zero options left, Cleo resolved to swallow her pride. She would try her luck by going to his company in person.

The next morning, the biting winter wind whipped around Cleo as she stood outside the towering, glass-fronted Lockwood Group building. Surrounded by rushing corporate employees, she felt as insignificant as a tiny ant.

She was lost in her anxious thoughts when a sleek, black Maserati roared toward the curb. It screeched to a halt right in front of her. Startled out of her wits, Cleo lost her balance. She crashed hard into the sharp concrete edge of a decorative flower bed, scraping her elbow against the rough stone until it bled.

The driver's window rolled down, and the chauffeur screamed at her.

"Do you have a death wish? Watch where you are going!"

Adrenaline and pain flared through her system. Cleo pushed herself up off the cold ground. She stretched out her bleeding arm to physically block the luxury car from moving.

"You should be the one to watch where you are going!" Cleo shouted back.

In the luxurious, tinted backseat of the car, the stunning Giselle Roth slowly lowered her window. She eyed the disheveled Cleo with eyes full of cold disdain, treating her like trash. Without a shred of empathy, Giselle issued an order.

"Just step on the gas and drive away, Declan."

Declan floored the accelerator. The engine roared, forcing a terrified Cleo to leap out of the path of the heavy tires to avoid being crushed as the massive car sped off.

Inside the moving Maserati, the elegant Giselle immediately interrogated Declan. As Vaughn's trusted personal driver, he bore the brunt of her relentless suspicion. She questioned him about Vaughn's recent, secretive whereabouts.

"Has my fiancé been fooling around with other women while I was away?" Giselle probed.

Declan gripped the steering wheel, nervously assuring her of the opposite.

"The CEO is merely busy with corporate affairs, Ms. Roth. He will be overjoyed to see you finally back from E Nation."

Hearing this, Giselle snorted inwardly with dark sarcasm. *Overjoyed?* She wondered bitterly what the cold Vaughn Lockwood actually looked like when he was supposedly happy. The tension in their high-profile engagement was a heavy, unspoken presence filling the silent car.

Left abandoned and humiliated on the cold pavement, Cleo held her bleeding, throbbing arm. She was busy dusting the dirt off her clothes when she suddenly heard a chilling, unmistakable voice from above.

"Well, look who’s here."

Cleo spun around to see Vaughn's handsome, frost-layered face. He stood imposingly at the top of the concrete stairs, looking down at her like a king observing a peasant. He was surrounded by a tight group of intimidating men clad in sharp black suits, all of whom stared at her ruffled appearance.

Vaughn gave her a speculative, dark glance. His piercing eyes analyzed her messy hair and scraped elbow, clearly assuming she had arrived at his corporate domain with a manipulative, ulterior motive. He did not bother offering a single ounce of assistance to the injured woman at his feet.

The intimidating confrontation compounded the desperation already clawing at her chest. Cleo wiped a streak of dirt from her cheek, trying desperately to salvage whatever remained of her shattered dignity. She met his cold gaze, forcing her trembling voice into a state of feigned, shaky calmness.

"Am I disturbing you?" Cleo asked.

"Yes, you are," Vaughn replied instantly.

His lips curled upward into a wickedly dark, devastating smirk, thoroughly enjoying her visible discomfort under the weight of his corporate entourage.