1 I was mindlessly scrolling online when a post caught my eye. 【I accidentally broke my boss's fiancée's bracelet. How do I get away with it?】 In the comments, the original poster was relentlessly showing off how special her boss treated her. 【The bracelet broke while he and I were… you know, getting intimate. I wanted to try something new.】 【He told me the beads on this thing are supposed to be a lucky charm, so he wanted me to carry it with me always.】 【He said I don't have to pay for it, but I feel bad. Does anyone know where I can buy another one?】 Attached was a photo of a faded Kynam agarwood bracelet. It looked familiar. Trying to be helpful, I commented: 【Bracelets like that go for at least a million on the market. You should probably just apologize.】 A second later, she replied with disdain: 【A million? Honey, even if it were ten million, he would never let me apologize for anything.】 【He doesn't even like his fiancée. I'm his true love.】 I clicked on her profile, only to find that the "boss" she was talking about was my fiancé. Her reply just struck me as bizarre. Zero people cared who her boss was in love with. My focus was on the bracelet. The Kynam bracelet my grandfather gave me was a near-perfect match to the one in the photo, in both size and quality. It was just clear the poster hadn't taken care of it; the rich color had faded significantly. In the time it took for my silence to register, a mountain of comments had already piled up beneath hers. 【OP, you must not be from Brookhaven. Her company is the biggest player in the city.】 【Fumbling intern and the top-of-the-food-chain CEO? I ship it.】 【Who should apologize to whom is still up in the air. President Blackwood is known for spoiling his favorites.】 A few of those words sent a shiver down my spine. Because I happened to know a "President Blackwood" in Brookhaven. My fiancé, Vincent Blackwood. I navigated to the poster’s homepage. The background image was, unmistakably, my family's corporate headquarters. My father, impressed by Vincent’s ambition, had sent him to manage the Brookhaven branch, putting him under my nominal command in the hopes that we’d grow closer. I just had no idea that in a few short months, my own company had apparently changed hands. If Vincent was her secret lover, then it was painfully obvious whose bracelet it was. Seeing my property desecrated like this, and the culprit showing not a shred of remorse, was infuriating. I suppressed the fire rising in my chest and clicked back into the thread. 【Since when does Vincent Blackwood call all the shots? That’s news to me.】 【Forget you apologizing—Vincent himself is going to have to make a personal apology for this.】 【Is this the new trend? Homewreckers being this proud and loud about it?】 My comments clearly struck a nerve. She was instantly incensed, firing back with a volley of photos and a tone dripping with arrogance. 【It's just a million. My boss's car is worth over ten million.】 【See this diamond? He just won it at an auction a few days ago. He said he’s having it made into our wedding ring.】 【How can some no-name nobody even compare to my boss?】 I clicked open the images. They were all my things, items I’d left behind in Brookhaven. I’d been in a rush to go abroad a few months ago, and bringing everything was too much of a hassle. Before I left, I’d asked Vincent to keep an eye on them for me. I never imagined he’d use them all to woo someone else. As her posts grew more and more heated, a cold smile touched my lips. I pulled out my phone and dialed Vincent’s number. It rang for nearly a minute before he picked up. His voice was clipped. “I’m in a meeting. Whatever it is, we can talk later.” Before I could say a word, the dial tone buzzed in my ear. But in the next second, I refreshed the thread and saw a new reply from her. It was a screenshot of a voice call, the timer already at thirty minutes. 【The boss has been on the phone calming me down this whole time. He even hung up on his fiancée for me~】 Seeing her provocation, I didn't reply again. Not because I was hurt, but because I had already arrived at the foot of the office building. He still hadn't read the message I sent him yesterday. Compared to the attentive, cautious man he used to be, Vincent had certainly changed these past few months. I’d chalked it up to the pressures of his promotion, never guessing he was just busy doting on his little mistress. With another cold smile, I called him again. The moment he answered, I spoke first. “I’m at the front door. I don’t care what you’re doing, but I’m giving you two choices.” “You can either come down now and personally escort me in.” “Or, I, as the Chairwoman, can have the front desk inform you that you’ve been summoned.” 2 I didn't get Vincent. I got Corinne. She sashayed out of the president's private elevator, her eyes raking over me from head to toe with undisguised contempt. "Ms. Heffner, is it? President Blackwood is in a meeting. You can just come with me." As she spoke, Corinne's gaze landed on my dress. The receptionist nearby, quick on the uptake, chimed in, "Corinne, is that a new dress? I bet the President just bought it for you. It's different from the one you wore this morning." A delighted grin spread across Corinne’s face. "I only mentioned it offhandedly yesterday. I can't believe he actually bought it for me today." The two of them went on, a perfect duet of sycophantic praise, quickly forgetting I was even there. I finally looked up from my phone, my gaze slowly drifting over to Corinne. The tell-tale marks on her neck were vivid, and she made no effort to conceal them. Connecting that to the "getting intimate" she’d mentioned in her post, I knew exactly what had been going on. "I believe I asked for Vincent to come down personally. Is he—" Before I could finish, Corinne cut me off. "President Blackwood is a very busy man. He doesn't have time for unimportant people." Her tone was dismissive. "Whatever you have to say, you can just tell me. I'll pass it along." The moment the words left her mouth, the crowd of gossiping onlookers murmured in agreement. "Yeah, even though Corinne's just an intern, her full-time position is a sure thing. The President himself transferred her to be his personal secretary." "President Blackwood said that what Corinne wants, he wants. We're all supposed to listen to her." "If just anyone could demand to see the President, he'd work himself to death." One by one, they painted me as the one who was being unreasonable. I just arched an eyebrow, my expression unreadable. President Blackwood? Since when was Vincent the president of anything? Corinne, however, mistook my silence for fear. Her eyes darted around before she whipped out her phone. "I've been looking after that bracelet of yours. I've been spritzing it with my best perfume every day to keep it nice. You can just reimburse me for the cost." "I'm sorry?" I frowned, not quite catching what she said. She took my expression as a refusal and her voice sharpened into a threat. "That's the perfume President Blackwood bought me. It's a four-figure bottle. I barely use it on myself." When her words finally registered, I was stunned. Not because the perfume was expensive, but because she’d been spraying it on the bracelet. Agarwood is porous; it absorbs scents. Spraying it with perfume is like using a fine wine to clean your floors. It ruins it. Especially since the fragrance Vincent had chosen was one I personally despised; the bottle was still sitting in my room, collecting dust. As Corinne spoke, she leaned closer, and the cloying scent of cheap fragrance immediately assaulted my senses, making me feel sick. I took an imperceptible step back, but she thought I was trying to flee. "Stop right there!" she barked. "You're not trying to skip out on the bill, are you?" I straightened up, composing myself. Just as I raised my hand, a cold voice cut through the lobby from behind me. "Aurora, even if you are my fiancée, you can't just bully my secretary in public." Vincent, having rushed down after my call, stood there, pulling Corinne protectively behind him. He looked at me, his brow furrowed in a tight, disapproving knot. Never mind that our "engagement" was just a casual suggestion from my father that was never even finalized. And never mind that I wouldn't be caught dead with a piece of trash like Vincent. "Your secretary?" I let out a short, sharp laugh, my eyes sliding to him. "Since when did I approve Corinne's promotion?" "You damage my property, and now you want me to pay for it?" "I had no idea my company was hiring morons of this caliber." 3 My words made Vincent’s face flash through several shades of anger and embarrassment. He clearly didn't want to make a bigger scene, so he reined in his aggressive tone. "I'll pay for whatever she broke. Corinne is a very diligent worker, she—" Before Vincent could finish his defense, Corinne had had enough. She snatched the bracelet from her purse and hurled it onto the marble floor. "Here, take it back! I wouldn't want this cheap piece of junk anyway." Her action made my pupils constrict. My expression turned to ice. "Pick it up." Corinne froze, about to retort, but a glance at Vincent’s stony silence made her reconsider. Her eyes reddened as she reluctantly bent down. The moment I saw her hands touch the bracelet, I remembered her post—about how it was broken while they were "getting intimate." A wave of nausea washed over me. "That Kynam agarwood bracelet cost me three million. You can figure out how you're going to compensate me." I had barely finished speaking when Corinne's little sycophant friend, who was helping her up, let out a snort of derision. "Three million? I thought it was something expensive. Corinne is wearing single pieces that are worth dozens of your cheap bracelet." Even Corinne herself seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. She pulled out her phone again, her voice full of arrogance. Before she could speak, I tilted my head and held out a hand. "My apologies. I forgot we operate on different scales." "I meant three million dollars. I wonder how Ms. Corinne intends to pay." At the mention of the price, I saw the hand holding her phone tremble slightly. She stared at the beads in her palm in disbelief, her voice a shriek. "How could it possibly be worth three million? It's just a string of wooden beads!" Corinne examined the bracelet over and over, then forced herself to look calm. I watched as she exited the payment app and opened a shopping app instead. After a moment, she let out a breath and brandished her phone screen for everyone to see. On the screen of some bargain-bin shopping app, an identical-looking bracelet was listed for $9.99. I gave Corinne a look that was hard to put into words. This person must have dropped on her head as a child. Who didn't know these platforms were flooded with fakes? Noticing her search history, I offered a helpful tip. "It's Kynam agarwood. Not 'wooden bead bracelet.'" Vincent's bravado had vanished the moment I said "three million." Everything he had bought for Corinne had been charged to my supplementary card. Though we had the title of an engaged couple, I had always kept our finances strictly separate. Every expense was tallied, and every personal purchase was deducted from his salary. On the surface, Vincent was the "top-of-the-food-chain CEO." In reality, he was just an employee. I was the one making the real decisions; he was just the messenger. Seeing Vincent's silence, Corinne started to panic. She tried to maintain her composure and shut off her phone. "I don't care if it's three hundred or three million, President Blackwood will pay for me," she declared. "He's a rising star in this industry. You think he's short on a little cash like that?" Corinne's arrogance was clearly a well-practiced routine. She pointed a finger at the company name emblazoned across the lobby wall. "The ground you're standing on belongs to President Blackwood's company. And this is just Brookhaven." "He already told me he has no feelings for you. He's going to end the engagement soon and be with me."
? Continue the story here ?? ? Download the "MotoNovel" app ? search for "393614", and watch the full series ✨! #MotoNovel