Chapter 4

At three PM, I arrived at the designated office building to meet the agent.

Down the opulent hallway, through a slightly ajar door, I saw Leo.

He was dressed in a perfectly tailored suit, head bowed, engrossed in his phone.

Beside him, a woman, exquisitely dressed, leaned intimately against his shoulder.

I recognized her almost instantly.

Two days prior, the flower shop had received an order for nine hundred ninety-nine roses.

The customer had specifically requested the thorns *not* be removed, so I'd finished the entire arrangement with my hands covered in bleeding pricks.

When I personally delivered them by taxi, the recipient was this woman: Celeste Harding.

Tucked into the center of the roses was a small card, as requested by the customer:

"To my life's true love, Celeste. Sincerely, LZC."

Only at this moment did the realization hit me: LZC was Leo Donovan.

He knew perfectly well that I, desperate for money, wouldn't turn down such a huge order.

So he deliberately made those specific requests, just to watch me run around in circles for him.

Thinking about it, I almost laughed, tears welling in my eyes.

That day, when I got home, I'd excitedly told Leo about the big money I'd made.

When he "tenderly" bandaged my wounds, was he secretly calling me stupid again? Was I just a joke to him?

As I wiped away the tears from my eyes, the agent arrived.

He saw me standing by the door and asked, puzzled,

"Ms. Sterling, the landlord is right inside. Why aren't you going in?"

Tears still blurring my vision, I stared at the agent in shock.

"Who did you say? The landlord? Leo Donovan?"

The agent looked confused.

"Yes! Didn't you know? That entire block of Central Street, it all belongs to Young Master Donovan."

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I looked at Leo's figure in the distance, and deeply buried, painful memories surged.

After I'd paid off Leo's second bankruptcy, I struggled financially for a long time, unable to even afford rent.