Joseph clenched his jaw, his eyes locked onto Aurora with barely contained rage. Beside him, Judy had gone pale. As more people gathered, Joseph finally gritted his teeth and spat out, “Bank transfer.”

Aurora remained unfazed, her expression calm as she pulled out her phone and opened her banking app, holding it up for him. The moment the transfer notification appeared, she glanced at the screen, then let out a soft chuckle, amusement flickering in her eyes. “Much appreciated, ex-boyfriend.”

It wasn’t so bad. After wasting three years of her life, she still walked away with $22,700. Joseph’s face was as dark as a storm cloud as he stormed off. Judy, sensing the weight of the stares around them, hurried after him, flustered.

In the bright, upscale restaurant, Lucas’ gaze landed on Aurora from a short distance away. Beside him, his business partner followed his line of sight, curiosity flashing in his eyes. Then, with growing interest, the man’s gaze naturally settled on Aurora. “Lucas, is that your girlfriend?”

“No.” Lucas’ lips curved slightly as he answered in a deep, smooth voice, this time in flawless French. “Elle est mon épouse. (She is my wife.)”

His blond, blue-eyed associate stared at him in surprise. But the warmth in Lucas’ eyes disappeared just as quickly as it came. He withdrew his gaze, his expression turning cool and composed once more. “Mr. Smith, the proposal I just presented is my final offer. If you can’t agree to it, I’m afraid we won’t be able to move forward with this partnership.”

Aurora had no idea that Lucas had been watching her. After Joseph left, she was about to hail a cab back to the office when a man in a suit approached her. “Miss Walton,” he said politely. “I’m Mr. Carter’s secretary. He’s in a meeting right now, but he’ll be done soon. He asked if you could wait for him in the car.”

Lucas was here too? Aurora snapped out of her thoughts and smiled. “Alright.” She followed the secretary to Lucas’ car. The temperature inside was just right, and before she knew it, she dozed off. When she woke up, she instinctively sensed a gaze that was both fiercely possessive yet impossibly gentle.

“Awake?”

Aurora nodded.

Lucas studied her for a moment before asking in a warm tone, “Are you tired? If not, would you like to go somewhere with me?”

She hesitated for a second before shaking her head, “I’m not tired.”

A faint smile seemed to flicker across his lips. Leaning down, he reached over and fastened her seatbelt for her. The car drove for over half an hour before finally stopping in front of an old loft. The building had a weathered charm, as if it had stood for many years, yet something about it felt oddly familiar to Aurora.

“Let’s go inside,” Lucas said as he pushed the door open. His voice was calm, but his gaze carried something she couldn’t quite decipher. Aurora hesitated before stepping forward and pushing the door open. But the moment Aurora stepped inside, she froze.

The loft had three levels. The first floor was like something out of a fairy tale. There was a candy treehouse, a warm oven, and seven little dwarves crafted entirely out of sugar. The air was thick with the scent of caramel and vanilla, sweet enough to make her head spin. The second floor was a completely different world. Shelves lined the walls, filled with figurines and porcelain dolls of every kind. The entire space looked like a miniature dwarf kingdom brought to life. At the very top, the skylight was pulled open, allowing the starlight to spill into the secret attic.

Aurora’s breath hitched. And then, in a single instant, she remembered. She drew this. When she was fourteen, she sketched this exact dream loft—a whimsical world she had imagined for herself. “If a prince ever wants to marry me, he has to build me a place like this first. That’s the only way I’d be willing to leave my mom.”

Shock flooded her, rendering her speechless. How did Lucas know?

“You…”

Standing beneath the vast night sky, Aurora lifted her gaze to him. The lingering sweetness of candy in the air softened the last traces of bitterness Joseph had left behind. A childhood fantasy had come to life before her eyes. “Did you build this just to comfort me after watching me get humiliated?”

Aurora had always been sharp and could see through people’s intentions. She knew Lucas had seen everything unfold in the restaurant—how she confronted Joseph, airing old grievances and settling new debts in front of an eager crowd. To outsiders, it had been satisfying, a dramatic reckoning. But she knew the truth. She had wasted three years of her life on a man who was never worth it. It had been utterly humiliating.

Under the vast, starlit sky, Aurora watched as Lucas let out a quiet chuckle. There was a trace of helplessness in his tone when he finally spoke, “Mrs. Carter, this is my idea of courting you.”

She blinked, caught off guard. It wasn’t what she had expected to hear. She and Megan grew up together, and Lucas, as Megan’s cousin, had always been around. To her, he was no different from an older brother figure. Aside from that fleeting, unspoken crush in her younger years, she had never dared to think beyond that. Later, things simply unfolded the way they did by coincidence. She never once thought about when, or how, Lucas had started seeing her differently.

Without thinking, she blurted out, “Was it because of that night? Did you only want me because you couldn’t resist sleeping with me?”

The moment the words left her mouth, heat rushed to her face. She nearly bit her tongue in regret. Lucas was effortlessly attractive. Saying he couldn’t resist sleeping with her was giving herself way too much credit.

Lucas let out a low chuckle, his gaze settling on her with an unreadable expression. “You can think that if you want. I suppose I couldn’t resist your charm.”

Under the moonlight, his sharp features seemed almost dusted with frost, yet there was something undeniably languid about him. The top button of his shirt was undone, his posture effortlessly relaxed, exuding a dangerous kind of allure—like a once-unreachable figure, now fallen into the mortal world. Aurora felt an inexplicable warmth rise to her cheeks. Her eyes flicked to the beauty mark at the corner of his eye, and before she could stop herself, the words slipped out.

“Lucas Carter, you’re such a tease.”