"Someone who disappeared when it mattered most and never even gave me an explanation doesn't really have the right to mock me, does he?"

At last, I said the words that had been buried in my chest for five years.

The office fell deathly silent.

Daniel sat behind the large desk, one hand still resting on the file. His expression remained distant and unreadable.

I almost laughed coldly at the sight of him.

What gave him the right to act like this?

The next second, I slapped the file down onto the desk with a heavy thud.

"The data isn't wrong." I looked straight at him, my voice turning colder with every word. "If you're only trying to make things difficult for me, Mr. Carter, then you can have someone else deliver the file next time."

The moment those words left my mouth, something in his eyes finally shifted.

But I no longer had the energy to argue with him. I picked up the file and turned to leave.

When I returned to my desk, nearly everyone in the office looked up at the same time.

My expression looked awful, and the rejected file was still in my hands. Anyone could tell something had gone wrong.

Lily had just walked out of the printing area when she spotted me and froze for a second.

"What happened to you? You look terrible. Did Mr. Carter give you a hard time?"

She hurried over, guilt written all over her face.

"This is my fault. I forgot to warn you." She glanced toward the CEO's office and lowered her voice even further. "Mr. Carter was transferred in out of nowhere. Today's his first official day, and he's already been tearing the whole department apart all morning."

I forced a faint smile.

Lily thought I was still upset about what had happened and tried to comfort me quietly. "You know how it is when a new boss takes over. They're always extra intense at first. Don't take it personally. Mr. Carter isn't singling you out." She paused before adding softly, "Besides... he really does have the ability to back it up."

I looked up at her. "What do you mean?"

"Wait, you seriously don't know?" Lily leaned closer and whispered, "Mr. Carter's insanely capable, and his standards are ridiculously high. Pretty much every project he's taken over has been a success. I heard headquarters sent him here specifically to clean up the mess in this branch."

"But," she continued, changing her tone, "even though nobody questions his ability, he's seriously intimidating. He's only been here two days, and the whole company is already scared of him."

After a pause, she added with a sigh, "Honestly, Mr. Carter's rich, handsome, and ridiculously attractive. Even if he's scary, there are still tons of girls interested in him. What a shame, though. Men like that are never single."

My grip on the file tightened slightly.

That photo from five years ago suddenly flashed through my mind.

Under dim lighting, Daniel had been lying in the same bed with another woman.

Bitterness spread quietly through my chest. Had he really ended up with that woman?

Just then, a man's voice sounded beside me.

"Claire, are you okay?"

I turned around to see Andrew Anderson from the marketing department standing beside me, holding a freshly poured cup of warm water. Concern was written plainly across his face.

"You don't look well. Are you sick?" He handed me the water. "If you're not feeling well, you should take the afternoon off. I can finish that report for you."

My thoughts were a mess, and I could only answer politely. "Thanks, but..."

"Looks like I haven't assigned enough work if you still have time to help other people."

At some point, the CEO's office door had opened. Daniel was standing there, staring directly at me.

Andrew looked awkward immediately. "Mr. Carter."

Daniel ignored him completely. His eyes stayed fixed on me, his tone unreadable. "This is a workplace, Ms. Parker, not somewhere for flirting. You need to watch your behavior."

The mocking edge in his voice instantly lit a fire in my chest.

"Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Carter," I said, staring straight at him and emphasizing every word. "But who I talk to and who I spend time with are my business."

Daniel's eyes darkened little by little.

I didn't look away from him. Instead, I continued calmly, "And my personal life has nothing to do with you anymore. You're my boss, not my guardian. Don't you think you're overstepping a little, Mr. Carter?"

The entire office area fell silent. Even the people passing by unconsciously slowed their footsteps.

Daniel's jaw tightened visibly.

For a moment, I honestly thought he was going to lose his temper right there.

But in the end, he said nothing and simply turned away.

Lily didn't dare breathe properly until he was far enough away.

"Oh my God..."

Andrew looked embarrassed too as he lowered his voice. "Did I cause trouble for you?"

"No."

I lowered my eyes to the cup in my hands and shook my head gently. But deep down, an uneasy feeling had already started creeping in.

Over the next few days, I barely left work on time.

Daniel had managed to dump every task that was not particularly important but troublesome enough squarely onto my shoulders.

Even materials that were not my responsibility kept landing in my inbox, one email after another.

Just then, my phone vibrated.

I thought it was another work message, but when I looked down, my fingers stilled.

My mother's name, Margaret Parker, was on the screen.

I stared at the incoming call for a few seconds before finally answering it.

"Hello."

There was a moment of silence on the other end before Margaret's voice came through. "Have you been... all right these past few days?"

"What do you need?" I asked.

She seemed to sigh, her voice softening. "Come have dinner with us this weekend. I've already made a reservation. It'll just be the family. We can sit down and talk properly."

I said nothing.

If she had truly cared about me, she would not have helped my father, Richard Parker, push me into the Cooper family back then.

Into that bottomless pit.

"It has hurt me all this time, seeing things turn out like this between you and the family." She paused, then added, "Your father has been thinking about you these past few days too."

After a few seconds of silence, I relented. "Send me the time and address."

She was clearly relieved.

A few seconds after the call ended, the address came through.

I glanced at it, turned my phone face down on the desk, and returned to the data on my computer.

......

The clock on the wall had already struck twelve.

I rubbed the stiffness from the back of my neck and closed my laptop, my throat dry and hoarse.

Looking around the empty office, I could not help muttering under my breath, "Petty capitalist."

"Done cursing me?"

A low voice suddenly came from somewhere nearby.

My whole body tensed, and the documents in my hands nearly slipped straight to the floor.

I snapped my head up.

The light at the end of the hallway was still on. Daniel stood there with his suit jacket draped over one arm, the top button of his shirt undone, watching me with a cool expression.

Guilt flickered through me, but I kept my face calm. "You misheard me, Mr. Carter."

He walked over slowly and stopped beside my desk.

"Did I?" he asked evenly. "Because I heard you very clearly."

I stuffed the documents into my bag. "Then you must be overworked."

Daniel's lips seemed to twitch slightly.

"You still have the energy to curse people. Looks like your workload isn't full enough."

I almost laughed from sheer irritation and looked up at him. "Are you still here this late just to hear me curse you, Mr. Carter?"

He did not answer. He only glanced at me and said, "Let's go."

I froze. "What?"

"You're getting off work." He added, "It's already this late. Were you planning to spend the night here?"

I frowned. "No need. I can get home by myself."

"Don't read too much into it." Daniel turned and walked toward the elevator. "I just don't want to hear anyone cursing me behind my back again tomorrow."

I stood there for two seconds before picking up my bag and following him.

The elevator doors slid shut, and our reflections appeared side by side in the mirrored walls.

After five years, this was the first time we had stood so close.

But our hearts had already drifted far apart.

Resentment and confusion once again crowded my mind.

Seeing him again seemed to make me hate him even more.

But feelings like that were difficult to put into words, so I chose silence instead.

Daniel kept looking at me, but in the end, he said nothing either.

"Get in." His tone was not harsh, but it left no room for argument.

I paused. "Really, there's no need. I can take a cab."

"Didn't you just call me a capitalist?" Daniel sounded impatient. "Now I'm saving you some money, and suddenly you're refusing?"

I was left speechless.

He gripped the steering wheel and stared at me without moving.

I knew his temper. After standing there for a few seconds, I opened the passenger door and got in.

As the car started, a receipt slipped out from beneath the center console.

It was from a luxury jewelry brand.

I had not meant to look at it.

But the words "custom women's jewelry set" were glaringly obvious, followed by an absurdly high price.

My fingertips stiffened. Almost instantly, I thought of the woman in that photograph.

It felt as if someone had seized my heart in a brutal grip.

So after all these years, he had not changed at all.

He could treat me with nothing but coldness, yet turn around and spend a fortune on another woman.

I looked away, unwilling to spare that receipt another glance.

Daniel did not notice anything unusual about me.

His hands stayed on the steering wheel as he asked flatly, "Address."

I opened my mouth, about to give him the familiar address.

Then I suddenly remembered that the place I lived in now was the apartment Daniel and I had rented before we broke up. My whole body stiffened.

I instinctively glanced at Daniel. Seeing that he had not noticed my reaction, I lowered my eyes and gave him a random address, feeling guilty for no reason.

"Just drop me off there."

After getting out of the car, I pretended to walk toward a nearby apartment complex.

Only after I saw Daniel's car disappear into the night from the corner of my eye did I finally let out a breath and call another cab home.

On the way back, my mind was in such chaos that I never noticed the black Maybach following at a steady distance behind me.

Outside the old apartment building, the Maybach did not start again until the sky had begun to turn pale.

The next morning, I walked into the office with dark circles under my eyes and had to drink two cups of coffee before I finally pulled myself together.

I had prepared myself to be targeted by Daniel again, but to my surprise, he stayed unusually quiet the entire morning.

When I submitted the file, he only skimmed through it, pointed out two minor issues, and spoke in the same cold tone as before, but there was no deliberate hostility in it.

During the project briefing, he remained strictly professional. He even looked at me far less often than he had the day before.

Sitting at my desk with the documents in my hands, I somehow felt oddly unsettled.

"Is Mr. Carter in a good mood today?" Lily leaned over quietly while no one was paying attention. "I went in earlier to get his signature and was fully prepared to be chewed out, but he didn't say a single unnecessary word."

I pressed my lips together and said nothing, though I found it strange too.

Even as the end of the workday approached, Daniel still had not made things difficult for me again.

I even began to wonder whether the tension over the past two days had only been in my head.

But the moment that thought surfaced, a new email popped into my inbox.

Sender, CEO, Daniel Carter.

My eyelid twitched. I clicked it open and saw only two short lines.

"Seven tonight. Attend a dinner event with me. Work requirement."

I stared at the screen, frowning slightly.

There were plenty of people in the company far more suitable than me, yet he had chosen me.

But no matter how unwilling I was, I could only reply with a proper, "Okay."

After work, I waited until everyone in the office had left one after another before resting my forehead in my hand and slowly letting out a breath.

A dinner event.

I looked down at the business suit I was wearing and felt my headache worsen.

When I left the Cooper family, they had been terrified I might take even one extra thing with me.

I had only taken my documents and daily necessities. Most of my clothes suitable for formal occasions were still there.

I could not possibly go back and endure their faces again just to attend a dinner event with Daniel.

The thought only made the weight in my chest heavier.

Just then, two people appeared at the office door, one carrying a garment bag and the other holding a jewelry box.

"Ms. Parker, Mr. Carter asked us to deliver these to you."

I watched them set the items down, and my heart suddenly began to beat unevenly.

I lifted the garment bag with my fingers, revealing the gown inside, then let my gaze fall on the open jewelry box beside it.

A diamond jewelry set shimmered brilliantly beneath the light.

My breath caught.

It was the same one, exactly the same set listed on the receipt from last night.

A mess of emotions surged up inside me all at once.

Last night, I had thought that jewelry set was something he had bought for another woman.

But now, it had been delivered to me.

My throat tightened. What was this supposed to mean?

Suddenly, familiar footsteps sounded at the door.

Daniel stood there, his gaze sweeping over the things on the desk. "What are you standing there for? Go try it on."

I did not move. I only stared at him. "What exactly is this, Mr. Carter?"

"Wear it to the dinner."

I closed the box. "It's too expensive. This isn't appropriate."

"Put it on."

"I'm only going there for work. I don't need to..."

"You're my date for the evening." He cut me off, his tone leaving no room for refusal. "Anyone I bring with me can't look shabby."

After a few seconds of stalemate, I picked up the gown and walked into the fitting room.

The gown fit me perfectly. It brought out the clean lines of my shoulders and neck, while the necklace at my collarbone caught the light in delicate fragments.

When I pushed the door open and stepped out, my pace slowed despite myself.

Daniel looked up.

The instant his gaze landed on me, he visibly froze.

Only for a brief moment.

But that fleeting lapse, too quick for him to hide, still did not escape my eyes.

The next second, he looked away, his expression returning to normal.

"Stay by my side tonight. Don't wander off."