I looked at Marvin and Camellia. This ridiculous couple's performance only made me laugh.

"You think I need to give up on Marvin?" I snorted, my eyes cold and void of warmth. "I think you've misunderstood. I'm here on a blind date."

"A blind date?" Marvin guffawed hard, like I'd told the most ludicrous joke he'd ever heard. "Evelyn, can't you at least make your lies sound believable? Look at you! What man in his right mind would want to be with you?"

Poking me condescendingly in the shoulder, Camellia chimed in, "If you're just trying to win Marv back, just be upfront about it. What's the point of resorting to such flashy lies?"

I couldn't be bothered to clarify things with them. Just then, my phone rang—it was my blind date calling. I took the call in front of them, putting it on speaker mode.

A polite and slightly apologetic male voice came from the other end, "Hey, Evelyn. This is Nathan Lloyd."

For some reason, the name sounded rather familiar to me.

"I'm really sorry about this, but something urgent came up. I'm afraid I won't make it to our blind date today."

"It's fine. You should take care of your business first," I responded agreeably.

"To make up for this, let's have dinner three days from today. We can eat at the revolving rooftop restaurant at The Haven Hotel. It'll be my treat. Is that okay with you?"

The Haven Hotel was the top luxury hotel in the city. A meal at the hotel's rooftop restaurant could easily cost more than what an ordinary person earned in a year.

Before I could even respond, however, Marvin and Camellia were bent over with laughter beside me.

"Go on. Keep the act up," Marvin said as he clutched his sides, laughing so hard that he almost teared up. "Where did you even find that actor anyway, Evelyn? What, you're trying to prove that you're doing just fine even after you broke up with me?"

Camellia took his arm and looked at me scornfully. "It's useless. Everything you do will simply make Marv find you even more pathetic."

I simply put my phone away, not even feeling the urge to rebuke the pair of clowns.

"Are you done?" I asked coolly. "If you are, I'd like to have my lunch now."

My composure completely enraged them.

"You're so full of yourself, you broke bitch!" Camellia jabbed a finger at me, her face twisted in fury. "How dare you think about eating here? I bet you're going to dine and dash, aren't you? Security! Hey, security!"

Her piercing shrieks quickly brought over two uniformed security guards, and one of them recognized her.

"Yes, Ms. Hough? What do you need us to do?"

Smirking, Camellia pointed at me and commanded, "Kick this stalker out! She's ruining my and my fiance's appetite. Broke and shameless bitches like her aren't welcome in this mall!"

Marvin crossed his arms and added contemptuously, "Yeah, toss her out! Just the sight of her nauseates me!"

However, the security guard simply looked at them with a grim expression, his tone professional as he replied, "Ms. Hough, Mr. Stuart, we've just received a complaint that you two are creating a disturbance and harassing the other guests. Please leave the mall at once."

Camellia and Marvin were stupefied.

"W-What did you just say?" Camellia couldn't believe her ears. "You're telling me to leave? Do you even know who I am? I'm a VVIP guest here at this mall!"

"This is an order from the CEO herself," the guard said before holding his arm out to escort them off, his expression stoic.

"This is unbelievable!" Camellia shrieked.

She wanted to continue kicking up a fuss, but without saying another word, the two guards grabbed both of them by the arm and started hauling them out.

I was just about to head into the restaurant when Mom showed up in a Chanel suit.

"Mom? What are you doing here?" I was pretty surprised to see her.

"Do you think I wouldn't show up? I had to make sure you came for the blind date, of course!" Mom rolled her eyes before chuckling. "Oh, but I forgot to tell you that we own this mall, too."

Laughing in exasperation, I took her arm and led her into the restaurant to have lunch together.

By then, the guards had dragged Marvin and Camellia out of the mall. As they stood there looking slightly disheveled, they spotted me linking arms with a middle-aged woman dressed in luxury attire.

The cogs in Camellia's mind started turning. "I've figured it out! Here I was, wondering where that broke bitch got the guts to act like that. Turns out she found herself someone to latch onto!"

Grinding his teeth, Marvin spat out, "I can't believe she actually found herself a rich woman to suck up to!"

After seeing me enter the restaurant, the two of them reluctantly trudged away from the mall.

In the blink of an eye, it was time for my dinner with Nathan. Thanks to Mom's persistent urging, I left the house hours before I actually had to.

As soon as the car came to a stop at the hotel entrance, a massive wedding poster slammed into my line of sight. It was a photo of Marvin in a suit with a blissful smile on his face, with Camellia beside him.

Only then did I remember that they were having their wedding today.

What a coincidence that was.

I walked into the hotel lobby and was about to head up to the rooftop when a voice called out, "Evelyn, what are you doing here?"

Camellia had spotted me. She immediately furrowed her brows and hurried over.

Marvin's face grew unpleasant the instant he saw me. "Evelyn, I told you not to bother me anymore! How can you be so shameless?"

"You don't own this hotel," I said coolly. "Do I need to report to you whenever I come here?"

Camellia snorted. "I see what's going on. You just can't let it go, so you showed up here to ruin our wedding, didn't you? Do you even know how much it costs to hold a wedding here? Your monthly salary isn't even enough to rent the most basic ballroom, you broke bitch!"

Marvin, with his arm around Camellia, looked at me in utter disdain. "There's no way in hell I'd ever marry you, Evelyn, so just give it up already! Look at Cammy, and then look at yourself. Do you really think you're worthy of me?"

The guests around them started whispering among themselves, curious about the situation.

"Is she the groom's ex? She's all dressed up, too. Is she here to steal the groom?"

"They've already broken up, yet she refuses to move on. How embarrassing for her!"

"She's just a deluded woman who wants someone way out of her league. She deserved to get dumped."

The comments stoked Marvin's ego, much to his satisfaction. "Heard that, Evelyn? This is the life I deserve. Take my advice and get lost now. Stop humiliating yourself here. You and I have long since become two people from entirely different worlds."

After taking in their show of smugness, I was just about to retort when a middle-aged man dressed in a suit dashed into the hotel lobby.

"Ms. Hough, our newly appointed CEO has just called off the redevelopment project at the south side of the city, the one where your family home is located."

The smile on Camellia's face froze at once.

"What did you just say?"

The man, who was drenched in sweat, confirmed the news once more. "It's true. We just received an official memo from the headquarters, stating that the plan for that district needs to be re-evaluated…"

He trailed off when, out of the corner of my eye, he spotted me. Immediately, he straightened up and turned to me with a respectful expression. "W-What are you doing here, Ms. Gray?"