That look in her eyes clearly showed that she knew exactly what Susan Clark was to Samuel Grant, yet she had not the slightest awareness of being the third party. On the contrary, she even exuded a smug sense of pride, as if someone had barged barefoot into a banquet and spit into the dishes, then boasted to everyone that she had claimed the entire table of food.

Susan Clark was so dazzled by that look that her temples throbbed painfully.

Fine, I’ll endure it.

She tossed aside the egg tart and left the dessert shop without looking back.

But as she stepped out the door, something suddenly occurred to her. She immediately stopped and turned around, just in time to catch Lucy Quinn looking at her with the gaze of a victor.

Susan Clark's eyes dropped, and she saw that shiny golden thing pinned to her scarf—wasn’t that the very brooch Samuel Grant had taken away last night?!

“……”

Though her expression remained calm, it felt as if thousands of burning coals were rolling back and forth in Susan Clark’s chest, her anger threatening to erupt at any moment.

After walking a few steps, Susan Clark finally couldn’t hold it in and kicked a big tree by the roadside.

The tree was terrified—it had never seen such an angry woman before.

Susan Clark hung her head, her chest heaving violently, and she could clearly feel her cheeks burning with rage.

Car horns blared incessantly on the road. She turned her head slightly and saw Samuel Grant and Lucy Quinn coming out.

Samuel Grant was holding a dessert box, while Lucy Quinn clung to his arm, hopping as she got into the passenger seat.

Did she just get released from the zoo and hasn’t learned to walk upright yet?

Susan Clark stared fixedly in that direction until her teeth ached from clenching, then finally forced herself to walk away.

She didn’t even know what she was doing.

She didn’t hail a cab, didn’t head for the subway—she just wandered aimlessly down this wide, somewhat desolate road.

She had no idea how long she walked. The sky gradually darkened, and Susan Clark stopped at an intersection, ready to flag down a taxi.

Just as she looked toward the middle of the road, a car parked across the street suddenly caught her attention.

As her gaze focused, the dazzling Rolls-Royce emblem seemed to gleam with golden light.

The license plate was the same string of numbers she’d seen at the hospital last night—the “consecutive number plate” Samuel Grant had mentioned. There was only one like it in all of Jiangcheng.

A thought flashed rapidly through Susan Clark’s mind, along with what Ethan Turner had said to her today.

—“You have knowledge, looks, a respectable job, and a limitless future. How could you not be good enough?”

The cold wind whipped across her face, but her thoughts surged like a heatwave in her mind.

Not very rational, not very calm, but in just three seconds, Susan Clark made a decision that would upend her future life.

Some people—if you don’t make them pay for what they’ve done, they won’t think you’re generous or easygoing. They’ll just think you’re a fool.

Don’t you want to save yourself twenty years of struggle?

So do I.

Don’t you want to have a powerful backer?

So do I.

Even if I can’t make you pay, I’ll at least make sure that when you try to curry favor in the future, you’ll have to respectfully call me “little aunt.”

With that thought, Susan Clark was already standing beside the car.

She looked at her reflection in the window and brushed her hair aside.

Her face in the glass looked a bit haggard, but it had a unique charm—different from Susan Clark’s usual lively beauty, now there was a fragile, pitiful air about her.

She raised her hand and knocked on the window.

There was no response for a long time.

So long that Susan Clark almost thought no one was inside, when finally, the window slowly rolled down.

At first, Susan Clark only saw a pair of gold-rimmed glasses with anti-slip chains.

Then, the whole face gradually came into view, and Susan Clark couldn’t help but curse inwardly.

Anyone who had seen this face wouldn’t forget it anytime soon, and of course Susan Clark remembered—it was the man who had offered to drive her home last night at Warner Manor.

She just hadn’t expected that, with Lucy Quinn’s plain, watery looks, her little uncle would turn out to be this attractive?

The man didn’t seem surprised to have his window knocked on; he just looked over calmly.

Though it was awkward, Susan Clark didn’t think it was entirely a bad thing.

At least, last night he seemed a little interested, didn’t he?

So Susan Clark bent down and said softly, “Sir, my phone is dead and I can’t get a cab. Could I borrow your phone to make a call?”

Ian Shaw didn’t even turn his head, just tilted his face slightly and glanced sideways at Susan Clark.

In that brief eye contact, Susan Clark couldn’t tell what he was thinking, so she steeled herself and said, “Or, if you’re willing, you could give me a ride.”

Ian Shaw stared at her for a while.

His eyes were long and narrow, and the cold gleam of his glasses perfectly subdued the hint of mischief at the corners of his eyes.

A few seconds later, Ian Shaw slowly withdrew his gaze.

“My car doesn’t give rides to women with boyfriends.”

Susan Clark: “...?”

The car pulled away right in front of her, speeding off down the road.

Chapter Four

Clouds tinged with orange light rolled across the horizon, and the passage of time became visible to the naked eye.