Chapter 285

Vespera felt like she was strapped to a rocket, shooting straight into the stratosphere. There was no way this was happening to her. Her pupils trembled from the sheer velocity; her breath caught in her chest, and her lungs refused to function.

Dominic noticed something amiss in her expression. He glanced down, about to look at the screen. In the nick of time, Vespera lunged forward, throwing herself across his arm and shamelessly snatching the phone from his hand. “You can’t look!”

Dominic was caught completely off guard. The kitten freaked out and leaped onto the couch in a panic.

Vespera straightened up and took a step back, forcing her voice to sound casual. “It’s a post… my friend and I were talking about some private stuff. Not something I want anyone else to see.”

Dominic’s face darkened. “Private? What? Did she catch you on camera during a murder, and now she’s blackmailing you?”

Vespera stayed silent. What could she even say? To make matters worse, the notifications kept coming. Ping after ping. Just how many “new arrivals” were there? She wasn’t running a boutique—why were they sending her the entire catalog?

Dominic’s expression grew colder by the second.

“I’m going to buy something for the kitten,” Vespera said quickly, escaping from the president’s office.

Back in her office, she finally opened her phone and immediately turned scarlet. Image after image flooded her screen. Every single one was traumatizing, scandalous, and very erotic. She couldn’t even imagine what would have happened if Dominic had seen them. The thought made her want to curl up and die. It was way worse than that damn strawberry thing. She deleted the entire batch at lightning speed.

Finally able to breathe again, she sat down and grabbed her desk phone, calling the secretary department. She asked two of them to help purchase kitten supplies—milk, food specifically for kittens, a bed, a litter box, and all the other essentials.

Dominic was a clean freak. If that kitten so much as peed or pooped on his carpet, he’d probably have a meltdown.

Sure enough, the kitten barely lasted an hour in his office before it was relocated to Gerard’s. Vespera joined Gerard in feeding it. The afternoon was packed with work, but once things settled down, she headed back over and took turns cuddling and playing with the kitten.

“Mr. Eden really acts on impulse. When I saw him carrying that little basket earlier, I thought it had flowers or fruit or something,” Gerard said, scratching the kitten’s head.

“Does he always bring Mr. Reid gifts?” Vespera asked.

“Pretty much every time he visits. No wonder the whole company thinks something is going on between them.”

“So… is there?” Vespera asked, too seriously.

Sure, people joked, and she’d even had a little fun pairing the two. But if she thought about it rationally, the whole “turning Dominic straight” thing was nonsense. Bisexual? Didn’t seem to fit. The man practically screamed straight. As for Eden—he was flamboyant, sure, and totally unbothered by people misunderstanding him. But if she paid attention, he never actually genuinely flirted with Dominic.

Gerard chuckled. “Of course not. Mr. Reid doesn’t like men, and Mr. Eden’s just like that, always messing around. But actually, way back, he had a girlfriend.” Vespera blinked. “So, the persona’s just an act?”

Gerard shrugged. “The Lucke family’s a whole mess. With them, nothing’s off the table.”

Seeing how Gerard seemed to know a lot about law, Vespera decided to press her luck. “Do you know anything about Mr. Theodore Locke? I heard his current wife wasn’t his first; sounds like there’s a story there.”

That lit a fire in Gerard’s gossip-loving soul. He handed the kitten over to Vespera, walked over to close the door, and came back with a gleam in his eyes.

“That’s not a story, that’s a scandal. A horror show straight out of the high-society bloodbath tiles.”

Vespera gently rubbed the kitten’s head. “Tell me everything.”