He Secretly Used Our Down Payment to Buy Her a Luxury Bag Chapter 07

He Secretly Used Our Down Payment to Buy Her a Luxury Bag Chapter 07

After the presentation, the client had arranged a team dinner. Everyone else was going, so I did not feel comfortable declining.

Before we left, I stopped by the restroom. By the time I returned, the rest of my coworkers had already gone ahead, and only one car remained outside.

I opened the door and found Elliot inside.

He had taken off his jacket and was wearing only a white dress shirt. It looked familiar. I was almost

certain it was the one I had given him for his birthday the year before.

He had worn it so often that the cuff had eventually torn, but he had refused to throw it away..m the

end, I had sewn a silver star patch over the damaged spot.

Elliot looked at me, his lips parting slightly. “Stella…”

I acted as though I had not heard him. I moved as close to the opposite door as possible and turned

to look out the window.

After a moment of silence, he tried again. “Stella.”

I finally turned toward him. “Did you need something, Mr. Ashford?”

Elliot stared at me. “Did you just call me Mr. Ashford?”

“What else should I call you?”

His mouth opened and closed. “Call me Elliot, like you used to.”

I tilted my head as though genuinely confused. “Used to? What are you talking about? Did we know

each other before?”

His face paled slightly. “Stella, don’t do this.”

I cut him off.

“The only Elliot I remember was an orphan who worked in real estate sales and made about four

thousand dollars a month. I have no connection whatsoever to Mr. Ashford, the man worth

hundreds of millions.”

“Stella!”

Elliot raised his voice and seized my wrist.

“We need to talk. I can explain everything.”

I looked at him without expression. “Explain what?”

“Explain how you pretended to be poor and lied to me for three years while keeping a sugar baby on the side?”

“Or explain how you bought her a house and a luxury car and spent money on her like it meant nothing, while making me save every penny for our down payment? Or how the moment I looked twice at anything expensive, you decided I was vain and only cared about money?”

Elliot shook his head.

He clearly wanted to say something, but no words came.

I pried his fingers from my wrist one by one.

“Elliot, you already did those things.”

“No excuse in the world can change the fact that you lied to me and betrayed me.”

The car pulled up outside the hotel.

I opened the door, but before I could get out, Elliot caught my hand again.

“I can make it up to you. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you. Anything.”

I pulled my hand free. “I don’t need anything from you.”

After that day, I stayed home for two days, hoping to avoid Elliot.

A man as busy as he was could not remain overseas for long.

On the third day, however, the local partner company called and said some of the equipment needed to be adjusted.

I went in.

Elliot was there. He said he wanted to observe the process.

I did not object and let him watch from the side, but I ignored everything he said. The moment the

work was finished, I left.

On the fourth day, the company called again. Their data team had run into a problem and asked me

to come over.

I went back, corrected several errors for the staff, and left.

On the fifth day, the company called for help yet again.

I was not an idiot.

Normally, they barely needed me once a month. Now they had suddenly run into problems several

days in a row.

I did not need to guess who was behind it.

Still, providing technical support was my job, so I went.

To my surprise, Elliot was not there that day.

The client representative came over with a smile. “Stella, Mr. Ashford has gone to extraordinary lengths to win you over, but you don’t seem interested in him.”

I had no desire to explain my relationship with Elliot to anyone.

“No,” I said. “I’m not interested.”

His smile widened. “Then let me introduce you to someone.’

I blinked.

He pointed across the room. “Evan. He’s had a crush on you for ages, but he’s never had the nerve to say anything. Ever since Mr. Ashford started pursuing you so aggressively, Evan’s been so worked up that he’s practically lost his voice-”

Before he could finish, someone clapped a hand over his mouth.

Evan’s face was bright red as he looked at me and said urgently, “Stella, don’t listen to him. I don’t -I really don’t-”

The client representative pulled Evan’s hand away and teased, “You can’t even bring yourself to lie

and say you don’t like her. You must be crazy about her.”

Evan’s face turned even redder.

He glanced at me, then drew a deep breath as though he had finally made up his mind.

“Stella, I-”

A cold voice came from behind us.

“What are you doing?”

Everyone turned.

Elliot stood in the doorway, his face expressionless. The two paper coffee cups were crushed in his grip, coffee spilling out.

The client representative smiled and started to smooth things over, but Elliot cut him off.

“Employees slacking off and gossiping on company time? Your company’s management clearly has serious problems.”

The client representative’s expression darkened.

Because of Elliot’s position, however, he said nothing. He simply took Evan with him and walked

away.

Elliot composed himself before approaching me.

“I noticed your watch was broken, so I bought you a new one. See if you like it.”

He opened the box.

I knew nothing about watches, but the diamond-encrusted dial was enough to tell me it was

extremely expensive.

“It costs too much,” I said flatly. “I don’t deserve something like that.”

Elliot’s expression stiffened. “You do deserve it. Stella, you deserve the best of everything. I was

wrong before. Please give me one chance to make it up to you.”

I shook my head.

After checking that the program was running smoothly, I stood and headed out to buy coffee.

As I passed Elliot, I stopped for a moment.

“Mr. Ashford, if you want to put on some grand campaign to win me back, find someone else to

indulge you. Stop interfering with our work. Unlike you, we don’t have unlimited money. Every

second you abuse your position to indulge yourself is another second of someone else’s time you’re

wasting.”

Then I walked away.

Elliot remained where he was, his expression shifting from one emotion to another.