I should try to persuade them to move to the department store if they prove capable. It seemed fortunate, as I badly needed skilled personnel these days. But why does this man keep showing me such kindness?

Reading my expression, Michael said,

“These days, when Gabrielle comes home, she talks about nothing but you and clothes. I hear you plan to sell clothes she designed?”

I gasped in surprise.

I hadn’t asked her to keep it secret from her brother. I should have cautioned him several times in advance.

I still needed Gabrielle. I wasn’t making her do anything unreasonable and was paying her fairly for her work, but perhaps he was angry as her older brother?

But judging by his demeanor, he didn’t seem angry. His expressionless face made it difficult to read what he was thinking.

“Well…… Gabrielle is more talented than I expected. I want to nurture her as a designer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you in advance.”

“No. My sister has become noticeably brighter lately. It seems my idea of keeping her at home and protecting her was wrong. I wanted to thank you. And belatedly, thank you for what happened four years ago.”

Four years ago? I tilted my head before recalling my first meeting with Michael.

“Ah, that.”

“Actually, I sent you a thank-you letter after that. I wrote that I wanted to continue exchanging letters with you.”

A letter? I swear I never received a letter from Michael. What is he talking about?

Noticing my puzzled expression, Michael continued,

“I found out later. The maid had given me someone else’s name and address. And even later, I discovered Laura was behind it. At the time, I had no idea Laura had approached me pretending to be a maid.”

Laura. You know what? You continue to surprise me even after death.

Were you really just a villainess as people said?

Just then, I remembered a line from one of Laura’s old letters.

— For the past three years, I’ve lived with the guilt of stealing your place.

So that’s why she wrote those words.

But she didn’t steal my place. Such a trick couldn’t have made her Michael’s fiancée. Yet my friend seemed to have felt guilty toward me until just before her death.

I didn’t know how to respond to Michael, so I just pursed my lips.

“Even now, I want to get to know you better. Won’t you give me a chance?”

He smiled brightly, just like the day we first met. But the woman standing before him had changed considerably over the years. She had been tainted by the world and had become more mature.

I answered him:

“I’ll accept becoming friends as an investor and businesswoman. But anything beyond that is impossible.”

No matter how much others called her a villainess, Laura was once a precious friend to me. I personally declined the idea of becoming more than friends with my friend’s former fiancé. Besides, if I did such a thing, how much would the ladies of society gossip about me?

More than that, there was something I wanted to ask him. Would it be rude to ask such a thing?

‘Then why did you get engaged to Laura? Did you love my friend?’

I was just about to open my mouth, when—

BANG!

Just then, a loud noise came from outside. It was the sound of something crashing against the hard marble floor.

“Oh my, what is this!”

A woman’s sharp scream followed simultaneously.

“Marquis, excuse me for a moment.”

I ran out of the president’s office, looked around, and grabbed the corridor railing to look down. A mannequin had fallen to the first floor and shattered into a mess. It seems an employee who came to work early narrowly avoided this mishap.

“Hey, are you okay?”

The employee looked up, spotted me, and shouted,

“Yes. I’m fine, Boss.”

“Did you see who dropped this?”

“No. I had just arrived at work when something fell, and I was startled.”

The employee was still visibly trembling, even from a distance.

“I’m sorry, but please ask the cleaning staff to take care of this. I’m really glad nothing serious happened.”

I’ll need to check again once all employees arrive. Which department is missing a mannequin? Since placing a mannequin dangerously on the corridor railing nearly caused a major accident, if it truly was an accident, I needed to give a stern reprimand.

‘Someone almost died inside the department store.’

Yesterday there was a fire, and today someone nearly got hurt by a falling object. Is it coincidence, or someone’s deliberate doing?

As my thoughts leaned toward the latter, Michael, who had come out of the president’s office, cleared his throat behind me.

“I should get going now. I need to go to the hotel.”

He lightly kissed the back of my hand and said goodbye.

“Let’s start by becoming friends. Please take good care of my sister.”

Watching Michael’s retreating back, my thoughts became complicated.

Yes, I admit it. He was my first love. Of course, there were a few others who made my heart flutter afterward, but…

Unrequited love has always been my specialty. I enjoy the thrill of my emotions from a distance, but I didn’t want to destroy my fantasy by actually dating the object of my admiration. I was too busy with my business, and honestly, I was afraid. Afraid I might change like my mother. Afraid I might break down from not being loved. Besides, I already had one experience of falling apart.

“Boss, what are you doing standing here?”

I jumped at the sudden voice.

“W-what? Cedric, how long have you been there?”

“I just came up. When I arrived, you were telling an employee to clean up the first floor.”

Having used different staircases, Cedric apparently hadn’t seen Michael. In a way, I felt relieved. Wait, relieved? Why am I feeling reassured?

I shook my head lightly and asked him,

“You still have Laura’s letters, right? You didn’t throw them away. Show them to me.”

I confidently held out my hand like I’m retrieving something I had entrusted to him. Cedric complained with an incredulous look,

“You ordered me to burn them.”

“So you really burned them?”

“……Wait a moment. I’ll gather them and bring them to you.”

As expected, our dear Cedric knows my personality very well.

“Also, find out which department that damaged mannequin on the first floor was displayed in.”

After giving Cedric instructions, I returned to the president’s office where the teacups Michael and I had been drinking from sat on the table. I had taken just one sip and left most of mine, but it seems he endured the terribly bitter taste and drank it all. Or perhaps he secretly poured it somewhere else when I wasn’t looking.

‘Does he have no sense of taste?’

Finding one flaw in a man I had thought perfect made him seem more human. I also felt somewhat closer to him than before.

He said he wanted to be friends with me. He also said he wanted to get to know me better.

I couldn’t help but smile. Was I a little excited earlier?

Of course, I’m not shameless enough to become involved with my friend’s former fiancé. But it’s true that receiving something like a confession from a man is a rare experience, and it does make me feel good. It’s like I’ve become somewhat popular, just like Laura was back then.

I laughed like a madwoman and then instantly turned serious.

Still, it’s not right.

I tried to compose myself while looking at the pile of documents. I was immersed in work for a while when Cedric entered the president’s office a bit late.

“What took you so long?”

“I waited until all employees arrived. I also needed to find someone who witnessed yesterday’s incident.”

“Did you find anyone?”

“No. They all just said they smelled burning and went up to the fourth floor. And it seems someone took a mannequin from the storage room and dropped it.”

Storage rooms are in the basement and on the fourth floor. Everyone complains about carrying items up to the fourth floor, so we weren’t using the fourth-floor storage anymore. It should definitely be locked.

“Let’s go to the fourth-floor storage.”

“Aren’t you going to check the letters?”

“Later. Just put them on my desk for now.”

When I went with Cedric to the storage room in the corner of the fourth floor, the door was open, and it was spotlessly clean as if someone had used it until recently.

“The cleaning staff does a good job. They even pay attention to this area.”

Very few items were stacked there. Perhaps that’s why it looked quite spacious. It was comfortable enough for someone to hide and stay here. It seemed too wasteful to use as a storage room.

“There’s candle wax on the floor. Someone must have been using this place as a rest area.”

Near the wall, there were traces of unsold fabric and cotton gathered to form a makeshift bed.

“Marquis Paine said he would send some hotel staff to me. He told me to use them as security guards for the time being, so we should probably hire people to patrol our department store at night.”

“I understand. I’ll post a recruitment notice.”

“And was there anything about our department store in today’s newspaper?”

Since even Michael had noticed the news, I worried that the fox-like journalists might have heard about the fire. If rumors spread about such incidents happening in the department store, customers would worry about safety and stop coming.

“I thoroughly instructed the employees to keep quiet yesterday.”

“It doesn’t seem that thorough.”

“Pardon?”

“Oh, no. Anyway, we need to block any rumors before they spread. If journalists come asking about yesterday’s incident, silence them with money.”

“Understood.”

While examining various parts of the storage room, I finally noticed something different about Cedric. I hadn’t realized yesterday because I was distracted, but both his hands were wrapped in bandages.

“Cedric. Did you hurt yourself while saving me yesterday?”

I tried to take his hands to examine them closely, but Cedric quickly pulled them away and clasped them behind his back.

“It’s nothing. You don’t need to worry.”

“How can you say it’s nothing? You got hurt because of me.”

Each of his fingers was wrapped in bandages. It must be painful to even hold a pen with those hands.

“You’re the one who needs rest, not me.”

I forcibly grabbed the hands he had hidden behind his back and examined them closely. There were traces of blood seeping through the bandages.

“You should at least apply ointment properly. What is this? Such sloppy bandaging.”

“Despite how it looks, I visited a doctor early this morning and received proper treatment.”