Haicheng.
Inside an upscale teahouse.
Stella Mercer had been pushed into a blind date by her mother. She’d already been sitting there for half an hour, and the guy still hadn’t shown. A trace of annoyance slipped across her carefully made-up face.
About ten minutes later, a man in a gray suit finally waddled over.
"Hello, are you Miss Mercer?"
"...I am." Stella looked at the short, greasy-looking man in front of her, and her expression instantly turned awkward. This was the "tall, handsome catch" her mom had hyped up?
"I'm Miles Davenport."
He pulled out the chair and dropped into the seat across from her. His eyes swept over Stella’s face without any shame, then he broke into a wide grin, clearly very pleased.
"I already know the general situation on your side. As for me, my standards for a wife aren’t high. After we get married, you can just stay home and be a housewife. I’ll cover all living expenses. I also have two kids, so you’ll need to take really good care of them, and my parents too..."
"Stop, Mr. Davenport." Stella cut him off, took a slow breath, and said, "Sorry, but I don’t think we’re a good match."
The second the words landed, Miles’s face changed.
"Miss Mercer, I own a company. If you marry me, that’s basically you marrying up..." Miles kept yapping on and on.
"Sorry, Mr. Davenport. I already made myself clear. We’re not suitable."
At his age, Stella could’ve called him Dad and it still wouldn’t have felt weird.
"You’ll regret this!" After throwing that out, Miles didn’t keep pestering her. He got up and left on the spot.
Stella stayed in her seat and rubbed her brow, irritated. She really shouldn’t have believed her mother.
She’d already skipped half a day of work anyway, so she didn’t leave. She just sat there quietly... watching the show.
The table next to hers was also on a blind date.
Unlike Miles Davenport, the man sitting there wore a black suit. His face was so strikingly handsome it was basically flawless, and every tiny movement he made gave off that expensive, untouchable kind of elegance.
The woman sitting across from him stared at him with total infatuation.
"Mr. Blackwood, what if we hold the wedding in Ireland? We could invite a ton of guests then..."
The man kept his eyes lowered, his tone flat and cold. "Sorry. I'm not interested in you. You can leave now."
The smile on the woman's face froze on the spot.
"Mr. Blackwood, this is only our first meeting. There's no rush to get married, really. You can take some time to get to know me. I'm actually a pretty good person..."
Ethan Blackwood looked up at last, sounding almost lazy. "I don't like women with faces full of filler."
The second Stella Mercer heard that, the tea she had just swallowed nearly came spraying right back out.
Wow. That excuse was honestly kind of legendary.
The woman was so mad she left on the spot after that one sentence from Ethan Blackwood. The show was over. Stella grabbed her bag and was just about to sneak away quietly when a deep, magnetic voice drifted over from beside her.
"Stella Mercer."
Her whole body stiffened. She turned around and forced out a perfect polite smile, textbook forty-five-degree angle and all, as she greeted the man.
"Mr. Blackwood."
He lifted his eyes and looked straight at her. "Enjoy the show?"
"No..." The word slipped out before she could stop it. Realizing she'd exposed herself, she instantly corrected, "I mean, I wasn't watching anything."
"Sit."
The single word landed like an order. Stella had no choice but to bite the bullet and sit down across from him, even if every cell in her body was screaming reluctance. She glanced up carefully at the man in front of her, cautious and a little tense.
Ethan Blackwood.
The president of Blackwood Group, the number one conglomerate in Haicheng. Only twenty-six, and already worth billions.
And Stella Mercer?
Just about the most ordinary office worker in Haicheng. A tiny designer at Blackwood Group, basically a background extra in the company.
Logically speaking, with thousands of employees under Blackwood Group, who was she supposed to be? Why would a man like Ethan Blackwood ever even know her name?
But three years ago, right after Ethan Blackwood had taken over Blackwood Group, he went around inspecting different departments. Among all those designers, under countless pairs of nervous eyes, he had walked straight up to Stella and asked, "What's your name?"
Stella Mercer stumbled a little over her words before finally telling him her name.
Her background was nothing special, sure, but her face absolutely was. In the design department, where everyone looked worn out and sallow from endless overtime, she stood out like a crane in a flock of chickens. Even across the whole Blackwood Group, her looks were easily top-tier. Back then, people in the department had all secretly gossiped that Ethan Blackwood must have taken a liking to her.
Stella herself had never bought that for a second. And, yeah, reality proved her right. For three whole years, even though they both worked under the same Blackwood banner, she and the almighty Mr. Blackwood had basically lived in two different worlds. In all that time, the number of times she’d seen him could be counted on one hand.
When she first walked into the teahouse, she had already caught sight of him from the corner of her eye. But she didn’t dare go over and say hello. She’d assumed Ethan Blackwood had long forgotten a nobody like her, so she’d sat there nice and calm, quietly watching the drama unfold like it had nothing to do with her. Who would’ve thought...
"Mr. Blackwood, if there’s nothing else..."
Stella wanted to break the weird silence and make a quick exit. But the moment she opened her mouth, Ethan Blackwood fixed her with those dark, unreadable eyes and said, "You want to get married?"