Chapter 240

Frederick led her over and knocked on the neighbor's gate.

Nina opened the door, and seeing a young girl following behind Frederick, her eyes immediately lit up. "David, this is..."

"My niece, Flora Bailey. She's doing an internship in Silverwave City and came to visit me." Frederick stepped aside naturally, his tone casual.

"She heard how well you've been taking care of me and wanted to come thank you personally."

"Come in, come in!" Nina enthusiastically ushered them inside.

Beatrice also emerged from the house, and seeing Flora, her face broke into a gentle smile.

"So this is your niece? She's absolutely lovely."

"Ms. Jenner, hello." Flora nervously had no idea where to put her hands.

Remembering Liam's instructions, she quickly handed over the fruit basket. "Just a small token of appreciation."

The group sat down around the stone table.

Beatrice poured Flora a glass of water while Nina curiously looked her over.

"Flora, you're interning in the city—is it tough?" Nina asked with her usual familiarity.

"It's... It's okay." Flora clutched her water glass with both hands, sitting ramrod straight like she was being interrogated by her boss.

"Your uncle is amazing!" Nina began bragging.

"He's so professional with kids—changing diapers, making bottles, he's better at it than we are! Did he take care of you the same way when you were little?"

Flora nearly lost her grip on the glass.

Her mind went into high alert as she frantically tried to recall the script.

Frederick, sitting beside her, casually tapped his knuckles twice against the stone table, creating two soft sounds.

Flora jolted to attention and immediately nodded. "Yes, yes! I was sickly as a child, and Uncle David took care of me. He's incredibly patient."

Beatrice, seeing her reserved manner, thought she was feeling sorry for her uncle and said gently, "Your uncle is all alone out here. Having you visit regularly must make him happy."

Flora didn't dare meet Beatrice's eyes—that gaze was too sincere, making her feel like she was drowning in guilt.

She could only keep her head down and respond quietly, "Yes, Uncle David... he's had it tough."

As she said this, she almost believed it herself. Her eyes grew warm, and genuine tears began to well up.

Frederick's brow twitched almost imperceptibly.

She was overacting.

He picked up an orange from the table, methodically peeled it, and handed half to Flora. "Have some orange. Isn't this your favorite?"

Flora froze. She actually hated sour things and didn't like oranges at all.

But seeing Frederick's pointed look, she immediately understood he was throwing her a lifeline.

She quickly took it, forcing out a smile that looked more pained than crying. "Thank you, Uncle David."

Then she held that orange segment like it was a hot potato.

Flora spent the entire lunch feeling like she was sitting on pins and needles.

She felt like she wasn't eating a meal but navigating some kind of obstacle course.

Every conversation was a potential trap, and sitting next to her was the final boss himself.

She barely survived until the meal ended, then made an excuse about having work at the company and needing to rush back.

Beatrice and Nina walked them to the gate, warmly inviting her to visit again.

Once they'd left the courtyard and were completely out of Beatrice's sight, Flora let out a long breath, feeling like she'd come back to life.

Frederick walked with her to the village entrance to wait for a taxi, the journey passing in silence.

Only when the taxi appeared in view did Frederick speak, his voice returning to its usual cool detachment. "You did well today."

Flora's legs nearly gave out, and she almost dropped to her knees again. "Mr. Stuart, I..."

"Call me Uncle David."

"Yes, Uncle David." Flora was on the verge of tears. "I didn't say anything wrong, did I?"

"You can throw away the orange." Frederick didn't answer her question, just made that flat observation.

Flora looked at the orange segment she'd squeezed to pulp in her hand. As if granted a royal pardon, she quickly tossed it into the roadside grass.

The taxi arrived, and she fled into it like she was escaping.

Frederick stood there watching the taxi disappear in a cloud of dust. The exhaustion and dejection vanished from his face in an instant.

He put his black-rimmed glasses back on, turned around, and step by step, limping, walked back to the place he'd defined as 'home.'

In the courtyard, Beatrice was clearing the stone table. Seeing him return, she smiled at him. "Your niece is a sweet girl, just very shy. It makes you want to take care of her."

Frederick made a noncommittal sound, his gaze lingering on her smile.

The snowball of lies kept growing larger, wrapping him within it.

But at the core of that snowball was something he'd never felt before—the warmth of what could be called home.

Flora returned to the company feeling like she'd time-traveled from a movie set back to modern reality.

The fresh scent of mountain grass and trees seemed to still cling to her nostrils, but her ears were already filled with the symphony of keyboards clicking and the rhythmic hum of printers.

She downed a large iced Americano, trying to use the caffeine to wash away the image of that 'uncle' in his worn jacket, limping, with scars on his face.

It was useless.

That image kept overlapping with their CEO, who sat in his top-floor office, whose single glance could drop the temperature of the entire floor. The images tore apart and reassembled in her mind, making her temples throb.

"Flora, where did you disappear to yesterday? Liam personally approved your leave—what was so important?"

Her desk neighbor, Coco, leaned over, curiosity written all over her face.

Flora looked around, then lowered her voice and pulled Coco into the break room.

"I'm going to tell you something, but you absolutely cannot tell anyone else, or we'll both get fired."

Flora's expression was so serious that she looked like she was passing along classified intel.

Coco's curiosity intensified, and she nodded repeatedly. "Don't worry, my lips are sealed!"

"Yesterday... I went to see the boss."

"Huh? You, an intern, had a private meeting with the boss? Are you getting promoted soon?"

"No!" Flora cut her off, took a deep breath. "I saw him in the countryside. He was... cosplaying."

Coco tilted her cup, water spilling out. "What? Cosplaying what? Hawkeye?"

"Even weirder!"

Just thinking about it made Flora want to facepalm.

"He was pretending to be a disabled, disfigured veteran whose wife and kid died, living in some run-down courtyard in the middle of nowhere. He even gave himself the name David Johnson..."

Coco's mouth fell open in an 'O' shape and stayed that way for a long time.

She reached out to feel Flora's forehead. "You don't have a fever, do you? Our boss? Mr. Stuart? That walking iceberg? He would do something like that?"

"I swear it's true! I called him uncle!" Flora was nearly in tears.

"And he's chasing after some woman who has a kid. He goes to her place every day to help with babysitting, fixing the roof, tending the garden—his diaper-changing skills are better than mine! I was there to be his wingwoman, playing his poor, lonely niece!"

The information overload left Coco's brain completely blank.

She struggled to process this earth-shattering news and latched onto the key point.

"Chasing a woman? Who? What kind of woman has enough charm to make our boss this lovesick?"

And a married woman with a kid, no less!

"Beatrice Jennings, obviously," Flora answered matter-of-factly.

The break room fell silent.

All curiosity drained from Coco's face, replaced by a complex expression mixing horror and sympathy.

She looked at Flora carefully. "Flora, are you... under too much work stress?"

"I'm not! Everything I said is true!"

"But..."

Coco's voice dropped even lower, almost to a whisper. "Beatrice... disappeared a long time ago, didn't she?"

Now it was Flora's turn to be stunned. "Disappeared? What do you mean?"

"She... died." Coco mouthed the words.

"Fire accident, nobody recovered. It happened almost a year ago—everyone in the company knows. During that time, the boss was like a man who'd lost his soul. Everyone went out of their way to avoid walking past his office. How could you not know?"

Flora was completely bewildered.

Her mind was in chaos.

Dead?

But yesterday she'd clearly seen a living, breathing person who could smile and talk, gentle and beautiful.

"That's impossible!" she said urgently.

"She's alive! She's raising the boss's son!"

Coco looked at her with even deeper sympathy.

She seemed to have an epiphany, gasping and grabbing Flora's arm. "Oh my God, I get it now!"

"Get what?"

"The boss found... a body double!"

Coco's imagination reached new heights at that moment.

"He loved his wife so much that he found a woman who looks exactly like her and is playing out this whole 'country romance' script with her! No wonder he needed someone like you—an intern who doesn't know anything—to act in it. None of us old-timers would dare go along with his performance!"

This explanation was bizarre, yet carried a twisted kind of logic.

The image of a CEO driven mad by love, missing his dead wife to the point of finding a body double to relive old dreams, immediately took full form in Coco's mind.

This was way more compelling than a simple "boss chasing his wife in the countryside" plotline.

Flora was stunned by this theory, momentarily unable to tell which version was the truth.