But she was the one who had asked him to stay. Kicking him out now seed a bit unkind.
As Jessie Sterling curled her toes anxiously under the covers, feeling like the overhead light was too bright, leaving her with nowhere to hide, she suddenly felt the lights in the entire room dim.
At the sa ti, Victor Morgan’s low and steady voice reached her ears.
"Go to sleep. It’s been a long day. I’ll leave after you’ve fallen asleep."
Jessie Sterling hugged the soft duvet, her entire chin buried in the fluffy bedding, revealing only a pair of large, round-looking eyes.
The chandelier overhead was off. The light in the room now ca mostly from the hazy light strips near the floor.
But that didn’t stop her from clearly seeing Victor Morgan, who was sitting on the sofa near the door.
He was holding his phone, his body turned slightly in her direction.
The light from the phone screen seed to soften the contours of his silhouette.
Jessie Sterling dazedly thought, ’Being alone with Victor Morgan in a bedroom isn’t as dangerous or intimate as I imagined.’
She highly doubted Victor Morgan was browsing entertainnt gossip or playing gas on his phone; such things seed completely out of character for him. ’He’s probably handling work, ten to one,’ Jessie thought.
’A man so focused on making money wouldn’t have ti for any awkward intimacy with her, would he?’
’He really is the man Director Sterling acknowledged as the best at making money.’
With this thought floating in her head, Jessie Sterling groggily drifted off to sleep.
Perhaps because she knew soone else was in the room with her, she didn’t feel scared or anxious and slept very well.
But Jessie Sterling was mistaken. Victor Morgan wasn’t actually handling work matters at the mont.
Although the Morgan family was a century-old house, they kept a very low profile in Aethelburg.
Take Victor Morgan himself—Jessie had previously tried to find a front-facing photo of him on social dia, but it was incredibly difficult.
Even when attending events, the mbers of the Morgan family rarely allowed the dia to publish their photos.
It was partly to maintain a low profile and partly to protect their privacy.
The Morgan Group’s marketing and PR team was enormous. Their daily duties included not only handling the group’s affairs but also monitoring the big boss’s privacy issues on online platforms.
Right now, Victor Morgan was looking at a photo.
Keegan Sanders had sent it over a short while ago.
[Keegan Sanders: Sir, while there are no front-facing photos of you, a few pictures of you and Miss Sterling have appeared in the comnt section of this amateur blogger’s post. So show your profile. Do you think we need to have them deleted?]
Keegan Sanders had sent the photos, along with a link to the Little Red Book post that had gone viral.
The photos were candid shots, but perhaps because of the lush sycamore trees in the background and the perfect midday sun, they had the atmospheric feel of a midsumr’s "Wizard of Oz."
Even though they were just photos of their backs, Victor Morgan clicked "save" almost without thinking.
Only after opening the link did Victor Morgan understand why Keegan had suggested deleting even these back-view photos.
The post, a "check-in" photo taken at his front door, had likely surpassed a million views, with nearly 600,000 likes and over 100,000 comnts.
"Oh my god, this is the first ti I’ve ever seen soone walk out of a courtyard house like this. As an Aethelburg native, I’m completely floored."
"Is the young lady wearing Vtiaa haute couture? Soone posted the model’s photo in the comnts, and at first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on . Who wears haute couture when they’re not on a red carpet or at an event?! If it were anyone else, I’d assu it was a knockoff, but for a young lady walking out of a courtyard house next to the Forbidden City, I think it’s the real deal!"
"I thought places like these were all cultural relics protected by the state. I never thought it could actually be soone’s fucking ho."
"Back in the old days, this would have been a place only imperial relatives and nobility could live in, right?"
"I want their contact info within a minute! I also want to see what a courtyard house at the foot of the Imperial City looks like!"
"Here’s a little rumor, can’t guarantee it’s true, I heard it secondhand... It says that the courtyard house here was bought by the Morgan family years ago..."
Victor Morgan scrolled through the comnts for an unknown amount of ti. Finally, sensing that the person in the bed was sound asleep, he stood up quietly, opened the bedroom door, and stepped out, dialing Keegan Sanders’s number at the sa ti.
"Delete it,"
Victor Morgan said.
"And be polite when you contact them."
After ending the call, Victor Morgan glanced once more toward the bedroom door before turning to leave the Sixi Courtyard.
The blogger, Marla, who had posted about the courtyard’s wall of roses today, never imagined that she would ever have any dealings with a conglorate like the Morgan Group in her lifeti.
When Marla saw a direct ssage with a blue checkmark in her inbox, she thought her eyes were deceiving her.
When she clicked on the profile picture, went to their page, and saw the verification field under the na, she almost threw her phone across the room.
She let out a scream.
Her boyfriend, who lived with her, turned away from his ga. "What are you screaming about?"
Marla leaped off the bed and shoved her phone right in her boyfriend’s face. "Look! Soone from the Morgan Group actually contacted ! Oh my god!"
She herself hadn’t expected the Little Red Book post she casually made today about the courtyard’s flower wall and its owners to suddenly go viral.
Marla had been refreshing the comnts section all evening.
Of course, she had also seen that a few people in the comnts had already revealed who the owners of the courtyard house she posted were.
She had heard of the Morgan Group, but didn’t know much about it.
When she searched for the na online, Marla was stunned speechless.
This was a true prestigious family that had been rooted in Aethelburg for centuries.
The Morgan family of Aethelburg could be traced back to the Qing Dynasty. Their ancestors included several renowned figures whose nas were written in textbooks.
Later, during the Republican era, the Morgan clan used their family fortune to establish schools and fund talented students to study abroad.
Further on, during the most chaotic tis, the head of the Morgan clan divided the family into two branches. One group went south to The Southern Seas, both to preserve the family line and to raise funds to support patriots back ho. The other group remained in Norwynn to protect the common people.
Later, when the world stabilized, the Suyang branch migrated back. The Norwynn branch, after reorganizing the clan’s assets, donated the majority to the country.
It was truly difficult to feel any animosity toward a family like this, even if they were still very wealthy today.
Besides, it seed the Morgan Group had never publicized the great deeds of their ancestors, remaining low-key from beginning to end.
And now, soone from the Morgan Group had actually contacted her.
Marla’s boyfriend turned around, curious. "Contacted you? What did they say?"
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