His Naughty Lessons-Chapter 259: Good Fortune, Bad Omen

** Harper **

It was Harper’s turn to choke on her first sip of coke. Alright, she obviously hadn’t thought nearly that far. Never mind the terrible suggestion then — she certainly wasn’t that selfless!

Eli, who fortunately did not follow their lead and choke on his food as well, cleared his throat. "I could certainly pull some strings and get an extra invitation without giving myself a plus-two, Harper." He gave his girlfriend an amused wink when Chelsea wasn’t looking, and Harper felt her cheeks burn at the thought that she had almost just rented him out. "Though the better question is not whether I can, but whether I should."

Turning back to Chelsea, he put on a more serious face and explained, "You’re probably aware of the complicated business relationship between Voyage Bank and Sterling Trust. When people meet you at the gala, they’ll inevitably ask who you are and where you got the invitation from. Are you sure you want to brandish how close you are to Sterling while you work at Voyage? Because frankly, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get you in without the connections pointing right back to me."

"Oh pfft, I don’t give a damn if you don’t." Chelsea rolled her eyes. "Since my boss is obviously already assuming that I’m aboard the enemy ship now, might as well show her how I do it for real. And who knows, maybe that’ll even open up new doors for me like you said and get me out of her clutches someday ... Although I’ll definitely miss the Champions Lounge access at the baseball stadium when that happens."

Harper snorted at the last addendum — clearly, she herself wasn’t the only person here making questionable judgements today. "Are you serious? Don’t let that lounge access lock you in with such a fudge of a boss! Eli can always get you into whatever lounge you want, and you won’t even have to hang out with people you hate in exchange. Think about it, if your boss is seriously penalizing you for just being at the scene and witnessing her looking embarrassed, shouldn’t it be your wakeup call that she’s not the right person to work for in the first place?"

"Perhaps. Or perhaps you just want to get me as far away as possible from your love rival." Chelsea smirked.

"Alright, let’s start with getting the invitation first before planning your dream life three years down the road," Eli came to the rescue. "It’s probably hard to add a brand new invitee to the event at this point, but there are a few people I know who likely don’t have a date, so I can work with that. Sorry again for getting you into this, Chelsea. I hope everything works out the way you want and can make us even in terms of the collateral damage debt."

He raised his glass to suggest a toast. However, the look on Chelsea’s face suddenly turned ... a bit calculating, and she darted an interesting glance between her two companions at the table.

"Oh my dear sweet lovebirds, you have no idea how much more new favor you just owed me from last weekend, speaking of debts." The girl tilted her head and grinned at Harper. "How’s your brother, by the way? Is he still giving you guys trouble for your web novel?" freewēbnoveℓ.com

The abrupt change of topic gave Harper pause. And wait, since when had the unfortunate web novel mishap become such public knowledge that even Chelsea was talking about it?

With a somewhat awkward pause, Eli turned to Harper, and Harper stared back at him with an innocent "it really wasn’t me who broadcasted the most embarrassing moment of our lives!" look.

"Come on, don’t look so shocked! No one told me, I’m just good at reading tarot cards." Chelsea leaned back in her seat, sounding even more mysterious. "Your brother is indeed destined to be the troublemaker in your love life, Harper. But you know what, I wish I did my fortune telling before eavesdropping on you guys for that dinner last Wednesday. His card turned out to be the honest, straightforward type, which means that he wouldn’t have liked being lied to and kept in the dark about important secrets. Thinking back on it, I shouldn’t have suggested that you guys pretend to be friends in front of him on the camping trip. It probably only made the truth come out the wrong way."

Harper and Eli exchanged another look.

This was getting ... creepily accurate. The fortune telling was a pile of BS, of course, but then again, how did Chelsea know? Tyler had gone straight home with them after dinner that day, so he and Chelsea couldn’t have met privately in person. The company that Tyler interviewed at wasn’t Voyage Bank either, so it wasn’t like they could have met in that way ...

"How does that make us owe you though?" Harper decided to ask the more obvious question. "You just said that your suggestion made everything worse."

"Before I read the cards, remember?" Chelsea grinned again. "And now I’ve fixed everything for you guys with my crystal ball magic. So tell me — it worked, didn’t it? Considering that Mr. Billionaire Heir is still sitting in front of me in one piece?"

... As it turned out, someone was really good at rubbing salt into the wound.

"For now. Until he shows up again in a week or so." Harper let out a dramatic sigh. "Supposedly he has accepted his job offer and is moving over here to the city as soon as he can."

Chelsea tapped her finger on the table thoughtfully at the news. Then her eyes lit up with an odd gleam. "Need more help there?" she offered. "Since you already owe me so much favor, doesn’t hurt to add more. Maybe you can even get me another gala invitation next year as a payback ... And all you need to do is to include me at the next dinner outing once your brother moves here. Officially, without the eavesdropping part. I assure you that you’ll be very satisfied with the outcome."

That odd gleam somehow left Harper with a bad omen, though she couldn’t precisely explain why.