My First Love Died, Now My Step Uncle Wants Me-Chapter 131: The Inside Story

Even through the phone, Nina Wynn could feel the intense pressure he exuded coming through the line.

Holding the phone, her voice was soft and delicate. "Caleb, I saw online that there’s a pretty good snack shop nearby. I’d like to go. Is that okay?"

She sounded like a little kid asking a grown-up for permission to buy a toy, her tone full of caution.

Caleb Rhodes’s voice was as detached as ever. "The food outside isn’t clean. I’ll have the kitchen make you something you like and send it up."

Nina insisted, "But I want to go!"

There was a moment of silence on Caleb Rhodes’s end before he said, "Fine. Don’t eat too much. Take a picture of what you order and send it to me."

"Thank you, Caleb," Nina said in a small voice.

Caleb Rhodes added, "Wear the same outfit you wore last night. And make sure you wear your scarf."

Nina murmured her assent and hung up.

She quickly got ready and left.

She hadn’t gone far from the hotel when she noticed a black sedan following her at a discreet distance.

They were obviously Caleb Rhodes’s men.

Nina quickened her pace.

When she reached the corner, she turned down an alley and entered an automated bank she had found on her phone.

She quickly transferred a sum of money at an ATM.

When she returned to the corner, she saw the sedan parked at the intersection. Two tall men in black suits were nearby, scanning the area. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

One of them was on the phone, looking rather subservient.

Upon seeing Nina, the two men visibly sighed in relief.

Nina pretended she hadn’t seen a thing. She walked a few more steps and quickly entered a small eatery.

When she came out of the eatery, the car was still waiting. One of the men got out and respectfully gestured for her to get in. Knowing it was Caleb Rhodes’s car, she had no choice but to comply.

They drove directly to Caleb Rhodes’s office.

Caleb Rhodes was still in a meeting, so Nina waited for him in his office.

While scrolling through her phone, she discovered that Ivy Lawson was trending.

On a major video platform, videos and photos of Ivy Lawson being caught with a shirtless man had shot into the top three trending topics.

"The Valorian Princess, Too Lonely to Wait, Openly Hires an Escort."

"A Wild Night with the Lawson Princess!"

"The Inside Story: A Deep Dive into the Valorian Princess’s Escort Scandal."

"So, This Is the Real Valorian Princess!"

...

Although videos of the Valorian Princess’s escort scandal took up nearly half of the top twenty trending spots, there wasn’t a single trace of the incident involving Zyler Rhodes.

Nina watched for a while, noticing that the topic about Ivy Lawson would shoot to the top of the trending list, drop a few minutes later, and then climb back up again.

It went back and forth, as if two powerful forces were battling it out.

After seeing Ivy Lawson’s video holding steady at the number one spot for a long time, Nina took out a hidden phone, opened a burner social media account, made a post, and paid to boost its visibility.

After doing all this, she put the phone away, feeling better than she had in a very long time.

She walked to the window, planning to enjoy the lake view outside, when she saw two motorcades arriving at the entrance below.

They were all black Mercedes-Benzes, with a nondescript Hongqi sedan in the very center.

Nina understood. A VIP had arrived.

Sure enough, the car door opened, and she saw Walter Rhodes step out.

And getting out with him, to her surprise, was Rosalind Lowell.

Rosalind Lowell looked elegant and poised in a long, Chinese-style coat. Standing beside Walter Rhodes with a gentle smile, she had the perfect bearing of a daughter-in-law from a prominent family.

Nina watched, somewhat mesmerized.

A moment later, Caleb Rhodes came out.

Rosalind immediately went to him and took his arm, speaking to him with intimate affection.

Dressed in a charcoal-gray suit, Caleb Rhodes stood beside Rosalind, his commanding presence making them look all the more like a dazzling, perfectly matched couple.

Nina instinctively glanced down at her own clothes.

It was a simple, youthful style that could only be described as demure and unassuming.

When she looked out again, the group from below had already gone upstairs.

She opened the office door and heard a commotion outside.

She could faintly make out snippets of conversation.

"It’s so sudden! Why would such a major figure show up with no warning?"

"You didn’t know? That’s our President Rhodes’s father!"

"Is that the Third Lord Master’s fiancée? She’s gorgeous! A true lady of class, so elegant!"

"She and President Rhodes are a perfect match! Quick, sneak a few photos and save them!"

...

Nina listened for a moment, then grabbed her coat and slipped into the adjacent break room.

’It would be awkward for her to be there if Walter Rhodes and Rosalind Lowell came into Caleb Rhodes’s office.’

’Although Walter Rhodes had never said a bad word about her to her face, it would surely be an annoyance for him to have an outsider with an ambiguous status like her present while he was with his son and future daughter-in-law.’

Sure enough, just as she had expected, the hallway outside grew lively after a moment.

Walter Rhodes’s voice was deep and resonant, making his words easy to hear. Rosalind Lowell’s voice was clear and sweet, and every so often, she would call out "Caleb" with intimate tenderness.

As Nina listened, a familiar tightness began to form in her chest, and even the soft lights of the room now seemed harsh and glaring.

She stayed in the break room for a little while longer before slipping out through another, smaller door.

At that moment, nearly everyone was focused on hosting Walter Rhodes, so naturally, no one noticed her.

As she walked out the front doors of the company, she glanced back toward the office and thought she saw a figure moving behind the wide glass window.

She only glanced for a second before looking away. Pulling her coat tighter around herself, she began to walk slowly along the riverbank.

It had begun to snow again. The wind was picking up, and a cold draft snaked in through her collar.

She walked for a long time before realizing that in her haste, she had forgotten her scarf. The cold wind rushed down her exposed neck, feeling as if it were pouring directly into her heart and making her chest ache sharply.

She had nowhere to go and knew no one here, so she just kept walking along the riverbank in the direction of the hotel.

She lost track of how long she walked. As the sky began to darken, she took out her phone.

’I should probably call Caleb Rhodes,’ she thought.

She dialed, and the call connected almost immediately.

But it wasn’t Caleb Rhodes’s voice.

Rosalind Lowell’s voice was impossibly sweet. "Is that you, Nina? Caleb and Chairman Rhodes are out discussing our wedding plans. Did you need something? You can tell me, it’s the same as telling him."

Nina gripped the phone tightly, a pain tearing through her chest as if the cold wind had ripped a hole right through it.

Hearing her silence, the voice on the other end chuckled. "If it’s urgent, I can go get him!"

She let out another light laugh, her voice taking on a suggestive tone. "But Caleb just got out of the shower and changed. I’m just tidying up after him right now. If it’s not urgent, I’ll let him know you called in a little while."

Nina’s exposed hand was frozen a bruised purple, and the stump of her severed little finger throbbed with an even more intense pain.