“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.
You just said the First Imperial Concubine used to live here?” Ashley Bowen asked curiously.
Holly Underwood realized she’d let it slip and quickly turned to run.
“You should ask His Highness, Your Highness.
If we gossip, Butler Osborne will have us fired.”
‘So secretive!’ Ashley Bowen’s curiosity grew.
She glanced toward the glass window.
A moment ago, she’d heard Yuri Sinclair call that woman his sister-in-law.
‘Does that mean she’s the First Highness’s new wife?’
At the thought of the First Highness, an unconscious ache bloomed in Ashley Bowen’s heart.
‘Why did the man she loved marry someone else, while she herself was married off to another?’
‘Why was the First Highness’s wife having an affair with her husband?’
‘If they could just switch places, wouldn’t the ending be perfect?’
‘She and this woman would trade.
She would become the First Highness’s wife, and this woman could have Yuri Sinclair.’
But what was the use of thinking about all this?
It only brought her more sorrow.
Her heart ached, so she decided to stop thinking about it.
Ashley Bowen moved a wicker chair onto the balcony of her second-floor room to read, but her eyes kept drifting to the man and woman in the courtyard below.
They seemed to be arguing about something.
Claire Sutton’s expression was agitated, while Yuri Sinclair remained as cold as ever.
Since you chose my older brother, you should live a good life with him.” With that, Yuri Sinclair turned and began to wheel himself away.
An agitated Claire Sutton grabbed his wheelchair from behind, then moved around to kneel in front of him.
She pressed her tear-streaked face against his legs.
“You know you’ve always been the one I love.”
Ashley Bowen pouted.
‘So shameless,’ she thought, feeling embarrassed for the woman.
‘How can someone like her exist?
She married his older brother, and now she’s here acting all pitiful, claiming she’s never loved anyone else?’
‘Wait, what did Yuri Sinclair just call that woman?
Claire?’
She shot upright, nearly flinging the book off the balcony.
Ashley Bowen’s eyes widened in shock.
She tossed the book onto the coffee table and strained her ears to listen.
‘That night…
the man who slept with me…
wasn’t he calling out the name “Claire”?
So *she* was the one he was thinking about?’
‘So the Second Highness likes this Claire Sutton, too?
She’s really something else, managing to make all three highnesses of the Sinclair family fall for her.’
Ashley Bowen felt like she had just stumbled upon some explosive information, and the tangled web of relationships was already giving her a headache. Get faster updates on g.com.
‘Logically, this isn’t how things were supposed to be.’
While Ashley Bowen was lost in thought, the argument in the courtyard below ended.
Yuri Sinclair coldly wheeled himself away, while a deeply hurt-looking Claire Sutton turned and gazed toward the villa’s large iron gate.
Ashley Bowen assumed Claire Sutton was about to leave, but instead, she called the butler over and said something to him that Ashley couldn’t quite hear.
A few minutes later, she heard footsteps coming upstairs.
Following the sound, she saw Butler Ryan Osborne approaching respectfully.
With his hands folded politely in front of him, he announced, “Your Highness, the First Imperial Concubine asks if you are available.
She wishes to speak with you alone.”
Ashley Bowen held up her book, about to say she wasn’t free.
But before she could, Claire Sutton arrived uninvited.
Her sharp stilettos made a CLICK-CLACK sound as they struck the floor.
Ashley Bowen looked into her room to see Claire Sutton already standing inside her bedroom, offering her a seductive smile.
‘Pah!’ she thought.
‘I’m not falling for that.
I’m not a man, so why would I be bewitched by this vixen?’
“What is it?” ‘Whatever she’s planning, I’ll deal with it.’ Since the shameless vixen had come looking for trouble, there was no way Ashley Bowen would back down.
Tossing her book onto the little table, she stepped over the threshold from the balcony and walked into her bedroom.