It was a meeting that I had arranged to invest in Taylor’s research team. However, everyone seemed suspicious of my ulterior motives and my unconditional investment of a large sum of money, which made me feel wronged. To the people in the club, am I still a villainous sub-character who manipulates Chase as I please?

“Did he change his ways after hanging out with Chase?”

Remy whispered in Taylor’s ear so that he couldn’t hear everything. Then, Hester muttered with his face turned pale for some reason.

“Is there anything that Chase can be impressed by…?”

“That’s true…”

But it sounded so right that even I nodded. My personality is much better than Chase’s. Who said I changed because of whom?

“You said he changed his ways. Is that what you say to investors?”

The soft voice supporting me came from an unexpected direction. Everyone flinched at Chase’s sharp voice and turned to look at him. Chase, who had been looking over the investment proposal the research team had brought, was slamming the file down on the table with a loud thud.

“This isn’t a private meeting, this is an investment meeting. Aren’t you being too rude to Leo?”

“what…?”

Taylor, who was looking up at Chase with blank eyes, tapped his ear. He looked like he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

“What did he just say?”

“Hey, Senior Chase is taking your side because he’s your lover… or something like that…?”

Remy followed suit with a blank expression, then grabbed my elbow and whispered, perhaps afraid to ask Chase directly.

But I was also confused in my own way. At the previous year-end party, Chase and I had lied about being in a relationship, but I thought everyone had already forgotten about it… Was that ‘lover’ setting still valid?

“I’m telling you to separate public and private life. Stop talking nonsense and focus on the meeting.”

But Chase didn’t even bat an eyelash and just coldly replied, passing around the contract I had prepared on the table. He had given in to my insistence that we push for this meeting, and had worked on it overnight for several days, even getting it reviewed by Director Bruno.

“Look at the reverse. Who can’t tell the difference between public and private these days? Right, Leoruka?”

“yes yes…”

This time, Taylor came right up to me and grumbled. Somehow,  I ended up being the one comforting him, so I awkwardly patted his shoulder, but Chase suddenly slammed his large hand on the table.

“Aren’t you focused? Just pretend the investment never happened?”

Taylor jumped away from me in surprise. I flinched along with him, waving my hands and shouting urgently.

“Why are you pretending it never happened? Let’s start the meeting quickly!”

“Okay, okay! Get started quickly!”

“That’s right! Begin… this!”

The meeting could only proceed after Taylor and Remy each chimed in, flinching.

Senior Hester carefully reviewed the contract, and Taylor only checked the investment amount and whispered in my ear as if he was impressed.

“Hey, how many zeros are there? You had this much money? I knew you were the son of the Caesar family, but…”

“I was lucky enough to earn a little money this time.”

“The investment amount alone is not small. Are you really investing all of this in us?”

“So be nice to me.”

“Oh, oh. Of course, I’ll be loyal for life.”

I couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurd sight of the simple Taylor suddenly changing his attitude.

Then, Chase opened his eyes wide and glared at me. Even though it was a big contract, I couldn’t understand why he was acting so prickly when he was with his friends.

“Wow, that kid gets jealous too? He does all sorts of things… Doesn’t he?”

“What kind of jealousy are you?”

It’s not jealousy, but I’m just annoyed that everyone is talking nonsense. With the temper of a black panther, if it was his own money that was being invested, he would have already left and run away.

Everyone secretly clicked their tongues, thinking that they didn’t know much about Chase.

In any case, the priority was to complete this investment contract safely. Every time I recalled how much I had to coax Chase to get me to this position, my head would shake.

It was the same last night.

Chase’s morning sickness got worse because he was so stressed out from worrying about this investment. No matter how much I released pheromones and held his hand, it didn’t get better, so Chase just sat on the floor, leaned his forehead against the bed, and suffered. I fidgeted and hung onto his back, hugging his neck.

Chase was only then starting to feel a little better. But then he heard that as soon as he became livable…

“It’s not too late, so cancel the meeting now.”

It was like this. I was so dumbfounded that I pinched Chase’s cheek and pulled it painfully while screaming.

(Don’t feel bad for me and ignore me. Just say thank you. That’ll do.)

Then, after a long silence, Chase lowered his eyes and mumbled, the tips of his ears burning.

(…Uh …Thank you.)

It’s also refreshing. It was so hard to get permission to invest my own money. Chase must have been uneasy, though, because he insisted on adding a word.

“I’ll pay you back.”

(Yes, yes.)

(Aren’t you even listening? I’m telling you the truth.)

(I told you so, right?)

I pretended not to care, but in fact I didn’t care. It wasn’t because I had a lot of money, but because I thought Chase would naturally be able to pay back the research team’s investment.

In the original, Chase leads the Arteon Group and expands its business with only his own abilities. If he were to use his management sense based on the information he knows about the future, it seemed like he could increase his income from real estate by tens or hundreds of times.