When Aurora Sterling stepped out of the bathroom, the man was still fast asleep. His body was covered in scratch marks, making Aurora silently curse herself. 'What a beast.'
A quick look around the room revealed that this wasn't her suite; her wallet and luggage were still in her own room. If she went to get her money and came back, all that coming and going might wake him up. 'How awkward would that be?'
After mulling it over, Aurora Sterling ultimately decided to leave her watch behind with a note, then quietly slipped out of the room.
An hour later, the awakening of The Demon King made the once-spacious room feel suffocating and tense.
Damien Valerius wore only a simple bathrobe. If not for his face, so frigid it could freeze anything in its path, his current appearance would have been enough to make any woman lose all reason and pounce on him.
The man sat on the sofa. In the center of the coffee table before him lay a valuable ladies' watch. Tucked beneath it was a slip of paper bearing elegant, feminine handwriting.
"You were pretty good last night. This watch is worth at least a hundred thousand. You can sell it for cash."
Damien Valerius picked up the watch, his icy gaze shooting toward Sean Carter, who stood trembling nearby. "What is the meaning of this?"
Sean Carter shivered, wishing he could just drop dead. "Sir... uh... There must have been a mistake. The woman in your room last night wasn't the one I arranged for..."
"'Must have been?'" the man repeated, one eyebrow raised.
Those two words from Damien Valerius nearly brought Sean Carter to his knees. He could only swallow his tears.
His master, Damien Valerius, was the fourth son of the Valerius Clan and was known to all as Master Damien. The previous night, he had been drugged with a potent aphrodisiac as part of a plot against him. The true goal of his enemies was to tarnish his reputation. Because of Damien's unique standing within the clan, he had always been exceedingly careful in his dealings with women, determined not to give anyone with ill intentions an opening or a weakness to exploit.
Fortunately, while Damien Valerius had been drugged, he had managed to leave in time and avoid falling into his enemy's trap.
To help Damien Valerius counteract the drug's effects, Sean Carter had no choice but to arrange for a "safe" woman to attend to him. He never expected something to go wrong. The woman who had spent the night with Damien Valerius was not the one Sean Carter had sent, but another woman entirely.
Worse still, what made Sean Carter truly want to die was that the woman had actually left behind a watch and a note like that. She had blatantly treated his boss, Damien Valerius, like a male escort!
As Sean Carter looked at Damien Valerius's blazing eyes, he finally understood what it felt like to be trapped between ice and fire.
"Have you found out who that woman is?" Damien Valerius's hand gripped the watch tightly. 'To that woman, a night of his—Damien Valerius's—strenuous effort was only worth a crappy watch valued at one hundred thousand?'
"I... I found her..." Sean Carter nodded, looking at Damien Valerius with a strange expression. More shocking to him than the watch and the note was the woman's identity. He swallowed hard, then reported his findings truthfully. "According to my investigation, the woman is also a guest at this hotel. She checked in yesterday under the name Aurora Sterling."
"Aurora Sterling?" Damien Valerius frowned. 'Why did that name sound so familiar?'
Sean Carter cleared his throat. "Sir, Aurora Sterling is the daughter of Timothy Sterling, the chairman of Sterling Pharma. She is also... your fiancée."