Chapter 3

The welcome-back party was held at the top-floor ballroom of the Belica Hotel in Bellmere.

Heavy, double-layered soundproof glass completely shut out the fall chill. A soothing cello melody drifted through the ballroom. The scent of expensive woody perfumes and the sweetness of money burning by the millions seemed to intertwine in the air.

Silas lowered his head and glanced at the dark gray suit he was wearing. Back at the apartment, Teresa had been changing into her heels at the entryway while urging him, "Stop taking so long. It's just a casual dinner gathering."

He'd believed her.

Reality proved once again that ordinary people should never attempt to guess what a CEO earning tens of millions a year meant by the word "casual".

The ballroom was filled wall-to-wall with men dressed in bespoke suits from the finest tailoring houses. Their outfits made his off-the-rack suit, which had cost less than a thousand dollars, look like a clearance item from a budget retailer. Surrounded by people who were ready to take to the runway, he reeked of cheapness.

"Grab yourself something to drink. I spotted someone I know, so I'm going over to say hi."

Without even waiting for Silas to respond, Teresa strode toward the center of the crowd in her heels. She wore a minimalist black halter evening gown with a daring cutout at the lower back. Combined with her red lipstick, she gave off an assertive and imposing air.

Silas watched her smoothly lift a glass of champagne from a passing server's tray and effortlessly insert herself into a group of suited business tycoons. Even the angle at which she raised her glass made her the perfect study material for the students attending etiquette school.

He turned around and headed toward the long buffet table in the corner, getting himself a glass of sparkling water.

"Hey, man."

A slightly overweight middle-aged man holding a champagne flute approached Silas. As if it were the most natural thing to do, he set his empty champagne flute down on the counter in front of Silas before pointing toward the buffet table.

"Could you let the kitchen know to send out two more plates of ham? And grab me another champagne while you're at it."

Silas paused with his hand around his glass of sparkling water. He looked at the man in front of him and vaguely recalled hearing someone else introduce him earlier as Ken Hornett. Then, he glanced down at his gray suit and became acutely aware of what he seemed like to everyone else here.

At this event, where even the lowest-ranking guest was the director of some company, and where CEOs were a dime a dozen, a guy like him, who stayed in the corner drinking sparkling water, did seem like the assistant manager of a hotel who forgot to wear his name tag.

"My apologies," Silas said.

His tone remained pleasant, without any trace of anger at being offended. He calmly pointed toward a uniformed server nearby.

"You'll probably need to ask him."

Ken froze for a second. He took a closer look at Silas' face before he immediately laughed awkwardly to cover himself.

"Oh! I'm so sorry. The lighting here is too dim, so I didn't get a good look. Hope you don't take it to heart!"

He quickly grabbed a fresh drink and fled back into the crowd.

Silas lifted his glass and took a sip. The carbonation stung his tongue lightly, coating it with a faint sour bitterness.

"Silas." Teresa's voice came from behind him.

He turned around, and the moment his gaze landed on the approaching figure, it paused ever so briefly.

Teresa wasn't coming over alone. A man came with her.

As a designer, Silas possessed instinctive intuition about composition and visual compatibility. He didn't even need anyone to make the introductions. Just from seeing the two of them together, he automatically figured out that the man and Teresa were from the same world.

The man looked like he was in his mid-30s and over six feet tall. He was dressed in a finely tailored dark-blue double-breasted suit. Behind his gold-rimmed glasses were eyes that conveyed the sophistication of a gentleman.

Yet he carried himself with a commanding air, his movement infused with the ease of someone long used to giving out orders.

It was a harmonious combination of dark blue and black, one warm and gentlemanly, while the other cold and intense.

Even when they were simply standing there together, they looked like two business moguls posing for the cover of Folmes, the foremost finance magazine in the world. Everyone else seemed relegated to the background.

Silas' fingers tightened slightly around his glass.

At that very moment, he understood exactly how much information had been artfully hidden from him during the unusual five-second hesitation Teresa showed last night when she mentioned her "college classmate".

"Let me make the introductions."

Teresa stopped in front of Silas. Her voice remained as steady as ever, but he keenly noticed that she spoke a little slower than she usually did when giving him instructions at home.

"This is Carlton Unger, founder of CTN Capital. He just returned from Harris Avenue, the financial district in Nesselton."

She turned to Carlton and addressed him next, her tone subconsciously shifting, as if she were now making a far more perfunctory introduction.

"This is Silas Langston."

She didn't include his job or clarify who he was. It was as if she'd just introduced a piece of frivolous ornament in her living room.

Carlton's gaze brushed discreetly across Silas' ordinary suit, lingering for less than a tenth of a second before he flashed a smile warm enough to put anyone at ease and proactively extended his right hand.

"Hello, Mr. Langston. Teresa has mentioned you before," he said, his voice husky and charming. "We never had the chance to meet so far. When Teresa got married, I happened to be in Nesselton overseeing an acquisition deal and couldn't make it back for the wedding. I'm glad I finally got to meet you in person today."

What a skillful selection of words that was.

In a single sentence, he established his image as a financial elite who moved millions by the minute, while simultaneously assuming the familiar attitude of someone who knew Teresa well and made Silas seem like the newcomer to their world instead.

"Hello." Silas held his hand out, his own response brief.

The moment their hands clasped together, Silas could sense that Carlton's grip was nowhere near as friendly as he appeared to be. Carlton's hand exerted the habitual pressure of someone used to being in command. It was a display of dominance mixed with haughty scrutiny.

"So what do you do for work, Mr. Langston?"

Carlton withdrew his hand and took a glass of champagne from a passing server's tray before handing it naturally to Teresa, as though he were her husband instead.

"I'm a freelancer. I do a bit of design work," Silas replied evenly.

"Oh? Design's a great field. You get tons of freedom and have plenty of time to devote to your family and other household matters." Carlton smiled and nodded before turning toward Teresa.

"Given how much momentum Teresa has built while leading the company over the past few years, I'm sure she hasn't been able to devote much time to the family. I'm sure you've been such a wonderful support to her by keeping things running at home, Mr. Langston. Don't forget to thank him for that, Teresa."

If anyone knew how to strike a blow with words, it was Carlton. While it looked like he was complimenting Silas, he was also squarely labeling Silas as a househusband mooching off his wife.

"He's done a lot," Teresa said.

She seemed completely immune to this level of passive aggression, and after giving a bland reply, she forcibly steered the topic back into her comfort zone.

"Carlton, you mentioned earlier that your next investment focus will be on the renewable energy sector?"

"That's right. The direction the government has taken with its domestic policy over the last two years has been very clear…"

The moment the conversation shifted toward investments and business expansion, Silas became a complete outsider. With his glass of sparkling water in hand, he stood half a step behind Teresa and listened in silence. He heard them chat about everything from renewable energy to AI language models, and from hedge funds to land bidding in Bellmere.

Carlton was almost a perfect conversationalist. He knew exactly how to control the pace, displaying his professionalism as a financial elite while casually tossing out insider jokes only industry veterans would understand, earning repeated nods from Teresa.

The conversation was flowing well when Carlton let out a soft chuckle and adjusted his glasses.

"You know, that domineering presence you exude during your business discussions is the same one you gave off during our debate competitions back in college. I still remember what happened before the finals during our junior year—I left my third-speaker closing statement in the library, and you nearly swallowed me alive backstage."

Teresa froze for a moment before, almost miraculously, the corners of her perpetually tense lips curled into a genuinely amused smile, one Silas had not seen from her in a very long time.

"You've got quite the nerve to bring that up. If I hadn't filled in for you at the last minute, the law department would've stolen the championship that year."

She even rolled her eyes ever so slightly, her expression tinged with a trace of affectionate exasperation.

That tiny gesture, carrying the essence of playful annoyance, suddenly made the scene before Silas feel a little ludicrous.

Throughout their three years of marriage, Teresa had always acted like she was a money-making robot in front of him—cold, rational, and devoid of unnecessary emotion.

Only in front of this man did she remove the armor of a CEO and reveal something vividly human beneath it.

Silas stood there and watched the two of them. Under the guise of chatting about work, they were openly sharing a past he wasn't even qualified to hear about. Not only did he feel unneeded here, but he even felt like he was just a spare hand standing there to adjust the lighting while the two took center stage.

"Well, would you look at that! I thought it was you two when I saw you from a distance, and it really is! The golden boy and golden girl of our finance department have finally reunited!"

A booming, cheerful voice abruptly shattered the warm nostalgia the two were reminiscing over. Zeke Anderson, the deputy chairman of the Bellmere Chamber of Commerce, approached. He was also one of TRS Group's major business partners.

He strode over with a wine glass and a broad grin. "Carlton! You're finally back, you brat. When you left the country, our dear Teresa here was—"

Halfway through the sentence, Zeke finally picked up the surrounding signals and slammed on the brakes. At last, after his abrupt stop, he noticed Silas, who had been standing behind Teresa the whole time.

"Oh. This is an unfamiliar face." His gaze swept once across Silas' not-quite-up-to-standard suit with the nonchalant attitude older men had with the younger ones. "Aren't you going to make the introductions, Teresa? Is he a new assistant at the company, or one of your new mentees?"

For a brief second, the surrounding air seemed to cut out. Carlton smiled faintly as he sipped his wine, saying nothing, merely glancing sideways toward Teresa. Silas' fingers curled tightly around his glass as he quietly looked at her as well, waiting for her verdict.

A second passed, then another.

Teresa's lips twitched, but she didn't answer right away. Her gaze flickered rapidly between Zeke and Silas. Silas even got a clear look at the trace of awkward hesitation she failed to hide in time.

In just those two seconds, he felt as if all the carbonation in his sparkling water had dissolved, turning it into a glass of flat water.

"Neither, Mr. Anderson," Teresa eventually said, her tone now regaining her usual crisp and businesslike manner. "This is my husband, Silas Langston."

She didn't emphasize the explanation, nor did she loop her arm around his to stake her claim. She simply gave a curt introduction that felt like an insignificant decimal point in a quarterly financial report.

"Oh! Mr. Langston, is it? My apologies." Zeke was a shrewd man. After a moment of shock, he seamlessly pasted on an enthusiastic smile and raised his glass.

"How rude of me not to make the connection sooner. I hope you don't mind, Mr. Langston. Teresa has kept you far too well-hidden from the rest of us. We finally get a chance to meet you in person today!"

"Not at all, Mr. Anderson."

Silas returned a polite smile and raised his glass to tap it lightly against Zeke's champagne flute. A crisp ding rang out, and he took a sip. The liquid, which had grown warm by now, made him choke a little as it went down.

He glanced at Teresa, who had already switched right back into business mode with Zeke, then at Carlton, whose gentle smile never once faltered, as though he had the perfect grasp of everything right from the very start.

Without saying a word, Silas stepped backward and blended into the shadows once more.