Refusing to pick a side, huh?
Waylon realized he was fighting a losing battle and finally shut his mouth.
Caleb went back to his meal.
But no matter how much he tried to brush it off, Lana's crush was impossible to ignore.
She personally delivered every single subsequent dish to their private room.
She desperately wracked her brain for any excuse to linger near the table just a little longer.
Caleb sighed heavily. He hadn't expected Lana to be this relentless.
If she had just confessed her feelings outright, he could have cleanly rejected her. But she never actually crossed that line.
Finally, when Caleb went to the front to pay the bill, the young woman gave him a discount, then stammered over his name repeatedly without actually completing a sentence.
"Lana, is there something you need to say to me?"
Caleb just wanted to cut the romantic tension at the root.
If she said the words, he could shut it down permanently.
But her constant stuttering and hesitation were pushing his normally vast patience to its absolute limit.
"Caleb, are you dating someone? Are... are either of those girls your girlfriend?"
After an agonizing internal struggle, that was the only sentence Lana managed to force out.
Caleb felt a wave of exhaustion.
He offered a dry, exasperated smile. "Neither of them."
Lana visibly relaxed, a wave of relief washing over her. She opened her mouth to speak again, but Caleb smoothly cut her off.
"My girlfriend is studying abroad."
*What?*
Lana froze. Most people experienced a light at the end of the tunnel, but she had just been shoved off an emotional cliff right after catching her breath.
"You... you really have a girlfriend?" Being young and inexperienced, Lana hadn't yet mastered the art of hiding her emotions.
The moment she asked, her eyes welled up, tears threatening to spill over.
Watching from the sidelines, Claire felt a twinge of sympathy. Unfortunately for Lana, Caleb was completely immune to romantic theatrics and had zero interest in comforting a crying girl.
It made sense. In his elite social
circle, he was the absolute pinnacle of an edible bachelor. Countless
W were constantly scheming
to lock him down.
If he played the role of the sympathetic shoulder to cry on, he'd drown in a sea of unnecessary drama.
"Yes." Despite his outwardly gentle demeanor, Caleb was fiercely uncompromising when it came to boundaries.
Lana's tears finally broke, streaming down her face.
She didn't even know why she couldn't hold it together.
Humiliated, she turned and bolted into the back room.
Caleb just sighed in resignation, transferred the exact, un-discounted total for the meal, and signaled for Claire and the others to leave.
"You handled that with terrifying efficiency, Caleb."
Claire couldn't help but comment as they walked away.
Caleb shot her a tired look. "I don't have a choice. As long as I'm single, someone is always plotting. It's
much easier to just invent a
grlfriend to use as a shield.
Waylon practically turned green with envy. Being obscenely handsome clearly came
with a totally different set of problems.
Caleb had to invent women to keep them away. Waylon had to throw money around just to get them to look at him.
Or rely on his dad's reputation to secure a date.
Waylon wasn't ugly, but he exuded the slimy aura of an unreliable playboy.
Girls from respectable families wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.
And the girls who were only after his family's money? He didn't want them either.
He usually dated someone for a few months, realized they were only using him, and dumped them.
Because of that, he had built a notorious reputation as a heartbreaker.
Quentin Dale, on the other hand, had ruined the lives of countless women. They flocked to him for his family's power, and he ruthlessly took advantage of them. fo FindNovel.net
Claire remained indifferent to the elite male struggles.
She wasn't part of Caleb's high-society circle, so it wasn't her problem to worry about.
After lunch, she and Priscilla headed back to campus.
Priscilla, burning with curiosity about Caleb's identity, waited until the men were gone to ask.
"His dad is a top official in the diplomatic corps," Claire explained casually. Priscilla gasped. So he was a political elite!