No matter what excited nonsense Riley was chattering about, Serena didn't slow down.
She only gave him a faint, lazy glance when he announced his family name.
Then, she walked right past him.
And left.
Just like that!
She walked away with a cold, haughty grace that was undeniably captivating.
Riley didn't feel rejected at all. Instead, he stared at her back, a dazed, silly grin spreading across his face.
Darius and Trevor gathered around, poking Riley. "Riley, you okay? Scared stiff?" "That girl was intense! Damn, which family is she from, with moves like that!"
Riley didn't respond.
Trevor slung an arm around his shoulder. "Riley, you look like you're in a daze. Did she steal your soul or something?"
Riley pulled his gaze back and looked at Trevor right in front of him.
He grabbed Trevor's hand, his eyes wide and unfocused, incredibly excited. "Dude...
I think... I think I'm in love!"
He said, clutching his wildly beating heart.
The feeling of being lovestruck made him feel euphoric, and his tone became
dreamy. "Yes! It's her! I, Riley, will marry no one else in this life! Did you see it? The way she grabbed my arm, kicked away that knife, and shielded me....."
"Ahhh~ It was so badass! So cool! It's over for me, I'm totally in love!"
Darius and Trevor paused for a second, then burst out laughing.
Darius teased, "Whoa, Riley, so that's your type! You like the kind of girl who can pin you to the ground and wipe the floor with you?"
Trevor
gave him a thumbs-up. "That's our Riley for you. The one time he falls for a girl, he picks one with an impossible difficulty rating."
Darius rubbed his chin. "Yeah, look at that ice queen. She didn't even bat an eye when she heard Nicholas's name. She's going to be a tough one to win over, Riley."
Riley clutched his racing heart, staring in the direction Serena had gone, his mind full of the girl who didn't even care he was a Blackwood.
Then he put his hands on his hips, arrogant and confident. "What do you guys know? This is called a challenge! The harder she is to get, the more it proves my charm! Now *that* interesting. Just you want. One day, I'll make that ice queen remember the name Riley!"
Darius and Trevor were speechless.
All that blustering, and his grand goal was just...
To make her remember his name?
Was that the extent of his ambition?
Acting all cool and dramatic, Riley swept his bangs aside. "Go, find out everything about her. I want all her information in three minutes!"
Darius and Trevor were silent. A perfectly good rich playboy, and he's talking like some overbearing CEO from a novel?
A rustling sound came from the side.
Riley's eyes turned cold, but his smile remained.
He looked at the two chefs trying to sneak away and kicked them in the stomach. "Did I say you could run?"
"You think you can pull this kind of shit on Blackwood family territory and just walk away clean?"
"You wanted to humiliate my goddess? Who do you think you are?"
"You two, come give me a hand. Take them away! I'm going to show them what the Blackwoods are capable of!"
Inside the Blackwood family estate's ballroom.
Even though the coming-of-age ceremony hadn't officially begun, the hall was already filled with dignitaries and socialites, chatting and laughing.
However, amid all this excitement and luxury, the Wynn family was like a group of ugly ducklings who had wandered into a flock of swans-completely out of place.
Sta
Patrick Wynn's only thought was use this opportunity to cozy up to the powerful people here. Ideally, he'd land a few partnerships to save the Wynn Group from ruin.
But as he put on a fawning smile and tried to squeeze into a circle of business tycoons who were chatting amiably...
He barely got the words out-"Patrick Wynn, from the Wynn Group..."
The tycoons gave him a brief, indifferent look, nodded politely but distantly, and turned back to their conversation, leaving him completely ignored.