Chapter 507

She had also mentioned that Rex went straight to the apartment across the hall.

Halfway through, Tanya had received a call from a client. Forced to cut her rant short, she had gone back to slaving away for her job.

Rowan laughed. "So what are we going to do?"

"I'll dry it myself," Elissa answered.

But despite her words, she made absolutely no move to do so.

She genuinely despised drying her hair.

Why wasn't there an automatic hair-drying machine yet? She would buy one in a heartbeat.

The weather was cooling down, and catching a cold was far too easy. "Go," Rowan urged.

After all these years, she seemed to have changed so much.

But many of her habits hadn't changed at all.

Her stubborn refusal to dry her hair was the most obvious one.

When she was little and Rowan tried to rush her, little Elissa would pout and righteously demand, "Why are you rushing me? Why don't you do it for me?"

She had already been hopelessly spoiled by him.

Back then, Rowan had tried to teach her to be independent. "It's your hair. You need to dry it yourself."

"If it's my hair, why do you get to boss me around?"

Little Elissa had her own twisted logic, leaving Rowan completely speechless.

In the end, defeated, he would dry it for her.

Once that floodgate opened, there was no going back. Every time she washed her hair while he was home, she would sprint into his study with the hairdryer in hand, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. "Rowan, come blow-dry my hair!"

The little manipulator already knew he couldn't resist her puppy-dog eyes.

But now, Elissa no longer acted so spoiled around him.

Hearing his urging, Elissa seemed to snap out of a daze and offered a soft, "Okay."

A few moments later, the hum of a hairdryer filtered through the phone.

When she finished, before she could even ask, Rowan spoke up. "At first, I didn't know the truth about my connection to Paige either."

Initially, just like Elissa, he thought Paige merely favored Slate.

Elissa was slightly taken aback. "Then when did you find out? Before you sent me back to her courtyard?"

Since the woman wasn't his real grandmother, she felt no guilt addressing her by

name.

"Yes."

Deciding to bare it all, Rowan told her everything about those early years.

Like how, while finally uncovering the truth behind his parents' deaths, he had accidentally stumbled upon his father's true lineage.

At the time, Paige had immense power. To avenge his parents, he had no choice but

to lay low and... secure Elissa's safety first.

Sending her back to the old woman's courtyard had been the only relatively safe option.

né

Rowan had blackmailed several of the servants in the courtyard,

ensuring that unless Paige punished Elissa herself, kone of them dared to lay a heavy hand on her.

Elissa suddenly realized something. Every time she had been severely beaten, she would always wake up to find a special ointment resting on her bedside table.

Her heart seized. She reached out

and pushed the window open, letting the cool autumn breeze slip in to soothe the sudden tightness in her chest Back then... whenever I was badly hurt was it you who left the ointment for me?"

"Yes and no," Rowan admitted.

He wanted to, but he didn't dare.

If Paige's people had caught him sneaking into her room, his entire plan would have

been ruined.

"Did you want to?"

Elissa asked bluntly. Without waiting for his answer, her soft voice pierced

straight through his defenses.

"Rowan, you wanted to give into

yourself, didn't you?"

the

"If you hadn't been terrified of dragging me down, you would have applied the

ointment yourself, right?"

It sounded like a question, but it was more of a statement of fact.