My eyes scanned the desks, but that familiar face was nowhere in sight. Could Vincent have hidden her so quickly?
In the restroom, just as I slipped into a stall, I overheard two girls chatting outside.
“Desiree, you’re so lucky! You found such a rich, doting boyfriend!”
“Tickets for Taylor’s concert are impossible to get, but he actually got you seats in the inner section. I’m so jealous!”
Another girl, her voice sweet and proud, replied, “Oh, it’s nothing. He insisted on taking me, said youth shouldn’t leave regrets…”
I froze. That voice was the same one I had heard through the pet feeder.
Through the crack in the door, I glimpsed Desiree standing at the sink, touching up her makeup in the mirror.
Suddenly, I remembered that a month ago, I had playfully told Vincent I wanted to see Taylor’s concert, asking him to get tickets.
At the time, he had frowned impatiently.
“Jasmine, aren’t you too old for that? Still chasing idols like a kid?”
“Besides, Taylor’s tickets are impossible to get. Why waste the effort?”
So it wasn’t that the tickets were hard to get. He had given the tickets and himself to someone else.
A cold laugh escaped me as I pushed the door open. Both girls froze.
The other girl stammered, “President Higgins,” before slipping away awkwardly.
Desiree tried to leave, too, but I stopped her with a sharp word. “Desiree, right? Yesterday afternoon… did you go to my house?”
Desiree’s eyes flickered nervously.
“President Davidson forgot his documents… it was urgent. He asked me to grab them…”
I raised my brows, my voice cold and sharp. “My Colbie is wary of strangers. If someone who doesn’t know touches it, it gets stressed. How did you manage that? It actually lets you hold it?”
Desiree’s face drained of color, and she stammered, “Maybe… maybe because I usually feed stray cats. I carry their scent, so small animals… they like me…”
I sneered. “So you like them so much that the very first time you came to my house, you called yourself its mom? And called Vincent dad?”
“Then what am I? The nanny?”
Desiree instantly panicked. “President Higgins, you misunderstood! I was just joking. When I feed stray cats, I often call myself their mom.”
“I really didn’t mean anything else… please don’t misunderstand…”
She looked so anxious that her eyes shimmered with unshed tears.
If I hadn’t checked her social media before coming to the office, I might have actually believed her.