There was no surprised look from Summer when she heard that. Everyone knew about the money and power Tip Top had. But until now, she still did not know how much her pay was.
Out of curiosity, she asked Leonardo, “How much is the pay for an intern?”
Leonardo suddenly came close and squinted at her with a suggestive look. “The boss of the company has been trying his best to please you every day. Now you’re talking about pay?”
This man would never let a chance to tease her slip away. Just as she was about to say something, Carl walked in with a few packs of food in his hands.
“Lunchtime!” Carl just glanced at them once. He was probably sulking over lunch; it had to have killed him to endure the long wait for the takeaway meals.
Summer helped Carl lay out the boxes and opened them as he whined. “The good thing is that Leonardo will go back to Emerson Group in a few days. Otherwise, I’d still have to survive on these packaged foods!”
Summer appeared startled, looking at Leonardo. “When are you going to Emerson Group?”
“In two days, I guess.” He looked down, his voice a pitch lower with little emotion in it.
She had almost forgotten about that. Leonardo had mentioned it before; once he fixed the loose ends, he would hand over things to Carl and return to Emerson Group.
…
The next day, Summer took the subway to work. As she stepped out of the subway station, she saw Leonardo’s car parked near the entrance.
On the third day, she took a cab, and when she arrived in front of the company building, Leonardo’s car seemed to arrive at the same time.
On the fourth day, Leonardo did not follow her as he had to start work in Emerson Group.
Summer woke up early in the morning and did not see Leonardo anywhere. Coming downstairs to the living room, she saw Ava, who immediately told her that the young master had left for work.
Summer nodded, feeling a little surprised. The sun must have risen from the west; Leonardo had finally left her alone. But not long after, she got a call from him.
“I’m in Emerson Group now. You won’t have to worry about me stalking you anymore. You happy?” His voice was as calm as a pool of water with no emotional fluctuations.
She was not going to dig her own grave by saying she was happy. “You’re not in Tip Top anymore, you will be sorely missed.”
They had been wrestling over how she should go to work for the past few days. Leonardo was not very happy, but he did not utter a word about it. He seemed to be smiling when he spoke. “I can send you to work every day before I go to Emerson Group.”
“No need. Don’t waste your time on that…”
Leonardo finally chortled. He resented Emerson Group, but he had to go there. After teasing Summer for a while, he suddenly felt better. He stopped chortling and spoke in a matter-of-fact manner.
“I’ll leave you to it on normal days, but on rainy days, the chauffeur will send you. Otherwise, I’ll send you.”
“Okay, okay, okay…” She was starting to think that Leonardo was a babbling idiot.
The line went dead and Summer left for work. The bus stopped, and where she hopped off, the company was five minutes away on foot. As she was about to arrive at the entrance of the Tip Top building, the sound of a horn rang out behind her.
She moved further away from the road, but the horn continued to blare. Frowning, she looked back only to see a recognizable face poking out the window of a black vehicle.
Adams called out to her with a smile, “Summer!”
Surprised, she greeted back, “Adams?”
Many things had happened lately, and no one had been able to contact him. He drove the car up to her so that he could talk to her.
“Are you looking for Leonardo?” he asked.
“No.” She waved the staff ID badge in her hand. “I’m a staff member of Tip Top Entertainment now.”
“We’re colleagues now?” A hint of surprise flashed across his face.
It was rush hour, and traffic was heavy, so that was not an ideal place to talk. Summer scanned her surroundings carefully. “Yeah, but I’m not in the same league as you.”
A person as thoughtful and keen-eyed like Adams had noticed Summer’s subtle body language. As a result, he smiled at her. “Maybe we’ll catch up later at lunchtime. I have to go.” He then nosed his car into the parking lot.
Summer did not give his words a second thought. The last time they met at the airport and he sent her home, it had triggered a wave of rumors and gossip, and then she inexplicably became “Adams’s secret lover”. If they were ever filmed having lunch together, the media would probably write “Adams’s long-time wife” or something like that. The media would do anything to increase readership.
It was a long day.
Tip Top Entertainment had an in-house café, and Summer, as well as some of her colleagues, had planned to have lunch there. The moment she arrived at the café, she received a call from Adams.
“I thought we would have lunch together? Where are you?” His wording made it seem as if he was angry with her, but his tone indicated that he was joking.
Anyway, she declined him outright. “I’m having lunch with my colleagues now. We can have lunch together when Leonardo is free.”
There was a moment of silence before Adams said, “That’s great too.”
She did not know if it was all in her head, but she just found something amiss in Adams’s tone of voice. She told herself not to worry and put it at the back of her mind. However, she remembered seeing him depressed in front of the teahouse the other. What had happened to him?
From the moment the gossip about “Adams’s secret lover” surfaced to Leonardo’s lengthy PR post on Weibo, they had yet to find the person who started the fire. Thinking of that, Summer sent a WeChat message to Leonardo.
Leonardo was probably tied up at work because it was not until she finished her lunch that he texted back. Even then, his reply was just a few words. “Not found yet.”
Summer took a long hard look at his reply, and somehow, her gut feeling told her that Leonardo was lying.
Such provocation and a smearing campaign that tried to bring down a company would not have left zero traces. One just needed to look harder and at the right place for a clue.
A person like Leonardo, whose every move was calculated and whose eyes were sharp, should have found something given how long ago things had happened.
That meant he could have found out who the culprit was but did not want to talk about it. Putting it in another way, he knew who the person behind it was, but he did not believe that the person would do such a thing. So, he simply said that he had not found out who.