Sweet Subterfuge

Chapter 8

Larissa was confused by the accusation. But as she was someone who had quite some experience working here, she had met more unreasonable guests.

Therefore, she was able to react quickly and gave her an apologetic smile. “My apologies, Ms. Gallagher. There must be a misunderstanding here. I just got back, and I am not quite sure what’s going on. Could you give me some time to look into the situation?”

At the same time, her mind was racing. The Regal Dynasty was a proper hotel with an established background. It would not be possible for them to forcibly evict someone without cause. But seeing the guards and cleaning staff present, the eviction did not seem false either.

Larissa could think of no one else who had the power to evict guests other than the general manager.

She was just about to call him for clarification about the situation when the door to the room at the end of the corridor opened.

Dylan emerged in his pajamas. His was stone-faced and exuded a cold aura similar to Kevan’s. His geniality in the morning was nowhere to be seen.

Thinking that they had disturbed his rest, Larissa quickly apologized. “Forgive me, Mr. Shields. There is a situation that we need to take care of at the moment. If you find the noise bothersome, I can have someone put you up in a different room.”

However, Dylan waved her off and smiled. “Don’t worry about it.”

Larissa was totally confused once again. If it was fine, then why was he upset earlier?

Dylan walked straight up to Karin, who clearly knew him.

“M—Mr. Shields?” Her previous arrogance was gone and replaced by anxiety.

“Ms. Gallagher.” Dylan was not as nice to her as he was to Larissa. His tone was polite and indifferent. “Mr. Rogers was the one who requested your eviction. As for why…” His smile did not reach his eyes. “I’m sure you know.”

Karsyn froze and steadily turned pale.

Dylan proceeded to add, “If you don’t want this to get any worse, I suggest you check out quietly now.”

Karin bit her lip, clearly struggling with herself for a few seconds before she turned and went back into her room. Soon, she emerged with her two assistants.

She wore a cap that was pulled down as much as possible. A large pair of sunglasses as well as a mask hid her face from view. She did not say a word to anyone else and hurriedly made her way forward. Her assistants each dragged a large suitcase behind them as they followed her.

Having accomplished their mission, the security guards left, and the cleaning staff began cleaning up Karin’s room.

Only Larissa and Dylan were left in the corridor.

“Aren’t you on leave?” Dylan asked her.

Larissa had no energy left to wonder why he knew about her being on leave. She went straight into the topic. “Are you available at the moment? I would like to have you as my lawyer.”

Dylan froze for a moment before letting out a knowing smile.

“Sure,” he said.

…

Larissa followed Dylan into his room. He beckoned her to sit on the couch and asked, “Water?”

Larissa shook her head and said, “No, thanks.”

Dylan then sat on the armchair on the side. “You’d like a divorce?” he asked.

He had previously introduced himself as a lawyer who “specialized in handling divorce cases,” so being able to guess Larissa’s goal was not that hard.

“Yes.” Larissa felt bashful. It was as if she was exposing her wounds to someone else. She straightened up discreetly and clenched her fists, which were placed on her lap.

Unlike what she expected, Dylan did not ask for the reason why. However, he simply became more professional and asked, “Has the asset division been settled?”

Larissa smiled bitterly. “I’m in need of your services precisely because it’s not.”

Dylan was not the least bit surprised. “How would your former husband like to divide it?”

Larissa described the contents of the divorce agreement, and Dylan raised an eyebrow.

“Just that? What about the house? It won’t be divided?”

“That’s where the problem is.” The moment Larissa thought about the house, her rage began to ramp up. She did her best to control it, and her nails dug unconsciously into her soft flesh.

“Oh?” Dylan looked interested in what she had to say.

“This house that we’re living in was bought after we got married. I made the down payment, and I am also paying for the mortgage. But the deed had both our names on it. However, just a few hours ago, my former husband showed me the papers for a gifting of property agreement that I had apparently signed and said that I had gifted the house to him. Moreover, he even went through the procedure to get the name on the deed changed to just his own.”

Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “Did you sign the papers in person?” he asked.

Larissa replied, “Based on the penmanship, it does seem to be by my hand. However, I don’t recall signing those papers.”

Dylan was silent for a moment. “We can do a penmanship verification first. If you really didn’t sign it, then it’s good. But on the off chance that it is… Unless you can prove that you were deceived by your former husband and were unaware of the contents of the papers, they will be legally valid.”

Larissa’s hope plummeted into a dark abyss. She did not even know when she signed the damn papers. How was she supposed to prove that she was deceived?

“However, you don’t have to feel so bad. We can still approach it from another angle.” Having sensed her sadness, Dylan showed her a comforting smile. “Regardless of whether or not the papers are genuine, the transfer process he went through is definitely illegal. We can hold onto this point and do some digging. For all we know, we could implicate a bunch of people. By that time, there will be many who will want to get back at your former husband, so we won’t even need to do anything.”

This was a good idea, and the only feasible one at the moment.

Larissa was worried, however. “By implicating a bunch of people, would we be in danger?”

Although she did not want Travis to have it easy, she did not want to risk herself and Dylan either. From NôvelDrama.Org.

“You can rest easy on that.” Dylan was confident and even lifted his head with some pride. “Those guys wouldn’t dare touch me.”

Larissa’s good opinion of him rose a couple of notches.

“Leave this to me. Just focus on your work,” Dylan said.

With such solid backing, Larissa was definitely calmer than before. Hence, she was in the mood to think of other things—such as some gossip.

“Why did Mr. Rogers want to evict Karin Gallagher from the hotel?”

Karin was an A-lister with a huge following of die-hard fans. She just needed to publicly boycott the Regal Dynasty, and the hotel’s occupancy rate would tank along with its reputation. There would likely even be people who would deliberately come over to cause trouble.

Offending her was as good as a death sentence.

Dylan chuckled derisively. “She had the audacity to drug Kevan’s wine with a roofie! She deluded herself into thinking that she could climb her way up by sleeping with him—I don’t even know if I’m supposed to praise her for her bravery or call her an idiot!”

Karsyn was responsible for Kevan’s drugging?!

This fact shocked Larissa greatly.

“Does Karin…even need to bother with roofies?”

Any man, who wanted to use unscrupulous means on Karin, would probably need to queue up for miles. Larissa found it hard to imagine that Karin would demean herself like that.

The only logical explanation was—

“Is there something wrong with Mr. Rogers?”