Dumped My Cheating Ex. Now I'm Sleeping Next to a Billionaire CEO novel Chapter 1698

"Then will you be my boyfriend?" Chloe asked, tilting her head up pitifully. "Captain Quincy, please. Just say yes." Her clear eyes were brimming with undisguised love and anticipation.

Quincy didn't answer. He turned to look in the direction Sylvia had gone. Her silhouette had already vanished into the crowd, having walked away without a single backward glance. A cold gust of wind blew past, stirring an indescribable bitterness from the very depths of his heart. He turned back and looked at Chloe, whose eyes were red from crying and full of hope. He knew that in his gamble against Steve, he had already lost. Any further struggle would be completely futile. Closing his eyes briefly, Quincy opened them again, his gaze filled with helpless compromise. "I will think about it," he said, his voice raspy.

Meanwhile, on the pedestrian path along the river, Sylvia pulled her coat tighter and walked briskly ahead. Steve kept his hands in his pockets, following at a leisurely pace about three steps behind her. The cold wind sweeping off the river hit them in endless waves, slicing across their faces like a knife. Among the couples passing by, the girls couldn't help but shrink into their boyfriends' arms from the cold, while the men considerately opened their coats to wrap their girlfriends up tightly. Steve frowned as he watched the thin, stubborn figure walking ahead of him. Passing a vendor's cart selling winter accessories, he brought his footsteps to a halt. Sweeping his gaze over a pile of colorful scarves, Steve reached out and picked a soft, cream-colored women's scarf of the highest quality. He quickly scanned the code to pay, then took a few long strides and caught up to Sylvia.

Steve stepped directly in front of her, blocking her path. Before Sylvia could even react, he was already wrapping the scarf around her neck loop by loop. Forced to stop, Sylvia looked up at Steve, who was standing mere inches away, feeling entirely bewildered. Her mind was a complete mess. Quincy's accusatory words kept echoing in her ears. He had said using underhanded tricks to chase her was completely despicable. Yet her rationality reminded her that Steve had already explained it. He was only introducing Quincy to someone out of the kindness of his heart, following Mr. Nelson's request. So, she had definitely just been overthinking things again. Steve's recent behavior always carried a faint, ambiguous undertone that constantly drove her mind into wild speculation. Sylvia bit her lip in deep frustration.

But in the brief two seconds she lost focus, Steve suddenly grabbed both ends of the scarf and gave a sharp tug toward himself. Caught off guard by the pull, Sylvia's body pitched forward uncontrollably. The distance between them vanished in an instant, bringing her so close she could clearly smell the scent of cedar mixed with faint tobacco radiating from his coat. Steve lowered his head slightly, his warm breath practically dusting her nose. Those deep, striking eyes locked onto hers as he spoke in a low voice. "Since you never agreed to go out with him, and he has a girlfriend now, what are you being so sad about?"

Sylvia snapped back to reality and abruptly took a massive step backward, breaking the panic-inducing proximity. Frowning, she reached up to touch the scarf around her neck. "Steve, what exactly are you trying to do?" Her voice was icy cold, wrapped in a hedgehog-like armor.

Steve let out a displeased scoff as he watched her raise all her defenses against him. Shoving his hands back into his pockets, he returned to his careless, arrogantly awful demeanor. "People always have to pay for their actions eventually," he remarked, his tone laced with mockery. "For instance, you rejected him, and he turned around and said yes to someone else, yet here you are drowning in self-pity. You women really are..." As he said this, Steve kept a cold smirk on his face, but a wave of bitterness rose in his heart, a bitterness he himself found pathetic. Actually, men were exactly the same. Wasn't his current state, scheming endlessly, clinging to her shamelessly, and still being treated with absolute disdain, just him paying the price for the bastard he used to be?