Chapter 4

Chapter 4

I was in the middle of yelling at my terrible teammates when my phone suddenly rang. I answered it. "Hello?"

The voice on the other end took me completely by surprise. "This is Chloe Morgan. I'm free this afternoon—want to meet up somewhere and chat?"

Chloe Morgan?

How did she get my phone number? I held the phone in a daze, not hearing a word Chloe was saying. I just mumbled, "I'm free this afternoon too!"

Noah would never give Chloe my number. And there was no way Noah's dad would mix up his own son's phone number, right?

I was still puzzling over this when I looked down at the phone in my hand—and froze. This wasn't my phone at all. It was Noah's stupid phone!

My real phone was lying safely on the sofa on the other side of the room. Are you kidding me? Could this get any more chaotic?

"The place where I dropped you off—there's a nice-looking internet café nearby. I'll be there soon!" Chloe said.

An internet café? No way. There was only one internet café in this area—mine. Could Chloe be talking about my café? "Wait, can we meet somewhere else instead?"

"Hold on, I just need to park the car. I'll see you at Jiayue Internet Café!" Chloe didn't give me a chance to say no—she hung up right away.

I felt like I was about to have a breakdown. Jiayue Internet Café was my café!

I wanted to curse Noah out, but he didn't have his phone with him—it was in my hand. I had no choice but to suck it up and get ready to greet Chloe.

When Chloe arrived, she looked different from the professional, polished woman I'd met at Xiti Hotel. She was wearing casual clothes and carrying a crocodile-skin handbag.

Chloe ordered an American pour-over coffee. "I was actually planning to open a casual internet café like Jiayue—expand it into a chain. But it looks like someone already beat me to it."

Jiayue was mine. Noah had a small stake in it, but right now, I was squirming in my seat. "So you changed your mind, Ms. Morgan?"

Chloe didn't answer my question. Instead, she said, "You seem really familiar with this place. Even the waiters know you."

"Uh, yeah—I have a small stake here," I said, forcing the words out. I was still pretending to be Noah, and I was silently cursing him up and down.

I never would have guessed that my "next time" with Chloe would come so soon.

"Before I came to Jiayue, I checked out other similar casual spots too," Chloe said, stirring her coffee with a spoon and looking at me, waiting for my answer. "It seems like this market is already saturated. If I jump in now, will there be any profit left for me to grab?"

In our city, Jiayue was one of a kind—there were barely any similar places.

I had no idea if Chloe was testing me, trying to gauge my market research skills, or just making small talk. But I launched into an explanation anyway. "After hearing what you said, I can tell you just got back to the country recently—and you haven't done a thorough analysis of China's casual consumer market yet..."

Before I'd invested all my savings to open Jiayue with Noah, I'd done tons of research: rankings of casual venues in major Chinese cities, average spending on casual activities—you name it.

As I talked, I noticed Chloe's eyes lighting up. She stirred her coffee more and more slowly, listening intently. When I finished, she asked, "So you're saying if I jump into the casual entertainment industry now, there's still profit to be made?"

Market analysis was Noah's and my major—this was right up my alley. I went to the counter, asked for paper and a pen, and drew a pie chart and a line graph, jotting down the data from my research.

Talking about something I was good at made me feel a little more confident—maybe even a bit cocky.

"You're nothing like what Uncle Bennett described," Chloe said, her words like a bucket of cold water pouring over my head.

I'm not Noah, you idiot! We were in the same major, but that guy was just a middle-of-the-road student. I snapped back to reality. "Even though I only invested a little money here, I still want to make sure every penny counts!"

In that moment, I wanted to come clean to Chloe—tell her my real name was Ethan Carter, not Noah Bennett. But once you start lying, it's hard to stop. It's better to confess on your own than to get caught in the lie later.

"I see," Chloe said, finishing her coffee, picking up her crocodile-skin bag, and standing up gracefully. "I'll be in touch later. I need to go discuss this with my team."

After Chloe left, I sat there in a daze, trying to figure out what she was going to discuss with her team.

The door to the private room opened, and Noah walked in with his girlfriend, sitting down next to me. "The waiters said a beautiful woman came to see you just now?"

I was about to say, "It was just your blind date," but then I saw the curious, gossip-hungry look on his girlfriend's face. I quickly changed my tune.

I held up the pie chart I'd drawn. "Quit with your dirty minds! I just gave someone a free market analysis. Noah, go get your girlfriend a computer so she can play—you need to come to the office with me!"

"So no gossip?" she said, getting up. "Fine, I'll get my own computer. You two can keep doing your secret guy stuff. You two act more like a couple than Noah and me, locking yourselves in the office all the time." She walked out to get a computer.

Noah wasn't buying my story. "Spill it—what really happened?"

I just said two words: "Chloe Morgan."