He Lost Me to His Best Friend novel Chapter 205

After Yardley hauled Sylvia away, Scarlett silently crouched down and began picking up the shattered remnants of the teacups and porcelain.

"Thank goodness," she muttered to herself. "Some of these are totally destroyed, but a lot of them can be restored. There's a master ceramic restorer in this quarter. I'll gather the pieces and see what he can do."

Just as she reached for another shard, a pale, elegant hand wrapped gently around her wrist and pulled her to her feet.

"Don't touch that. You'll cut your fingers. I'll handle it."

Scarlett shook her head and tried to crouch back down. "It's fine. A cut just needs a band-aid. I'm not that fragile."

"When I was first setting up my place, I built most of the furniture myself, I—"

Julian looked at her, entirely bewildered. "Yardley made you do manual labor? Scarlett, your hands belong to one of the most promising architectural designers in the industry."

Scarlett shrugged casually. "I've always done things myself. I'm used to it. Honestly, I'm more uncomfortable having people wait on me."

Julian kept his grip on her wrist, his expression gentle but firm. "Drop that mindset right now. Leave the heavy lifting to the guys."

"My grandmother keeps some excellent jasmine tea here. Why don't you go brew a pot? I'll have this cleaned up in no time."

No matter how much Scarlett insisted on helping, Julian firmly guided her to a chair and made her sit out of the way.

Defeated, Scarlett went to brew the tea, then sat quietly, watching Julian work.

The Croft family was Old Money. Julian was the eldest legitimate grandson of the tenth generation.

By all traditional standards, his upbringing was the pinnacle of elite privilege. He should have been the type of man who never lifted a finger for himself.

Yet, he moved with practiced efficiency. He swiftly categorized and rearranged everything that survived the rampage, carefully bagging the broken shards by type, and restored the living room to immaculate condition in record time.

A second later, they both blurted out simultaneously, "Madeleine Dawson!"

Scarlett covered her mouth in shock, her eyes sweeping over the room again.

She never could have guessed that Julian's "grandmother" was her former high school art teacher.

No wonder the moment she walked into this house, everything felt so strangely familiar.

She couldn't help but marvel at how small the world was, while Julian's lips curved into a wide grin.

"Well, what do you know. You're my grandmother's student."

"She used to talk about one of her favorite students all the time. She said this girl seemed rebellious and edgy on the outside, but was incredibly grounded and disciplined on the inside—perfect for a career in the arts. And she mentioned we were in the same industry... She was talking about you."