She's Too Busy Winning to Watch Him Cry novel Chapter 75

The group headed to a high-end restaurant near the financial district.

Before the appetizers even hit the table, Caleb was rapid-firing texts to Lyra under the table.

Lyra quickly laid it out: [I was just saving his life. He showed up to woo Jasmine, completely clueless that she was dating Rowan.]

[You know how easily provoked Rowan is. I just did Calvin a massive favor.]

Caleb: [Are you absolutely sure that's all it was?]

Lyra: [A hundred percent.]

Since his sister had cleared it up, Caleb stopped stressing. He pocketed his phone and smoothly transitioned into discussing the latest project metrics with Rowan.

Jasmine chimed in every now and then with razor-sharp insights.

Her business acumen was undeniably brilliant, and Caleb found his lingering prejudice against her slowly fading as the lunch progressed.

Elara, seated awkwardly between Caleb and Lucas, couldn't contribute a single thing to the high-level corporate jargon. Still, the faint, intoxicating scent of expensive men's cologne drifted over to her, though she couldn't tell if it belonged to the man on her left or her right.

She was absolutely thrilled.

She never imagined a day would come when she'd be dining casually with Seaborne City's absolute elite.

Her mind raced, spinning wild fantasies where the two billionaires across the table would eventually come to blows fighting over her.

And she would reject them both.

Elara had zero interest in the toxic romance tropes of being aggressively pursued by domineering men.

All she wanted was to climb to the absolute top of the social ladder and push the Townsend family onto the global stage.

...

When Thursday rolled around, Lyra called Quentin into her office to pitch a few highly specialized technical concepts.

These were the exact brilliant innovations Rowan had implemented years down the line in her past life, ideas that hadn't even been conceptualized yet in this timeline.

It took Quentin a few minutes to fully process the sheer scale of what she was suggesting.

"I see it now." Quentin usually grasped complex architecture instantly, but he actually had to burn some serious mental energy to understand the programming frameworks Lyra was demanding.

Just then, Caleb's secretary knocked on the glass door. "Miss Fairchild, Mr. Jameson and Mr. Chavez have just arrived."

Since she couldn't leave, she opted to completely ignore his existence. She calmly picked up her fork, took a bite of her food, and offered zero reaction.

"Anyway, since you're finally over Rowan, we should hang out this weekend..."

Lyra finally looked up from her plate, genuinely checking to see if he was talking to someone else. "You and me?"

Lucas let out a harsh laugh. "Who else? We used to hang out all the time."

He was right. In the past, whenever Rowan went anywhere, Lyra would bend over backward to tag along.

Which meant she inevitably ended up spending all her free time with Rowan's best friend, Lucas.

But she hadn't subjected herself to that crowd in a very long time...

"This time it'll just be the four of us—you, me, Rowan, and Jasmine. We're heading up to the Valmont Estate. I heard they just opened a massive new equestrian club. Word is, Jasmine might look quiet, but she actually knows how to ride..."

Hearing Jasmine's name, Lyra's expression immediately hardened.

Noticing the shift, Lucas stopped mid-sentence. "Hey, wait... you aren't still..."

They hadn't exactly been whispering. Catching the name 'Jasmine' over the restaurant chatter, Rowan completely stopped his conversation with Caleb and stared directly at the two of them.