The Rose He Showed Off Is Putting Down Roots in a Garden of Her Own novel Chapter 176

Elara shot a sharp glare at Zane through the mirror. If any other man licked his lips like that, she would have called him a sleazy creep. But this was Zane Whitaker—strikingly handsome, a titan in the industry, and wrapped in his own natural aura of charm.

So, she just found him... incredibly seductive.

Noticing his eyes glazing over with desire, Elara panicked, fearing he was about to lose his mind again and ruin her freshly reapplied lipstick. "If you kiss me again, I'm going to slap you," she warned sharply.

Zane's lips curved upward. "Then make it quick."

Elara could hardly believe those words came out of his mouth.

Who was this man?

He was the CEO of the Whitaker Group.

In just a few minutes, he was supposed to be commanding a room full of high-level executives.

She glared at him again. Zane quickly pressed a chaste kiss to her cheek, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "I'll wait outside."

Elara wiped her cheek in feigned annoyance, though she couldn't hide the shy blush creeping up her neck.

Back at the office, Jasper watched his boss zone out once again and frowned. "Boss, are you in love?"

"Did you finally spend the night with Mrs. Sterling?"

"Did you finally manage to crawl under her skirt?"

Zane snapped back to reality. "Stop fishing for gossip and go get my coffee."

During the executive meeting, Zane handed down a massive mandate: draft a comprehensive proposal immediately so the board could approve his capital injection into Vance Properties.

The executives sitting around the mahogany table stared at him. Did their CEO realize how insane he sounded?

Jasper rolled his eyes internally. See? I'm not the only one who thinks he's losing it.

Buckle up, gentlemen, Jasper thought. You're going to be cleaning up a lot of his lovesick messes from now on.

After the meeting, Zane ordered Jasper to bring him the due diligence reports for Vance Properties.

Here we go with the stupid decisions, Jasper muttered to himself.

Zane locked himself in his office and meticulously combed through every page of the reports.

He needed to figure out which projects were salvageable, the extent of the damage, the potential economic value, and the symbolic impact of saving them.

He didn't even stop for lunch.

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