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Chapter 58: Chapter 58: Just Satisfying Each Other’s Needs

The photo only showed their backs, and since it was taken at night, their faces were completely unclear. Zane Lancaster forwarded the photo he received to Leo Sawyer and told him to run the license plate.

Leo Sawyer was a little surprised, but he ran the check anyway.

A few moments later, Leo Sawyer sent the vehicle’s registration information to Zane Lancaster.

Zane Lancaster let out a frustrated laugh when he saw the result. After all that work, all he’d caught was a reunion between a brother and sister.

Leo Sawyer scratched his head in embarrassment as he heard Zane Lancaster give the order. ”Release the photo. The caption should read: Mr. Sterling’s midnight tryst with a mysterious woman.”

”Mr. Lancaster, I’m worried this will anger the Sterling family. If that happens, you...” Leo Sawyer attempted to dissuade him.

Zane Lancaster cut him off. Leaning back leisurely into the sofa and rubbing the bridge of his nose, he said, ”Just do as I say.”

”Understood. I’ll make the arrangements now.” Leo Sawyer sighed and turned to leave.

He contacted a popular online entertainment gossip blogger. The blogger was still up late, and his eyes lit up at the sight of money. Without a second thought about whether he could afford to provoke the people in the photo, he took the payment and scheduled the post for nine in the morning, Veridia time—the perfect time for everyone to start slacking off at work.

The post’s title was short and sensational.

[Top Tycoon Family’s Youngest Master in All-Night Tryst with Mystery Woman]

[Got ahold of this juicy gossip late last night. The Sterling family has three sons and two daughters. While the other sons and daughters collectively manage Apex Group, this particular son stays out of it, merely collecting dividends. However, the company he founded on his own, FR Holdings, crushes the vast majority of other family enterprises in Quartos. And let’s not forget, he’s the youngest and most doted-on child of the Sterling family.]

[Unlike the typical playboy heir, he’s rumored to be aloof and untamable, with only one ex-girlfriend to his name. Countless young ladies in Quartos have their eyes on the title of his wife. Now that this young master is having a midnight tryst, one has to wonder: is some lucky lady about to make the social climb of a lifetime, or is this the prelude to a marriage alliance between two powerful families?]

This blogger usually posted celebrity gossip and had a huge following. The moment the post went live, netizens slacking off at work flooded the comments, pushing it to the top of the trending charts in less than half an hour.

[Whoever she is, girl, please teach me your ways!]

[My boyfriend works at FR Holdings (just a junior staffer), and they could bring a plus-one to the annual gala, so I tagged along and got to see this young master in person! Drop-dead gorgeous is not an exaggeration. I swear, I’d be willing to have a dozen of his kids!]

This comment shot to the top, and the replies to it were filled with people begging for a photo.

[Why are there no pictures, AAAAARGH! I’ve been searching everywhere and all I can find is a side profile of him at an Apex Group charity gala. Not a single clear shot of his face. I’m dying of curiosity!]

[They wouldn’t even let me take my phone in! I didn’t get why at first, but I found out later that aside from FR Holdings employees and their families, everyone else there was a somebody. And get this—*whispers*—I even saw the youngest son of a certain bigwig who’s always in the news but whose name we can’t mention. He and this young master seemed super close!]

Everyone instantly got the message, sighing at the untouchable world of the rich and powerful while lamenting the lack of a photo of the legendarily handsome young master.

Thanks to yesterday’s rain, a chill had returned to Quartos just as the city was on the cusp of summer.

Ian Sterling must have had a guilty conscience, because he’d slipped away very early in the morning. Lynn Winslow, oblivious to how he’d been taking advantage of her all night, simply assumed he’d been called away on urgent business when she woke up and found him gone.

Curled up on the sofa and sipping a warming tea Mrs. Sterling had brewed for her, she happened to see the influencer’s post right as it went live.

She glanced at the photo, her face impassive, and scrolled through the comments one by one. She saw netizens speculating about which heiress or A-list celebrity it could be. There were even fans of Mia Rhodes popping up in the comments section.

[Our Mia is an heiress too, you know! And she went to the same university as him. I think the woman’s figure and profile in the photo look just like Mia!]

Unlike the other comments, this one was immediately torn apart by other users until the original commenter deleted it.

[Can you please stop clout-chasing? Give me a break. This guy is an MIT graduate. He was only at Aethel University for half a semester, got it?]

Lynn Winslow finished reading the comments and opened the photo again, studying it.

The woman in the photo was a complete stranger to her. Even though the picture was blurry, she could still make out the woman’s figure and sense her elegant bearing.

She almost laughed. Mia Rhodes had the typical delicate ’damsel-in-distress’ build; it was audacious for her fans to even try and claim this was her.

An incoming call notification popped up on her phone. With a flick of her finger, Lynn Winslow tapped the red ’decline’ button.

She was about to continue reading, but the post suddenly vanished, replaced by a 404 error page. When she tried searching for the blogger, he was gone, and several related keywords were now blocked.

’The Sterling family must have stepped in,’ she thought, ’or maybe Ian Sterling himself.’

But netizens were resourceful. They started using code words for the blocked terms, and many had already saved the photo. For a while, the internet was a mess of chaotic speculation.

Ian Sterling called again. Lynn Winslow was so engrossed in the drama that when she answered, she felt a flash of annoyance at him for interrupting her front-row seat to the drama.

In stark contrast to her mood, Ian Sterling’s voice was panicked. ”Lynn, you saw the trending post, didn’t you? Please don’t be angry. It’s not true.”

”Mm,” she replied, her tone deceptively light as she blinked and stared into space. ”That woman is actually quite beautiful.”

”Lynn,” Ian Sterling asked gingerly, ”are you jealous?”

”Why would I be? We aren’t together. We’re just... scratching an itch for each other. Who you see has nothing to do with me. But I don’t like this. It feels... dirty.” Lynn Winslow’s lips curled into a smile as she spoke in a soft voice. ”So please, don’t come see me again.”

Ian Sterling’s expression darkened the moment he heard her denial, but as she continued speaking, the corners of his mouth began to curl upward uncontrollably.

”Lynn, that was my sister. My actual sister,” he explained softly. ”Don’t be jealous. I haven’t been with anyone else but you, and I only want you.”

Lynn Winslow froze for a second, then bit her lip and insisted, ”I told you, I’m not jealous.”

”Alright, alright, you’re not jealous,” Ian Sterling chuckled. ”I was just scared you were about to dump me, so I had to explain. Okay? Someone is plotting against me. I think I know who it is. I’ll come see you after I’ve handled it.”

Lynn Winslow gave a sullen ”mhm” and hung up first.

She looked down, staring at her phone. After a long moment, she suddenly lifted a hand and rubbed her chest, right over the spot that had been aching with a tightness that made it hard to breathe—a feeling she had been trying her best to ignore.

After Ian Sterling hung up, his older sister, Selene, who was sitting across from him, looked at him with disdain for his cautious tone during the call.

Selene Sterling rolled her eyes. ”Figured out who it was?”

”Yeah.” Ian Sterling tapped his fingers on the desk. ”That Zane Lancaster... his tactics are so childish. Did he really think this would be enough to ruin things between me and Lynn? In his dreams!”

”He just wanted to get under your skin,” Selene Sterling said flatly. ”Give him a taste of his own medicine.”

”I know,” Ian Sterling said, looking up at Selene with a dismissive air. ”Was there something else? You’re not back often. You should go spend more time with Mom and Dad.”

Selene Sterling understood her brother’s unspoken message. She gritted her teeth. ”I’m leaving!”