The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Which meant only one thing. Emily did not want a conversation. She wanted an execution. A public dismantling of the girl who had dared to attach herself to Cassian Crown’s name in Cassian Crown’s hotel.

Cixi met her gaze with quiet stubbornness. If Emily was expecting flinching, she had miscalculated.

”If I am wrong, then of course you may sue me,” Cixi replied with a steady voice, a new fire burning behind it that even she did not fully recognise. ”But perhaps you should confirm the facts before deciding what is false.”

Now that Cixi knew a reporter was present, she realised something important. Attention was not always a danger. Sometimes it was a tool, and if she wanted answers about Cassian, she needed people to listen to her.

”The red winter coat I am wearing,” she said, slowly turning her upper body from side to side, allowing the fabric to shimmer in the light, ”was given to me by Cassian himself. I assume you know that this design from the designer is not available for public purchase, which means it had to be specially commissioned.”

If only Cixi knew the designer had been held at gunpoint to finish it in a single day.

Then she lifted one foot slightly, extending it just enough to show the boots. ”These as well,” she added, her voice gaining confidence as she continued. ”He chose them himself because he did not like seeing me hurt my feet. I walk a lot, and he said he wanted me comfortable.”

The detail was enough to disturb the neat expectations people had built about Cassian Crown.

Every guest present turned their attention to the coat. Then the boots. Then Cixi’s face. They studied her the way one studies a painting that has been placed in the wrong gallery. Her features were soft, innocent, with a luminous quality that had nothing to do with sharpness or sophistication. She was beautiful, undeniably, but in a way that contradicted everything they knew about Cassian Crown’s appetites.

Had his taste changed? Had he met this golden-haired girl and simply... rewritten his own rules?

The doubt lingered, and Cixi could feel it in the lobby, hanging in the air like smoke that had not yet decided which direction to drift.

So, she decided to give it a push.

”You may also check the CCTV recordings at Le Petit Cafe,” she spoke dramatically, laced with the confidence of someone presenting proof rather than telling a story. ”You will see him carrying me in his arms because I was upset with him. I wanted to break up with him after he forgot our anniversary.”

She felt the shift. The reaction was immediate. Several people gasped sharply. Others’ jaws dropped. And she continued. ”He came to my apartment,” she was now fully committed to the role she had stepped into, ”and practically kidnapped me, carried me down the street, and took me to the cafe where he ordered the entire menu just to make me happy.” Her chin lifted. ”He sat across from me and did not stop admiring me the entire time.”

She even provided the date and time.

Several guests reached for their phones, and their fingers moved across the screens. The ’Le Petit Cafe’ was about to receive a wave of inquiries it had never prepared for.

The reporter’s pen moved rapidly across her notepad, scribbling every detail.

Emily didn’t look happy. She scanned the crowd, studying them carefully, and then returned to Cixi. She looked too certain. And her mind raced with uncertainty. Maybe it had been a bad choice to confront her in public, trying to prove her wrong. If only she knew that Cassian’s taste in women had changed.

Emily opened her mouth to question her, but Cixi spoke first, pushing the moment even further.

”We were planning to get married!”

The words struck the lobby like a thunderclap.

Yes, Cixi had stretched the truth. She had taken the thread of Cassian’s possessive declaration — You belong to me until this debt is paid — and knitted it into a wedding gown. Her family had taken a debt, and she called it a dowry.

”I have been trying to contact him for three days,” Cixi continued, and for the first time, the fire in her voice wavered because it was real. ”He has not answered my calls, and I am beginning to worry that something may have happened to him.”

She swallowed. Her hands trembled at her sides, and she let them. She let the lobby see it.

”A few weeks ago, someone tried to kill him.”

The lobby went deathly still.

The reporter stopped writing for a moment.

Emily’s eyes widened with new information.

And people stopped blinking.

”The attack happened on Bell Bridge,” Cixi said, turning to face the guests, then the reporter, who was writing so fast her pen had begun to skip on the paper. ”He told me himself. Someone tried to murder Cassian Crown, and no one — not the media, not his family — has said a word about it.”

The reporter’s head snapped up, meeting Cixi’s eyes with the sharp, hungry focus of someone who had come to this lobby for a celebrity puff piece and had just stumbled into the story of the year.

She then focused on Emily. ”Please tell me he is safe; there was no performance left in her voice. Only fear. ”Please tell me you have seen him within the last three days.”

Emily did not answer immediately; rather, a shock flickered across her otherwise controlled features.

Attack?

How had she not been informed? Why had this been kept from her?

Around them, the crowd had begun quietly exchanging information, several already making calls. What had begun as a confrontation had now turned into something else entirely. The supposed girlfriend had become a supposed fiancée within minutes.

Emily stepped closer and whispered. ”Let’s speak in my office.” And turned toward the elevator without waiting for agreement, expecting Cixi to follow her.

And Cixi did, leaving behind a curious crowd who were now busy trying to find out the truth. The reporter sent a phone message cancelling her interview with the actress to investigate Cassian’s Crown and the mysterious blond.