Chapter 445: Sis, I Didn't Know He Was Engaged

Nancy Hughes left with him. When she did, she didn’t notify anyone.

She had originally wanted to tell Georgia Thorne, but on second thought, she decided against it. She didn’t want to burden her with her problems.

“Sis, are you going to look for a job in Homeward?”

“We’ll see!”

“Sis, why don’t you find a job somewhere else? Like in the city where I go to college. It shouldn’t be any worse than Portmire. Besides, I’ll be studying there, so we can look out for each other!”

The main reason she’d left Portmire was Dylan Heston.

‘Moving to a new place and starting over… it might not be such a bad thing after all.’

Nancy Hughes found a job in the city where Riley Caldwell’s university was located. She was still a designer, but just as Riley had said, the prospects weren’t that great.

The company was just a small, fledgling startup with a lot to do. Sometimes she had to do the work of several people, often working so hard she didn’t get off until after dark.

In September, when Riley’s classes started, she went along with him to the university once.

She didn’t have much money on her, but she gave Riley some for living expenses. “Here, take this.”

“Sis, you don’t have to. I have money.” Riley refused to take it, no matter what.

Nancy put on a stern face and stuffed it into his pocket. “I’m not some stranger. What’s the big deal about taking money from me?”

Time flew by, and a year passed in a flash.

Over the past year, Riley would often come over to her place on the weekends.

Her job was quite busy. As the company slowly expanded, she worked overtime all day, often not getting home until midnight. For dinner, she’d just make do with some instant noodles.

Riley would come over every Friday, bringing a big pile of groceries and helping her clean up the house.

Riley went from a boy who couldn’t do anything to a ‘girl’ who could do everything perfectly.

A new semester began. Riley was now a sophomore, and he still came over every Friday.

This Friday, Nancy finally didn’t have to work overtime and got off early.

When she got back to her apartment, she saw a young girl sitting in her living room.

She was a little bewildered, thinking she might have walked into the wrong apartment. The girl on the sofa was also looking at her shyly.

Riley was in the kitchen cooking. Hearing the noise outside, he called out, “Sis, you’re back!”

Riley came running out of the kitchen excitedly, brandishing a spatula. Nancy paused for a moment. “And who is this?”

Given that Riley was now a sophomore, his romantic feelings had naturally blossomed. “Sis, this is Cecilia Lynch. She’s my girlfriend!”

Riley was a bit shy as he introduced his girlfriend. Then, in a particularly gentle voice, he said to her, “Cecilia, this is my sister, the one I told you about.”

Riley’s girlfriend was quite shy. She greeted Nancy and immediately blushed bright red.

‘Girls these days really do get shy at the drop of a hat,’ she thought.

‘After knocking around in the working world for a year, she’d become a completely jaded veteran.’

“Please, have a seat,” Nancy said after greeting her, then went into her room first.

‘Riley’s a good kid, after all. He has good taste, too. This little girlfriend of his has a nice temper and a good personality.’

All in all, the dinner was quite pleasant.

After dinner, Riley was forced to do the dishes.

The tall young man looked a bit out of place standing in the cramped kitchen. At that moment, Riley was resignedly washing the dishes.

“I’m serious, Sis. You’re a woman, can’t you cook for yourself? You can’t just eat instant noodles every day!”

“I’m so busy with work, when would I have time to cook!” ‘Besides, I don’t know how.’

Nancy started chatting with Cecilia Lynch, asking how she and Riley met. Cecilia got shy all over again.

“Nothing to be shy about. If you marry my brother in the future, you’ll be one lucky girl. At the very least, you’ll never have to set foot in a kitchen!” She glanced at Riley as he came out of the kitchen and gave Cecilia a meaningful look.

“Sis, you’ve got some nerve! You’re the one who forced me to be like this!” Riley scowled. “Look how lazy you are. You’re not even like a woman anymore!”

She did not like the sound of that. ‘What does he mean, “not like a woman”?’

The reason Riley came over every Friday was because he really couldn’t stand to see her living like that.

A woman living alone who didn’t even know how to cook… he really wondered how she’d managed to survive back in Portmire.

Normally, Riley would stay the night, acting as her free-of-charge housekeeper for two days before leaving.

But since tonight was a special situation, Riley and Cecilia left right after dinner.

“Sis, Cecilia and I are heading back now. We’ll come see you again next time!”

“Okay. Be careful on your way.”

Having two extra people had made the apartment lively, but after they left, it became quiet again.

The apartment was much cleaner, and the fridge was full of groceries again. There was also a note from Riley stuck to the door.

Brother of the Year!

She had been here for over a year, still at the first job she’d found.

The job was very demanding, often leaving her completely swamped.

She had practically watched this company grow from the ground up. Sometimes the workload was so crushing she could barely breathe. Even Riley had advised her to quit and find a new, more relaxed job, saying a girl didn’t need to suffer so much.

But she had gritted her teeth and endured it. The work was hard, but she was learning a lot.

‘As long as I persevere, there’s no obstacle in this world I can’t overcome.’

The company was in a growth phase recently, and work alone was already a big enough headache. But then, as if on cue, another headache-inducing matter came up.

Julian Caldwell had found a matchmaker somewhere, who claimed to know a young man who also worked in the same city as her.

Thinking she wasn’t getting any younger, Julian figured it was about time for her to get married.

He called her repeatedly, telling her to go meet the guy. Nancy couldn’t stand it, but finally agreed to a meeting on the weekend.

Riley, that rascal, had somehow gotten wind that she was going on a blind date over the weekend, and he specifically dragged her out shopping on Saturday.

Her precious Saturday morning was thus disturbed.

Nancy trailed boredly behind Riley and Cecilia. “Sis, you should let Cecilia pick out some clothes for you. She has great taste!”

“Are you saying my taste is bad?” she said, annoyed.

“It’s definitely not as good as Cecilia’s,” Riley said with certainty. “You’re only a few years older than Cecilia, but look at how you two dress! It’s like there’s a ten-year age gap!”

“…”

‘Being a person is so painful. Not only do I have to suffer through my brother’s public displays of affection, but I also have to take these blows to my ego.’

‘Am I really that old?!’

“Sis, why don’t you try on this dress? I think it would look great on you!” Cecilia held up a white dress, and Nancy instinctively shook her head. “No!”

White dresses were something she absolutely could not accept.

“Sis, just listen to Cecilia. Take it and try it on.”

“…”

‘Riley isn’t even my brother anymore,’ Nancy thought. ‘He just agrees with whatever his girlfriend says.’

Resigned, she took the dress into the fitting room. Ten minutes later, she came out.

“Sis, why didn’t you change?”

Nancy came out still wearing her own clothes, with the white dress draped casually over her arm. “I tried it on. It doesn’t really suit me.”

“How do you know if it looks good if you don’t come out and show us?”

In short, Nancy was thoroughly tormented that day. They went through seven or eight shopping malls in a row, and she walked so much her legs felt like they were about to break.

Finally, after buying a few dresses, she said, “Are you satisfied now?”

“Sis, you have to dress up real nice for your date tomorrow! Go for the kill and win him over!”

Nancy couldn’t be bothered to argue with him. “Alright, alright. Hurry up and go make dinner. I’m hungry!”

She went back to her room, dropped today’s spoils on the floor, and collapsed onto the bed, exhausted.

‘So exhausting. I’m never agreeing to a blind date again.’

The appointed time for the blind date was ten o’clock on Sunday morning.

Before she left, Riley called again to remind her that she absolutely had to wear one of the dresses they bought yesterday to make a good impression.

She stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror, turning this way and that. She felt she didn’t look much different from usual.

She took a deep breath. ‘If the guy is decent, maybe I’ll just get married.’

Arriving at the designated restaurant, she nervously pushed open the door and looked inside.

It was a relatively high-end restaurant. At this hour, there were very few customers, just a few people scattered here and there.

Suddenly, a man sitting by the window stood up and called to her, “Miss Hughes, over here!”

She glanced over and walked quickly toward him.

The man before her was dressed in a black suit and had handsome features. Her first impression was quite good.

“Hello, my name is Nancy Hughes!” she said, extending her hand to greet him.

“Hello, I’m Zachary Stone. Please, sit,” he replied, also extending his hand to shake hers.

The handshake felt a little strange. It was only after she sat down that she realized her greeting had been like something from a business meeting. She hurriedly explained, “Sorry, this is my first blind date, so I…”

“It’s alright. It’s my first time, too,” Zachary Stone said, finishing her sentence.

With a man she had just met, there was almost nothing to talk about.

She looked up at the man in front of her several times, giving him an awkward smile. She was starting to feel like she couldn’t keep this up.

“Um, Mr. Stone, I suddenly…”

“Miss Hughes, what do you do for work?”

The person who arranged the blind date would first tell you the other person’s name, and only then would you decide whether or not to go.

The moment Zachary Stone saw Nancy Hughes’s photo, he had recognized her.

They had met once before by chance. Judging by the unfamiliar look in Nancy’s eyes now, she had probably forgotten him.

Back then, it seemed Gwen Gunn had wanted to set the two of them up, but unfortunately, he’d heard she already had a boyfriend at the time.

Breakups and makeups between lovers were normal. Zachary was actually a little curious about what Nancy’s ex-boyfriend was like.

Zachary Stone had studied abroad for many years and had seen plenty of beautiful foreign women, but he always felt that Sinean women were the most beautiful.

When the two of them started talking about work, Nancy suddenly had much more to say, and the atmosphere became less awkward.