Davies spoke of his intention to meet with the host of the banquet to Melinda who nodded in affirmation as she also knew that they had to do at least that much since they had been invited.

After getting her reply, Davies began to move towards where the celebrant, host, and the head of the Lecroy family stood, receiving compliments and congratulations from his guests, but as he led the way, his walking speed was abysmally slow, and shockingly Melinda moved at the same pace.

It was obvious that they were dragging their feet and neither of them actually wanted to go and meet the host of the banquet even though they had just affirmed that they were going to do it earlier.

"You know, it's kinda obvious that we both don't want to be here, so why did you even bother to go first," Davies spoke first, breaking the awkward silence that was about to set in as they dragged their feet in the direction of the crowd.

"Why don't you go tell me why you came?" Melinda quickly threw back the question towards Davies wanting to avoid talking about the issue.

"I asked you first so you go first," Davies immediately detected her attempt to deflect the question as it seemed she tried to avoid talking about it.

"I was-" she began.

"Don't even think about lying," Davies immediately narrowed his eyes with a suspicious smile the moment she began to speak.

"I was not going to!" Melinda immediately shot back, with an aggrieved face that looked like a deer in headlights, it was obvious that she had been trying to cook up some fallacy that she would tell Davies.

"OK then, let me hear the spicy details," Davies said with an evil smile and his eyebrows shot up in repeated motions, signifying her to speak as his interest had been piqued.

"I was #!$@#%@$#^," she began to speak in a low voice, but at the end of the sentence, her voice was so low that all Davies heard was a bunch of gibberish.

"What?" Davies's shady smile became wider, and his eyes curved suspiciously.

"I was tricked okay!" Melinda huffed and turned away with a pout, but her ears turned embarrassingly.

'Huh?' Davies was confused as he didn't yet know the story so he didn't know why she was embarrassed, but he had noticed that Melinda had a brighter look on her face and had unconsciously begun to respond very well to the conversation while displaying more emotions that normally wouldn't be seen on her face.

It seemed that his approach was the right one, and she had unconsciously gotten carried away with the thought of just making a good friend who wasn't overly interested in her lustfully.

Normally she was so used to only receiving lustful looks from the opposite sex and or opportunistic gazes from everyone else, but Davies was not someone who needed anything from her and they were quite alike, they both had a cold look masking their face and preventing their emotions from being displayed, they both hated annoying gatherings like the one they were currently in and Davies hadn't shown the slightest look in his eyes when he had looked at her even though he was obviously impressed by her beauty.

He perfectly fitted into the role of one of the few people who could become a friend to her without ulterior motives, not to mention that they were both people who had lost important people in their lives, so they could relate very well with each other. In Davies's case, he had lost his parents when he was just six years old(though Davies didn't give the slightest fuck about that, but she didn't know that), while she had lost her parents and her younger brother who Davies reminded her of due to how much younger he was than her.

It also helped that she could detect a lot of similarities in Davies, and he constantly reminded him of her, which was why she was able to let down her guard so easily and Davies was able to leave her in stitches laughing at his corny ass jokes.

What she didn't know was that Davies had been expecting her to be the heroine who was to become Lee Jung's opportunity, so he had made preparations and plans. One of the preparations he had made was investigating her past and it was from there that he found out that she had once had a younger brother which was the leading reason why he had chosen to use the 'bestie' route instead of outrightly trying to get inside her pants.

From the start, everything from the first moment when they locked eyes at the moment she arrived at the banquet, to the similarities that she was noticing between Davies and her long-deceased younger brother was all planned by Davies, and everything was only coming together due to Davies's determined acting and preparations for the whole situation.

'It really was worth it finding out about the personality of her younger brother,' Davies thought to himself while externally he had a confused look at the words that had left Melinda's mouth in a huff.

In reality, he had not really had to do much than talking a bit more than he usually did and constantly making wack-ass jokes that he was easily able to do. He hadn't gone out of his way to act exactly like her younger as that would be too suspicious and someone like Melinda would be able to immediately detect that he was way too similar to her younger brother in temperament, and even though she may not be able to figure out why that was so, she would have been particularly wary of him as he wasn't someone with an identity that she could easily brush off.

He had simply shown a bit more emotion than he usually did and let her womanly mind that was good at making stupid conclusions take care of the rest, after all, it was a well-known truth that a woman only needed to see a piece of hair on a man's cloth for her to come up with a whole theory of how he cheated, why he cheated, who he cheated with, where they cheated, and even the exact time they cheated.

With such a godly assist, he hadn't needed to do much than be himself and the mission was already in the bag.

"What do you mean you were tricked?"

"Did someone force you to come or something?" Davies's voice turned serious as if he was worried about what happened.

Melinda was immediately touched that Davies who had only met for a few minutes had actually become serious and became worried immediately he heard something that sounded derivative towards her.

Her heart softened even further, and she fell even more into the trap of Davies's caring attitude about her.

There was obviously a reason why women mostly had male best friends, after all, they liked being cared for while trying to avoid the constraints of a serious relationship. It was one of the reasons why women became hoes, they were addicted to excessive care from the opposite sex and they couldn't get enough of it, it was their own opium.

Davies's caring attitude that he was showing to Melinda without any lust was like a drug to her, it reminded her of the care she used to receive from her brother and her parents, and her heart became warm just thinking about it and her reservations with Davies dropped even further.

"It's not like that," She immediately clarified.

"I was trying to avoid coming by running into a gate, but my secretary, Jane made the driver bring me here without me knowing and I can't go away without coming in because apparently my invitation has been seen and my arrival has been reported so leaving without even coming in would give off the wrong impression," Melinda explained. This was possibly the longest sentence she had spoken all week.

Davies was lucky that he hadn't been drinking wine when she told him what happened, or he would have immediately sprayed it out in shock,

'Do secretaries do such things now?' he thought with a bitter smile while sneaking a look at where he had left Daniella to wait.

Suddenly another thought appeared in his mind, "Wait.. if you weren't planning to then where did you get the dress?"historical

"I find it hard to believe that you would wear an evening dress into a gate?" Davies spoke while glaring at her suspiciously with narrowed eyes.

"No! Why would I do that?!"

"That Jane already planned everything so she had gotten me a dress as well,"

"I had to change in the car," Melinda answered, satisfying Davies's curiosity, but at the same time, leaving him shocked at the story of how the lone secretary had one-upped the Flaming Winged Enchantress.

"Jane 1: 0 Meliie," Davies suddenly said with a laugh after recovering from his shock.