For someone with Roman Griffin’s stature, maintaining neighborhood ties was never a necessity.

When Violette Ellis first replied to the "neighborly" gesture, she hadn't even considered the possibility that Roman might show up at the door. She knew him well enough to know he wouldn't. Just as she knew that Blake Pierce—if he wanted to regain any shred of goodwill—wouldn't be foolish enough to ignore the boundaries and go provoke Roman directly.

As for that housewarming gift? Violette had inspected it thoroughly. It was a standard, innocuous gift, devoid of any suggestive undertones. He had sent it, perhaps, out of the reckless, arrogant impulse of his youth.

He had always been one to do as he pleased, knowing full well the consequences.

This was the greatest headache of moving back into this complex. Upstairs lived her current husband, a man of composed, calculated precision who was slowly becoming a fixture in her life. Downstairs lived her ex-boyfriend, a volatile ball of young, unchecked energy who, more often than not, lacked any semblance of a leash.

It wasn't that Violette hadn't considered coming clean to Roman. She had even consulted a few friends beforehand, though she’d initiated every conversation with the tired, "I have a friend..." opening.

The opening was pathetic, she admitted. To make it more believable, she even gender-swapped the scenario.

"I have a friend whose ex-partner lives in the same building as their current spouse," she’d said.

"That's spicy," Chloe Nichols, one of her friends, had remarked, covering her mouth with a laugh.

"So, they’re asking me: should they tell their current partner that the ex is living right downstairs?"

Chloe had countered, "Is this guy actually done with the ex? No lingering 'benefit' arrangements?"

"No," Violette had insisted firmly.

"Don't be so sure. If you can trust a man's word, you might as well believe pigs can fly. My advice is to ignore your friend’s one-sided account."

"What if," Violette probed, "they really are completely finished?"

"Impossible," Chloe replied, sounding even more certain than her. "Who in their right mind stays living in the same building after a clean break?"

Chloe’s words served as a silent confirmation that being honest wasn't exactly a stellar idea. She tried asking Marilyn Stone instead.

Marilyn, ever the professional, perked up. "Someone from our station?"

"No," Violette said, her expression steady. "A classmate from middle school."

God once said the more details you sprinkle into a lie, the more believable it becomes. Or, well, maybe God didn't say that. Violette felt like she was descending into some kind of personal hell, which explained why her mind was suddenly overflowing with dark, ironic humor.

"You could tell him," Marilyn said after a thoughtful pause.

Violette’s eyes brightened. "Really?"

Marilyn nodded, though she added with a regretful shrug, "Though the odds of his relationship imploding go up significantly."

"..."

Violette tried to make a final stand. "What if he doesn't want it to implode?"

"Move out. Immediately," Marilyn said. "Get out of the danger zone."

Marilyn's advice was actually quite sound. If Violette hadn't been unable to come up with a valid reason to give Roman for why they suddenly needed to move, she really would have done it. Every friend she asked gave her roughly the same answer: no one believed the guy in her story was actually "clean" with his ex. Everyone was convinced they were still tangled up in each other.

Until she could think of a reason to move, Violette decided to play dead. After all, based on what she knew of Blake, once he started the Tour, he wouldn't have any time to spend in Deepwater. Even when they were at their most infatuated, they hardly saw each other, squeezing in meetings between major matches.

Sometimes, their only time together was a thirty-minute layover at the Deepwater airport.

With the weather warming up after the New Year, matches were piling up one after another. He should be burying his head in the sand, grinding for ranking points.

The apartment in Deepwater was effectively a ghost house. This was quickly confirmed, as the newsroom was a hub of information; one couldn't walk past the sports desk without hearing updates about who was competing in what tournament.

Tournament after tournament—Blake was nowhere near Deepwater.

Roman noticed it too. The nightly blessing messages he sent to Violette had stopped at a certain point. He didn't lower his guard, though. He remained like a panther that had been provoked, watching and waiting.

The unfortunate thing was that as the head of such a massive conglomerate, he couldn't just park himself in Deepwater every day. His post-holiday business travel schedule had been set in stone long ago, impossible for even him to push back.

Before leaving, Roman didn't dispatch his secretary; he returned to the penthouse himself to grab his luggage. He stood in the living room, gripping the handle of his black suitcase, watching Violette bustle about as she packed spare medicine for him. He suddenly felt a twinge of regret that he had come back at all.

He feared that when the time came for them to part, Violette would be fine, while he would find his feet rooted to the floor, unable to walk away.

Violette crouched in front of the cabinet, checking the expiration dates one by one. "I packed you a box of stomach meds and a fever reducer. Hopefully, you won't need them, but it's better to have them than to be caught without an emergency plan."

Alan, his secretary, had already prepared everything, but medicine packed by one's wife was inherently different.

Roman looked at her intently. "Mm."

"Chloe and I went to Germany for a trip once. The moment we landed, she caught a fever. We couldn't get a hospital appointment for four months, and when we tried to find a private clinic, it was Sunday—everything was closed." Violette droned on. "When we finally got to see a doctor the next morning and got a prescription, I was handed a slip of paper and told I had to go to a completely different location to pick up the meds."

The situation was a common gripe among travelers.

Roman had experienced a few similar incidents during his own studies abroad. The only difference was that he hadn't just had access to private doctors; he had a medical institution that served the Griffin family exclusively.

He couldn't fully empathize with her struggle, but he still found himself smiling as he listened to her chatter. He loved hearing Violette share these mundane details of her life.

"And then?" he asked.

"The pharmacy was four miles away," Violette sighed. "I ran all the way there, only for them to tell me they were out of stock and it would take two days, or they could mail it to my address."

"That sounds inconvenient," Roman agreed.

"When I thought about the 'craftsmanship' of the locals, I realized I’d be better off by the time the medicine arrived, so I ended up begging a local student to get some for me at an Asian market."

Clearly, the word "craftsmanship" was being used sarcastically.

The smile in Roman’s eyes deepened. "It seems my planning was indeed inadequate. I should bring more backup medicine."

"You don't need that much," Violette said, looking back at him. "You’re only going for two weeks, right?"

"Right."

"Then I’ll go pray for you at the temple. That should guarantee you have a smooth trip without getting sick."

The word "temple" felt oddly out of place here.

Roman repeated it, almost subconsciously. "Temple?"

"You didn't know? Our families are going up together to burn incense this weekend." Violette crouched on the floor, looking up at him. "They probably didn't tell you since they knew you were going to be out of the country."

Roman asked again, "Our families?"

"Yes. My mother told me. She said it was a proposal from your side."

Roman finally caught on.

People in Deepwater were superstitious. The Griffin family had a tradition of going up the mountain to eat vegetarian meals every year. Sometimes they would stay for ten days or a half-month, but since Violette had work, no one forced her. It was likely just a weekend trip to recharge.

Even knowing his parents' character, Roman still felt uneasy. He had barely stepped out the door when he couldn't resist calling home from the elevator.

The moment the call connected, he only managed to say, "Mom."

Margaret Lewis responded as if she knew exactly what her eldest son was going to say. She replied quickly, "I know, I know. That's not what it's about. I promise, I won't pressure you about having kids."

Roman let out a long breath of relief.

Before he hung up, he heard Margaret speaking to someone else on the other end of the line: "And you said he wasn't dense? Look at how nervous he is—he's way more responsive than you were back in the day!"