Morrison kept responding with practiced ease. Like hell she'd believe it was real. It was just a sweet little lie to coax her—something he was rather good at, actually. Girls liked pretty words, and once he leaned in and kissed her for real, he didn't believe she'd be able to push him away.
This was just a tactic to calm her down. No big deal.
Lilian fell silent on the other end of the line.
Morrison knew the storm had passed. Time to seize the momentum.
"I need to head to the office for a bit," he said casually, "but how about dinner tonight?"
The girl on the other end didn't sound thrilled.
"Dinner? Again?"
He let out a helpless sigh.
"Isn't that what couples do? Dinner, dates... and—"
He swallowed the last word. Bed.
Yeah, definitely not saying that out loud.
Just earlier, he'd nearly scared her off with a flirty joke that went too far—she'd almost dumped him on the spot. So no, not risking it again.
Still, wasn't this how adult relationships worked? Dinner, affection, and naturally, intimacy. What else could she possibly be playing at?
After a brief pause, Lilian replied, "Alright. Let's have dinner tonight. My treat, okay? Think of it as a thank-you for the earrings."
Morrison smiled. "Sounds good. But I'm curious—what exactly are you treating me to?"
A soft giggle floated through the receiver. Mischievous.
"I'm taking you to try our school's infamous dark cuisine~ Hehe."
Then she added, "Come straight to campus after work, alright? Oh, and don't wear a suit! Dress young, casual. If you show up all formal, people will immediately peg you as a working stiff."
Morrison: "..."
He gritted his teeth.
"Dress young? Are you saying I look old?"
From the other end of the line, the girl showed no mercy.
"You actually think you look young? My classmates are all in their early twenties. You're what, thirty-something? You're ancient compared to us."
As if that wasn't enough, she tacked on sweetly, "When you fell asleep last night, I noticed wrinkles at the corners of your eyes."
Morrison nearly coughed up blood.
Wrinkles? That wasn't aging—it was from working three straight nights without sleep, chasing deadlines and deals, and maybe skipping moisturizer once or twice. Besides, who doesn't have a few lines? Even some college kids get crow's feet when they laugh!
Compared to those kids, his skin was still top-tier. Seriously.
But the girl seemed completely oblivious to his rising blood pressure. She cheerfully continued, "Okay then, see you tonight~ Bye-bye!"
Click.
She hung up before he could say a word.
Morrison sat there, stunned, his temples throbbing. Was this relationship some kind of karmic punishment? Why the hell was he dating her again? Just to get roasted every morning like a convenience store chicken?
With a heavy sigh, he tossed his phone aside, got in the car, and sped off toward the office—straight into the whirlwind of another corporate war.
Morrison's personal secretary was male.
From the day he took over MOS Corp., he made a strict rule: no female assistants, no female secretaries. He knew very well how dangerous he could be around women—and how dangerous women could be to his focus. The last thing he needed was distractions in heels.
MOS Corp. was his battlefield, and he couldn't afford to slip.
Say what you will about his romantic flings—he might play loose in love, but when it came to work, Morrison was all iron discipline.
Efficiency was his religion: maximum results in minimum time, no excuses, no drama.
But today… his secretary, Sean, could clearly tell something was off.
It happened during one of those mundane moments—Sean had come in to deliver a document. Morrison suddenly looked up from his desk, eyes sharp and troubled.
"Do I look old to you?"
Sean froze mid-step, momentarily convinced he was about to be fired for something he didn't remember doing.
"N-no, of course not!" he blurted. "Thirty is prime time for a man! You're mature, reliable, wealthy, handsome, and dangerously charming! How could you ever look old?"
Sean had always been the cheerful, fast-talking type—flattery flowed from him like second nature.
Morrison shot him a look. "I asked for the truth, not a sales pitch."
"I am telling the truth," Sean muttered, wounded by the accusation.
Morrison waved him away with visible irritation. Sean left the office, heart full of injustice. Why am I getting scolded for being honest?
A few minutes later, when Sean returned with another file, Morrison stopped him again.
"What kind of clothes make someone look... younger?"
Sean blinked.
"…Boss, are you feeling okay today? Why are you asking me this kind of weird question?"
This was bizarre. Morrison almost never lost focus at work, and certainly never asked—fashion advice? That was practically beneath his station.
Especially since, as far as Sean was concerned, the man could wear a potato sack and still look like he'd walked off the cover of GQ. Even when he wore cheap, off-the-rack stuff, it turned high street just by hanging on his frame. Why on earth would he be worried about looking old?
This had to be some kind of trap.
A no-win question.
Sean stammered, failed to find an answer that wouldn't get him killed, and was promptly dismissed once more.
Morrison, meanwhile, was on edge the entire morning. He couldn't get her voice out of his head.
"Dress younger, okay?"
It echoed in his mind like some cursed incantation.
Just as he finally managed to get back into work mode, Sean returned yet again. Morrison didn't even look up.
"What is it now?" he snapped, irritation flaring.
Sean smiled nervously, watching his boss's expression as he held out a fashion magazine like it was an offering to an angry god.
"You asked me earlier how to dress younger, right?" Sean said, holding out a glossy magazine. "This is the latest issue of S—super trendy right now. There's a whole feature on that new heartthrob idol. Maybe his style will give you some ideas?"
Morrison's brow furrowed deeply. He gave Sean a long, unreadable look before silently taking the magazine from his hands.
Sean let out a breath of relief like he'd just handed a live grenade to a bomb technician and tiptoed out of the office before it went off.
Back in his own office, Sean couldn't shake the weird feeling.
The boss is definitely not himself today.
His curiosity eventually got the better of him. He slipped away to the top floor—to the other office.
Sitting there was a man in a crisp white dress shirt and wire-rimmed glasses, clean-cut and quietly handsome. If not for the glasses, you'd swear it was Sean sitting there.
This man was Norton—Sean's identical twin brother.
Both brothers worked for Morrison. One as his secretary, the other as his assistant.
You'd think Norton, the reserved and introverted one, would be stuck at a desk. But no—he was the one Morrison sent out to accompany him on social events and high-level meetings. Meanwhile, Sean—the social butterfly who could talk his way into (or out of) just about anything—was stuck doing paperwork and managing internal affairs.
It made zero sense.
Back when they were hired, the brothers had pushed back hard.
"You've got our roles completely flipped!" they protested. "You're not hiring us—you're trolling us!"
"What kind of sadist sends the quiet one out for drinks and small talk, and sticks the outgoing one in a file room?"
Morrison's response had been maddeningly calm.
"A real man should take risks," he said. "If you're content staying within the safe little box of your personalities for the rest of your lives, I can assign you the roles you want. But if you're serious about this job—and about growth—you'll follow my arrangement."
The brothers had fallen silent.
Then, with his signature lazy drawl and half-lidded stare, Morrison added, "If I'm hiring you, it means I trust you. I need both my internal and external operations covered. If either of you only sticks to what you're comfortable with, and something happens to the other, what then? Should all of MOS Corp. grind to a halt because one of you got a cold?"
They couldn't argue with that.
After a long pause, Norton had simply said, "I see. You're trying to use two people as if you had four."
And honestly? Morrison wasn't wrong.
If the two of them learned each other's specialties, then together, they weren't just a pair—they were practically a whole department. Two men, doing the job of four.
"Still a damn slave driver, though," Sean had muttered back then, fuming. "Total capitalist pig."
That had made Morrison burst out laughing on the spot.
Despite their initial protests, the twins had stayed—and they'd grown into the roles he assigned them.
Not just because Morrison's reasoning made sense.
But because that one line—"A man should take risks"—lit something inside them. It stirred ambition, pride, a hunger for more than what life had handed them.
And years passed.
Now, the twin brothers were no longer the green rookies fresh out of school. They had matured, sharpened, leveled up into irreplaceable assets—top-tier management talents, headhunted constantly by other companies.
Especially in the elite business circle of Burg Eltz, they were household names.
But they never left Morrison.
As long as Morrison led MOS Corp., they would remain at his side.
They came from nothing—a poor rural background, no connections, no safety net. Morrison had been the one to recognize their potential. He'd given them a stage, a future, and most importantly, respect.
He treated them like brothers. Like comrades.
That was a debt they would never forget.
Back in Norton's office, Sean was venting while sprawled dramatically across the guest chair.
"I'm telling you, he's totally off today. First he asks if he looks old, then he demands fashion tips. Like, actual fashion tips."
Norton didn't even look up from his screen. Fingers flying over the keyboard, he answered calmly, "A few days ago, during that business trip, he asked me what kind of gifts girls like."
Sean blinked. "Seriously?"
"I asked if the 'new girl' he's seeing is young," Norton added. "He didn't deny it."
Sean sat up straighter, gears in his head clicking into place. "So that's why he's having an existential crisis."
"Mm," Norton hummed. "Looks like our big boss is finally getting a taste of dating someone from Gen Z."