Stephen and Samuel began to reminisce.

    Four years ago, Tessa had just graduated from university.

    At the time, Stephen was thrilled to marry her. He had personally gone to her house to propose, asking for Samuel''s blessing to marry Tessa.

    He had spoken to Samuel in the same study they were currently in for the whole afternoon. In the end, Samuel had agreed to grant him Tessa''s hand in marriage.

    However, he never expected that Tessa would be so opposed to the idea of marrying him. Not only had she argued with her family over it, but she had even moved to Haverford alone.

    When Tessa refused to enter a marriage of convenience with him and ran away from home, Stephen almost pursued her.

    In the end, he had let her go. However, letting her go did not mean he had given up on marrying her.

    Stephen just wanted to give her some time to think. He wanted her to figure out what she truly wanted so that she would return to him willingly.

    When Tessa had first moved to Haverford, Samuel had frozen all of her bank ounts.

    She was alone in an unfamiliar city with no one to rely on, and she had to find herself a ce to live as well as a job all on her own.

    During her first year as a legal clerk, Tessa was earning 4,000 dors a month.

    Stephen''s heart ached on Tessa''s behalf, and he had contacted Sienna and Naomi multiple times, sending them money so that they could help Tessa out.

    At that time, Tessa was filled with anger. She was angry at Samuel for remarrying and arranging a marriage for her without consulting her first. Hence, she was adamant about cutting ties with Samuel.

    She knew that once she severed ties with Samuel, she would no longer be the heiress of the Yates family.

    When that happened, she would no longer be in the same social ss as her friends, and she would eventually have to pay back all the money she had taken from them.

    However, given her sry back then, it would have taken her years of living frugally to repay them all the money they had sent her.

    So, she refused to ept any money transfers containing arge sum and only epted small transactions that were in line with her ie. She proceeded to repay all the money she owed them over time.

    Tessa was more than willing to work harder and tire herself out rather than ept Naomi''s and Sienna''s money.

    In truth, Stephen had traveled to Haverford multiple times, but he would only watch her from afar. He did not dare greet her because he was afraid he would scare her and make her hate him.

    After all, she had run to Haverford to escape marrying him.

    Later on, Tessa began dating Zachary.

    Stephen vividly remembered the day he had found out about it. He was so jealous that he wanted to choke Zachary to death. Zachary did not deserve Tessa at all.

    Zachary wasn''t as handsome as Stephen, nor was he as capable. More importantly, Zachary was known for constantly switching girlfriends. He was a yboy through and through.

    He was tainted and did not deserve to be with Tessa.

    Stephen had then hired someone to investigate Zachary. Heter found out that

    Zachary had been truly in love with his first love, Wendy.

    What disgusted Stephen the most was how all of Zachary''s ex-girlfriends resembled Wendy to a certain degree. Coincidentally, Tessa and Wendy also resembled each other slightly.

    Of course, Tessa was much more beautiful than Wendy ever could be.

    Zachary was just treating the woman Stephen loved as someone''s substitute.

    It would have been easy for Stephen to bring Zachary down. As Stephen was the heir of the Jacobson family, ther@were a lot of people from Haverford eager to curry favor with him.

    All he needed was to make a subtle hint, and someone would dly do all the dirty work for him.

    Zachary kept partying all day, and people would constantly send him beautiful women with exquisite bodies.

    Due to Zachary''s yboy nature, he never turned those women down. He slept with them one after another and slowly lost the energy to chase after Tessa. Later on, someone had secretly sent Tessa proof that Zachary had been cheating on her, but Tessa had chosen to turn a blind eye to his infidelity.

    From then on, Tessa would refuse Zachary whenever he wanted to kiss her.

    Gomez Group''s repeated project failures and the final financial supply chain crisis were also Stephen''s doing.

    In fact, even Wendy''s return to the country had something to do with him.