My Four Miraculous Treasures

The dining room of the Hughes family mansion was one-of-a-kind.

The walls were glass, from floor to ceiling, offering a sweeping panorama of the scenery. Through the open windows, the scent of countless flowers wafted in on a light breeze.

If you listened closely, you could even hear the clicks and chirps of the wildlife outside.

Having a meal in a place like this would be a feast for all the senses!

Rich people sure have it good, Willow thought to herself.

Presented upon the dining table were luxuries flown in by air from abroad: premium-grade king crab, lobster, a whole platter of assorted raw fish sashimi...

It was a feast of seafood... a fantastic festival of flavors and colors!

Just the sight of it already had Willow drooling.

She'd always loved seafood... but Buscen City was nowhere near the sea, which made seafood items costly there. Struggling to feed four children meant that having seafood was out of the question.

It had been five years since she last tasted any.

Now, confronted with the sight of an entire table fully laden with seafood delights... the delicious aromas filled her grateful lungs. Digestive juices began to flow, and her tummy rumbled in eager anticipation. Embarrassed, she clutched frantically at her own abdomen.

Overhearing the audible sounds of her hunger, Cindy smiled benevolently. "Willow, go ahead and tuck right in! Make yourself at home, don't be shy! This feast was prepared especially in your honor!" Willow tried to salvage her tattered dignity with a wretched attempt at courtesy: "But how kind of you, grandma! How in the world did you guess all my favorite foods?"

It certainly couldn't have been a tip from Jasper. He himself should have no clue. Up until just a few days ago, neither of them had even suspected the connection they shared from that night five years ago. They had only been colleagues at the same workplace.

And in that workplace, he was the CEO in charge of a massive and successful company, while she was a lowly cleaning woman.noveldrama

There was no reason someone in his position would be bothered to learn the likes and dislikes of the least among his subordinates.

Cindy seemed pleasantly amused by

this, as she shot a look at Jasper before replying, "It was only a guess, although it appears to have been a very lucky guess, at that. The truth is, I adore seafood myself-and so does our Jasper! It seems to me that the two of you have plenty in common with each other! Thank goodness... I'd have to object to this courtship, otherwise! Instead, it looks like the two of you are a match made in heaven! To think that you'd enjoy eating seafood too... what are the odds?!"

Beneath the elderly woman's searching gaze, Willow bowed her head bashfully, and giggled a little. "Just a lucky coincidence..."

What a lucky coincidence though, truly! What were the odds that Jasper Hughes might also have a taste for seafood?

Seated beside Cindy, Frank Hughes

remained silent and severe as he extracted a sizeable hunk of lobster flesh, and placed it onto Cindy's dish. "Go on, eat up before the food gets cold."

Meanwhile, Jasper was doing the same: He removed the shell from a section of lobster, and left that generous morsel upon Willow's dish.

Willow had still been keeping up a show of being polite and reserved... but now, here was a whole chunk of lobster goodness, staring up at her.

And it had come from Jasper's own hand, no less.

Startled and mollified by this gesture of affection, she turned to look at him.

He had the same expression as usual. "Eat it while it's hot," he murmured softly.

So he really had meant it for her... a strange warmth began to fill up her heart. She felt loved.

Her whole life, no one had ever done anything like this for her before.

Her mother was a brash and callous woman. Though she loved Willow, she simply wasn't the sort to pay attention to the details. As long as her daughter had food to eat, and a bed to sleep in, everything else was more than she could be bothered with.

Certainly, Willow's mother could never be accused of fussing over the small stuff.

As a child, Willow simply chewed up prawns when she ate them, shell and all. As she got older, she learned to peel her own prawns. It wasn't something her own mother would ever do for her.

All of a sudden, here was someone who did it. It gave Willow a warm and fuzzy feeling, with a touch of a bittersweet aftertaste.

Her nose wrinkled. Her lip quivered. Hurriedly, she snatched up that morsel of lobster and stuffed it into her mouth.

"Delicious!" she declared, raising a big thumbs-up.