More than ten minutes later, Lucas and Cheyenne arrived at the Lion Restaurant LA.
The decor style of this restaurant was almost the same as that of its counterpart in Orange County, which Lucas had visited before. They were actually both branches of the same restaurant chain.
Lucas remembered that the Lion Restaurant in Orange County belonged to the richest man in the city, Ethan Sawyer, and couldn’t help asking, “Does this restaurant also belong to the Sawyers?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “The Lion Restaurant chain actually belongs to the Bensons of San Francisco, who own several branches of the restaurant in various cities. But they’re not involved in the direct management of the branches and instead hand them over to a major family in the respective cities on their behalf. The Bensons will then take a percentage of the profits. The Lion Restaurant in Orange County is under the management of the Sawyers.”
Lucas nodded and asked again, “Are the Bensons a powerful family in San Francisco?”
He hadn’t been back in Orange County for long and thus didn’t know as much as Cheyenne about the hierarchy of families in the various cities.
Cheyenne said, “The Bensons have a significantly higher status than the four major families in Orange County. After all, they’re from a big city like San Francisco. But in San Francisco itself, they’re considered somewhat ordinary and should be affiliated to the Coles. They can leverage on the Coles’ power and borrow a small portion of their resources to develop, but they also need to give a large share of their annual profits to the Coles every year.”
Lucas was a little surprised. Of course, he certainly understood the concept of some families being dependent on more powerful families. An example of this was the Kingstons being dependent on the Huttons, whom they relied on to reap plenty of benefits and progress to becoming one of the top families in the state.
But Lucas didn’t expect this practice to be somewhat common here too.
After getting out of the car, they entered the Lion Restaurant and were soon ushered to the private room where Nikki was by the waiter.
The room was extremely spacious, and the seats around the large dining table in the middle of the room were already filled. There were about more than ten people present, all of whom were men in their twenties or thirties. They were likely Kenneth’s close friends.
Upon seeing Cheyenne and Lucas, Nikki immediately stood up and greeted Cheyenne, “Cheyenne, you’re finally here! Come here and sit down!”
As usual, she ignored Lucas and only greeted Cheyenne.
The other people in the private room cast their gazes onto Cheyenne. They seemed amazed and awestruck.
Even though they had gotten used to seeing various beautiful heiresses, Cheyenne was a rare beauty to them.
Cheyenne looked around the room. Even though the dining table was quite large, with more than a dozen people, it was rather crowded. There was only one empty seat beside Kenneth, and Nikki was urging Cheyenne to take this seat.
But Cheyenne didn’t let Nikki pull her toward the seat and instead stood at the door while continuing to hold Lucas’s hand.
A look of displeasure immediately appeared on Nikki’s face. She felt that Lucas was getting in the way again and rebuked haughtily, “We invited Cheyenne to dinner, but what are you doing here, you good-for-nothing? Have you gotten so used to leeching off of Cheyenne that you want to freeload here too? How thick-skinned of you!”
Cheyenne’s face turned gloomy, and she said coldly, “I told you from the start that I would bring my husband along for dinner. If you don’t welcome him, we’ll leave right now!”
Lucas was her husband and the person she had decided to spend the rest of her life with, so she naturally wouldn’t let Nikki bully and humiliate him.
Seeing this, Nikki hurriedly went forward to pull Cheyenne, afraid that she would really leave. She said coquettishly, “Cheyenne, don’t go! I’ll just stop insulting him, alright?”
Seeing the way she was behaving, Cheyenne was a little less sullen.
But Nikki soon pretended to be caught in a difficult spot again. “But we weren’t expecting him to come along, so we didn’t prepare enough chairs. Now that everyone has taken their seats, there’s only one empty seat left for you. Well… where is Lucas going to sit?”
She was clearly implying that there was no seat for Lucas in the room and that he should have the self-awareness to leave on his own accord.
Without saying anything else, Cheyenne immediately said, “Since there aren’t enough seats, you guys go ahead. My husband and I will take our leave now!”
Then she held onto Lucas’s arm and was really about to leave.
Kenneth, who had been sitting in his seat and acting like he was watching a joke, finally couldn’t sit still anymore. He stood up and exclaimed, “Miss Carter, please wait a moment!”
When Cheyenne turned around, Kenneth said, “Tonight, I’ve specially invited all my friends from top families in LA just for the sake of helping you. I was planning to introduce them to you and see if there’s a chance for you to cooperate with them. If you leave now, not only will you be letting my kind intentions go to waste, but it will be quite disrespectful to everyone here too.”
“Yes, I have long heard that you became the general manager of the Brilliance Corporation in Orange County at such a young age, Miss Carter. Now that I’ve finally gotten the chance to meet you in person, you’re actually leaving before we even get to speak to each other. That seems a little impolite of you, don’t you think so?”
“That’s right. We are all here for Kenneth’s sake because we heard that you plan to expand the business of your company to the LA market. That’s why we decided to come here and socialize with you. Yet you suddenly want to leave even though we’ve agreed to meet you for dinner. Are you looking down on us?”
Two people at the dining table stood up and chimed in.
Although both of them were acting like they were joking, there was an obvious sense of threat in their tone.
In particular, they were all scions of wealthy and prestigious families in LA and had absolute say and authority in their respective families.
If Cheyenne insisted on leaving now, she would end up offending all of them and would likely face plenty of hindrances and obstacles if she tried to expand her business to LA in the future.
Cheyenne showed up today with the intention to make some friends in LA, not enemies.
All of a sudden, Cheyenne felt conflicted and slipped into a dilemma.
She naturally didn’t want Lucas to be humiliated any further here. But if possible, she didn’t want to give up such a great opportunity either.
At this moment, the corners of Kenneth’s lips curled into a sinister smile as he suggested, “Miss Carter, since you don’t wish to be separated from him, how about this? In any case, Lucas Gray is just a live-in husband of yours and knows nothing about business management. Even if he sits at the same table, there’s no way he can click with us when we talk about business. Lucas, how about you make do with that table at the side? Don’t worry. I’ll definitely get them to prepare a delicious meal for you too!”
With that, he pointed to the innermost corner of the private dining room.
Cheyenne finally realized that there was a small foldable tray table and a shabby-looking plastic stool that resembled those of roadside stalls in the corner. They were completely out of place in the private room and incompatible with the furniture and decor. They were also so tiny that they were almost unnoticeable unless you took a careful look.
The fact that Kenneth wanted Lucas to eat there was a blatant insult!
