He Wouldn't Claim Me — Another Man Did-Chapter 75 - 68: Cake

Ivan Fulton gave it some thought but still felt uneasy leaving Shane Sterling and Silas Lockwood alone together.

He got up and walked out. The moment he pushed open the door to the private room, he saw Shane Sterling pinning Silas Lockwood to the floor.

"Hey, hey, hey! What are you two doing? Can’t you talk things out properly?" Ivan Fulton yelled as he rushed toward Shane Sterling and Silas Lockwood.

Hearing the commotion, the people inside the private room realized something was wrong and all ran out.

Isla Prescott was at the very front. When she saw that both Silas Lockwood and Shane Sterling were already bruised and scraped, her heart sank. ’And here I thought they would both be restrained. Who could have guessed they would actually start fighting!’

"Stop fighting! Stop fighting!"

"Just talk it out!"

Everyone started to break up the fight. Ivan Fulton helped the drunk Silas Lockwood away, while Mason Jacobs grabbed ahold of Shane Sterling, pulling them in opposite directions.

Isla Prescott picked up the phone that had been dropped on the floor.

It was Shane Sterling’s phone.

She accidentally woke the screen and saw a photo of herself.

The photo was from the official Taoli Cup website—a stage shot of her performing *Drunken Grace*. She had no idea when Shane Sterling had saved it and set it as his lock screen.

The thought that he saw her face every time he unlocked his phone made Isla Prescott’s heart soften.

Whether it was his phone’s lock screen or how he had announced their relationship to his friends earlier, these concrete actions carried far more weight than empty promises. The sense of certainty he gave her was, in itself, a source of security.

She glanced at the staggering Silas Lockwood, then turned and walked resolutely in Shane Sterling’s direction.

Mason Jacobs helped Shane Sterling over to the window and couldn’t resist lecturing him. "Why’d you have to fight Silas? At the end of the day, he’s your brother-in-law. No matter how you slice it, you’re the one who came and swept his precious sister off her feet. He has every right to give you a hard time. How could you be so hot-headed?"

Shane Sterling couldn’t be bothered to explain himself to Mason Jacobs.

Just as Mason Jacobs was about to continue, Isla Prescott quickly walked over and said to him, "Let me talk to him."

"Alright. You’re his girlfriend, so he’ll listen to you more than me. Talk some sense into him."

Mason Jacobs walked away.

Isla Prescott moved closer to Shane Sterling. He glanced up at her, and as if genuinely afraid she was about to scold him, he quickly explained, "Silas started it."

"I don’t care who started it."

Shane Sterling was a little surprised. "Then what did you want to talk to me about?"

"Have you had any cake today?"

Shane Sterling turned his head to look out the window. "I don’t like sweets."

"Is it that you don’t like sweets, or that no one ordered a cake for you?"

Shane Sterling’s reflection in the windowpane visibly stiffened.

If he had to be honest about the cause and effect, it was true that he only started claiming he didn’t like sweets after his family stopped ordering birthday cakes for him. Eventually, that story spread, and his friends took him at his word. After that, no one ever bothered with a cake on his birthday.

"Come on. You have to eat cake on your birthday," Isla Prescott said, taking Shane Sterling’s hand. "I’m taking you to get some cake."

"At this hour?"

It was already eleven o’clock. Any normal dessert shop would have closed long ago.

"Just come with me."

Isla Prescott took Shane Sterling to 78 Brenlar Road. There, a dessert shop called "Sweet Home" was owned by Isla’s good friend, Sarah Hayes.

Before catching her flight earlier that day, she had specifically called Sarah Hayes to ask a favor: could she bake a cake sponge ahead of time and let Isla borrow the shop’s back kitchen that night to make a birthday cake?

Sarah Hayes had readily agreed. Not only did she bake and cool the cake sponge for Isla Prescott in advance, but she also prepared all the ingredients and tools needed to whip the cream. When she closed up for the night, Sarah didn’t take the key with her; instead, she left it under the flowerpot by the door.

Isla Prescott easily found the key under the flowerpot and led Shane Sterling into the dessert shop.

"You’re not planning on having us loot the place, are you?" Shane Sterling asked.

"Of course not. This is my friend’s shop. I already cleared it with her."

With midnight fast approaching, Isla Prescott didn’t explain any further. She put on an apron, washed her hands, and began to whip and color the cream.

Thankfully, she had learned how to make birthday cakes from Sarah Hayes before, so the process felt familiar and went smoothly.

Soon, she had frosted the cake sponge with the cream.

Time was limited, so she couldn’t make a more complex design. She simply piped a few flowers and wrote eight words on the cake: "Wishing you joy and all your heart’s desires."

"Quick, it’s almost midnight!"

Isla Prescott lit the candles on the cake and turned off all the lights.

"Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you~ Happy birthday to you!"

The candlelight flickered, its warm, yellow glow illuminating her eyelashes. She leaned forward slightly, singing with heartfelt sincerity. The candlelight seemed to soften the trailing notes of each "happy birthday," making them sound impossibly tender. The look in her eyes as she gazed at him was like slowly flowing honey, sweet and thick, enveloping the moment and making all the world’s noise fade away into silence.

’I’ll probably never forget this birthday for as long as I live,’ Shane Sterling thought.