Sofia's hands trembled as she held the bowl closer and closer to her mouth.
"Use a spoon if you want." She instructed as though giving permission to a child, and Sofia shook her head to continue holding the bowl to directly drink from it. Gemma watched her in amusement. "What is it? Why can I eat it but you can't, huh?" "It's…" Sofia's eyes started to well up. "The ingredients are so expensive. I can never afford it." "It's okay. You can have it." Gemma gave a kind smile, but Sofia felt so spooked that the bowl slipped from her hands. "I'm sorry, it fell by mistake." She apologized with her hands still trembling. She met Gemma's sharp gaze which scared her so much that she didn't even realize that she no longer had to eat the poisoned soup. "Such a lowly trick." Gemma sneered. "It wasn't…" Sofia tried to defend herself, only to shut up when the woman stood up and landed a slap right on her cheek. It was so painful that she almost fainted. Peeking at the door, Olivia huffed and almost ran in when Noah grabbed her to pull her back. "Don't." Olivia watched her daughter get bullied but she knew that if she walked in, it would only prove that it was a plan made by the three of them.Gemma slapped Sofia on both cheeks, backhanding her mercilessly. "Do you think that I would have gotten to my current position if I was not wary of such insanity?" "I'm sorry!" Sofia cried as she fell onto her knees, a small shard cutting into her skin to make her wince in pain as tears flooded her face. "No you aren't." Gemma sneered. She was not sorry about trying to poison her. She was only pretending to be sorry because she did not succeed. She walked out of the dining room and caught sight of two shadows disappearing behind another wall. Those rats. After ordering takeout and having her dinner, she sat on her desk to finish up on her work. She had a lot to deal with especially now that she had to recover the things she had lost. She had read the gossip forums and knew what everyone thought of her. It was uncertain who started it but everyone now knew what the Black family had done to her. Her company was no longer truly hers… A CEO sans shares is what Ethan had made her. All he had to do was appear to be distressed and like the idiot she was in the past, she was swayed by him. The two of them had been friends since they were children, and she trusted him more than she trusted herself. He helped her find a job as soon as an opportunity presented itselfHe lived near the orphanage she grew up at. They were best friends and he left first, to find a job as a manservant in the Dumont household. He recommended her for a job when a chance presented itself, so they became workmates. Gemma's mind switched back to the present. She was still unwilling to recall what a horrible decision she had made, by rejecting the couple who wanted to adopt her and choosing to go and work instead. Even though she didn't want to, she could still remember just how stupid she had sounded. _"Why do you what to adopt a grown up? Are you going to force me into labor or unspeakable deeds?" She asked the couple accusingly—the middle aged, aristocratic couple who had introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and wanted to take her home as their daughter. The woman seemed hurt by her words, which made her frown. Even so, she was still patient with her. "That's not it, my dear. It's only because we have never had a child of our own. We have already lost hope." She wasn't in the slightest but guilty for jabbing her scar, and she was even more suspicious. "Then why don't you get a baby? Why does it have to be a girl my age?" She was sixteen at the time, only two years away from adulthood and had already accepted that she would never have a family. She didn't understand why anyone would want a child as old as she was.So, she followed Ethan to the Dumont family. Despite all the misery she faced, it was through the Dumont family that she reunited with her real family who had lost her thanks to a series of schemes that happened when she was born. They took her back against her will, but at least they gave her all the love she had failed to get as a child.At the time, she was in a relationship with Ethan and made it a point to make sure her parents knew that she did not intend to break up with him just because of their difference in status. They accepted him for her sake and even liked him for a while.
The only downside was that she kept asking for money from her parents like the idiot she was, and she used all of it to help Ethan who had a ton of family problems that needed hefty sums to solve.
Now that she thought about it, Ethan had never once asked for her help. He would only appear to be distressed and she would do everything to help him out without being asked to do so. Helping Olivia find a doctor to cure her broken arm, getting Sofia into her dream college and giving Noah a job at her company was not the limit of what she did for them. When she and Ethan got married, she brought all of them into her mansion for them to enjoy the luxury they had never once had in their lives. It was through this very manipulation that when her company finally became successful, she was willing to sell all her shares to pay for Sofia's brain surgery. As for whether the brain surgery really existed or not was a different story altogether.Shaking her head at her stupidity, she wondered what would have happened if she followed the Williams home and became their daughter. She brushed the thought off on second thought. If she didn't go though that phase of her life, she would never have become who she currently was. The following morning had Gemma's eyes swell from not having enough sleep. "What in the world happened to you?" Cora exclaimed when she went to clean her room in the morning. "Just leave me alone, can you?" She groaned from the bed, snuggling in the duvet with no intention to move an inch. "Is there trouble at your company?" Cora asked. There was little that distressed Gemma lately, and that was the closest guess she could come up with. When Gemma nodded, she frowned as she paused her work. "Geez… you look like you are being haunted by Ethan." She teased. "I'd rather be haunted by Ethan." Gemma confessed. She was cartain that the Blacks knew that she no longer had shares in her company, and they could easily collaborate with someone to kick her out of the company. "How about you get someone to buy shares from? You can convince one of the other shareholders." She suggested since she knew that the person she sold to would definitely not agree to sell them back. "It isn't easy to convince any of the shareholders." She let out a sigh. If it were easy, would she be this distressed? There was only one who had agreed to sell 5% to her, but at an astronomical price—not that she had a choice. "Do you need me to help you have a word with another shareholder?" Cora offered. She was good in negotiating and might be able to handle it with much ease. It was harder for Gemma, because she already had suspicion against her name. The damned businessmen were taking advantage of this fact to ask for impossible conditions. Gemma sat up as an idea struck her. "Buy them in your own name. You can transfer it to me later." "I'll try to contact a shareholder as soon as I finish my work." Cora promised. Gemma trusted her because they had known each other for over a decade. To be exact, she trusted no one. She had done a thorough background check on Cora and knew that the latter would never try anything she shouldn't.Cora asked one of the shareholders out, a man who looked to be in his early thirties.They met out at a restaurant, and she had dressed up in a business outfit."You must be Miss Aguilar" A man asked as he sat opposite her on the table whose number she had sent to the shareholder making Cora frown. This man looked nothing like the description of the man she was supposed to meet. He had round framed spectacles and looked more like an assistant."My boss does not wish to reveal his identity." The man explained, sensing her surprise. "My name is Darrell, I will discuss the deal on his behalf.""I see." She took out the proposal she had prepared. "Is he willing to sell me his shares despite that?"Darrell placed his own proposal on the table. "That, he is. But these are his conditions.""Thirty billion for twenty percent?" Cora was rendered speechless. "Why don't you simply rob a bank?""My boss doesn't want to do that, whic
“What in the world…” Gemma was rendered speechless by the insanity she had just heard. “Why the hell would such a rule even exist?”The elderly lawyer had no definite answer to that, because he had neither written the will nor set the rules that the late Patriarch Arnaud's granddaughter was finding absurd. He could only hypothesize. “The old man didn't want his bloodline to go extinct. He had to set some rules, and you are lucky that he did not specify that you must have a son before inheriting his estate.”Gemma sighed when she imagined that such a thing was possible. She had not known her grandfather when he was alive, because her family was yet to find her when he passed away. From the tales she had heard about him from her parents and grandmother, she knew that setting such an absurd rule did sound like something he would do.Even so, it still made no sense when she thought about it. “But I'm a woman. I do not continue anyone’s bloodline.”
"Cora, are you busy right now?" Gemma asked her friend over the phone."Not too busy for you. You know I always have time for you." Cora responded sweetly.Gemma smiled gratefully. What would she do without her? "I'm going to Scarlet Bar. Meet me there, okay?"She hung up and went to the bar, where she ordered wine. Since she was a VIP member, she had a private chamber reserved for her on the first floor, which had a one side view of the entire place. She twirled her wineglass listlessly as she watched a few young women on the ground floor, wearing almost nothing as they danced for the men enjoying drinks. Her attention was quickly drawn to a girl who looked young, she had probably just reached adulthood. She served drinks on a table of four men, who gazed at her with lust written all over their eyes as she poured them the drinks. Her movements were clumsy and she was trembling. Just as she finished and was about to leave, one of the men grabbed her hand.&
She was yet to read the contents of the file when she heard a bang. What followed was a man barging into the living room, followed by five injured guards trying to catch up to him."I swear, I'm not in need of any drama right now." She was at a loss as she glared at the man who had barged in. His clothes were disheveled and his hair was all over the place."Ma'am I'm sorry. He broke through the security." One of the guards vehemently apologized."You may leave." She dismissed the guards, knowing that if the man was here to cause her any harm, he would have tried to fight her already. Even so, his audacity displeased her. She glared at him. "How dare…. You, who are you?" She was stunned halfway through her words when he raised his head. He had a handsome, sculpted face with a pair of eyes that made her squint her eyebrows. Why did he look so familiar? Had they met before?Livian gritted his teeth under her suspicious gaze. She really did forg
Although it was the last thing she wanted, Gemma had to go to the police station to "cooperate with investigation" like the officer in charge had put it. She scoffed at the term. She knew that he suspected her. He just didn't have sufficient evidence to arrest her—and she would never let him have any.When she arrived, she was not facing the officer in charge but a detective called Robert. He was known to be the worst nightmare of every criminal in the country as he could sniff out crimes from afar. They made it sound like he was a sniff dog."Do you have any questions for me, Detective Robert?" She asked the obvious. He definitely had a ton of them."Miss Gemma, where were you on the night of 8th June, when your husband was murdered?" He nudged below his rectangular framed spectacles to push them back into place."At Scarlet Hotel." She answered listlessly. She was observing his gaze, so she noticed his eyes twitch in the slightest. She averted h
His heart skipped a beat. What did that mean? Was the food not delicious? He thought he had done quite well…When he tasted the food, he didn't find much fault either. No, the point was, if it tasted horrible, why hadn't she fired him yet? Sholdn't that be her reaction to horrible food? He kept his questions to himself and nodded respectfully. "I will do my best."Giving him a glance that made him wonder whether she was being kind to him because she had uncovered his identity, she threw four words at him. "Do not disappoint me."He raked a hand tthrough his hair in frustration. This was getting more complicated by the day. If she had discovered who he was, logically, she should have shown him the door, right? She definitely wouldn't be so patient.But if she didn't know who he really was, why the hell was she acting like she did? She was definitely messing with his head.He was still working out the possibility in his head when his space
A slap rang out, startling him."Madam, I didn't. I'm sorry." The maid cried.He rushed over to find the little maid crying at his mother's feet, while the latter hit her and pulled her hair."Mother! What are you doing?" He pulled his mother away before he could register what he was doing. Why was it his business?"Disciplining this b*tch. If maids do whatever they want here, won't this mansion turn chaotic?" Mrs. Dumont straightened up but continued glaring at the maid hatefully. He quickly figured that this was about the maid going to clean his room."I asked her to clean my room." He lied. His mother mumbled something about regretting letting the vixen stay, before she sauntered away."Are you alright?" He leaned over and helped her up. Her face was red and swollen from the slaps."Thank you, young master." She didn't look up at him, probably trying to hide her tears."If you want to thank me, keep my room c
Gemma looked him up and down and if there wasn't a devilish grin on her face, he might be fooled into believing that she was considering his suggestion. However, he knew from his interaction with her from the last couple of days that what was about to leave that mouth was the most venomous remark one could ever hear.He decided to evade it. "On second thought, I will no longer be nosy.""So you do know that you are nosy." She smirked. It was not amusing."Well, I was just worried about you, ma'am. But now that I think about it with a clear mind, even the devil is scared of you. Dealing with a nutcase detective will be a piece of cake.""The devil is afraid of me." She repeated his words with a raise of her eyebrows. "Why is that? Because I'm too innocent and good?" It was amazing that there was someone who thought so. He was definitely blind.But his next words proved that he wasn't. On the other hand, he must be the most ballsy employee