Having received no response, Quince’s smile slipped off his face. Sulking, he took a gulp of drink and slammed the glass on the table in a display of displeasure.
Rylee immediately sidled up to him. “Mr. Quince, forget about that guy. Here, let me have a drink with you,” she said, throwing a flirtatious smile at the man and raising her glass at him.
Placated, Quince’s expression eased.
Meanwhile, Nathaniel placed the champagne flute on the table and turned to look Anthony in the eyes. “I love new year’s eve,” he drawled as if he was only making small conversation. “It’s such a great occasion for new and old friends to gather, isn’t it? Speaking of, I happened to run into an old friend of yours today, Anthony.”
The latter said nothing and merely narrowed his eyes. The icy aura around him, however, spoke volumes about what he thought of the other’s remarks. Under normal circumstances, the dark look was enough to shut a man up instantly, but Nathaniel remained unfazed.
“Aren’t you curious as to whom it was?” he asked my husband with an expression of picture-perfect innocence. “Well, I know you’d want to meet him, so I took the liberty to invite him here. You aren’t going to blame me, are you, my dear brother?”
“Out with it,” I snapped, sick with his baiting. “Who else is coming here today?”
Nathaniel smirked, eyes flashing behind his glasses. “Ah. My apologies. I should’ve known that you’d be more eager to meet that friend, Sienna.”
He glanced at the doorway and called out, “You can come in now. Sienna doesn’t seem to be holding a grudge.”
A grudge? What is he saying? I followed his line of vision and saw a man in his fifties stepping inside hesitantly.
Dressed in plain and unassuming clothes, the man bent his head in a subdued manner. “M-Mrs Featherstone. You look well…” he mumbled timidly.
“I’m sorry… Do I know you?” I asked, bewildered.
While I had no idea who this man was, his face seemed to have rung a bell for Rylee. She regarded him with a pensive look. “Have we met somewhere before?”
“Oh, you don’t remember? This is Mr. Roger Melton,” Nathaniel told me. “Back when the Featherstone Corporation was expanding, Mr. Melton’s company, Vista Sun Corporation, was the first to be acquired by your husband.”
Okay, so what? Featherstone Corporation has acquired countless companies over the years. I certainly don’t know all of them. Not to mention that the mergers and acquisitions don’t even fall under my jurisdiction. How am I to know who this so-called Mr. Roger Melton is?
At my blank expression, Nora chuckled, though it was not a kind sound. “Well, Sienna, you really are the type to forgive and forget, huh? I’m impressed.”
The mocking tone had me frown in vexation. She used to be a straightforward and open character. It was as if her sarcasm grew in direct proportion to her antagonism toward me.
I ignored her and instead turned to Anthony for a clue of the man’s identity. He usually had an eidetic memory. I was certain he would know who that man was.
My husband sent me a soothing look before his gaze turned steely on the rest. “Vista Sun was already on the decline back then. It was only a matter of time before it would be flushed out of the race. If anything, the acquisition helped their business.”
In a way, what Anthony said was true. Times were changing, and businesses that could not keep up would inevitably fold as they lost their competitive edge to others. As a business leader, Anthony was only doing what he had to do to ensure the survival and growth of his own company.
Roger Melton looked ashamed. “Mr. Featherstone is right,” he said ingratiatingly. “My company was already struggling. Even if it weren’t taken over by Featherstone Corporation, it would be snapped up by another corporation. The fault was on me; I didn’t manage my business well. But I didn’t realize it at the time and went on to commit a mistake that I’d come to regret even till this day…”
He fell to his knees, expression wild with desperation and remorse. “Mrs. Featherstone, please, I’m so sorry for what I did to you back then! I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t go after my family. I’m begging you!”
I was becoming more bemused by the second. “Hold on… I’m not even sure what you did. What did you do that has you begging for my forgiveness?”
Roger faltered. “I-I can’t say it…” he mumbled in apprehension, refusing to look at me in the eyes.
I raised a brow. Thinking that he was being unnecessarily melodramatic, I could feel what remained of my patience quickly evaporating. “If you aren’t even going to elaborate, then please kindly leave.”
As if it’s not enough that all these people are here to ruin the dinner I’m having with my family. I now have a random man begging for my forgiveness for something I have no recollection of!
I motioned for the maids. “Escort this gentleman out, now.”
Two of them stepped forward at once and tried to drag him away.
Roger appeared even more panicky than before. He broke free of the maids’ hold and fell once more to his knees. “No… Please don’t turn me away, Mrs. Featherstone! I’ll talk…”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “It’s true that I didn’t manage my company well back then, but my employees were loyal to me, and I had hopes of toughing it out with their support. But Featherstone Corporation took an offensive approach and orchestrated a hostile takeover, and I was forced to sign over my company in less than a month. I was resentful, so my friend suggested that I find some way to take revenge. I wasn’t thinking clearly at that time and actually did what he said, which was to hire some thugs t-to—”
“Shut up!” Anthony roared.
I snapped my attention to him. What’s going on?
Roger’s mouth clicked shut at once. A tense silence descended upon the room. From my peripheral, however, I could see the corners of Nathaniel’s mouth curling upward into a small, satisfied smirk. Was it his goal all along to bring Roger here to spite Anthony?
“I’m only going to say this once—you need to leave, now,” Anthony said in a calm voice, but there was a tempest brewing in his eyes.
“I…” Caught in a dilemma, Roger cast alternating glances at me and Anthony.
I was about to ask my husband to let the man finish his story when Rylee spoke up. “We’re all waiting to hear what happened next. Don’t be such a wet blanket, Anthony.” The way she spat out his name told me that all of her love for him had warped into hate.
Smiling, she walked up to Roger, who was still kneeling. “Come on, let’s hear it then. What did you do to Sienna? I’m dying to find out if she’s really the type to forgive and forget.”
Rylee was looking at me strangely. It was a mixture of condescension and glee and something else I could not pinpoint. What I did know, however, was that it was making me uncomfortable.
A loud bang suddenly echoed in the room. Anthony had stood up so abruptly that the chair had tipped over and crashed to the floor.
He went to Roger in large strides. Before I could react, he was already pulling the other man up by the collars. In one swift motion, he slammed the latter against the wall.
“Anthony!” I exclaimed, hurriedly pulling the children to my side while covering Audrey’s eyes. “The children are watching!”
He might have mellowed over time, but ever since the incident at the club, where he had smashed all of the alcohol on purpose, I knew that no amount of mellowing would change who he was at the core— brisk and authoritative. He would always be a man of action and, regrettably, impatience.
It was why I knew that he would most definitely punch Roger if I did not say anything to stop him.
Anthony paused briefly. When he moved next, it was to fling Roger by his collars in the direction of the doorway.
The latter stumbled and fell, wincing at the pain but not daring to say a word.
“Get lost,” Anthony said with a tone of finality.
Roger scrambled.
“Wow, I’ve never seen you so riled up before, Anthony,” Rylee said airily. “I wonder why is that? Oh, could it be that you’re afraid of us knowing that your precious wife turns out to be damaged goods, just like me?”
As soon as those words fell, a pair of large hands wrapped themselves around her neck and squeezed.
Rylee choked and struggled, clawing at Anthony’s arm in a feeble attempt to make him let go, only to have those fingers tighten around her throat even further.
From the way her face was slowly turning purple, I guessed that she would last another ten seconds before she ran out of air.
Instead of begging for release, however, Rylee remained staunchly defiant. There was even a hint of a smirk on her face as she gasped for breath like a dying fish. “Sore, aren’t we?” she croaked out each word with difficulty. “You didn’t want me but still ended up marrying damaged goo—ah!”
There was a murderous glint in Anthony’s eyes as he squeezed just a little harder.
I could not care less about Rylee’s life, but I was not about to have my husband commit murder. While what Roger had said did seem to imply that I had been assaulted, I knew for a fact that it did not happen.
“You’re wrong,” I told Rylee tonelessly. “Anthony was and still is the only man I’ve ever been with.”
She widened her eyes incredulously at my words and tried to swivel her head to look at me. The action only caused her greater pain and discomfort, however, and she started struggling anew.
New Book: Back Home to Marry Off Myself
Loredana’s father left the family for his mistress, leaving them to fend for themselves abroad. When life was at its toughest, her father showed up with “good news” after 8 years of absence: To marry off Loredana to a paralyzed son of the wealthy Mendelsohn family.
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