“She’s that good?”
“Yes.”
Cindy stopped and sat down opposite him. “Where did you find someone so capable?”
Jethro didn’t look up from his papers. “Poached her from a competitor.”
Cindy’s eyes went wide. Poaching! You sly businessman!
…
Downstairs, Cindy went straight to Darcy’s office and knocked.
Darcy looked up, slightly surprised to see Cindy. “Miss – “
She caught herself. “Cindy. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to report on my business trip results.”
Cindy was an Account Manager, a sales-related role, but she wasn’t responsible for acquiring new clients, only maintaining existing ones.
In truth, Stratagem Tech had no new clients; they were all old contacts Jethro had secured through personal connections when the company was founded.
These clients were stable and renewed their contracts with Stratagem almost every year.
But if the company wanted to grow, relying solely on existing clients wasn’t enough. They needed new business.
The moment Cindy heard about acquiring new clients, she pouted.
“New business? That’s hard. You have to deal with rejection, maybe even get thrown out. I don’t want to do it.”
Darcy knew the person sitting across from her wasn’t a regular employee. She was the Blackwood daughter, raised in privilege and comfort.
Asking her to go out and hunt for new clients was indeed a tall order.
Darcy didn’t plan to force her. “That’s alright. If you find it difficult, I’ll handle the new client acquisition. You can focus on maintaining the existing relationships.”
Cindy blinked. “You, the CEO, are going to run around doing sales?”
“Yes.”
Cindy was astonished. “Aren’t you afraid of being rejected? You’re the CEO. What if word gets out? Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?”
She remembered liking a boy once and confessing to him on his birthday, only to be coldly rejected. He said she was spoiled and willful, not his type.
The experience had hit her hard. She’d sworn off having crushes on men ever since.
Faced with the high probability of rejection, Cindy preferred to avoid it altogether.
Darcy smiled. “I’m not afraid. I’m used to it.”
“Used to it?”
“Yes. I’ve been in sales for several years. I’ve met very agreeable clients, and I’ve faced cold shoulders and eye-rolls. But it’s precisely because of that I’ve developed a thick skin.”
Cindy was curious. “How thick? Thick enough not to be hurt when you see your boyfriend cheating?”
Darcy was speechless.
This conversation is over…
Seeing the change in Darcy’s expression, Cindy took the hint and quickly made an excuse to leave.
Back at her desk, Cindy sent a message to a contact.
“Look into someone for me. And check her relationship history.”
Two hours later, Cindy received the reply. She opened the file, her frown deepening as she read.
Damn. Poor Darcyran into a scumbag. All those years of devotion wasted.
Ugh. It’s so similar to what happened to my brother.
She had thought Darcy and her brother seemed like a good match, worth pushing together. But now…
She shook her head slightly.
…
After work, Darcy went to the hospital as usual to see her mother. She was also planning to ask the nurse about the discharge procedures.
As she entered the main lobby of the hospital building, she ran into two men coming out of the elevator.
They both stopped in their tracks when they saw her.
They were Zane’s friends, Hugo Sterling and Ines Cross, both scions of wealthy Aethelburg families.
Hugo was relatively polite to Darcy, giving her a slight nod.
Ines, however, was never courteous to her.
His usual cold stare was accompanied by a sneer.
Darcy had overheard him criticizing her behind her back several times.
When she and Zane first got together, he said she was social climbing and had ulterior motives.
He’d mocked her, calling her a lapdog, saying she was only with Zane because she fawned over him so well.
After graduation, when she tore up her graduate school acceptance letter to start the company with Zane, she’d once heard Ines advising Zane not to give her too much real authority, warning that she would eventually take all his assets.
She didn’t know if Zane had actually listened to his friend, but it was true that in her five years at SummitCore, she had never held real power. No equity, and very little management authority.
Because of this, even though she did a lot of the work, some people, knowing her low official status and that she wasn’t favored by the CEO, brazenly took credit for her achievements, claiming her work as their own.
She used not to care, because she felt the company was Zane’s, and Zane was hers. What was the point of fighting? The meat was all in the same pot, so to speak.
Now, she still didn’t care. She didn’t even want Zane anymore, so why would she care about that?
Along with that, she couldn’t be bothered with Zane’s friends either.
Darcy didn’t give the two men a second glance. She walked straight past them, moving to Hugo’s right to enter the elevator.
She didn’t utter a single word.
Hugo frowned. Something felt different about Darcy.
Probably had another fight with Zane.
Ines, with his nasty mouth, snorted disdainfully, “Just wait. In a couple of days, she’ll be crawling back to Zane, begging to make up.”
They walked out and ran into Zane, who had just parked his car.
Ines whistled, “Speak of the devil.”
Zane loosened his tie. “Talking about me behind my back again?”
“About your lapdog girlfriend.”
Before he could finish, Hugo kicked him. “Shut your trap!”
He then turned to Zane, who was frowning. “We just saw Darcy. What’s she doing at the hospital?”
Ines, as if just realizing, clutched his shin dramatically. “Whoa! You don’t think she’s pregnant and hiding it from you, trying to have the kid on her own?”
Hugo kicked him again. “Use your brain! If she were pregnant, she’d be at the OB/GYN clinic, not the inpatient wing!”
Zane’s brow furrowed. “Stop talking nonsense. Her mother is hospitalized. She’s here to care for her.”
“Oh, I see,” Hugo said. “That’s tough on her, working all day and caring for her mother at night.”
“She’s not working. I gave her a month off to…” Zane paused. “…to rest and care for her mother.”
Huh? Not working? Hugo thought back to how he’d just seen Darcy. She was in formal office wear, looking like she’d just come from work.
Had he been mistaken? He must have been.
“In that case, after we visit Mr. Cross, you should go see your future mother-in-law.”
The term “future mother-in-law” made Zane’s expression shift slightly.
He had come to the hospital for two reasons – to visit Ines’ father, and to find Darcy to discuss the engagement.
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.