Luna waved her hand nonchalantly. “Hey, you earned this. You’ve always refused to accept bonuses from the company, so take it as me returning all the bonuses you rightfully deserve. I’m pinning my hopes on your designs to take me to greater heights!”
Abigail stopped being modest after Luna’s words and accepted the keys willingly.
The next morning, she was woken up by a phone call, and when she checked her phone, she was surprised to find thirty-three missed calls.
Thirty-two of them were from Luna while the other one was from Sean.
So, she immediately called Luna and asked, “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, I just wanted to remind you to take a break. I was worried that the designs couldn’t make the deadline, but some customers claimed that the dresses did not meet their requirements and insisted on canceling their orders at the cost of forfeiting their deposits. Now, all the finished designs are hanging in the store and our efforts in the past days have been in vain.”
A frown appeared on Abigail’s face. “The dresses don’t fit their requirements?”
The studio had been operating for years, but nothing like this had happened before. They were a small studio with some minor fame, so it wasn’t enough to have a big brand to target them to this extent.
Her grip on the phone tightened, and her fingertips turned white. “Hang on. I’m coming over right now.”
After she ended the call, she ordered a ride, rushed to the studio, and replied to Luna’s text messages on the way. Suddenly, her Instagram sent a push notification to her of a story update that Joan had just posted.
Abigail had forgotten when she ever started following her and neither could she recall why, but she tapped on the notification to check it out.
‘The happiest thing in this world is probably someone turning the world upside-down for you over something small,’ Joan captioned with a selfie. The background was the building of East Joy Entertainment, and the lower right corner of the picture was the half-shoulder of a man. The material of the suit he was wearing was of superior quality and the design was fashionable.
This was the suit he was wearing when she met Sean at Kevin’s place today.
It seemed that he decided to destroy her studio without any regard for the livelihood of her legal wife just because he couldn’t get Alana’s designs. What a sc*mbag! With a stroke of determination, she tapped on ‘Unfollow’ and turned off the screen of her phone in frustration.
…
Meanwhile, the studio was in a mess. The phones were ringing off their hooks and Abigail picked up some of the words the assistants in the studio were saying, and mostly were about order cancellation.
“Did you contact our customers? What did they say?”
At first, Luna didn’t want her to worry, but seeing that there was no end to the order cancellation calls, she couldn’t control herself and lost a gasket. “They just gave us all sorts of silly excuses saying that the designs are not suitable. Finally, I got some information from an old customer. They only mentioned that they were paid to do this and asked whether we offended someone.”
Who else can we offend except Sean Graham? “How much did we lose?” Abigail asked bluntly.
“These orders are tailored-made dresses according to customers’ requirements. I planned to clear the payment with the factory after getting the final payment from the customers. Now that they’re not taking the dresses, we won’t get the final payment to pay what we owe to the factory. Adding everything together, we lost about… 2 to 2.8 million…”
2.8 million… He’s out to bankrupt us! Abigail thought, utterly furious, and almost couldn’t catch her breath. Just when she wanted to say something, her phone started ringing. So, she took a quick glance at it and saw that the caller was Sean.
“Accompany me to the Graham Estate tonight. Grandpa wants to see you.”
Abigail stared at the stack of canceled orders in her hands. She was already extremely frustrated, to begin with, but hearing Sean’s voice now only added fuel to her fury. Thus, she said indifferently, “I’m not in the position to visit the Graham Estate.”
At the other end of the line, Sean was quiet for a few seconds before ordering, “We’re not divorced yet. You cannot decide whether you want to go or not.”
Due to certain reasons, Sean was raised by his grandparents, Colby Graham and Lina Toth, and listened to everything they said. Therefore, he didn’t object when they wanted him to marry Abigail. During three years of his secret marriage to Abigail, his understanding of the obligations of a husband and a wife, besides the monthly coitus, was visiting the Graham Estate regularly to show Colby and Lina how blissful they were as a form of assurance.
Whoever made the elderly couple sad was Sean’s enemy.
If this call had happened any other time, she would have thought that he was being self-centered and demanding again. Yet, right when her company was in a crisis, he called and threatened her to go to the Graham Estate with him.
She couldn’t help but let out a contemptuous chuckle. My three years of love and dedication were for nothing. Not a single shard of it had touched Sean. For Joan’s sake, he’s willing to go as far as exterminating me.
So, she took a deep breath and went straight to the point. “Will you solve the crisis at the studio if I go to the
Graham Estate with you?”
Sean agreed without even thinking twice. “Okay. I’ll pick you up tonight.” After he hung up, his spirits were better than he imagined, and his lips even curved upward unintentionally.
He rarely took the initiative to contact Abigail and he would usually ask his assistant to contact her whenever Colby wanted him to visit with her. However, he decided to make this call personally because she had been throwing a tantrum recently. So, in his opinion, this call would serve as an out for her.
…
Sean called an internal line and gave his order emotionlessly, “Find out what issues L.Moon has encountered. There’s no need to inform me about anything and just take care of it straight away.”
Before the day was over, more than half of the canceled orders at L.Moon were restored. While Luna was still worried about the 2.8 million that they owed to the factory, the customers with canceled orders had all returned to her. They agreed to raise the price to compensate for the losses of the studio, and some even directly transferred the final payment without further prompting.
So, she turned to Abigail with a look that was mixed with surprise and concern. “Did Sean do this?”
Abigail’s heart, face, and words were equally cold as she uttered, “Yeah. A meal in exchange for 2.8 million. That’s a good deal.”
At 7.00PM, Sean arrived on time to pick her up, and they went to the Graham Estate without any exchange of words.
Before they entered the yard, he stopped in his tracks suddenly. When he caught sight of the deadpan look on her face, he grumbled in disgruntlement, “With this expression of yours, Grandpa will definitely smell a rat.”
In a split second, she curled her lips into a professional smile. “Fret not. I’ll finish the act since I’ve already given you my word.”
Sean’s eyes turned gloomy, and a ball of frustration welled up in his chest. She says that she’s acting, which means she still wants a divorce. But I’ve already solved the crisis for her studio. Why is she still unhappy? There was only one reason he could think of, and he asked in sarcasm, “Did you already find your next husband?”
Abigail wiped the smile off her face and answered provocatively, “So what if I did?” Does he think that he’s the only one with special privileges and then condemn me if I do the same?
The spot between his brows twitched in annoyance, but before he could say anything, the main gates swung open, and Dahlia greeted them with a surprised smile. “Mr. Sean and Ms. Abigail, you’re back!”
Sean held back his tongue and muttered softly in acknowledgment before walking in. After they were indoors and changed into indoor slippers, one of them went upstairs to look for Maverick, Sean’s father, while the other went to the living room to meet Colby and Lina.
Lina called Abigail to her side and observed her body. “You’re still not pregnant?” she asked and sighed. Then, she steered the conversation away. “It’s alright. Try again next month.”
Although her last statement carried no blame, it sounded like a curse to Abigail. There was no need for complicated incantations from Lina. Just those words were enough for her to tense up as it served as a regular reminder that this marriage was never equal when it started.
Before this, she would prepare for pregnancy so diligently because she thought that Lina was sincerely concerned about her. Until one day when she accidentally overheard Lina’s conversation with Dahlia, the butler, and heard the disdain in her voice. “Back then, I agreed to their marriage solely because I wanted her to bear our family a descendant. Her grandfather owes us a life, so it has to be paid with life as well, and I can only acknowledge that the debt is paid after a child is born. Otherwise, I wonder whether the Quinn Family is just taking advantage of us because we’re indebted to them.”
Colby had been an upright man all his life and would never tolerate something like this. Even if Abigail wanted to have a child, Sean would have to be a willing party as well.
Although Abigail was highly discomfited by Lina’s words, she only answered obediently, “Okay.”
Colby couldn’t help but frown upon his wife’s actions. “The kids rarely come home as it is. Don’t bring this up at every chance you’ve got.”
“Don’t deny it. You want a grandchild as badly as I do,” Lina snapped.
Nonetheless, he changed the topic. “Abigail, some rumors have been going around outside recently. What do you think about them?”
Abigail maintained her usual meek demeanor. “I trust that Sean will handle it well.”
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.