Free Web NovelChapter 69: Chapter 69: They Really Are Having an Affair
In the car, Sophie Shaw let out a sudden sneeze.
She rubbed her itchy nose, glanced at the man focused on driving, and gave a wry smile. "I feel like someone is badmouthing me."
’Joseph Shaw was furious. He was definitely going to badmouth me for this.’
’She hadn’t wanted her relationship with Joseph Shaw to become so strained, but she was utterly disappointed in him.’
’When she was a child and refused to eat carrots, Mr. Kane had disciplined her, striking her hands with chopsticks while Joseph Shaw stood silently by, doing nothing. When Vianne Kane bullied her and a fight broke out, Mr. Kane locked her in a dark room, and Joseph Shaw still remained indifferent.’
’He would always come to offer a few words of comfort afterward, but she didn’t want his belated platitudes. She wanted the support a father should provide.’
’Joseph Shaw had disappointed her too many times. From his indifference when her mother’s necklace went missing to the time her precious sketchbook was thrown away...’
"Mr. Blackwood, when are you going back to work?"
"Unless something comes up, tomorrow."
Sophie Shaw nodded. ’That works out well,’ she thought.
’They weren’t planning on a honeymoon anyway. With him going back to work, it was the perfect time for her to start taking care of her own business.’
"Starting tomorrow, I’ll be busy too."
Alaric Blackwood gave a thoughtful smile. "Busy with what?"
"Taking back what’s rightfully mine."
...
In the afternoon, Sophie Shaw went to Heart of the Ocean.
She arrived in her capacity as a shareholder and, ignoring the secretary’s attempts to stop her, marched straight into Damian Morgan’s office. frёeωebɳovel.com
Damian Morgan was leaning back in his executive chair, on the phone with Vianne Kane. He was murmuring sweet nothings to her when the office door was suddenly pushed open.
He froze for a moment when he saw Sophie Shaw in her sharp business suit. He quickly said into the phone to Vianne Kane, "Babe, I’ve got to go. Do a good job with your filming. I’ll be waiting for you."
He hung up, tossed his phone onto the desk, and glanced at the secretary who had followed Sophie Shaw in. He raised a hand, gesturing for her to leave.
The door closed. Sophie Shaw walked to the sofa, sat down, and began to state her terms to Damian Morgan.
"Pay me the year’s salary you owe me."
Damian Morgan nodded, and then she added, "I want to come back to work in the design department."
"So, you’ve had a change of heart?"
"I poured my heart and soul into this company too. Since I can’t stop the Kane Group from acquiring it, I’m here to claim my piece of the pie."
Damian Morgan narrowed his eyes, studying her with suspicion.
’He didn’t understand why she’d had this change of heart.’
’From what he knew of Sophie Shaw, she was stubborn and unyielding. She wanted control of Heart of the Ocean and shouldn’t have given up so easily.’
"You’re Mrs. Blackwood now. You don’t need the money, so why come back to the design department?"
Sophie Shaw’s face was cold. "Because I’m a jewelry designer and I want to put my skills to use. Is that a problem?"
"I suppose, but you have better options. With your current status, it would be easy to start your own company and be your own boss. So why come back?"
"Like I said, I have my own blood, sweat, and tears invested here. I want Heart of the Ocean to thrive. At least on that point, our goals are the same."
After a moment’s hesitation, Damian Morgan agreed. "Report to the design department tomorrow."
Having gotten his approval, Sophie Shaw grabbed her bag and left.
Just as she reached the door, Damian Morgan’s voice drifted over to her. "Are you and Alaric Blackwood getting along well?"
"Extremely well."
"Have you... slept together?"
"What’s it to you?"
"Just curious."
Sophie Shaw shot him a look, pulled open the door, and walked out.
The next morning, she reported to the design department right on time.
After reacquainting herself with the work environment, she looked through a few design sketches she had on her phone. She wanted to perfect them but had no inspiration or clear ideas.
As she was staring intently at the screen, someone leaned in beside her.
"What’s this?"
Yara Valentine caught a glimpse of her screen. She could only tell it was a design sketch, but before she could see it clearly, Sophie Shaw quickly flipped her phone over and placed it on the desk.
"Did you draw this?"
Sophie Shaw shook her head.
Yara Valentine hadn’t known her well before; they were in different departments and had little interaction. Now that they were both in the design department, Yara was deliberately trying to cozy up to her, asking about the incident with her resignation letter.
"Did you and the boss really date?"
Sophie Shaw smiled and said in a low voice, "For three years."
"Wow, you kept that under wraps. I also heard you’re a shareholder in the company?"
"You seem to know a lot."
"Just what I heard. Is it true?"
"It’s true. Otherwise, I couldn’t have come back to work this easily."
Yara Valentine said, "Oh," her gaze sweeping over Sophie’s outfit, which was from a major luxury brand.
Just yesterday, employees had been whispering that Sophie Shaw had married up, snagging the heir to a rich conglomerate. Yara hadn’t believed it, but seeing her today, Sophie’s head-to-toe outfit had to be worth tens of thousands, at least.
She looked down, tapped her phone a few times, and searched for yesterday’s trending posts about Alaric Blackwood’s wedding. Even though there were only a few photos of the ceremony, she thought the bride looked very familiar.
"This is you, isn’t it?"
She pointed to a photo of the bride, who was wearing a traditional wedding gown as the groom lifted her veil.
Due to the distance, the candid photo wasn’t very clear.
Sophie Shaw glanced at it. "That’s me."
"How did you manage to land the young master of the Blackwood family?"
Yara Valentine looked thrilled, as if she were dying to learn all of Sophie’s secrets.
Sophie just smiled. "You want to know?"
"To land a playboy like him... you’ve really got some skills."
Sophie’s lips curled into a smile. "How about we find a place tonight? We can have a couple of drinks and talk it over."
"No problem, my treat."
Sophie had thought she could use the opportunity to ply Yara Valentine with a few drinks and get some information out of her. But unexpectedly, at the end of the workday, Yara told her apologetically, "Sorry, I can’t make it tonight. I have to work overtime to finish a design."
Sophie smiled and said, "No problem. We can do it another time."
When it was time to leave, Sophie Shaw grabbed her bag and clocked out.
She followed the crowd into the elevator down to the ground floor. On the pretense of having forgotten her charger, she returned upstairs alone, taking the stairs back to the company’s floor.
She avoided the company’s security cameras and, taking advantage of the shift change in the security office, successfully slipped into a lounge.
It was the very same lounge where Damian Morgan and Yara Valentine would have their trysts.
’Yara was working overtime, and Vianne Kane—who had to rush to her film set after the wedding—wasn’t around. Damian would very likely pull his old tricks and fool around with Yara in the lounge.’
She had already silenced her phone and hidden herself inside a closet against the wall.
The closet was mostly filled with spare clothes and personal items left by employees for emergencies.
However, after Heart of the Ocean made it through its difficult startup phase, employees rarely worked overtime, so the spare clothes in the closet were seldom used.
Furthermore, when the company was founded, most of the office furniture had been bought secondhand to save money. This closet door was slightly damaged and hung crookedly, leaving a gap about a centimeter wide—more than enough to film through.
She hid in the closet and waited patiently until eight o’clock at night, when the lounge door was finally pushed open.
FLICK.
The lights came on. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
Through the gap in the closet door, she could clearly see Damian Morgan walk in, his arm hooked around a woman’s waist.
As soon as they were inside, the man shut the door and impatiently pressed the woman against it, kissing her.
After a passionate kiss, he abruptly lifted the woman and threw her onto the sofa.
The woman was none other than Yara Valentine.
’So they really were having an affair.’
Sophie had started recording the moment the two of them entered. The closet’s position was perfect, directly facing the sofa, allowing her to capture their entire tryst on her phone.
