Chapter 108 I’m Not Above You Seducing Him
As soon as Miles saw Stella leaving for Hollowcrest City with the catalog, he knew that she would be expressing her gratitude to Matthew with a smile on her face. After all, a bosom friend was hard to come by, so he was certain she would want to express how much she treasured Matthew.
Stella was frightened by his presence. “You tailed me?”
Miles chuckled mirthlessly. “You’re overthinking things, Miss Johansson. In fact, it’s because you were so engrossed in your conversation with Matthew that you neglected my presence.”
Hearing that, she hung her head low sheepishly, as it was true that she didn’t notice anybody standing outside Matthew’s office. Her eagerness to return home and the fact that she went to Matthew as soon as she returned to Hollowcrest City riled him up.
Although she returned for work and to thank Matthew, both of them were distorted by Miles’ perception. It was as if he still perceived her as the disloyal woman whom he met last year, who would fall into the arms of every single man she met.
Last night, he was still addressing her endearingly, but he switched back to being formal today, which was exasperating for her. Thus, she entered her house and then slammed the door in his face.
Despite this, Miles didn’t try to barge into her house. After spending some time loitering about, he left.
The next day, Miles was napping on his chair in his office, all the while thinking of methods to deal with Zane. Although he had been meaning to do so for some time, he just didn’t have the time to. He saw Zane as a conniving man who first aborted his child and then repeatedly tried to cause him trouble. Therefore, he was determined to teach Zane a lesson while catching him off guard.
In fact, if it wasn’t for his concern over Stella trying to appease him, he had no qualms killing Zane off for all he cared. Other than Zane, Kevin was also a concern of his, but he decided he should leave him be for now. By noon, he asked Yulia out to talk over lunch.
The fact that Miles was the one who initiated contact made Yulia nervous, but at the same time feel as elated and confused as a young girl. She put on some light makeup, but she repeatedly removed and reapplied it as it just didn’t feel right. After all, it was her first ever alone time with Miles. Although she wasn’t sure why he asked her out, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to doll up.
They met up in a high-end confectionery store. Knowing that girls liked desserts, he already ordered a tiramisu and ice cream for her, while he had some coffee. Yulia hung her head low coyly, thinking that he was being considerate. “President Grant, do you need anything from me?”
“Are you and Zane behind what happened in Murdough?” Leaning back in his chair, Miles crossed his arms while asking her.
As expected, Yulia’s face was drained of color in an instant. “No! I didn’t—”
However, Miles already had an inkling about it. There wouldn’t otherwise be such a coincidence. “I want to undermine Zane, but I don’t want to show myself, so I need your help.” Then, he laid out his aims and terms plainly, which befitted his ruthless and arrogant character that enchanted Yulia.
“How should I help?” She agreed to help Zane in the first place as she was trying to pull Miles and Stella apart. However, now that Miles personally came to her for help, she no longer saw the need to conspire with Zane.
Since she was to help Miles out, she figured that she would ask for a handsome reward. Although she already had her terms listed out, she decided to keep them to herself for the time being, as she wasn’t at all worried about a breach of contract on Miles’ end, for she could always hold the deeds that she did under his orders against him as leverage. After that, Miles had her scoot closer to the front to tell her to find a way to see to it that the agreement that Zane would be signing in the near future fell through.
“That’s a piece of cake. How about I seduce him?” The whole point of her asking this question was to feel out how he felt about it.
However, he replied nonchalantly, “I’m not against that.”
The fact that he wasn’t above that disappointed her. He would definitely not allow Stella to put herself on the line like that. On the contrary, he didn’t object to me doing that, for he didn’t care about me. There was an obvious look of dejection and grief on her face. It was as if she had to follow the plan through now that she’d mentioned it.
According to Miles, the company that Zane would be working with was Newton International. Having gained all the info she could regarding the project, she took a day off from work the next day to go to Murdough. Sure enough, the agreement fell through because of Yulia despite the fact that Zane was about to sign the contract with the president of Newton International.
In fact, it wasn’t Yulia who ruined the whole thing but Miles, seeing that he was the mastermind. After all, Newton International would defer to Miles on a whim. Miles was aiming to drive a wedge between Zane and Yulia through the incident, as well as ruin Zane’s career. While Yulia succeeded in seducing the president to revoke the agreement, she also got raped by him.
Yulia was left sprawling out on bed lifelessly in the eerily silent room. She thought she had brought it upon herself. Throughout her career, she always managed to handle everything with skill and ease. Having met all sorts of people, she figured that seducing someone else into canceling an agreement would be easy-peasy. However, she ended up putting herself in danger. With the man’s burly build and influence, she had no way to go against him.
Meanwhile, the president of Newton International, Karl Newton, told Miles when he gave the latter a call, “President Grant, the woman you sent me is such a feast!”
Miles frowned while asking, “What did you do to her?”
After clearing his throat, the president said, “I said, she’s a feast, so what do you think I’ve done to her?”
Miles acknowledged that he had allowed things to get off the rail. His initial plan was to pin everything on Yulia for Zane’s loss in order to shift the blame, which should break off their collaboration. However, he didn’t expect Yulia to be raped. The consequences were far more grave than he’d imagined it to be.
On the other hand, Yulia had put on a facade to cover up the incident. She didn’t know Karl knew Miles, nor did she know what his intent was. Therefore, she had no idea what Miles had done behind her back.
Meanwhile, Zane was already blaming Yulia for his loss. Since it was Miles’ aim to have them turn against each other, he had spread rumors about the fact that Yulia was the one behind Zane’s loss.
“Tell me! Why did you do this?” Zane grabbed on her collar while yelling at her on a rainy night.
Yulia had made a wrong move by coming to Murdough. Not only was she raped, but she lost Zane’s trust despite the fact that their relationship started off as a pact. She was lifeless and basically mute after the incident. Although she wanted to blame it on Miles, she was the one who agreed to the deal. Miles didn’t force her to do that.
Citing that she would like to go on a trip due to her feeling down, Yulia quit her job right away. Soon after, the company assigned the position to someone else, which led to the outfit that Stella’s company designed being discarded, for the new manager didn’t like the design. No matter how much effort she had put into it, she had no way to alter someone else’s opinion on it.
Due to the fact that they already signed a contract, Meridian Trading paid the full sum, but they didn’t send anyone to retrieve the goods, for they didn’t like the design. Exasperated, Stella was on the verge of tears. It was her first ever major contract that she spent a lot of time working on. While she didn’t expect her design to be well acclaimed, she did want to build up her profile.
After some time, Yulia came to Stella’s company, driven to distraction. When Stella asked her what happened, she fell into her arms while weeping. Seeing that Yulia seemed to have something to say, Stella had a bad feeling about it, so she inquired what had happened.
After that, Yulia told her the full story, from when Miles requested that she go sow discord between Zane and Karl up to when Karl raped her. Although Yulia had known it would be a risky job, she never expected Karl to be so brazen. Other than that, he was also far stronger than her, so she had no way to fight back.
Hearing that, Stella collapsed into her chair. Miles… Why would you do such a thing? Did he not expect this to happen, or was it a deliberate move on his part? Stella knew what Miles’ aim was after she combed through the incident. Most probably, the incident in Murdough already crossed a line. When coupled by the fact that the forced abortion that Zane had Stella undergo had affected her health, Miles saw it necessary to ruin Zane’s life in order to vent his frustrations.
By manipulating Yulia, he could instigate a conflict and pit Yulia and Zane against each other while he watched from the sidelines. It was likely that Miles had thought up such a plan. He bore a grudge against Zane, so much so that he would gladly wipe him out by all means necessary.
However, she didn’t understand what good would it do to have someone rape Yulia. “Where do you plan to go after this?” Stella inquired casually. She was a little distracted by her disappointment over how Miles had handled things.
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll go on a trip. I no longer want to work in Meridian Trading. After all, I’m sure you know what’s the most important thing to a woman.” Yulia wore a wistful smile as she spoke, swallowing all the insults helplessly.
After Yulia left, Stella burst into tears. However, she dared not wail out loud in fear of being overheard by her colleagues. Therefore, she clasped her hands over her mouth as she sobbed in the office. Incidentally, Matthew saw her crying when he passed by, so he walked over to check on her. “What’s the matter?”
All she did was continue to cover her mouth, but she couldn’t hold back her sobs, so they only got ever louder. Although Matthew urged her time and again, Stella still refused to tell him, as it had to do with Yulia’s reputation. Despite their long-standing feud, they were cousins who used to share fond memories with each other.
In the end, Meridian Trading never picked up the outfit that they ordered. Since they already paid for them, Stella’s company couldn’t hold them accountable. Due to a lack of storage space, they decided to distribute the outfit among the employees for free. While Matthew felt sorry that the project fell through, he wasn’t nearly as distraught as Stella was. Well, I suppose the fact that her first batch of products didn’t get sent off can be quite discouraging even though we didn’t suffer losses.
In fact, Yulia had told her successor to not retrieve their order just so she could deal Stella a blow. Although she had quit her job, she was still influential in her company. Meanwhile, she described her rape in gruesome detail so that Stella could empathize with her. Why should Stella get to ascend in the ranks and have a harmonious relationship with Miles when I’m at my nadir? I will deal her a blow in both aspects so as to make up for my loss after being raped!
