Chapter 109 Are You Ignoring Me Because of This
After that, Yulia went to Hong Kong.
On the other hand, Stella didn’t go look for Miles recently. In fact, she didn’t even text him a single message. She was certain that he knew her hatred toward him.
Meanwhile, Miles was sitting in his chair. How could he not know that Stella abhorred him when all evidence regarding Yulia’s rape and Amon’s products being rejected pointed to him.
While she didn’t send him a text, nor did he contact her, for he knew not what to say. All attempts to explain would be considered a cover-up. Even if he denied having sent someone to rape Yulia, he knew Stella would retort by saying that he must have saw that coming, which was true. However, he didn’t know Yulia was so weak when he always saw her as a conniving woman.
During one rainy day, he got off work late. He drove his car to leave from the front of Stella’s company. Stopping his car, he lifted his head to check on her office while lighting a cigarette. Incidentally, Stella was standing by the window with her head leaned against it, while her hands were tracing the trajectory of the rain drops that rolled down the glass panel.
While Miles didn’t know where she was looking, he knew she definitely hadn’t seen him. It’s raining, it’s pouring, and there stands a young lady. Miles squinted at her. She maintained that position for a while before turning to speak to a certain someone, who Miles presumed to be Matthew. Hah, Matthew Xenon, her best friend.
“Are you not leaving, Stella?” Matthew asked.
“Yeah, but it’s raining, so I’ll wait a bit before I leave,” she answered casually. The incident with Yulia was depressing. It drew a wedge between her and Miles, so she knew not how their relationship would progress from now on.
When Matthew approached the window, Stella put on a rueful smile. As soon as Matthew lowered his gaze, he saw Miles’ car parked downstairs. “Aren’t you going down?” he asked again, intentionally.
However, Stella didn’t seem to get what he meant. “I suppose I won’t be going back after all since I’ll be alone at home anyway. Besides, it’s raining. I think I’ll just spend the night in the lounge.”
“That sounds like a plan.” Matthew had his own lounge as he was constantly working overtime. After noticing how frequently Stella was working overtime, he set up a lounge for her as well.
After Matthew got downstairs, he walked up to Miles’ car, inquiring, “Since you’re here, why didn’t you go upstairs?”
There was a brief pause before Miles spoke. “You won’t understand.” Then, he drove away. After all, Matthew would never understand what had transpired between Stella and him.
Some time later, Stella had finished the medicinal herbs that she was prescribed. She wanted to get some more, for she noticed that her hormones were more balanced ever since taking them. Although she had only taken her meds for a short time, and there was still some time before her period, she noticed that her skin condition had improved. While she had always had nice skin, they were even more tender now that she took the meds. Therefore, she would like to go through another course of treatment.
She had been to the hospital with Miles once, so she had no problem navigating herself there. After getting her medicine, she bumped into Miles in the corridor. He had one hand shoved in his pocket while walking in strides with a look of indifference in his eyes. When he saw Stella approaching him from the front, he stopped in his tracks to question her. “Here for more herbal medicine?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you hate me because of what happened to Yulia?” He turned to ask when she brushed past him.
Startled, Stella smiled. “President Grant, you’ve always been a man of magnanimity, so I suppose you don’t concern yourself with mundanities, including a woman’s chastity.”
Miles gritted his teeth as veins popped on his forehead. “So you’re ignoring me because of that?” he questioned.
“No, not at all. Despite the feud between Yulia and me, we’re cousins, and we’re both women, so we can easily empathize with each other. How would you feel if what happened to Yulia were to happen to me?” Stella was speaking in a rapid-fire manner when she questioned him pointedly and with indignance. She wasn’t only questioning on Yulia’s behalf, but she thought she could sympathize with any woman who underwent such an ordeal.
“That will never happen to you, nor had I wished that upon Yulia!” Miles was riled up.
“I know you didn’t mean for that to happen, but you should’ve foresaw that happening when you put her in such circumstances!” Stella noticed Miles had been clutching on her arm since a while ago.
“She just reaped what she sowed!” Finally, he voiced out his opinions.
“You should’ve been more direct about it.” Stella raised her voice. Right when she brushed past him to leave, she seemed to have recalled something else, so she wheeled around to face him while asking, “Why are you here anyway?”
“Why do you care?” With his hand shoved in his pockets, Miles stood five meters away from her.
“Why wouldn’t I care?” she shot back.
“I came for a massage as my shoulder hurts. It hurts every day, so I come here every day.”
Hearing that, Stella left begrudgingly. Miles watched her figure disappear into the stairwell before turning to leave. In the end, he didn’t get the response that he wanted from her. Although they had a disagreement over Yulia’s incident, he wanted to try to redeem himself.
Meanwhile, Stella noticed that someone was waiting for her at Matthew’s house when she arrived. Despite how surreal it seemed, the person who was waiting for her was none other than Korbin. Such occurrences were few and far between. Korbin was partial toward his sons, so he used to mistreat his wife and Stella, for his wife never bore him a son. In effect, he treated Zane better than he did Stella.
He came to Stella with a request, for he wanted her to take over his factory, which confused her. Upon being prompted, he explained that the factory had been under financial deficit for some time.
When he noticed Stella’s disdainful gaze, he added in a flurry of panic, “You shouldn’t look down on my offer! Although the factory is under financial deficit and in major debt, you’ll be able to have a lot of fixed assets. I’m no longer young, so I can’t work anymore. Besides, the factory keeps losing money, and I can no longer stand it. Someone else might be able to do a better job than I did.”
Korbin’s factory provided building materials at wholesale price for construction sites, but he never earned much from the business.
“I don’t have experience managing factories like this, so I’ll only push the factory into bankruptcy! I’m not going to take over the factory since I don’t have the money to repay the debts anyway.” She handed the balance sheet and license back to Korbin.
Anxious, Korbin stopped her. “Hold on! Don’t you have Miles’ support?”
She glared at him menacingly. This must be what he’s been up to. He knows that while I might not know a thing about managing a factory, I am his daughter, so Miles will help run it, and the asset will still be his. Hmph! Just why would he assume that Miles will even want to or be able to help?
“He’s very busy, and so am I. We’ve been constantly traveling between Murdough and Hollowcrest City for work!” she bit back. After spending a few months running her own business, she could at least understand the balance sheet. She noticed that Korbin had taken all the assets that were profiting, with the exception of the factory that was on the verge of bankruptcy. Only an idiot would take over that.
Upon noticing that Stella wouldn’t take over the factory, he said, “I never told you that your mother had left some inheritance for you. Knowing that you wouldn’t accept my offer, I brought it with me.”
“What is it?” She abhorred her father for hiding whatever it was that her mother had left for her.
“It’s a secret!”
“Then get lost!”
Seeing that Stella was staunch about it, Korbin took out his phone from his pocket to play an audio recording in it—it was her mother’s last words. She could hear her mother reminding her to make the best out of her life. Other than taking care of herself, she wished that Stella could—
Then, Korbin stopped the recording despite the fact that Stella was weeping, which irked her. “Stella, as long as you are willing to take over the factory, I’ll give you the phone after we go through all the necessary procedures for the transfer. She left a lengthy recording for you, so what do you think?”
Korbin had always been threatening Stella like that. In the end, she could only concede. It was the only recording she would have of her mother. Besides, what followed seemed to be important, so she was keen to know her mother’s last message.
Overjoyed, Korbin brought Stella along to run through the various procedures. From then on, it would be Stella instead of Korbin who was responsible for the factory that was under financial deficit. On the other hand, Stella didn’t hold out much hope of turning things around. When worse came to worst, she would file for bankruptcy. Since she never was involved in the business, the bankruptcy wouldn’t affect her. She only took over the factory in order to obtain her mother’s recorded voice.
In the second part of the recording, her mother told her to divorce Zane if she wasn’t happy in the marriage. There were a lot of nice men out there, and with Stella’s beauty and kindness, she should be able to find herself a great spouse. After listening to the recording, Stella bawled her eyes out in her house. The recording touched her deeply, as if her mother was still alive.
She transcribed the recording into an audio file that she made a few copies of to be saved in her laptop and phone as backup in fear of losing it, as it would mean that the only proof of her mother’s existence might vanish just like that. On the other hand, she didn’t spend a single coin to obtain the factory, so she didn’t lose anything anyway. Other than that, Korbin was her father despite what he had done, so she considered it as fulfilling her filial duties. All the while, she thought that was all there was to the factory.
A week later, Yulia came back from Hong Kong. She headed straight for Miles’ office after that to redeem her rewards on the grounds that she had fulfilled her end of the bargain by ruining the agreement between Zane and Karl. Now that Zane was no longer able to obtain any projects in Murdough, she figured that it should be Miles’ turn to fulfil his end of the bargain. Back then, she didn’t mention her terms for she was certain that Miles would be able to fulfil them, so she came back for them.
She didn’t know if Miles knew she was raped. While she had told Stella about it, she wasn’t sure if she told him. However, she would bury that deep down within her and never mention it again.
