Chapter 96 Sleep in the Master Bedroom Tonight
Steven awkwardly grunted in response, "Go ahead and buy it. We'll eat after shopping."
Nora laughed and looked at him meaningfully, "So actually, you do know how to apologize..."
He was pretty good at it, too!
He misunderstood Nora, so today he brought her shopping and let her use his card without limits.
This time, Nora really did ask for something: "I want to buy some gold."
Steven frowned, "What's so good about gold?"
"I can collect it!"
She read online about a woman who said that whenever her husband made her angry, she'd go buy gold to make him feel the pinch, so he'd make her angry less often in the future.
So Nora deliberately picked out a gold bangle and showed it off to Steven on her wrist, "Does it look good?"
Steven glanced at it—no patterns, just a plain gold bangle. "As long as you like it."
He didn't think it looked particularly good or bad, just a simple style.
Nora said with a smile, "Then I'll get this one!"
She only picked one and said to Steven, "From now on, every time you make me angry or misunderstand me, one bangle!"
Steven looked at her, "You really love money."
She held the gold bangle, smiling so hard her eyes disappeared, "Of course! Instead of sulking, might as well buy gold bangles!"
After buying the apology gift, she was in an excellent mood.
Seeing her happy made Steven happy too. Turns out making Nora happy wasn't that difficult after all.
Afterwards, he took her to dinner. Nora was so happy she chattered away the whole way, like a little kid.
Steven thought she'd become more childlike.
Or rather, she'd become closer to him.
When they got home, Olivia was already back. Nora showed her the gold bangle, "Olivia, Steven bought this for me!"
Hearing this, Steven's lips curved up slightly as he headed into the master bedroom.
Both of them were in good moods.
Olivia glanced at the bangle on her wrist and smiled, "Went out to buy a gold bangle tonight?"
"Yes, we had dinner and bought a gold bangle." Nora was in such a great mood. Before getting married, she'd never bought jewelry. After marriage, the few pieces of jewelry she had were gifts from Elizabeth.
This was the first gift she'd received from Steven—a gold bangle.
Sure, it was kind of tacky, but gold holds its value!
If she ever ran into trouble, she could sell it for cash!
"Look how happy you are." Olivia touched her head, a trace of sadness in her eyes.
Nora noticed Olivia wasn't happy. She dropped the smile from her lips and asked softly, "Olivia, did things not go well with Willie tonight?"
"Yes." Olivia stroked her hair. "He said if I want to make this work, I should go home and stop interfering with company matters. Also, he wants your shop returned to the company, but he'll give you an extra hundred thousand dollars."
Theoretically, nothing had changed. Willie just bought a diamond ring to coax her home, but he still insisted on having his way about everything else.
So they didn't reach an agreement tonight.
Olivia had thought that as long as Willie agreed to give Nora that shop and promised not to make things difficult for her anymore, she'd be willing to give him a chance.
Plus, she'd mentioned wanting to return to work at the company after having the baby.
Willie disagreed, saying that if she did that, the "war" at home would never end.
So Willie came to coax her just to get her on his side to gang up on Nora!
Did he think buying a diamond ring would win her over?
Olivia thought Willie was ridiculous.
Nora looked at Olivia's hand—the diamond ring was gone. Nora frowned, "Did he take the ring back?"
"I returned it to him." Olivia's eyes were sad. "Maybe this marriage really can't continue."
Willie kept asking her to compromise. No matter how unreasonable his mother was, Willie pretended not to see it and expected everyone to accommodate her.
Olivia said, "After I have the baby and get familiar with company operations, I'll divorce him. I'll take my share, and we'll start our own business."
Nora looked at Olivia, "Olivia, won't that be really hard on you?"
Starting a business right after having a baby would probably be really difficult.
Olivia said flatly, "What else can I do? If I just keep resting like this, by the time I'm done raising the kid, who knows what the world will look like? Before, I was the one running the market for the company. I know who all the suppliers are for those niche products. We can do it ourselves."
Actually, the most profitable products for Apex Technologies Corporation were those niche items.
Because the product suppliers were hard to find, sometimes it was a situation where demand exceeded supply—meaning if you had the product, you could charge whatever you wanted.
Nora nodded, "Olivia, no matter what, I support you."
Olivia said, "Better to rely on yourself than others. Nora, you'll work with me in the future. Olivia will give you company shares."
In the past, when Nora worked for Willie, he never gave her shares. Willie was actually being unfair—their situation back then was more like partners, but Willie was awful and deliberately made it sound like Nora was just helping him out. Nora was naive and didn't think much of it.
"Okay, Olivia, I'll always be on your side."
If Olivia really started a company, Nora would be even happier—she wouldn't have to deal with the Reed family's attitudes anymore.
After Nora showered, Olivia told her to go to sleep with Steven.
"Nora, go sleep with Steven. My belly's so big, and this bed is small. If I sleep with you, I won't even have room to turn over."
Just like that, Nora was kicked out by Olivia, with no room to refuse.
It was getting cold, too, so she couldn't sleep in the living room anymore. She carried her blanket, face flushed, and walked into Steven's room.
Steven was wearing loungewear, sitting lazily at his computer, browsing web pages.
Hearing footsteps, he immediately closed the computer.
Turning around, he saw Nora carrying her blanket, face red, walking in.
"I'm sleeping here tonight."
"Why?" Steven's gaze fell on her face.
Meeting his deep eyes, Nora felt a bit uncomfortable and turned her head away. "Olivia said the bed in the second bedroom is too small. She's afraid I'll press on her belly, so she told me to sleep here."
Steven's lips curved slightly, but he said nothing.
Nora didn't know what to say either. She put the blanket on the bed.
Sneaking under the covers, she crawled and crawled, making her way to the headboard, arranged a pillow, lay down on it, and sighed, "So comfortable! Steven, why is the mattress in your room so comfortable?"
She felt the mattress in his room was better than the one in her room.
The moment she lay on this one, it felt like it conformed to every inch of her skin, making her feel lazy and sleepy.
Of course, a $200,000 mattress was comfortable.
Steven chuckled, "Maybe I'm just that charming. When you see me, you feel comfortable."
Nora's face flushed. Why was he randomly flirting with her?