Chapter 12: Begging on His Knees
The studio was perfectly organized, clean enough that it hardly seemed like a single man’s residence.
A note lay on the desk.
“Evelyn, there is food in the fridge, and clean towels and spare clothes in the bathroom. Treat this as your own home. Please be careful with everything. If you need anything at all, call me anytime. Ethan.”
The handwriting was neat and forceful, just like him: gentle and dependable.
Evelyn’s eyes welled up.
When the whole world had abandoned her, it was Ethan who offered a helping hand.
She carefully placed the document envelope on the workstation, then walked into the bathroom.
Hot water streamed from the showerhead, washing over her cold body. She looked at her disheveled reflection in the mirror: pale-faced, lips utterly bloodless, her eyes filled with exhaustion and alarm.
She could not afford to collapse.
Professor Hays’s ultimatum echoed in her ears.
This was her only chance.
She quickly finished showering and changed into a spacious white T-shirt and sweatpants Ethan had prepared. The T-shirt even smelled faintly of sunshine.
This long-lost, normal scent, which did not belong to Damian’s mansion, slightly eased her strained nerves.
She walked to the workstation, opened the document envelope, and took out the design drafts she had secretly brought out, the ones she had drawn during countless sleepless nights.
In the studio, the scanner emitted a low hum.
Evelyn meticulously digitized every page of the design drafts, then attached them to an email addressed to Professor Victoria Hays.
Just as she was about to press the send button, her heart sank sharply.
Something was wrong.
She quickly flipped through the originals in her hand, one page, two pages...
Evelyn’s face grew whiter and whiter.
Without that single drawing, the entire design was incomplete. Professor Hays, who tolerated absolutely no imperfection, would surely throw her work away like trash.
Go back, or not go back?
She had no choice. She rushed out, utterly desperate.
Half an hour later, Evelyn returned to the mansion she knew so intimately. Taking advantage of the servants being busy in the front hall, she slipped in through the side garden door.
She tiptoed up to the second floor. The bedroom door was ajar.
She held her breath, rushed into the bedroom, and yanked open the nightstand drawer. The missing draft lay safely inside.
The moment she held the draft, a delicate, yet chilling voice sounded behind her.
“I thought we had a mouse infestation!” Sienna leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed, a triumphant smile on her face.
She saw the blueprints in Evelyn’s hand, and her smile deepened.
“Give them back to me.”
“Give them back to you?” Sienna stepped forward and snatched the draft away. “Do you really think you still have the right to command me?”
“Riiip.”
The crisp sound of tearing paper exploded in the room.
Right in front of her, Sienna ripped the draft, which held all of Evelyn’s hope, into pieces, scattering them wantonly onto the floor.
“Want them?” Sienna poked at the paper fragments on the floor with the pointed toe of her diamond-studded red high heel. “Kneel down, pick them up like a dog. Then I will pretend I never saw you, and I won’t tell Damian you came back.”
Humiliation washed over Evelyn like a tide.
But she looked at the fragments. They were her last chance.
She gritted her teeth, her knees buckling, and she knelt on the cold floor.
A sharp pain shot through her abdomen. She ignored it, reaching out a trembling hand to gather the pieces.
Just as her fingertips touched a scrap of paper, a red high heel slammed down onto the back of her hand, grinding hard.
“Pick them up faster, my patience is limited.”
A searing, agonizing pain radiated from the bones of her hand, threatening to nail Evelyn to the floor in this moment of shame.
Cold sweat broke out on Evelyn’s forehead, and the secret cramping in her abdomen became increasingly clear.
But she could not retreat.
She stared intently at the fragments on the ground that held her future, her jaws aching from clenching her teeth.
Sienna enjoyed Evelyn’s tortured expression, treating it like a thrilling play.
Finally bored, she lifted her heel and contemptuously kicked a few scraps of paper toward Evelyn with the toe of her shoe.
“Get out. Don’t dirty my carpet.”
She did not even spare Evelyn another glance, turning to call the mansion’s butler. She spoke in a commanding tone: “The surveillance camera at the entrance ‘broke.’ No one came by this afternoon, understood?”
Sienna did this not out of kindness. She simply did not want Damian to discover Evelyn and then keep the woman around again.
She wanted Evelyn gone for good.
Evelyn said nothing more, grabbed all the fragments, endured the severe pain, and fled the mansion through the back door.
When Damian returned home, he found a trembling Sienna.
Her collar was slightly torn, and her eyes were bloodshot.
“Damian, you are finally back,” she rushed into his arms, her voice choked with tears. “Evelyn... she came back just now, like a lunatic, demanding some design drafts. I tried to calm her down, and she, she pushed me...”
Damian’s face instantly darkened.
He supported Sienna, his gaze sweeping over her slightly messy hair and torn collar. His fury instantly ignited.
“Where is she?”
“How could I stop her? She grabbed the things and ran.”
“I was so scared, Damian. The way she looked at me... it was like she wanted to kill me.”
“She has completely lost it!” Damian’s fists clenched, his knuckles cracking.
Stealing?
And daring to use violence?
He pulled out his phone and called his assistant. “Check the surveillance. Find that damned woman for me, now!”
Evelyn returned to Ethan’s studio, moving like a puppet about to fall apart.
She painstakingly pieced the shattered paper fragments together on the desk, taping them up piece by piece with clear adhesive tape.
She scanned the draft and, along with the previous attachments, sent it to Professor Hays.
A confirmation of successful sending popped up. It felt as if all the strength had been drained from her body.
Time passed, moment by moment. Just as anxiety was about to swallow her whole, her email notification chimed.
It was a reply from Professor Hays.
[Design drafts passed the preliminary review. Attend the in-person second-round review and defense one week from now in Brooklyn, New York.]
A short line of text, yet it brought her a glimmer of hope.
However, before she could even catch her breath, the studio door was rattled with earth-shattering force.
“Evelyn! Open the door! I know you are in there! Get out!”
It was Damian’s enraged voice.
Before Evelyn could react, the lock was violently smashed open. Damian charged in with two bodyguards, his bloodshot eyes locked onto her like a provoked beast.