Chapter 81
James froze for a moment, then quickly snatched the phone away and hung up.
"Mr. Morgan, what should we do next?"
The contract was signed. James figured they could head home now, right? His precious wife had been calling him eight times a day to check in.
William looked at his assistant of many years with complete disdain in his eyes.
"Did you really need to save her contact with such a cheesy name?"
James was mortified. His crazy devotion to his wife had just been unexpectedly exposed to his boss, and worse yet, his boss was totally clueless about romance.
"Mr. Morgan, it's not easy to find a wife. These days, if you're lucky enough to marry someone you actually like, you'd better cherish her, or you're just asking for trouble, right?"
As he spoke, his phone rang again.
William rubbed his temples. "Just answer it already! I can't stand this!"
James quickly turned away to take the call. William had given permission, so if he hung up again, he'd be kneeling on a bed of thorns when he got home.
William watched as James covered his mouth with one hand, lowering his voice to report his schedule to the person on the other end, constantly saying sweet nothings. His tone was so much softer than usual.
He wondered what kind of woman could turn his sharp, capable assistant into an obedient man who had to report his whereabouts three to five times a day whenever he went on a trip. He pulled out his own phone and looked at it—nothing but spam messages, not a single text.
He had no idea what that woman at home was doing. She'd been sleeping like a log when he left this morning, no message when his plane landed, and now he'd been gone all day without even a simple greeting from her.
She'd probably forgotten she even had a husband!
James finished his call and put away his phone, then noticed William's phone was open to a Facebook chat window, his finger rapidly tapping on the screen, typing a line, deleting it, then starting over.
"Mr. Morgan, actually, you don't need to make it so complicated. Just write 'Hey, babe, what are you doing? I miss you!' and send it. Women are sensitive to words. Mrs. Ava Morgan would definitely be happy to get that."
William immediately pressed the home button. "Who said I'm messaging her? I'm just checking if the design department finished today's evaluation."
James nearly choked on his water. He'd clearly seen Ava's profile picture in that chat window. The CEO was still being stubborn. With that kind of pride, he wondered how William even got along with Ava at home. He didn't use that habitually sharp tongue at home, too, did he?
What woman could stand that?
"Mr. Morgan, you need to sweet-talk women. Keep them happy and the whole household runs smoothly."
William scoffed, his eyes full of contempt. "Like you do?"
All that "sweetie," "honey," "baby," "love you," "miss you"... Just thinking about it gave William goosebumps. Those kinds of cheesy lines—he could never say them in this lifetime. He couldn't get past that mental barrier.
"Can your wife even stand you being like this?"
James scratched his head. Every sweet nothing he'd whispered to his wife on the phone today had been overheard by his boss.
"Mr. Morgan, don't make fun of me. If you like a girl, you've got to show her; otherwise, how will she know you care? You have no idea how complicated women's minds can be. If I send a message and leave out one punctuation mark, she can imagine a thousand different scenarios."
"Sounds exhausting. Better to stay single."
William's comment killed the conversation dead.
"Mr. Morgan, when are we heading back?"
James changed the subject.
William was still fiddling with his phone, unlocking it, then locking the screen, over and over.
"Mr. Morgan, if you miss Mrs. Ava Morgan, just give her a call. Even chatting about everyday stuff would be fine."
William glared at him. "I'm not that bored."
James didn't dare push further.
"Go look up anyone named Joseph. In that spreadsheet you gave me before, I remember that name was most common in Harmony City."
James acknowledged the request. Though he didn't know why they were looking into this person, his gut told him it was related to Ava.
In Emerald City, Ava had a bad feeling, as if sensing something. She couldn't think of what disaster might be coming her way.
Around six o'clock, she saw today's design evaluation results in the design department group chat. Her work had been ranked dead last.
Ava stared at her phone speechlessly for a long time. She looked through everyone else's work—not that they were bad, but her design definitely shouldn't have been ranked last!
Evelyn's message came through right after:
"Ava, today's evaluation wasn't fair. Ella attached everyone's names to their work. Originally, the necklace you designed had the highest score, but after they saw the name, it got pushed to last place. They did it on purpose!"
Evelyn was indignant on Ava's behalf in her message.
"Who got first place?"
"A ring designed by Ms. Brown."
"What happens to the first-place work?"
Ava was new to the Morgan Group and wasn't familiar with these company procedures yet. Fortunately, Evelyn was willing to explain everything to her.
"Except for the bottom three, all the other designs get produced and sold in the Morgan Group's official retail stores."
Ava opened Sarah's work. At first glance, it looked familiar, similar to something she'd seen at a jewelry exhibition before.
She did a quick web search, and sure enough, just as she thought, the ring Sarah designed was eighty percent similar to a work that had won a best design award ten years ago. She remembered that the piece was created by a foreigner who happened to be signed with SWAN, making them colleagues of sorts.
Sarah was clever—taking a design from ten years ago and making slight modifications. The oldest employee in the design department was only in their early thirties, so ten years ago, they would have been in college at most, some even still in middle school. No one would notice she was plagiarizing someone else's work.
Ava thought Sarah was being stupid. In the design industry, not creating a hit wasn't a big deal, but plagiarism was the ultimate taboo. Once a designer got labeled as a plagiarist, they were basically blacklisted from the industry.
Sarah valued fame and fortune above everything else. The consequences of what she'd planted would eventually destroy her reputation.
Ava opened SWAN's internal network and spent a long time finding and saving the award video from years ago.
Sarah was in a hurry to self-destruct. When the time came, Ava would need to give her a little push.
The next day, Ava ran into Sarah, who was touching up her makeup in the restroom.
After learning about Ava's pregnancy, Sarah didn't even bother pretending anymore and directly confronted her.
"He still makes you come to work while you're pregnant—he probably doesn't want the baby in your belly at all, does he?"
Sarah's eyes swept over Ava's belly with ill intent.
Ava walked past her to the sink to wash her hands.
"He doesn't feel comfortable leaving me alone at home, so bringing me to the office makes it easier to take care of me. Haven't you noticed that every day at lunch, he has a meal ready and waiting for me in his office?"
Sarah's face went deathly pale with anger. She recalled that time she'd brought a homemade lunch to the CEO's office, full of hope, only to see the man who had once promised to marry her having lunch with this vixen, the atmosphere painfully intimate.
She'd thrown that lunch she'd spent all morning making into the trash right then and there, and hadn't used her kitchen since.
"Ava, let's talk."
Ava pulled out a tissue to dry her hands, asking casually,
"Talk about what?"
A mistress initiating a conversation with the wife—no matter how you looked at it, this wouldn't be a pleasant chat.
Sarah was anxious. Combined with William's recent change in attitude toward her and discovering Ava's pregnancy, she'd been losing sleep night after night, her heart filled with unease.
"Let's go to the coffee shop. It's not convenient to talk here."
Sarah had an expression that said she wanted to settle things. After all their open and covert battles, now she wanted to bring everything out into the open for negotiation. In the end, she was the one who couldn't hold out any longer.