CHAPTER 158: CHAPTER 157. CRANKING THE GEARS

[Miss! Miss! This Mari missed you so much, Miss!]

Like a lamb that lost its beloved shepherd, Mari looked like she would jump across the screen to meet Sarah directly if she could. She pressed her face so closely that only her teary eyes were visible on the screen, and Honey had to snatch the phone from her hand.

While Hajin rolled his eyes at their little lamb’s antics, Sarah couldn’t help but chuckle. Sometimes, she did miss hearing her energetic rambling about the annoying staff members in the mansion.

Actually, she wouldn’t mind hearing about it again--if there wasn’t a more pressing matter to talk about.

"Are you in a secure place?" Sarah asked. They looked like they were in the annex, but the annex wasn’t exactly a secure place to talk.

[Yes, Lady Boss] Honey was the one who replied, calm and maintaining elegance in contrast to the little lamb. [The mistress is doing a check-up with the chairman, so we’re free to talk]

"You told her to?" Sarah smirked.

[Naturally] Honey placed the phone on a tripod so they could see Mari kneeling on the floor of what seemed like Hajin’s old bedroom--currently belonged to Honey. They saw Honey in the next second, dressed like a well-paid personal assistant of a conglomerate madam, taking a seat on the edge of a bed.

It was one of her ’advice’ for Vivian: to demand that the chairman accompany her for a pregnancy check-up before going on a date. Of course, since it was a date, her presence was not needed, giving her a chance to give a tandem report with Mari.

"So, how’s the situation over there?"

[Chaotic] Mari said enthusiastically, eyes sparkling and everything.

"Oh?" Sarah leaned back, crossing her legs and sloshing her wine glass--filled with cranberry juice.

[Yes, yes--listen, Miss! So what happened is--]

In her true, usual flair, Mari used her body to tell the story, like a performance. Even Honey watched her in amusement, and ended up providing some additional dialogue or extra information in the middle to spice things up.

From that combined performance, Sarah and Hajin found out that Mason’s fiancée--Denise--finally broke the engagement--something they had been waiting for.

But no--she did not come to the main house herself, as if it hurt her pride to even face the fiancé who hadn’t been contacting her. She sent someone else; either her secretary, her manager, or the family’s lawyer--Mari wasn’t very sure. The woman came with a burly ’assistant’ and an equally burly ’driver’ who were obviously bodyguards, if not bouncers.

Because of those two, there was tension in the sitting room where Mason received the guests. The main house’s security personnel tasked around Mason--more to make sure he didn’t make more trouble rather than to protect him--felt the presence of the burly ’assistants’ was insulting to them.

That, and the content of the visit, ultimately made the already unstable Mason even more unstable.

The woman returned the engagement ring, placing it on the table between her and Mason, and — according to Mari, who heard it from the staff member present in the sitting room — Mason threw the ring box toward the ex-fiancée’s representative.

The burly bodyguards, of course, intercepted it, which only made Mason even angrier. He started to throw whatever he could snatch while hurling curses. Even while his own bodyguards held him off, Mason kept on screaming profanities--which Mari enacted with too much vigor.

"Sounds just like his mother," Sarah scoffed. "Which is ironic, since he hated that part of his mother too."

"Apple and the tree or whatever," Hajin snickered.

Sarah patted the bodyguard’s hair, who was sitting by her leg like a real puppy. "So, what did they do? Just leave?"

[What else could they do?] Honey shrugged. [Coincidentally, there was no one else in the house to do damage control, so the house manager just asked the guests to leave while apologizing profusely]

"They must be angry," Sarah smiled before sipping her juice again.

"Smells like trouble," Hajin smirked. "For that bastard, I mean."

He said that, but Sarah could tell he wasn’t satisfied. It wasn’t a secret that he had been waiting for the day Mason was out of the family’s protection so he could enact his own brand of punishment.

For Sarah, however, her favorite brand of punishment was not the physical one. "Do we still have access to the CCTV inside the house, Puppy?"

Hajin arched his brow and reached for his laptop, attempting to access the main house security system. "Not without the new password," he concluded a few seconds later.

Sarah shifted her gaze to the phone screen again. "Honey, can you get it?"

[From the security room?]

"The Chief’s office," Hajin clarified.

[I’ll have it tonight]

The reply came without a shred of doubt, and Mari looked even more like a little lamb in the middle of foxes and wolves, clapping her hands quietly. [Whoa...]

Well, comparing her to a professional swindler like Honey was comical, of course. "What’s the third wife been up to?" Sarah asked further.

[She got out a lot these days] Honey reported. [People think she just doesn’t want to see Vivian--since the chairman obviously dotes on her--but you don’t think so, do you?]

"She’s a scheming bitch, so if she makes any move, it’s for the sake of scheming," Sarah snickered, tapping her lips in contemplation. "Probably seeing people from Daesung or something. From what I gathered, she was the one who introduced the chairman’s brother to Daesung."

[Make sense] Honey nodded. She moved closer to the phone--in which Mari followed curiously--and spoke in a lower, more cautious tone. [What should I do, Lady Boss?]

"Just try to keep Vivian there; I already tasked someone else to deal with the third wife," Sarah waved her hands. "If I want you to do something specific, I’ll tell you."

[Roger that] Honey saluted with her index and middle fingers. [Oh--I don’t know if this is important, but the Chairman doesn’t look too good these days]

[To be honest, he hasn’t looked too good in a long time, Miss. Might it be because you left?] Mari added.

Sarah would have felt tickled a little bit in the past, but she had exhausted her hope for her father when she destroyed her mother’s little fountain. She merely scoffed at the possibility that the chairman got sick from worrying about her.

"Probably because too much is happening all at once," Sarah said. Worrying about her? Worrying about the stock price, more like. "Just keep watching the situation for now."

[Yes, Miss!]

The call ended with Mari’s enthusiastic reply--although it was also followed by a lamenting groan as the connection was cut. Sarah chuckled while shaking her head in amusement, downing her cranberry juice.

Hajin put his laptop back on the coffee table before crawling to the couch and lying on his princess’s lap--maximizing the spoiling hour that would end soon. "Are we going to leak the CCTV recording?"

"Of course," Sarah stroked her puppy’s hair, smiling deeply. "There’s a huge difference between breaking an engagement peacefully and roughly."

* * *

While the call between Sarah and her spies was happening, another conversation about this engagement breaking happened somewhere else.

"You’re sure about this, right?"

Denise sighed at her father, rolling her eyes behind a new shopping catalog. "How many times should I say it, Papa? I’m more than sure."

Congressman Choi frowned while pacing around the sitting room, clearly looking anxious. The election was next year, and he’d need more money for a better result. "What if the rumors aren’t true?"

"So? Yooshin Trading isn’t exactly worse than HS, right?" Denise shrugged.

"That’s right, Darling. Chairman Yoo seemed to love his son very much, unlike the indifferent Chairman Lee," the congressman’s wife said from the couch, looking up from the same catalog her daughter had been looking at. "Denise would have less competition inside that house. Chairman Lee had too many children, to be honest."

His wife was right, of course, but it wasn’t like this new choice came without any worry. "But this son is an illegitimate one, right?"

"Who cares about that if he’ll succeed the company in the end?" Denise argued.

"You’re sure about that?"

"I’m sure," the wife snickered. "Alice Yoo looked sour these days. If it’s just baseless gossip, she would just laugh it off."

"Hmm...true," Congressman Choi nodded in agreement, but from how he didn’t stop walking back and forth, it didn’t seem like he was fully convinced.

Denise rolled her eyes. "Besides," she stood up and approached her father, hugging his arm to stop his pacing. "Do you really want me to have a husband who doesn’t care about me at all, Papa? I mean...love aside, shouldn’t he at least treat me well?"

The congressman paused his fidgeting as his anxious expression turned into irritation. "Hmph--that’s right! My beautiful daughter should only receive the best."

Right--how could he forget it? Such disrespectful conduct to his beloved princess when they were the ones asking for a match. Wasn’t this mean they were disrespecting him too?

Looking at Chairman Lee, who knew if this Mason also had a lot of mistresses? What if he discarded Denise out of boredom, like how his father discarded women easily?

"Alright, I will talk to Chairman Yoo about arranging a blind date for you two," the congressman nodded, finally showing a firm expression.

"Don’t be too forward," his wife said softly. "Just ask him about his son casually first."

"I know, I know. Do you think I would get my position without knowing how to lobby?" the congressman laughed. "If needed, we can ask for your stepbrother’s help like always, right?"

The wife smiled sweetly, which was enough for confirmation. Denise giggled and performed her cute daughter act a little bit more by hugging her father, while her mind flew toward the dashing man he met in that restaurant.

It would be too much for the public if they started to date right away, so it’d be best to meet privately. The breakup news should be spread all over the circle this week to establish her status first, and they could announce their relationship after the New Year--

"Miss!"

Her delusion, unfortunately, was broken by the voice of her personal assistant--the one she sent to break off her engagement.

"Miss! Young Miss--oh, Sir and Madam are here too..." the assistant stopped near the couch.

Denise raised her brows as she turned around and saw her assistant looking a bit out of breath. "Oh, you’re here, Cecil. How was it?"

"Oh, Miss..." Cecil sighed, shaking her head while clutching her chest. The two ’bodyguards’ sent with her also finally reached the sitting room. "It’s so awful."

Denise frowned. "What happened?"