Chapter 17

I groaned sleepily as the sound of the doorbell pierced into my ears.

"Ahh..." I groaned once again when the doorbell rang again, but this time I left the bed, sluggishly. Taking my phone to check the time, I sighed loudly when I saw it was just past five. Who the hell is at the door at this hour?

Leaving the room, I stepped downstairs, heading to the door groggily.

"Who are you?"

"Good morning, Miss Silvana." The sleep cleared off my eyes when I saw Cynthia there.

"It's you. Why are you this early?" I asked as I made way for her to come in.

"I live far from here and I wanted to start my work early. I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"Yeah, you woke me up, but it's fine." I smiled and my eyes went to her luggage in her hand.

"Let me show you to your room, but before that, that's the kitchen." I pointed the kitchen out, since breakfast would be the first she would need to prepare.

I walked towards a hallway. There were three rooms on each side of the hallway. They were meant for the maids while the guards had their rooms at the other part of the mansion, not inside the house.

"This is your room." I pointed out the first room on the right and also told her where my room was. She got it quite well, so I left the hallway and went to my room upstairs.

I was already awake even though, too early, but I began preparing for work immediately. By the time I was done, breakfast was ready, and I joyfully settled down to eat.

Cynthia made pasta and chicken. Just what I like. I took the first bite and looked at Cynthia who had her eyes on me since the moment I sat down. Without saying a word, I gave her a thumbs and I smiled when I heard her relieved sigh.

I ate without any rush, leaving for work after. I attended the meeting with the board of directors, and they all gave their support for the new product.

About a week later, the lab was done making samples of the face moisturizer and we had another meeting to test it. James attended this time. The testing exercise was successful, with no flaw or whatsoever in the face moisturizer, so we encouraged the production in full.

"The moisturizer is so nice. I'm sure it will be a hit." One of the female boards said as we both walked out of the conference room.

"Thank you." I smiled. She nodded and we said our goodbyes. My eyes went to the other boards, which were leaving the room. I was searching for Mr Greg. I needed him to announce the date for the product release.

I turned around to go back to the room to search for him since I didn't see him, but I bumped into someone, and my heel slipped. A gasp left my lips as I began going down, but someone caught me before I could get to the ground.

I looked at the person who caught me. Blinking, another gasp escaped from my lips when I saw James staring down at me.

"Err..." I clamped my mouth shut and sprang up.

"I'm so sorry."

"It's fine." James said and I nodded.

"Do you like the product?" I asked as I arranged my hair, which was a bit scattered from almost falling.

"The product is nice, but just an advice for you, you should be ready for anything the moment this product gets released."

"What do you mean?" I am surprised that he is blurting something like this out of nowhere.

"Whether you're small or not, you would surely get enemies, and I'm not saying this because of you. I'm saying this because my money is involved and I wouldn't want to lose it."

I blinked as I stared at him. Why is he suddenly saying all this? I never asked if he was saying this because of me. Sigh. He is probably treading carefully because of how I overreacted the last time.

"Young miss." I looked at Mr Greg, who was just coming out of the conference room.

"Where have you been? I've been looking for you." I sighed as he walked to us.

"Sorry, I was sorting out some things." He said and looked at James. "You came."

"Yeah, I will take my leave now." James replied and walked away without another word, my eyes following him.

Mr Greg said something, but I didn't quite hear it since I was so focused on staring at James, so I asked him to repeat.

"You said you were looking for me."

"Oh, that's true." I nodded and we began walking away from the room as I talked.

"I want an article released containing the date of the product release."

"I will get to it." He answered and I nodded. We had already agreed to release the product on the twentieth of next month, so all he had to do was release an article on it.

Hours later, I was busy with my work when a knock sounded on the door.

"Come in." The door opened the moment I spoke up and Mr Greg came in.

"The article just got released, and guess what?"

"What?" I raised my brows as I stared at him.

"The Gastons corp. just released theirs, too." My ears hiked up at the sound of The Gastons. That's Reed's company.

"On what?"

"A face moisturizer like ours too and they are releasing it on the same day we release too."

"Oh, really." I chuckled, swirling the swivel chair. He must have copied me.

"They released the article at the same time as ours." The smile on my face dropped and I stopped swirling the chair.

"You must be joking?"

"I'm not. It's real and everyone is talking about it." He showed me the comments on the articles. I collected his phone and began reading through. They were all wondering if it was a planned work, and asking how good the products will be.

"What the hell!" I was enjoying the comments not until I saw a comment stating that we probably found out that The Gastons corp. we’re going to release the product that day so we copied them.

"Who is this?"

"Beats me!”