Chapter 47: Lost Letters

It was the day before the wedding. It hadn’t taken them long to plan and had taken them even less time to put together. Amazing things could be done ridiculously fast when money wasn’t an issue to consider.

Abigail wanted to believe she hadn’t thought of Mark that often, but the truth was, she had almost thought exclusively of him.

She missed him in everything, thought of him in everything. He had never stopped calling her or messaging her. But Abigail hadn’t responded to anything.

He had shattered her trust in him entirely. He hadn’t been who he had said he was, the entire person she had fallen in love with hadn’t existed.

And she had decided to move on with her life. Abigail knew she was never going to love Lyall, but then again, she didn’t think she was going to love anyone else, either.

Mark had shattered her heart, and more importantly, her trust. She didn’t think she would be able to fall in love again.

This marriage to Lyall solidified her position in the company. And right now, that was the only thing she had left and the only thing she truly wanted out of life.

She had working nonstop at the company since her appointment. She had well and truly thrown herself into her work.

And planning the wedding, as she was now, sitting with Charlotte of all people, pouring over guest lists and wedding seating arrangements.

“Ma’am,” one of the servants came up to Abigail with an honest to god letter on a tray. “A Mister Mark dropped this letter off for you at the gates, not twenty minutes ago.”

Abigail stared at the tray like it was a snake about to attack her, and once her mind processed that it was safe to the touch, she gingerly picked the letter up, thanking the server that had brought it to her.

Abigail held the letter tenderly in her hands, cradling it softly. It was Mark’s handwriting across the top, with her name written in slanted cursive. For a moment, Abigail just stared at it, at the way he slanted the ‘b’ in her name, and the curve on the ‘g’. For a moment, she just stared, moved beyond words.

And then slowly, Abigail turned it over, reaching for the opening.

Charlotte ripped the letter out of Abigail’s hands before she even had the chance to open it.

“Don’t,” Charlotte hissed. “Don’t read this trash.”

Charlotte then went over to the fireplace, and before Olivia could stop her, or grab the letter back out of her hands, it was already in the flames.

Abigail stared at Charlotte in shock.

“It would have done you no good to read that letter,” Charlotte told Abigail, “It would have been filled with lies concocted simply to gain your affections back. All men are the same.”

Abigail couldn’t believe Charlotte. What was the point of that? Did she not know she had a cellphone? And that Mark had a cellphone too. Did she not realize that Mark had been sending her text messages, been calling her, even when she had refused to respond?

If Abigail had wanted to, she could have read any message Mark had sent her before this.

Abigail looked at Charlotte, as she watched the fires burn her letter.

“Why do you want Lyall and I to get married so badly?” Abigail blurted out, surprising both her stepmother and herself.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charlotte flat out denied, and went back to the table she was working at.

But given that she was pouring over the guest list and seating arrangements for Abigail’s wedding, Abigail found that act a bit hard to believe.

“No,” Abigail said, her words getting firmer as she spoke. “You know exactly what I mean. You can’t want what’s best for me, that’s impossible. Which means you must want Lyall and me married for another reason. And it must be pretty big, too, if you’re going through all of this, and you’re willing to risk me being possibly happy at the end of it.”

There was no chance of Abigail being happily married to Lyall, but there was no reason for Charlotte to know that.

“I just want it, that’s why,” Charlotte answered.

And it was a selfish enough answer that Abigail was willing to believe it as truth. But she knew better than to just trust Charlotte at her word. There was another reason, one she didn’t want Abigail to know.

“You don’t want Olivia marrying Lyall,” Abigail told Charlotte, understanding dawning on her, “Why not?”

If Abigail didn’t marry Lyall, that still didn’t mean he was going to marry Olivia, though. The whole reason Abigail was even going through with this was because Olivia wouldn’t marry Lyall under the terms she had to accept, anyway. So why did Charlotte think there was danger, why was she so paranoid about i?

“I just don’t,” Charlotte answered.

“Charlotte,” Abigail told her, “Tell me the answer now, or I will move this wedding back one month.”

“The wedding is tomorrow,” Charlotte told her, haughtily. “People are flying in from all over the world, you wouldn’t do that to them.”

Abigail strode over to the desk Charlotte was working on, with the list of the guests and their phone numbers. Abigail began dialing the first name on the list. Alexander Wang.

“Wait,” Charlotte panicked, “Stop. Fine.”

Abigail hung up before she even dialed the last number, she had no issue with going through with it, but she would rather not have to, if she could get away with it.

“I want Olivia to inherit the company,” Charlotte told her simply. “A marriage to Lyall would prevent that.”

Abigail blinked in confusion. How deluded was this woman? Did she not realize that the only reason Abigail herself was marrying Lyall was so that it would give her the company?

“But,” Abigail protested. “Don’t you know what’s happening here?”

“Oh, I do,” Charlotte waved her hand. “But it hardly matters. As long as it’s not Olivia marrying Lyall, then nothing bad will happen to her.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Abigail told her stepmother. “Please, back up here and explain to me why you don’t want your only daughter marrying the love of her life?”

Charlotte sighed, like Abigail was a child she was tired of explaining the same thing to, over and over again.

“You will marry Lyall, tomorrow, it’s all but a done deal,” Charlotte began, explaining like she was talking to a small child. “And then Lyall will take control of the company, to bring his dead father’s company back to life. Which will fail,” Charlotte said offhandedly. “And then you will, of course, be removed from the helm. And then that would free up the position for Olivia to take over. I, of course, had a backup plan, should anything fall through; I would simply poison Lyall."

Abigail stared at Charlotte in shock. This woman had well and truly thought this entire thing out. If there was one thing Abigail had to acknowledge as Charlotte’s strength, it was cunning and planning.

“Wait,” Abigail told her, trying to make sense of everything Charlotte was telling her. “But what if I had just never showed up? What were you going to do then?”

Charlotte seemed to consider it before she spoke, “To be perfectly honest with you, I had no idea until you came along,” Charlotte told her. “It was only when you came that I saw the opportunity I had, to get rid of Lyall and his ridiculous ambition, and to keep Olivia away from falling into the trap.”

Lyall’s ambition wasn’t ridiculous. But it wasn’t the most profitable, money hungry thing that could be done with a company.

“Olivia actually helped me out a little,” Charlotte told her, as if considering an afterthought. “By trying to embarrass you in front of everyone, she put herself in a weaker spot for the company. Exactly where she needed to be, where she would be safe. From Adam’s decisions, and Lyall’s influence. But you took center stage so nicely. You really helped me solve a great problem.”

Charlotte obviously had other designs for Olivia. When she would take control of the company, how it would be done.

It hardly mattered that Olivia had watched every meal being prepared, this was Charlotte’s true poison right here, subduing Olivia under her mother’s control.

And like Olivia had spent weeks watching the food prepared at home, making sure neither of them would be poisoned, Abigail could do the same for her sister, ensuring they both made it out safely.

Abigail was supposed to be getting married tomorrow, it was her night before her wedding. And she knew what she had to do.

Quickly, Abigail gathered the few things she’d had with her, and went to seek out Lyall. And then afterwards she would go and find Olivia.

It didn’t matter that Charlotte had burnt the letter, Abigail realized, it had done what Mark probably meant it to do.

It had given her strength.