Seeing how stubborn and unyielding Xanthe remained, he waved his hand coldly.
“Don’t hold back,” he ordered the bodyguards. “Carry out the family punishment.”
With every lash of the whip, the bodyguard asked her, “Ma’am, do you admit your mistake?”
One blow came after another. By the thirtieth lash, her dress was soaked with blood, but she still hadn’t utter a single word.
At the thirty–third lash, Xanthe could no longer endure it–she collapsed and fainted.
That night, she developed a high fever that wouldn’t
go
down.
It wasn’t until three days later that she finally woke to the sound of her phone ringing–it was
Trevor.
“I’m three hours away,” he said.
Exhausted but determined, Xanthe forced herself to get up and start packing. But in the end, she only brought her ID.
Just then, a call came in from someone at the company–it was Shelly, one of her former
trainees.
“Ms. Wentworth,” the young assistant said in an anxious tone, “when are you coming back? President Connolly had Ms. Vasquez take over your position these past few days, and she’s already messed up several deals!”
Her anxiousness came even more obvious as she went on to update her mentor. “Even SMR Group, who’s been working with us for years, just terminated their contract. But it’s like President Connolly’s possessed–he didn’t blame her at all. In fact, when we brought it up, he blew up on
us.”
As she listened to the complaints, Xanthe suddenly remembered when she first joined the company as Barrington’s secretary and made a mistake on a deal. He’d been so furious he didn’t speak to her for a whole week.
But that felt like a lifetime ago. Now, she had no interest in looking back.
In a calm tone, she replied, “Shelly, I have nothing to do with the company from now on. You don’t need to report anything to me.”
She had barely ended the call when the company’s shareholders started phoning one after
another.
The moment she picked up, they unleashed their anger on her.
“Xanthe, as President Connolly’s secretary, it’s your job to correct him when he’s wrong! What have you even been doing lately? You haven’t shown up to the office, and you let Vionnet–who clearly has no idea what she’s doing–handle company affairs? What kind of secretary are you?” Those shareholders were always the same–spineless in front of the CEO and quick to take it out on her instead. Whenever something went wrong, they used her as their punching bag.
Back when she still loved Barrington, she had taken all the blame without a word of protest.
But now, she had no intention of playing nice.
Chapter 5
3/3 4.6%
8:01 pm DDDD
“You’re all so dissatisfied with Barrington? Then why don’t you grow a spine and tell him to his face? Pathetic cowards!” she snapped.
With that, she hung up.
The truth was that the only reason things ever ran smoothly for Barrington was because she had been cleaning up his messes behind the scenes all these years.
When the shareholders were upset, she stood in the line of fire.
When the company lost deals, she went begging to her old folks to fix it.
But she never told Barrington–she didn’t want him to feel guilty.
Now, she had let go of him completely–and she was taking back everything that was hers.
From her bag, she pulled out her abortion records and locked them into the study’s safe.
Inside it were the divorce papers, her resignation letter, the abortion records, and the ashes of ninety–nine love letters.
And one last thing–the villa’s security footage. She copied the clip of Vionnet drugging herself, along with the recording of her revelations from three days ago, and saved it all to a flash drive. ‘Hopefully, she thought, ‘he’ll appreciate this little divorce keepsake.‘
Downstairs, a car was already honking for her.
At the same time, her phone buzzed nonstop with Barrington’s messages.
[Xanthe, Vionnet messed up a few deals. I need you to handle it. I know you’ve always had issues with my relationship with her, but I’ll explain everything to you tonight when we get home.]
When she didn’t respond, the tone of his messages changed–from pleading to threatening.
[Damn it, Xantie, we’re both adults. Stop being petty, can you? Keep this up and your bonus next month gets cut in half. You’ll apologize in front of the entire board.]
Looking at his messages, Xanthe let out a cold, mocking smile.
Without letting him say one more thing, she blocked every number he used to contact her and deleted his information altogether.
She scrubbed every trace of herself from the villa–completely, cleanly, without hesitation. Outside, beside a limited–edition Maybach, a guy stood in a perfectly tailored suit.
Trevor held a faux but everlasting white tulip bouquet, the sunlight outlining his figure.
He met her eyes.
“Xanthe,” he muttered, “I’ve come to take you home.”
pm
