He shook his head and suggested, “Nope! Care to join me for a meal?”
I got ahead of Ashton and uttered before he could reply, “I’m afraid that we’ll be unable to keep you company because we have something else to tend to! You should head over and have your dinner without us!”
Jackson reprimanded me, “Hey! You can’t do this to me! You were the one who’d summoned me back from M Country!”
I felt lightheaded all of a sudden because of his words. In the end, I warned him and showed him my exhausted front. “Have you seen my tummy? I’m afraid that my child will be born way ahead of the estimated date of delivery if I don’t restrain myself.”
He looked at Ashton and muttered, “Since you’re exhausted, you should head back home without Ashton because he’s the one that I’m looking for.”
Ashton turned around and asked, “Why? What do you wish to talk about?”
Jackson stared at me as he directed another question at Ashton. “Are you not aware of your wife’s condition?”
I was utterly dumbfounded because the fool had actually turned his back against me, selling me off in front of Ashton.
Ashton narrowed his eyes in return and affirmed, “I’m well aware of her condition.”
E-Excuse me?
Jackson was taken aback as well. He paused for a few seconds and gave it a thought before throwing another question at him. “If that’s the case, why have you not done anything about it?”
“I’ll think of something and deal with it soon.”
As their conversation continued, I grew increasingly confused.
Once the elevator reached the floor, I sprinted in because I had enough of their conversation. To begin with, they seemed to be on a different page.
“Ashton, I believe you need to make a trip to M Country with Scarlett and get her to go through a thorough diagnosis,” Jackson asserted.
“Have you made a trip back because of her condition?” Ashton queried.
Jackson nodded as he asked rhetorically, “Why else would I return? It took me more than twelve hours to make a trip back. I don’t have that much time to kill, okay?”
It sounded as though Ashton was aware of my actual condition. I couldn’t care less about it as I decided to interrupt their conversation. “Let’s catch up some time in the future! We’ll return for the time being! Let’s get going already! I’m exhausted after a long day!”
Initially, Jackson was about to go on, but he received a call out of the blue. He answered the call, yet he could barely hear the person on the other end of the call due to the poor signal in the elevator.
It took him a few seconds to figure out the thing that the other person was talking about. Eventually, he burst out laughing as he exclaimed, “Okay! I’ll head over at once!”
After he hung up the call, we finally reached the designated floor. He looked at Ashton and repeated himself in a serious tone for one last time. “Ashton, I mean it! You need to make a trip to M Country with her!”
Once he was done, he departed and disappeared amongst the bustling crowd on the streets.
After we boarded the car, Ashton started the car and had his eyes on the road as we made our way home. I looked at him and wanted to confront him if he were aware of the truth, yet I was afraid that I would expose myself in return.
In the end, I decided to call it off and keep the thoughts that I had in mind to myself.
The car was brought to a halt when we reached the junction. He turned around as he professed in a husky voice, “I don’t think that we should make a trip to M Country. You’re heavily pregnant—you’re not in the best condition to do that. Let’s drop by K City a few days later. I have gotten in touch with a few renowned specialists there.”
“Y-You…” I stuttered because I couldn’t grasp the situation.
“When we dropped by the hospital during the last prenatal care, the doctor brought it up in front of me. Also, do you remember the time when you were completely soaked in rain? I noticed that something was off since then. If you’re still unwilling to tell me about it, it’s fine. However, I want you to know that everything will be fine soon.”
Heaving a sigh, he continued driving since the traffic light had turned green again.
I nodded in return because I was too tired to be bothered by other things by then. I suggested, “Let’s head over and pay Grandpa a tribute tomorrow. Why don’t you join me during my yoga class in the afternoon? The instructor told me that it would be great to have the child’s father around because there are certain moves that require cooperation.”
He nodded and queried, “What do you want for dinner?”
“Anything will do!” Since we had sorted things out, I couldn’t suppress my urge to sleep anymore. As I closed my eyes, I started dozing off in the car.
By the time we reached the villa, the sky had gotten pitch-black. In spite of being sleepy, I was aware that we had reached home as Ashton lifted me and brought me back to our bedroom.
Perhaps it was due to the activities I had carried out in the day—I slept like a log for a few hours. When I woke up, it was already midnight.
I got out of the bed and noticed that Ashton was nowhere to be seen in the room. As I made my way out of the room, I noticed the strong illumination that was in the study room and decided to knock on the door.
A hoarse voice could be heard from within, instructing neutrally, “Come in!”
After I entered the room, I saw him with a stack of documents on his table. It turned out that he had logged into the company’s system to access some internal data. I caught a glimpse of the data and noticed something was wrong. “Hasn’t the audit for AC been re-conducted? Why aren’t the changes reflected yet?”
The exhausted man glanced at me and smiled as though he was proud of me. “It seems like you haven’t been spending your time in Fuller Corporation in vain, huh? I’m glad that you’re able to detect the issue with the data.”
I was speechless because I hadn’t spent my time with Fuller Corporation in vain, yet he seemed to have perceived otherwise all along.
He didn’t answer my queries. Instead, he tended to the agreements that he had with him. Since there wasn’t anything else I could do, I sat by his side, waiting for him to finish the things that he had on his plate.
As I scanned through the content on the screen, I noticed that something was wrong because there was a red exclamation mark at the bottom left of the screen. I told him, “Ashton! Someone is trying to gain access to the company’s system without the administrator’s consent!”
He ignored the seemingly urgent issue as he looked at me in the eyes. Frowning, he asked, “Since when have you picked up fundamentals in computer science?”
Staring at the eye-catching signal, I couldn’t believe my ears because he behaved calmly as though it was part of his plan to allow the other party to access the system.
I finally linked the missing pieces of puzzles together—the flawed data was deliberately uploaded to mislead the other party.
“E-Er… Not really, but I picked up the fundamentals of computer science during my university days. It’s nothing worth mentioning at all.” I felt so guilty deep down because I had no choice but to lie to him.
John was the expert in the field. He had always been brushing up his skills just so he could infiltrate others’ accounts as he desired. The computer science enthusiast had always shared his newfound skills with me, but I never paid attention to the things that he had told me.
