“I see.” Emery did not much care to know and quickly moved on. “I’ve been thinking lately that perhaps I should purchase the villa next to my place and gift it to Hunter’s parents. What do you think?”
I goaded her in good humor. “Is the five-hundred square-foot home of yours not spacious enough for the five of you?”
We arrived at the living room as we chatted. I saw that Stella was standing by the door, not quite sure what to do with herself. “You don’t have keep staying with me. Since we’re at home, do make yourself comfortable. If you’re bored, you could take a look around and familiarize yourself with the environment.”
The corner of Stella’s lips perked up gratefully before she went through the nearest side door and toward the garden.
Emery paused and cast her eyes inquisitively in the direction of the woman’s footsteps. “Ashton’s such a pervert. He couldn’t resist the advances of his assistant, so he sends her here to let you clean up after him?”
I laughed when I recalled how Ashton thought I might have fancied Stella, and collected myself before I waved her off. “You’re overthinking this.”
“It’s you who’s not thinking hard enough about it.” Emery sounded somewhat perturbed. “Ashton might be considered the reliable sort, but I bet that there are plenty of girls who would be drawn to that handsome face of his. You won’t always be young, so it’s imperative that you be more attentive.”
Nonetheless, I took this in my stride. She looked sideways at me, quite exasperated before the admission material on the table caught her eye. She picked it up and casually flipped through it. “Are you preparing for another admissions test? Why are you wasting your time on this?”
“How could this be considered a waste of time?” I replied with a smile. “After all, I’m a shareholder at Fuller Corporation. It seems a little embarrassing to show others my current academic credentials. Besides, I intend to try for the bar examination afterward. With Ashton forbidding me from any involvement with the company, surely I have to find something else to do.”
She placed down the book. “Then, why don’t you go straight for the bar examination?”
“Can I do that?” That was something that did not occur to me before. “Why not?” Emery said candidly. “Even if you managed to get yourself into graduate school, whatever you learn from books would have little practical use. I’d say you might as well go straight for the bar examination. With a few years of experience under your belt and connections through the Moore family and Fuller Corporation, you’d be starting your own practice in no time.”
I was not that fixated on whether I would be able to start my own thing, but Emery’s analysis did align with my own interests.
Going for the admission test was something that I always wanted to do. Perhaps it had been an oversight on my part that I could pass it up and go straight for the bar examination.
Why complicate matters when it would all lead to the same outcome?
After careful deliberation, Emery and myself signed up for the closest available date for the bar examination online right there and then.
Once this was done, Emery stretched herself and started looking around for Summer. “Where’s Summer? I haven’t seen her since I’ve been here.”
“She might be playing in the rear house with Mrs. Eriksen.” Summer could withstand the cold fairly well for someone of her age, and would engage in snowball fights ever so often. With the snow in K City yet to start melting, she must have dragged Mrs. Eriksen off to build snowmen again.
With that, Emery and myself linked arms and made our way to the rear house.
We barely stepped onto the gravel path when Summer’s laughter filled the air. That did much to uplift my mood.
When I got closer, I saw that her petite hands were reddened from the cold. There was still a half-formed snowball inside her grasp which she threw across the way.
