Her Fake Lover

Chapter 60

A clear morning enveloped Elderville-Bryxton. Chloe Levine, was wrestling with some work at her desk, and stopped when someone placed a bouquet of flowers on her desk.

"Flowers for Miss Karfis, Miss Chloe."

"What? Again?" Chloe whispered. So quiet, and of course the employee who delivered the flowers no longer heard her because the person had passed. Chloe took the bouquet of yellow roses. Chloe sighed. Immediately, she got up from her seat and went to Emmeline's room to deliver the bouquet of flowers.

From the moment she stepped into Emmeline's room, Emmeline, who saw her carrying the same bouquet of flowers as the previous day, had been staring at her with a sour look of disapproval.

Emmeline accepted the flower. But she slammed it down on the table. "Howard Silas again."

"What does he really want?" Chloe said. Emmeline was silent as she let go of a disapproving look.

"Forget it. You go back to your desk. Get on with your work."

"Em—Emmeline," said Chloe. "Actually I wanted to talk about this over lunch. While you're relaxing a bit. But I guess ... it's fine to say it now. I've been secretly figuring out who's the source at Foxxtar. I have a friend who works there. This girl is pretty bad at keeping secrets—sorry to have to say this. But yesterday she was lucky enough—or maybe we were lucky, I don't know—because she found out about the interview, she saw who the source was, and she knew it was our employee. Just by provoking her a little, she exposed the person's identity. Em ... I know the burden on your mind is indeed a lot, but, it's true that the person is the one remaining of the three new employees. They conspired. I didn't think we would experience something like this."

Emmeline nodded. Just nodding, and that made Chloe pull her head back and raise her eyebrows.

"You are not surprised?" Chloe said.

"I'm not. I know even more than that. And sorry, my dizzy thoughts are keeping my mouth shut even more, so I haven't told you, that yesterday before I went home I went to visit Agatha. And you should know what she said to me. Though of course I'll pass this on to you later, but it would be good if this morning you knew everything, and it's good that you came here at this moment to discuss about the three employees."

Chloe frowned. "What happened, Emmeline?"

"Initially I was still considering whether I should fire the troublemakers, or punish them in some other way. But since yesterday, I've decided they will all stop working at our place. I've investigated a lot of things about Agatha."

Chloe then listened carefully to the explanation that Emmeline gave about her meeting with Agatha, about Agatha's confession, including that Emmeline, in the end, still doubted the confession. She thought Agatha was trying to lie again for the second time.

"So you're right about Justin's innocence?"

Emmeline nodded. "I'm sure Vin won't be reckless in choosing the people he will let me be around. Including when he chose Justin."

Chloe smiled excitedly. "Mr. Vincenzo Valsecchi. Even though he hid part of his true identity from you, his kindness and affection for you was truly admirable. I always get moved when I think about it."

Emmeline was silent for a moment. She was stunned. Then smiled after that, and said, "Don't make me spend so much time reminiscing about him when I have a lot of work to do. Oh yeah," Emmeline asked earnestly, "how is Mr. Piers doing?"

"He's getting better. Yesterday after work, I went to see him for a bit, and he said he'd be home today. Maybe in the afternoon or evening."

"Oh," a smile tugged at Emmeline's lips. Among the many shocking and unpleasant news she had received in recent days, this one was the one that was pleasant. "I'll see him after he gets home. Hopefully he won't be surprised and he won't get worse again when he sees me."

"No. He won't," said Chloe. "Yesterday when I visited him, he ... had time to ask me if you were back. I ... sorry, Emmy, for some reason, yesterday I thought to be honest. Without saying much I said yes, and he ... he seemed to think for a moment after that. But then he smiled and said, 'I'm sure Emmy has been dying to see me.' I think he'd even guessed that you'd been back for a few days—come on, you're a busy woman; You can't have been in Brilfaxa that long to leave the office. He didn't ask any more questions after that, but I guess, he has kept his thoughts on you. I think Mr. Piers is very much ready to meet you."

Emmeline fell silent hearing that. But then said after a moment of sighing, "Alright. I'll get the explanation I want from him today."

Before Chloe could respond further, her cell phone rang. "Oh, sorry," she said. She checked her cell phone. "Waylon?"

Emmeline glanced at Chloe as soon as Chloe mentioned Waylon's name. She quickly remembered the conversation she had with Waylon the previous day.

The phone rang for a few moments. Emmeline let it go, giving Chloe a chance if she wanted to pick it up. But apparently Chloe turned it off.

"Why did you turn it off?" Emmeline asked.

"Em—I'm talking to you. Leave it alone. Em—have you met him yet?"

Emmeline was silent for a moment. She looked uninterested. "Yes. We just chatted for a bit."

"Oh, you didn't tell me. When?"

"Yesterday. You were really close with Waylon now?"

"No. Don't think anything of us. He's only appeared quite often since he appeared with Lea. That's all. Nothing else special."

Emmeline nodded her head.

"I'll get back to my work, Emmy," Chloe said.

Emmeline smiled and nodded her head to let Chloe leave the room.

Alone in her room, now Emmeline's mind was guided to go back to thinking about several things, all of which flashed in turn, from one thing to another. Even at what Waylon Ledger had said the day before, which quickly irritated Emmeline a little.

It had only been a while since Emmeline had resumed her work after she had forced herself to stop all her daydreams, when Chloe suddenly came back to her with a panicked face.

She said, "I know you must be surprised to hear this news, Emmeline, but I have to tell you. I just received a call from Silas HA company, saying that their boss wants to ask you to meet."

Emmeline widened her eyes. "Howard Silas Ashbluff you mean?"

"Yes. If you agree then Howard will contact you personally, to plan with you when you will be able to have coffee together. Howard's assistant told me this would be a casual meeting. I mean ... as friends."

Emmeline wore an astonished expression. Chloe, nodding her head, reaffirmed that she was serious about what she said.

"What? Why did he suddenly want to meet me? Since when did he consider our relationship close?" Emmeline quickly tried to analyze the intention behind the request, but seeing what had happened, including about Howard's actions of sending her flowers two days in a row, and all the awkwardness and suspicion that Emmeline had of the man, Emmeline didn't think it would be a bad idea to quickly end her questions about Silas HA by agreeing to the meeting."

"I do suspect he's playing with me. All right, Chloe. Tell them I'm ready," Emmeline replied.

***