One Night Stand Gone Wrong

Seeing Sophia coming toward them, Arielle smiled at Thomas and said, “Go take a long piss or something!”

Thomas was dumbfounded. “Excuse me!”

Arielle said without changing her expression, “I see Sophia Green making her way here. Let me talk to her in private.”

Thomas frowned but did not turn his head. He left after saying, “Whatever she says, don’t take it to heart. I will give you an explanation later.”

Arielle frowned but nodded before he left.

Arielle acted unconcerned and started playing with her phone as if she had not seen Sophia.

“May I take this empty chair?” Sophia asked, emphasizing the word empty.

Without waiting for a reply, she took Thomas’s chair and tea as if she was marking her territory.

Arielle kept her phone aside and said coldly, “Miss Green, I have company as should have been evident by the teacup on the table and the coat hanging on the chair.”

Sophia sneered aloud, “Miss Ward, why are you so hostile towards me? I am here to offer an olive branch.”

Arielle had nothing but contempt for her parlor tricks.

“Miss Green, you came uninvited and unannounced, took up the chair of the person accompanying me without my consent. Yet, you say you are here with an olive branch.” Arielle remarked, “I would have thought someone offering an olive branch would be more respectful.”

Arielle paused before adding. “I have yet to call the manager and have you removed from the table for your impudence, but you have already called me hostile. Please assist me in making sense of your behavior here because I only see a rude person in front of me.”

Sophia exclaimed loudly, “Miss Ward, I am sorry. I know I should not have called out that you were sleeping with your boss for money. I have already apologized to you for my innocent mistake. Why would you still call me names despite that? I am very sorry! Please forgive me.”

Arielle looked at her as if she was looking at a clown.

“Nice trick, Miss Green. Is there anything else? Or are you done with the drama?” She sneered.

Sophia was irritated with her attitude. She did not believe that Arielle was as innocent as she claimed. It was her instinct that said Arielle was someone who could take Thomas away from her. Thomas belonged to her. There was no way she would let a no-name woman take him away from her.

She took a sip from Thomas’s cup and raised her head arrogantly to show her claim.

Arielle only twitched her lips at her action.

Sophia took a cheque from her purse and shoved it at her, “Take this and leave PGI and Thomas. It should be more than enough to cover your lifetime worth of expenses. Stay, and you will die a horrible death.”

Sophia said it quietly, a distinct contrast to her subsequent loud words.

“Miss Ward, even if you do not forgive me, I hope you accept this token of apology from me. It is all the money I have with me. I dared not ask my father for more. Please do not hurt me, Miss Ward.”

The others in the tea house began to murmur.

Arielle, as usual, tuned out all the noise.

Arielle had crawled to the top amidst all the noise, defamation, accusations, doubts, schemes, and worse. She would not be Arielle Ward, the highest-paid financial analyst in the industry if she were affected by the chatter.

“Are you done, Miss Green? Is the grand finale of your act pending, or was this it?” Arielle calmly enquired, as if she was not the person being framed and orchestrated.

Sophia spied Thomas coming toward them. She leaned towards Arielle and said softly, “You are going to die, bitch. Wait and watch as Thomas kicks you. You should have been grateful for my offer.”

After that, she deliberately splashed herself with tea and fell.

“Please don’t hurt me, Miss Ward. Thomas is my fiancé. Our families have finalized the date of our wedding. I was impulsive earlier because I was jealous and angry. I didn’t mean it when I slipped my tongue. Please don’t hurt me. I swear I was not trying to pick on you.”

The insults hurled at Arielle increased at that. But as usual, she tuned it out.

She looked back at Thomas and was curious at his reaction.

“Sophia! What’s wrong with you?”

Thomas was on a phone call from his mother. She had informed him, not asked but informed, of his marriage with Sophia. He was to propose to her and get engaged at the upcoming office event.

He opposed it unequivocally, but his mother ordered him before hanging up.

Thomas was never close with his parents, especially his mother, who was directly responsible for Emma’s bad character.

He was exasperated and thought he could talk to Sophia and get to the bottom of whatever they were playing.

But he came outside to see Sophia on the ground with tea splashed on her. The tea was only lukewarm, so she was not hurt at all, but he still needed to mediate whatever was happening.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Thomas knew Arielle well enough to discern that she would never create a blunder. It could only be Sophia’s scheme.

“Thomas, I was just apologizing to Miss Ward. Please don’t be mad at her.” Sophia said in a soft tone like that of an injured dog.

Thomas pulled her up and said, “Why would I be mad at her?”

Sophia cried pitifully and added, “I didn’t mean to insult Miss Ward in the meeting earlier. It was an honest mistake. I was only apologizing.”

Thomas shouted at her, unable to bear insults against Arielle anymore.

“Shut up! You cost your father’s company 25% of his profits for the next five years in their collaboration with PGI and only then managed to buy your way inside PGI with my idiotic sister’s help!”

Sophia was dumbfounded. Thomas had not bothered to lower his voice.

Thomas looked at Arielle and added, “She is someone I poached after three months of negotiations, and her pay for this 6-month project is more than your company’s annual revenue.”

He turned to Sophia and added.

“Do you think you are qualified to compare yourself with her or compete with her?”

“Do you deserve to stand on the same platform as the most talented and highest-paid financial analyst?”

“Do you think I would believe she would participate in your petty schemes and make a gaffe when she had done nothing but ignore all your provocations in the past two weeks?”

Sophia stammered to say something to Thomas, but he cut her off, “Get lost before you get sued for defamation.”

The onlookers were stunned at the turn of events.

Sophia saw the change in people’s expressions and cried.

“I know she is sleeping with you. What does she have against you that you support her despite everything?”

“We are getting engaged in two weeks. Why would you still slander and wrongfully accuse me in front of everyone? Why Thomas, why?”

Sophia did not give them any chance to retort as she left the tea house with tears in her eyes.