Thaddeus drove the kids to kindergarten. Since he had accepted the task from Mona earlier, he had been paying close attention to Bobby along the way. Now that Mona had mentioned it to him, he also noticed that Bobby was acting differently than usual. Bobby usually wore casual and sporty outfits. He liked white shirts and jeans or just plain uniforms. Today, he wore a biker jacket and even gelled his hair, unlike how he usually dressed. Thaddeus tried calling him, but there was not much response. He peeked into the rearview mirror and saw the boy looking outside the window with his chin propped on his hand. The boy’s thoughts seemed to have drifted out of the window. “Bobby, Daddy is calling you,” Millie said and tapped on Bobby’s shoulder. “Bobby, you keep gazing out lately. What is that head of yours thinking?” Even Millie noticed Bobby’s unusual behavior lately, and alarms rang in Thaddeus’ heart. Bobby recollected his thoughts and looked at Thaddeus calmly. “What i
The girl, who was chewing on a piece of bubble gum, had pretty cool short hair. Noticing that Bobby was looking at her, she rolled her eyes and gave him the finger. Bobby averted his gaze and picked up a coloring pen to draw with pursed lips. Only Thaddeus took notice of the blush across his son’s cheeks. The moment outside gave Thaddeus all he needed to know. Turning on his heel, the man took long strides to the faculty office. Thaddeus got to know about how the kids had been doing in school lately and even filled the teacher out on the situation surrounding the girl. The girl was Megan Moore. Her parents had been killed in a traffic accident when she was one, and Megan had stayed with her maternal grandparents ever since. Her grandparents were in their advanced years and were out of touch with reality, so their idea of raising children was pretty backward, which contributed to Megan being withdrawn and rebellious. Nevertheless, it was hard enough for these senior citizens to
Thaddeus observed his son righteously taking full responsibility. For Bobby to have such cognition and accountability at his age, the boy showed the grace Thaddeus had once demonstrated in his younger years. “Alright. We’ll go with your idea. But I need to make one thing clear though: I’ll be the first to beat you up if you make Mommy sad.” Thaddeus caressed his son’s head.“Okay. Got it.” Furrowing his brows, Bobby took a glance at Thaddeus and mumbled under his breath, “Jesus, we all know you love your wife the most.” With his son grumbling, Thaddeus pulled on the boy’s ear. “What are you doing there, mumbling to yourself?” “Uh, nothing. I should get back to class, Daddy.” Bobby jumped off Thaddeus’ lap and waved his arm. Thaddeus put on a straight face and educated his son, “Go on. Although it’s good to help out a classmate, you can’t let it get in the way of your business. Got it?” “Yes.” Bobby turned to the side and looked in the direction of the schoolyard. The other
Mona told the cab driver to pull up and stared from afar while taking note of the address. With the phone in her handbag ringing, she pulled it out of her bag for a look. It was Ben calling. Mona took the call, and the voice on the other end of the line sounded anxious. “Where are you now, Mona? We couldn’t get in touch with you for the last few days. You got us worried sick.” “I had a little situation. What happened?” “It’s the opening of our studio today, but we have people coming here and calling our flagship designs rip-offs. They are threatening to report us to the Federal Trade Commission for unfair business practices.” “Are you talking about my two designs?” “Yeah. The two hit designs.” “Don’t sweat it. Those are my original works, so it’s ridiculous to say the designs are rip-offs. They can take us to court all they want, but they won’t get anything out of it. We can sue them for slander.” “Mona, things are not as simple as you think. They came here with the d
The leader of the group – a tall and burly man – took a step forward and blocked the entrance. He said to Mona, “Well, you’ll be wasting your time. The owner across the street is on vacation in the Maldives. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have sent me in the first place.” Furious, Mona lifted her chin and looked the man in the eye. She angrily uttered, “That doesn’t give you the right to come in my place and cause havoc. You’re breaking the law by starting trouble here. I’m going to call the cops.” Mona was incensed as these people had to ruin the opening of her business. They acted righteously as if they had a leg to stand on. They would only push her and her team around further if she did not show them who was boss. “Call the cops? Go on. I can tell you that my uncle is the chief of this precinct. We are not scared of a copycat like you.” The man looked at Mona and Ben in disdain. The way he saw it, these people were young and easy marks. He was only paid to do a job, so he would m
The police officer frowned. “Couldn’t you have settled this on your own?” “I tried to talk to them, but as you can see, they refuse to leave. They threatened us to move our business elsewhere or his uncle, apparently the police chief, will put me behind bars. I want to know if I’ve broken any laws that called for jail time.” Mona made it sound serious as there was an ongoing investigation into the integrity of government officials. For someone to throw their weight around in the name of their uncle who was the chief of police, the uncle would probably take a lot of heat if it made headlines. The burly man freaked out. “Nobody said anything about putting you behind bars. Don’t be ridiculous.” “Quit the racket and shut up.” With a stern look, the police officer gave the burly man a glare and then turned his attention to Mona. “You two should come with me to the station, so I can get your statement. I’ll sort this out for you.” “Thank you, officer.” Mona expressed her gratitud
Thaddeus glanced at the woman by his side, assured that she was doing well. He then pulled a long face and stared at the man who went after Mona. He questioned, “What did you chase after her for?” The man took stock of Thaddeus’ expensive taste in clothes. Intimidated by his commanding presence, the man backed down a little in confronting Mona. “She hit me. Half of my face is swollen,” the man whined as if Thaddeus was the father of the offending daughter while he tattled to the father as the victim of bullying. “Did you hit him?” Thaddeus lowered her head and asked Mona in a soft voice, not putting the blame on her at all. “I can’t believe he’s the one complaining. He started it, so he deserves a beating.” Mona stared daggers at the man. Thaddeus furrowed his brows and reached out to hold Mona’s hands to rub between his palms. “Your hands must be hurting. I’m only a phone away. Just leave this to me the next time.” Mona was dumbstruck, and so was the man standing in the
Surprised, the man lost his manners for a moment and cried out. Mona had an idea who the man was after Thaddeus addressed him as Mr. Foster. The man was likely the richest man in the neighboring city and Sherry’s father. “Yeah. We have two children together.” Getting a grip on himself, James looked at Mona a different way. The stunner must have a couple of tricks up her sleeve to have Thaddeus wrapped around her little finger. “Thaddeus, you’ve got game. You have two children before you’re even married.” James sneered. It was common for men to fool around with women and have children out of wedlock in the business circle. Thaddeus was the first to have the decency and the gall to admit to it. “You’ve got the wrong idea, James. We were married, and our marriage was legal in the eyes of the law. Sorry to let you down, but I’m not that kind of guy.” Upset, James pointed at Mona and questioned Thaddeus, “So, you’re saying that you caused a ruckus and even tried to throw my d