CHAPTER 3

Sofia's hands trembled as she held the bowl closer and closer to her mouth.

"Use a spoon if you want." She instructed as though giving permission to a child, and Sofia shook her head to continue holding the bowl to directly drink from it. 

Gemma watched her in amusement. "What is it? Why can I eat it but you can't, huh?" 

"It's…" Sofia's eyes started to well up. "The ingredients are so expensive. I can never afford it." 

"It's okay. You can have it." Gemma gave a kind smile, but Sofia felt so spooked that the bowl slipped from her hands. 

"I'm sorry, it fell by mistake." She apologized with her hands still trembling. She met Gemma's sharp gaze which scared her so much that she didn't even realize that she no longer had to eat the poisoned soup. 

"Such a lowly trick." Gemma sneered. 

"It wasn't…" Sofia tried to defend herself, only to shut up when the woman stood up and landed a slap right on her cheek. It was so painful that she almost fainted. 

Peeking at the door, Olivia huffed and almost ran in when Noah grabbed her to pull her back.  "Don't." 

Olivia watched her daughter get bullied but she knew that if she walked in, it would only prove that it was a plan made by the three of them.

Gemma slapped Sofia on both cheeks, backhanding her mercilessly. "Do you think that I would have gotten to my current position if I was not wary of such insanity?" 

"I'm sorry!" Sofia cried as she fell onto her knees, a small shard cutting into her skin to make her wince in pain as tears flooded her face. 

"No you aren't." Gemma sneered. She was not sorry about trying to poison her. She was only pretending to be sorry because she did not succeed. 

She walked out of the dining room and caught sight of two shadows disappearing behind another wall. Those rats.  

After ordering takeout and having her dinner, she sat on her desk to finish up on her work. She had a lot to deal with especially now that she had to recover the things she had lost. 

She had read the gossip forums and knew what everyone thought of her. It was uncertain who started it but everyone now knew what the Black family had done to her. Her company was no longer truly hers… 

A CEO sans shares is what Ethan had made her. All he had to do was appear to be distressed and like the idiot she was in the past, she was swayed by him. 

The two of them had been friends since they were children, and she trusted him more than she trusted herself. He helped her find a job as soon as an opportunity presented itself

He lived near the orphanage she grew up at. They were best friends and he left first, to find a job as a manservant in the Dumont household. He recommended her for a job when a chance presented itself, so they became workmates. 

Gemma's mind switched back to the present. She was still unwilling to recall what a horrible decision she had made, by rejecting the couple who wanted to adopt her and choosing to go and work instead. 

Even though she didn't want to, she could still remember just how stupid she had sounded. 

_

"Why do you what to adopt a grown up? Are you going to force me into labor or unspeakable deeds?" She asked the couple accusingly—the middle aged, aristocratic couple who had introduced themselves as Mr. and Mrs. Williams, and wanted to take her home as their daughter. 

The woman seemed hurt by her words, which made her frown. Even so, she was still patient with her. "That's not it, my dear. It's only because we have never had a child of our own. We have already lost hope." 

She wasn't in the slightest but guilty for jabbing her scar, and she was even more suspicious. "Then why don't you get a baby? Why does it have to be a girl my age?" She was sixteen at the time, only two years away from adulthood and had already accepted that she would never have a family. She didn't understand why anyone would want a child as old as she was.

So, she followed Ethan to the Dumont family. Despite all the misery she faced, it was through the Dumont family that she reunited with her real family who had lost her thanks to a series of schemes that happened when she was born. 

They took her back against her will, but at least they gave her all the love she had failed to get as a child.

At the time, she was in a relationship with Ethan and made it a point to make sure her parents knew that she did not intend to break up with him just because of their difference in status. They accepted him for her sake and even liked him for a while. 

The only downside was that she kept asking for money from her parents like the idiot she was, and she used all of it to help Ethan  who had a ton of family problems that needed hefty sums to solve. 

Now that she thought about it, Ethan had never once asked for her help. He would only appear to be distressed and she would do everything to help him out without being asked to do so. 

Helping Olivia find a doctor to cure her broken arm, getting Sofia into her dream college and giving Noah a job at her company was not the limit of what she did for them. When she and Ethan got married, she brought all of them into her mansion for them to enjoy the luxury they had never once had in their lives. 

It was through this very manipulation that when her company finally became successful, she was willing to sell all her shares to pay for Sofia's brain surgery. As for whether the brain surgery really existed or not was a different story altogether.

Shaking her head at her stupidity, she wondered what would have happened if she followed the Williams home and became their daughter. 

She brushed the thought off on second thought. If she didn't go though that phase of her life, she would never have become who she currently was. 

The following morning had Gemma's eyes swell from not having enough sleep. 

"What in the world happened to you?" Cora exclaimed when she went to clean her room in the morning. 

"Just leave me alone, can you?" She groaned from the bed, snuggling in the duvet with no intention to move an inch. 

"Is there trouble at your company?" Cora asked. There was little that distressed Gemma lately, and that was the closest guess she could come up with. When Gemma nodded, she frowned as she paused her work. "Geez… you look like you are being haunted by Ethan."  She teased. 

"I'd rather be haunted by Ethan." Gemma confessed. She was cartain that the Blacks knew that she no longer had shares in her company, and they could easily collaborate with someone to kick her out of the company. 

"How about you get someone to buy shares from? You can convince one of the other shareholders." She suggested since she knew that the person she sold to would definitely not agree to sell them back. 

"It isn't easy to convince any of the shareholders." She let out a sigh. If it were easy, would she be this distressed? There was only one who had agreed to sell 5% to her, but at an astronomical price—not that she had a choice. 

"Do you need me to help you have a word with another shareholder?" Cora offered. She was good in negotiating and might be able to handle it with much ease. 

It was harder for Gemma, because she already had suspicion against her name. The damned businessmen were taking advantage of this fact to ask for impossible conditions. 

Gemma sat up as an idea struck her. "Buy them in your own name. You can transfer it to me later." 

"I'll try to contact a shareholder as soon as I finish my work." Cora promised. Gemma trusted her because they had known each other for over a decade. To be exact, she trusted no one. She had done a thorough background check on Cora and knew that the latter would never try anything she shouldn't.