Their was a long, unsettling silence in the room after Maximus's daunting question.
Maximus had a mission, and he couldn't afford to get distracted by allowing himself to get sucked into intra-family politics of a large conglomerate when he should be building his very own.
"Yes…" Valerie's voice crashed the silence like a bowling ball.
"Genius… you are absolutely right…" Valerie started as she picked up the tea cup from the dining table and hovered it around her silk lips so that the steam warmed her breathe.
"Because I'm a woman and the only child of my deceased parents, I need to bear a child and extend the family line so that my grandmother would finally allow me to inherit the family's fortune…"
She was about finishing her statement when Maximus suddenly cut her off by clearing his throat loudly.
"Ahem!!!"
"I missed the part where you talked about the Ashen Halo…" he said with his eyes narrowed to a slit.
Clang!
