CHAPTER 9•GRILLED THOROUGHLY.
~Chiara.
"Welcome to the circus, Chiara."
Amelia muttered under her breath before walking back gracefully to her seat.
I still waited for Alex's angry reaction to her unauthorized touch .
There was nothing. His mood seemed to have changed for the better.
"Amelia?"
"What?"
She gazed at him from her long gorgeous lashes.
"Please behave."
She let out a soft laugh.
" Ok but you know me .No promises "
She whispered the last part out and he chuckled , pulling out a chair for me to sit on.
I slid a look at Margaux but she seemed to be excited about their light-hearted banter.
Tin no time we began dining.Dinner was an interrogation disguisef as a polite conversation.Margaux quizzed me on everything.
Parents, background, financial history,school, just you name it.
Her condescending reactions to the answers of all the questions she threw at me showed I was proving her right.
I was too low of a lowly genre to marry into her family.
A familiar feeling crept over me.
It was the feeling I always had when my parents went hungry just to let me have the last egg in the house for dinner so I wouldn't starve .
A feeling of shame and poverty.
My back stiffened and I thought Enough was enough.It was time I showed this stuck up family another side of me .
"Yes ,Mrs Carrington.I actually love my work.Infact,my company has been working for months towards an ideal pitch for the hospitality industry of the Carrington Groups ."
Margaux immediately straightened up,her dark eyes firing up.
" You knew about this ?"
The question was directed at Alex.
" That was after I married her ,Mum and please can you let this go..?"
" Wait what? She's pitching to us . Don't you see she's trying to make use of your influence to bypass the Due process of work ethics.?"
I was stunned. The question hung in the air.In two sentences, this woman had just called me a gold digger.
All my life , my parents had taught me the value of working hard to earn the rewards for the labours of my sweat.They taught me with every time they starved just so I could pay my school tuition to never collect undue favours .
Now she had just insulted both me and the efforts my parents put towards training and loving me.
I raised my head Margaux leaned back finally, a subtle victorious smirk playing on her lips. She looked like she had poked a fault line. Amelia was smiling more openly
Alexander turned his handsome face to look at me . Our eyes met and held.
His beautiful tricolour eyes probed mine. I bit my lips to stem their quivering.
His cutlery clattered suddenly in the heavy silence. He pulled out a serviette, wiped his mouth quietly and threw it into his dish.
"Mum , apologize to Chiara now!!"
I thundered quietly.I watched Margaux freeze.
" What?"
She thundered . Alex tried to intervene again but I caught his arm just in time, silencing him.
I have always fought my own battles and so I didn't need him fighting for me against his snobbish family just to have them level another accusation on my head of me being manipulative.
"It's only right that you're worried about your son's hasty choice of a wife, Margaux."
I said calmly, meeting her gaze squarely
"But the answer is no .My team's work ethics speaks for itself.My proposal was submitted t the Carrington Groups long before Alex and I were ,well ..... acquainted."
I took a deep breath.to continue
"Now if my company wins that contract, it'll be based on merit and not because of the fact that I married the CEO of the Carrington Group.I love my job and I value my professional integrity above all else."
Margaux looked stumped by my defensive counterattack.I exulted in her incredulous expression.
" We shall see about that ,Ms.DeLuca.The Carrington Groups, as I pointed out earlier does not tolerate the perception of favouritism-"
She paused dramatically to slide a chunk of steak in a mouth,a tiny warning echoes in her voice.
I was held her chew slowly.I had an intuition I wouldn't like whatever she had to say next
"-And so with that being said , I'll have to ask you to quit your job in that company
of yours ... first thing tomorrow morning.!!! "