Sheffield couldn't bear to see Evelyn's sorrowful face, so he ended the topic. "Evelyn, for someone who is so strong and independent in many aspects, in the face of love, you are too… weak." She'd never said the words "I love you" to him. Sheffield didn't know whether she was too shy to say it or she didn't love him as much as he thought she did.
At this moment, Evelyn couldn't find any fault with his words. Indeed, she was weak in matters of love.
Sheffield dotingly brushed his fingers through her long hair and smiled. "Anyway, you should go back. Calvert's waiting for you. He may not be a good guy, but I have to admit that he does love you. Go!"
As soon as the last word left his lips, Sheffield turned around and strode away, blocking Evelyn's voice out of his head as she called out his name.
'Goodbye, Evelyn. It was an honor to have been a tiny part in your life's journey.'
"Sheffield!" Evelyn cried out, as she held up the hemline of her dress when she heard the sound of engines revving, and ran after him in front of everybody.
Unfortunately, she only managed to catch a blurred streak of brake lights as the car sped out and disappeared into the distance.
As she stood there motionlessly staring out, Calvert walked to her and held her in his arms.
His instincts were telling him that Sheffield was finally leaving Evelyn.
When Carlos and Debbie rushed out of the hotel, they saw Evelyn running after the yellow car in tears. Guilt built up in Carlos' heart as he clenched his fists.
Carlos rushed over to Evelyn and held her in his arms, his heart breaking with every tear that left her sad eyes.
'I'm sorry, honey…' Carlos was genuinely remorseful.
Meanwhile, a piece of news began to spread on the Internet
—"Mysterious man showed up unannounced at Evelyn Huo and Calvert Ji's engagement ceremony. Is something fishy going on behind Calvert's back?"
Below the words were nine photos to support the scandalous narrative. Some were taken when the three of them were chatting face to face inside the hotel. The others were taken outside the hotel where Evelyn was seen running after Sheffield to stop him from leaving. As the photos were taken in secret, it was hard to make out Sheffield's identity due to the unclear nature of the shots.
Fortunately, as soon as the staff of ZL Group saw the news, the personnel of the PR department immediately blocked the news and contacted Carlos' assistant.
When Carlos looked into it and found out that the person who had taken the pictures was an employee of the hotel, he personally asked the hotel manager to handle the situation discreetly. Soon enough, the original post had been taken out before it could spread even further. More importantly, they made sure to permanently erase the photos from the employee's phone.
Ever since the night Evelyn got engaged to Calvert, Sheffield had disappeared from her life.
She would only ever see or hear about him in the news, but that was all. Recent news reported that Sheffield had become one of the most prominent elites in all of Y City. In fact, considering his age, Sheffield's quick rise to fame and fortune had turned him into the hottest topic to talk about.
There were rumors of him being seen at ZL Group a few times concerning the cooperation of the new drug, but nothing that had anything to do with Evelyn.
Much to everyone's surprise, when Sheffield's fame and wealth had risen to the peak, he suddenly chose to keep a low profile. He hardly accepted any offers for an interview, nor did he appear in public very often.
Eventually, after a laying low for a few days, he deliberately disappeared from Y City. According to someone who worked in the company, apparently, Sheffield had delegated all of his responsibilities to his team and left to support the local health care center of a village.
At the end of lunar February, another piece of news that got released on the Internet drew everyone's undivided attention.
This time it was Calvert who had made the headlines—"Calvert Ji, son of diamond merchant, Langston Ji, accused of cheating on Evelyn Huo, daughter of ZL Group's CEO, with another woman."
The evidence provided was hard to refute. There were pictures of Calvert kissing another woman in his arms. The woman was none other than Rowena.
There were also GIFs of them kissing each other passionately outside the gate of their house, as if it weren't a big deal.
Although the photos didn't show what had happened after the kiss, the absence of such visual evidence only encouraged the public's imaginations to run wild. Those were the exact same contents of Sheffield's email to Carlos.
The pictures were taken before the engagement. After some investigation, the media found out that it was during the time Calvert was dating with Evelyn.
Everyone felt sorry for Evelyn. The poor woman had just been engaged to a man who had been cheating on her.
As if that weren't bad enough, the woman her fiance was having an affair with was Rowena.
The news went viral on the Internet within a few hours. And after just one day, everyone in the country had learned about Calvert's affair.
The domino effect it had on the Ji Group was much greater than anticipated. The company's stock prices had plummeted so low that they struggled to restore their reputations. Most of the netizens called out to their officials asking them for an explanation.
In the Ji family's mansion
Clap! Langston, who had always been obedient to his wife, disregarded Ally and delivered a loud, open-handed smack in Rowena's face.
Prior to this scandal, he used to consider Rowena, the stepdaughter with whom he had no blood relationship, as his own for the sake of Ally. The fact that Rowena was an obedient and considerate person obviously helped, to say the least.
However, Langston never thought that it would be his obedient step-daughter who would end up destroying the Ji Group and his son's future.
The force of the strike shook Ally's heart. She immediately stood in between them and said, "Langston, why haven't you disciplined your son yet? He had just as much as involvement in the matter as Rowena did. How can you put all the blame on Rowena? Why haven't you asked your people to expose Evelyn's affair? Why does my daughter have to suffer punishment alone?"
Langston was so angry that he couldn't stop his hands from shaking. He pointed at Rowena and screamed at her, "I have taken care of you for so many years. How could you do this to my son? You knew he liked the eldest daughter of the Huo family, but you just couldn't keep your hands off him, could you? Do you know what your actions have done to the future of this company? Do you know that because of you, my son is being regarded as a bad man? He's life is finished! Do you understand what you've done?"
Clutching at her swollen cheek, Rowena bit her lower lip as tears welled up in her eyes. She didn't dare to utter a single word.
Ally's eyebrows shot up in bewilderment and she yelled at him, "Have someone pull out the news and take down the photos! What will it cost? Only money, right?"
"Pull out the news? Hah! The ZL Group is one of the developers of the Weibo app. Calvert isn't even a pop star from the entertainment circles, and yet he's attracted so much attention. Don't you find that a bit strange?" Langston was almost certain that Carlos Huo was the architect of this catastrophe.
"What does Carlos Huo want? He was the one who wanted Calvert to replace Evelyn's boy toy and become her boyfriend. Why made him turn against Calvert?" Ally raised her voice in fury. Carlos was responsible for making her daughter suffer from cyber-bullying and physical abuse from Langston.
She couldn't figure out what that cold CEO wanted to achieve from their downfall. Hatred flashed through Langston's eyes as soon as he realized what Carlos' plan was. He must have resorted to such a despicable plan because he couldn't call off the engagement directly even though he didn't want her daughter to marry Calvert. This scandalous incident put the Ji Group on the side of the defaulter, while the ZL Group was the victim.
As soon as the plan had succeeded, Carlos no longer had any use for Calvert.
"Mom, Uncle Langston… I'm sorry," Rowena interjected weakly when the study was quiet.
Ally blew at her daughter's swollen face and affectionately said, "I'll ask someone to bring you some ice cubes."
"No, thanks." Rowena shook her head and continued, staring at Langston, "Uncle, I'm sorry. It's all my fault. Please punish me."
However, Langston had no time for such small matters. If he had allowed for things to go on like this, soon enough he wouldn't have a company worth fighting for.
