Anastasia felt a sense of bliss within her. In three days’ time, it would be their wedding day.
Night descended, and the atmosphere on the island tonight was merrier than ever because of the party that the guests were eagerly waiting to attend. This was even more so for the younger crowd, as they were full of excitement for tonight’s event.
The band invited to perform tonight was the top band in the country. Furthermore, there was great wine, good food, and interesting young souls at
tonight’s event.
However, both the bride and the groom had no time to attend the party.
Anastasia was summoned to see Harriet. The reason was that Harriet had prepared photos of everyone from the Presgrave extended family to make things easier for
her granddaughter-in-law. Harriet also went through each person in detail with Anastasia, going through the person’s background and personality.
Although Harriet was aged, she had a great memory and a logical train of thoughts. Anastasia was quite impressed. by that.
Anastasia was also quite touched that Harriet had done so much in preparation for her upcoming role as the lady of the house. Anastasia forgot about everything else and focused on Harriet’s analysis.
There were two powerful forces she had to pay attention to amongst the Presgrave extended family.
The first one was Old Master Presgrave’s first cousin. They were closely related due to their blood ties, so their families tended to interact with each other.
The second force to be mindful of was the influential group passed on decade after decade by the earlier generations of Presgrave ancestors. They pledged their allegiance to the Presgrave Family, but they had their own power and wealth. They had once intended to join the board of directors of Presgrave Group, but Harriet had denied that.
On the surface, Presgrave Group seemed to be peaceful and stable, but in actual fact, the entanglement of relationships within was messy and quite complicated. From then on, it was imperative that she handle every relationship carefully.
The Presgrave Family continued to uphold their reputation and the glorious family prestige passed on from a hundred years ago. As such, it was essential that they uphold the family reputation, and there was no way that the family name could be tarnished in any sense.
Anastasia listened carefully to Harriet’s words. Evidently, she would have to interact with this group of people in the future, and it would be quite a mission too.
“Grandma, I’ll definitely try my best to maintain a good relationship with them,” Anastasia promised.
“People will resort to anything when there are personal interests to be gained. I’m not worried about you and Elliot, but you should be on your guard against plots behind your back,” Harriet
instructed.
“I get it.” Anastasia glanced at the photos on the table and kept Harriet’s words to heart. The former was left impressed by the latter’s sage advice.
“Alright, don’t get too stressed out by all this. You should go and find Elliot to have lunch with. The dishes here are too bland, so I’m sure you would find them quite unpalatable.” Harriet patted her hand.
At that moment, Anastasia realized that it had been more than a day since she last saw Elliot. She walked out of Harriet’s villa and dialed Rey’s number.
“Hey, Rey, where is he?”
“President Presgrave is at the villa and is waiting for you to have dinner together.”
“Sure, I’ll be back shortly.” Anastasia didn’t expect that he was already waiting for her, so she quickly entered the buggy waiting by the side to go back to his villa.
It merely took her several minutes to
arrive back there, and as she walked into the brightly lit-up villa, she saw that he was no longer dressed in the suit he had on earlier when he was entertaining the guests. He had changed into loungewear and was currently seated on the couch waiting for her.
She instantly leaped into his arms as he wrapped his arms around her waist quite naturally and kissed the top of her head. She shifted her head sideways and placed a kiss on his cheek too.
At that moment, Elliot looked at her sympathetically. He knew the reason Harriet had summoned her over for the past two days, and it pained him to realize that she had to withstand all of this pressure even before she actually married him.
He felt quite guilty and he blamed himself for all that. After all, he wanted to marry her and shower her with plenty of love, but the complicated situation with his extended family meant that she had to learn the ropes to deal with the Presgrave Family matters from an early stage.
“Darling, you’ve worked hard.” Elliot kissed her on the forehead. “You haven’t even married me, and yet you’ve had to withstand all this pressure.”
“Since I’ve decided to marry you, I’m mentally prepared for all this.” Anastasia wrapped her arms around his neck and looked at him with firm eyes. “Trust me, I will definitely be a great wife.”
The pained look in his eyes was quite evident as he pulled her into his arms tightly. “I trust you, of course. From now on, no matter what happens, I promise I won’t let you suffer any injustice at all.”
“Let’s start dinner and then we can keep Jared company later on. We’ve been too busy and we haven’t been spending much time with him.” Anastasia felt very guilty for casting her son aside.
“Okay, he can sleep in the same room with us tonight.” Elliot also made the decision to bring their son over.
