Chapter 49 So It Wasn’t Marriage Leave?
A week later, Nancy was discharged from the hospital.
Ever since Rachel indicated that she was about to regain her memories, Jefferey’s attitude toward her had warmed considerably. He called her multiple times in that week itself and invited her home for dinner.
His behavior led her to confirm that her mother’s death was connected to the medication formula.
“I can take care of myself, Rae. Why did you hire a nurse?”
Inside her bedroom, Nancy was looking out through the door and she grumbled a little at Rachel’s waste of money.
As Rachel stacked a pile of clothing onto the shelves, she glanced up at Nancy with a smile. The nurse was introduced by Dr. Peters, she signed. She’ll come over every day only to help you make your meals and tidy up the place. If anything happens, she can also contact me in a timely manner.
Although Rachel hadn’t accepted Julian’s offer to help her find a place, she had accepted his assistance to introduce a nurse instead.
“What can happen to me? I’m fully recovered now.” After looking around for a moment, Nancy sighed. “It is true that this place is a little too large for a single person. It’s such a pity that you can’t come over to stay with me.”
Rachel lowered her head in guilt without much explanation.
Nancy had assumed Rachel was still living at Hudson Residence, in which Rachel saw no need to clarify the situation as she was considered a member of the Hudson Family.
“Dr. Peters is a good man, Rae. We should find an opportunity to thank him.”
Yes, Dr. Peters is a good man, Rachel agreed.
“How about this? Have him come over for dinner this weekend. I’ll make us all some pierogi.”
The moment she heard Nancy’s words, Rachel stopped stacking the clothes for a while and immediately shook her head. He’s an extremely busy man.
“Whether he’s occupied or not is his business because we have to show our gratitude.”
Knowing that she wouldn’t be able to change her grandmother’s mind, Rachel surrendered and agreed.
When the time came, she simply needed to tell Nancy that Julian wasn’t free.
As if she saw through her granddaughter at a glance, Nancy responded, “Well, call him now and arrange a time. I want to ask him whether there is anything I should avoid eating, anyway.”
At once, Rachel lifted her head and glanced at her watch. I have no time, Grandma. I have to be at work soon.
“Oh, Rae…”
It was only after she slammed the door shut that she let out a sigh of relief.
She knew that her grandmother was intending to set her up with Julian, but she knew that it was impossible. As she couldn’t explain much to Nancy, she could only avoid her grandmother for now.
Moreover, she hadn’t lied; her leave had ended today and she would have to head to the City Council Library in the afternoon for work.
Meanwhile, at the Burton Group, the engineering department was holding a project summary meeting for their bid inside a conference room.
“The bidding results for the Brentwood New City project have been released. Everyone’s hard work during this period has paid off, thanks to President Burton’s great support of our engineering department too. Once the contract has been signed, we’ll be able to start implementing our overall plan…”
After Justin had listened in for a while, Frankie entered the meeting room after answering a phone call and whispered, “We’ve finished investigating your email leak, President Burton.”
“What did you find?”
“We have tracked the IP address of the sender to an address abroad and managed to pinpoint a specific location.”
Justin frowned at that.
When the meeting ended, he returned to his office.
With a solemn expression, Frankie handed the investigation report to him while saying, “Here’s the specific address.”
When Justin saw the ‘SG Conglomerate’ logo on the report, his gaze slightly darkened. “Are you sure it came from a computer inside SG Conglomerate?”
Frankie nodded. “According to this report, five of the floors in this SG Conglomerate building are rented out. For now, we’ve only managed to pinpoint the IP address to this building but not to a specific computer there. The network in this building is protected and our technology department hasn’t been able to hack into it yet.”
SG Conglomerate had crossed paths with Burton Group three years ago. At that time, SG Conglomerate was trying to break into the domestic energy market only to have Burton Group snatch the project right from their hands. Because of that incident, the two companies were not on good terms.
“Do you think these photographs were sent by someone within SG Conglomerate, President Burton?”
As he lifted his head from perusing the report, Justin answered coolly, “How do you think the previous two photographs have affected Burton Group?”
Now that the two photographs involving Julian and Rachel had been brought up, Frankie felt perturbed and answered hesitantly, “Maybe they’re trying to do the same thing that happened before and exploit public opinions to affect Burton Group’s reputation and, with that, its stock price.”
“They wouldn’t need to send the photographs to me if that were the case.” Unerringly, Justin pointed out the flaw in Frankie’s logic.
If the other party was trying to do as Frankie said, they could simply send the photographs to the media, write a news report, and hire some people to smear Burton Group’s name online. There wouldn’t be any need to send the photographs to Justin’s email inbox at all.
A stumped Frankie stood there with mouth agape as Justin’s logic was irrefutable. “So, they’re—”
“It might not have anything to do with them.”
After all, five floors of the building were rented out. From their previous conflict, Justin knew the people of SG Conglomerate weren’t so foolish as to do something that could be discovered upon initial investigation.
As such, he instructed Frankie, “Find out which companies are renting the five floors and the backgrounds of their respective person-in-charge. Also, have the overseas market research department monitor SG Conglomerate’s recent movements.”
In truth, Justin wasn’t expecting for an incident so minor to be connected with SG Conglomerate. After all, Rachel was the intended target of the email. At first, Justin even assumed that it was a repeat of the previous rumor incident and he was nearly certain that it was the handiwork of the mindless Amber.
However, judging from the current situation, things weren’t as simple as he thought they were.
As the saying went, it was better to be safe than to be sorry. It was best that he investigated the incident thoroughly.
“What has Rachel been doing lately?”
Frankie paused. “I was just about to tell you that her grandmother has left the hospital today and she is staying near Newbridge. She has a nurse taking care of her and the nurse—”
“What about the nurse?”
“The nurse was introduced by Dr. Peters,” Frankie answered in nervousness.
Justin snorted coldly. “I see that he’s making a career change from a doctor to a housekeeping agent.”
He and Julian had never gotten along as kids and as they grew up, their personalities had only drastically diverged. In his eyes, Julian was an idealistic child who never grew up whereas in Julian’s eyes, Justin was nothing more than an opportunistic businessman.
“And the place that she rented is at Newbridge?” Justin continued asking.
“Yes.” Frankie nodded. “It’s not far from the City Council Library where she works.”
Works?
If Frankie hadn’t mentioned it, Justin would have forgotten that Rachel was a working adult with a job at the City Council Library.
“She must have a lot of time on her hands if she can take such a long break.”
“She applied for annual leave,” Frankie explained. “It was followed by another week of sick leave because of her grandmother. That’s why she could take such a long break.”
“Annual leave?” Justin narrowed his eyes slightly. “So, it wasn’t marriage leave that she applied for?”
Frankie froze, afraid of having misspoken.
It was already in the afternoon when Rachel left her grandmother’s rented residence. When she arrived at her place of work, it was still the lunch hour.
In an attempt not to disturb her coworkers resting in the office, she immediately entered the library to organize the shelves after she kept her bag aside.
Her main responsibility was to return the borrowed books to the shelves and to keep the mantelpieces and archives organized. Although it was not a well-paid nine-to-five job, the workload was steady and leisurely. More importantly, not a lot of social interaction was required.
“Excuse me, are there books about history and literature over here?”
Rachel was in the midst of moving a few returned books from a small cart onto the shelves when a man spoke up behind her all of a sudden. Her body had stiffened as a result and she froze, feeling like her feet had been cemented into the ground.
As if it carried all the brightness of her childhood with it, the man’s voice had illuminated the rare few memories of her younger days where she was kindly treated.
