She's My Sleeping Pill

What bothered her was her father's words. [Celestine, I know you were innocent of that embezzlement crime, and I sent you to Italy for another reason. I guess you never listened to me out of disappointment to me as your father or probably your anger was so deep you didn't hear my words when I asked you to leave...] "What did he mean?" Celestine muttered without giving her daughter any answers.

She was confused.

"Mom?"

Celestine closed her eyes for a moment before opening them once again and stared at her daughter. "Julia, can we have this conversation some other time? I need to think about our next move. We cannot just act recklessly. You should know that Stefan, even when he wasn't named the successor of the Dumrique Conglomerate in the past, he has a lot of connections. Taking him down won't be easy."

"I understood," Julia responded to concede. She didn't want to argue with her mother anymore. At the end of the day, they had no one else to rely on but each other – if they had to exclude Julia's husband from this mess. "I'm done with my dinner, Mom. I'll go upstairs to talk with my husband."

"Go ahead."

Julia didn't waste another second. She immediately left her mother in the dining area and went upstairs. Currently, they were renting this home from the suburbs.

Even without the support from the Dumrique family, Celestine was still considered rich, and paired with her daughter whose husband was the heir of a fashion magazine company, even if she wouldn't raise her finger to work, she would still live a happy life.

They could have stayed in a hotel in the city, but because Stefan held a lot of shares in most hotel and restaurant businesses in the city, she decided to rent a house and make sure that Stefan wouldn't get a penny from her.

"Elliot," Celestine called for the mercenary who worked for her as her private driver, investigator, and assistant. The man walked out of nowhere and appeared right behind her. "Can you gather all the information about the projects I have worked on with Emerald Holdings starting 15 years ago?"

"That might take a while ma'am, but of course, I can do that."

"Is one month enough for you to sort things out?"

"That is more than enough ma'am."

"Good. While you are doing that, let's put our plan on hold, but don't tell Julia about this yet."

"Yes, ma'am."

Celestine waved her hand and the man left without looking back. Elliot was a mercenary she hired for more than five years now. He was the one who helped her plan her revenge and slowly took back Emerald Holdings for her. His ideas were brilliant as if he was made for this kind of job – to assist her in everything she liked to do.

Emerald Holdings was one of the subsidiary companies that the Dumrique Conglomerate owned. It was where she worked her ass from the bottom of the hierarchy despite being the daughter of Ferdinand Dumrique. She was scorned by many and even her colleagues looked down on her.

They thought for someone who embezzled company funds, even working as a janitor was a very lenient punishment. They all wanted her to end up in jail, and she hated her father even more because of this.

What was worse, when her name got cleared from the case, Ferdinand didn't look for her to take her back to A City. [Did I really miss something important when I was kicked out of the house? That couldn't be possible, right? If he was testing me, how come it's taking so long?]

Wondering about all of this, Celestine stopped eating and asked the temporary servant she hired to clean up the table. "Please bring me a cup of coffee in my room once you are done cleaning here,"

"Yes, ma'am."

***

Meanwhile, Stefan was taking care of the children since Cayenne had to leave for a charity auction with Jackson and Kyle. Supposedly, he would come with her, but Cayenne insisted that he stay at home with the children.

"Why are you staring into space?" Ferdinand asked his grandson when he found him sitting in the kid's room while the children crawled on the carpeted floor. "Are you thinking of picking up your wife?"

"I'm torn between doing that and staying with the kids," Stefan answered and sighed. "If I really leave now to go and pick her up, do you think she will be upset?"

"You know your wife more than me. What do you think?"

Stefan sighed once again as he picked up her daughter who was getting closer to the edge of the carpet. He put her down in the middle where her brothers were playing with soft plushies. "I'll trust the bodyguards this time. If I leave the children here, I will be sleeping in the guest room."

"It's a good thing that you know the consequence," Ferdinand responded and pointed her hand to Aziel. "Let me hold my grandson tonight."

Stefan picked Aziel up and handed him to his grandfather. "Grandpa, what will you do to your daughter? What happened to my father might have been caused by a natural disaster, but we cannot forget the fact that she really attempted to kill him. I won't forget it, and despite my estranged relationship with him in the past years, he was still my father.

I am not the type who sits back while someone's planning to hurt my family."

"Stefan, you should not keep any grudge in your heart. It's true that she planned it but she wasn't able to - "

"Then, are we going to wait for her to execute her plan?" He questioned with a trace of anger in his voice. The rest of Ferdinand's words were cut off. "Anyway, she is your daughter, and you have the right to deal with her however you see fit to her betrayal."

Ferdinand caressed his grandchild's head and smiled at the little lass before gesturing for Stefan to take the child back. "I gave her a chance to redeem herself. If she won't take this opportunity to take a step back and repent, I'll let you do whatever you want."

"You've given me your words. I hope you won't interfere in this matter anymore."