Cade left them in the room and Harper tried to follow him out.
“Cade Cade Cade” she kept repeating his name as she followed after him. He stopped at the base of the stairs and turned back to her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her. She giggled and then tried to pull a straight face. It was obvious she was drunk. Harper had been so nervous about the situation that she had a glass and two of wine before making it out there. If one did not look closely at her they would think she was sober when in fact she was tipsy.
“You are drunk?” he said in the form of a question.
“Oh my, that is scary, you still know me so well” she gasped as she walked to him.
“What is scary? If one looks well they can tell that you are drunk” Cade said taking a step to the first step to create space between them.
“Do you still love me?” she asked clapping her hands excitedly.
“Why is everyone doing this to me today?” Cade said under his breath.
“Who else did this to you?”
“My girlfriend asked me if I was still in love with you even though I had already told her that I was not. She seemed not to believe me”
“You have a girlfriend?” She asked shocked.
“Yes I do”
“That sucks” she said following with a hiccup.
“Does it? I already told you this in the morning so I don’t know why you made a fool out of yourself by coming here”
“I made a fool of myself? Your mom invited me”
“My mom? Oh please the relationship between myself and a stranger is better than what we have. If anyone from my family ever calls you out again just know that they are doing that to hurt you and make a fool out of you so for your sake and sanity I would advise that you do not go along with them” Cade said.
“I just wanted to have dinner with you, is that too much to ask?”
“I already had dinner, you can have dinner and see yourself out” Cade turned to leave but her hand holding his stopped her.
“Harper, I am being gentle and trying to be understanding because of the relationship we had but it seems as though you are not getting what I am saying”
“What are you saying?” she slurred.
He held her wrist and pushed it off his and then dropped it to her side. “I do not want to encounter you anymore so keep a distance from me and live a good life” he turned and walked faster than he would.
He wondered how cruel Abigail and Cael had to be to hurt her knowing fully well that she had no concern in the fight between them. Seeing that they brought her here it means they know about their relationship and were probably trying to leverage the issue to stop him from getting married. He would be stupid to let them win this time.
He knew the only thing he could do was to rush the wedding. They could pretend they had been dating secretly for a while and they had decided to make their relationship public since they would be tying the knot soon. He began to look at wedding ring designs.
If the wedding was held earlier than anyone expected they would not have any time to hatch their evil plans and he could be secure knowing he was already at the finish line just waiting to get the trophy.
“That plan did not work” Cael said as they settled into the swing on the balcony.
“Guess who executed a half-baked plan?” Abigail asked with a roughness to her voice.
“I know I am not the smartest tool in the shed but if you were as smart as you are pushing me to be then maybe you would have been able to realise that it was a half-baked plan and you would have done something about it”
“Are you blaming this on me?”
“Yes, I did not want to invite her today but you are the one that said strike the iron while it is still hot, maybe if we had taken time to come up with a proper plan then we would not have been so humiliated,” Cael said recalling all that happened.
Turned out that Harper was tipsy and Charles was not going to tolerate any nonsense from either of them. He shut down the excessive food on the table and sent everyone away claiming that he would do something about it the next morning.
“You really are blaming this on me? I am not the one who gets to become the chairman after all of this”
“But you want it more than anything, why don’t you just become the chairman”
“Do you think Charles would give it to me?” Abigail sighed as she ran her hand through her hair. “That old geezer would not give it to me even though I worked my bones for it and that is why I have to give it to you, it has to by all means land in your laps”
“Are you sure you want me to have it? Or do you just want someone to give you the control and that would be me”
“How can you say that? What are we doing?” she murmured turning to her son and holding his hands. “We are on the same side so why are we fighting each other? Let us support each other to achieve our goals instead of allowing them to turn us against each other.
Cael wanted to point out that she had avoided his question but let it be, even if she assumed her rights over him, it could only be to a certain extent. He wanted to kick Cade out of the family and the only way he could do that was to become the chairman at all costs.
“You are right Mom”
“Of course I am honey”
“What do we do next?”