Reiner supported me literally by supporting my body and comforting it. Everything just hurt my heart. The Rosenhall family is probably in a mess right now. Even if this court case was about Madame Francesca, there was no way that the family and their business wasn’t impacted when such a prominent and well-respected family member got suspected for so many serious crimes.
Lucien, Edward, and Zak…just how are they holding up?
“Maybe you should stop watching this,” Reiner suggested softly.
“No…please let me watch this…” I replied resolutely.
There was nothing that I could do to help Lucien and Edward. There was nothing that I could say to support or comfort Zak. The least that I could do was to face the truth head on…and move on…
“It’s all good now, Natalia. This is how things are supposed to be…” Reiner murmured close to my ear before he placed a kiss on the top of my head.
“I know…I just don’t know how to feel about all this…” I replied truthfully.
It felt painful. So painful…
Despite all the pain and struggles, this scandal truly brought Reiner and I even closer together than before. We watched the trial and all the news covering it together until the very end. It took almost two years, but in the end, Madame Francesca was sentence to a punishment that was fair and well suited for all the crimes that she had committed.
Just like that, it was really over.
…
**Two Years Later**
“Enjoy your holiday. Don’t worry about things here. We’ll definitely manage,” I told Queen with a smile.
Queen, dressed in a long dress with bright flowery patterns, smiled back at me and I have to say that I haven’t seen her this happy for a long time. King stood next to her in casual clothes, and he smiled at me too.
“Of course, you two can handle anything now. Finally, we can retire happily and go on holiday without any worry,” Queen replied with a laugh.
“Don’t over do it…” Reiner warned solemnly.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Queen replied so carefreely that I laughed at her reaction.
“We’ll be off now. Call me if anything urgent happens,” King said emotionlessly.
“Have a good trip!” I cried out happily as I waved them off.
Today marked the one-month mark of King and Queen’s retirement from the management of the company. Queen was ecstatic about this getaway with King that she had been planning for around two months in advance to celebrate their official retirement. It was hard to believe that the two of them were retiring, given how active they both were and how energetic. Queen was openly excited, but King seemed as cold and passive as always.
Despite his outwardly expressionless demeanor, I was sure that King was happy to finally retire and hand over the management of the company to his only son, Reiner. The same day that King officially retired was also the day that Reiner officially succeeded him as the new CEO of the company. Even though, I knew that this day was coming, I still had very mixed feelings about Reiner taking over.
Frankly, I was worried. He was already very busy before he took over so I just couldn’t imagine how busy he would be once he became the formal head of the company and inherited everything from King. It wasn’t like I had any doubt in my husband’s ability to manage the company and the business. If anything, I would say that no one was as ready as Reiner was to take over. For the past few years, he worked very hard and had learnt so much from King.
King was very strict on grooming his son and Reiner was probably groomed from the moment that he was born to take over this position. That was probably why Reiner seemed so relaxed about it all while I was the only one going mad from panic and worry. Things were quite busy due to this big management change, but everything seemed to have settled down well in the span of the past one month.
Reiner took my hand into his as we watch King and Queen drive away in their car. To our surprise, they didn’t even tell us where they were headed. Queen just told me that she’ll show me some cool photos of their trip when they return and that was that.
“I wonder where they’re headed off to…” I said curiously.
“Who knows…” Reiner replied before tugging on my hand.
He led me back into the mansion and I followed obediently.
Reiner wasn’t the only one who had sorted out his career. I also managed to create a place in this world for myself over the past years through sheer hard work with a little of Reiner’s support. Maybe a little more than a little of his support.
After pushing hard and travelling back and forth between the orphanages and the mansion for almost a year, we managed to find a way to manage and run the orphanages remotely from the mansion with the help of many new and talented team managers and members. Currently, I am helping King run five orphanages in three different locations and we are on track to expand even further.
Unlike before, the orphanages are now funded half by King’s money and half by my money. King had graciously placed his trust in me to manage all the orphanages and I was more than honored to do so. The result of my first ever project with Reiner had kicked in less than six months after the completion of the project. The survival of agents on team-based missions improved significantly and that meant that fewer and fewer children lost their parent during missions.
The higher success and survival rate lowered the number of orphans; however, it did nothing to lower the number of children impacted by the missions of the various wars and conflict that still broke out regularly over the globe. That meant that we focused a lot more on rehabilitating orphans from war zones. It was a more challenging task, but I found it so rewarding to be creating so much impact and positive change to the lives of these children.
–To be continued…