Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 75: Challenge

So he was going to give her another task again. He was making her work!

"Mr. Sterling, I was invited to come here, not to pick flowers for you."

She must have been crazy to think he brought her out here out of the kindness of his heart.

Why should she follow his orders here? It might be his house, but he didn’t invite her, and nor was this the company, so she had her free will.

"I don’t have to do anything you say here. It’s not work hours, neither is this the office. Pick your own flowers. Last I checked, your hands are perfectly intact." She felt satisfied shooting him a jab, then began to walk away.

She made to go back inside, but his voice halted her steps.

"A few nights ago, you failed at a task I gave you. Do you think I’ve forgiven that?"

Turning to him, she asked, "What did I fail? I didn’t do any..."

She suddenly remembered the office task when she hadn’t cleaned all the floors he ordered her to, and he’d even fired her, but she’d locked him in until he took it back.

"You know just what I’m talking about. And if you don’t do as I say, I’ll easily take away your job. You know I have the power to do that," he said to her with a confident gaze.

"So what if I failed? I managed to keep my job the last time."

"By blackmail," he deadpanned with a straight face.

"I didn’t..." She couldn’t argue with that. Instead, she changed her words. "You can’t prove that anyway."

He narrowed his eyes. "Don’t test me." 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Still, she didn’t want to give in.

What made him push her around as if he couldn’t see anyone else to bother, even when she was just minding her business?

"I have a recording of your voice. You gave me your word that you wouldn’t fire me."

He smirked, making him look devious.

"Do you?"

She became more confident.

"I do. I made sure to record every word you said. Don’t think you can threaten me with losing my job, otherwise I’ll just play it to the whole company. I wonder what that would say about you, Mr. Andrew Sterling." Her lips lifted confidently.

It seemed she wouldn’t lose to this arrogant man anymore from now on.

It felt quite good to have something to use to argue against this arrogant man.

Something about whenever she managed to render him speechless always made her feel quite powerful.

This lofty man needed a little bit of that sometimes.

Someone to remind him that he was no deity but a human who could be outdone by another human being.

Smiling sweetly, she flipped her hair and turned to leave.

"This so-called weapon you have against me—are you absolutely certain you still have it? Are you absolutely certain you will still have your job by this time tomorrow?"

Anne stopped walking, her confidence not dimming even slightly.

"If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not going to work," she said confidently—until she turned to face him, seeing his lips maintaining that look that showed he still felt above everything and everyone.

She didn’t want to show him that her confidence was wavering a bit. So she turned her back to him and checked her phone quickly.

Why did he have that cunning look on his face?

Was her recording still here?

Checking her phone swiftly, her hand went stiff when realization dawned on her.

The folder was empty.

The recording was gone!

How had it disappeared? She was sure she saved it and...

She remembered how she’d woken up and he was already gone from the office. Her phone didn’t have a password because she’d never felt the need to set one up. He must have stolen her phone while she was still asleep and deleted the recording.

She whirled to his direction with a glare in her eyes.

"The flowers won’t pluck themselves." He knew she realized he had the upper hand.

If she could, she would punch him right in the nose.

"You deleted the recording!" she accused.

"And whose fault is that?"

She could only grit her teeth angrily, her breathing rising with suppressed annoyance. There was nothing to do. This hateful, annoyingly lofty jerk!

With no other choice, she marched angrily to the fully lit-up garden to pluck the flowers.

She plucked every flower as if it were him, until she gathered a nice bunch of them in her hands. Then she went up to him and extended them without looking at his face.

"Take them to my room and put them in the empty vase."

She let her gaze meet his face, wanting to complain.

His dark eyes challenged her to say a word, but she swallowed them back, knowing her job was on the line.

In the end, she put a forced smile on her face and walked past him.

She climbed the stairs from memory and went into his room. She didn’t expect to find someone in there.

The girl whirled around with eyes wide and bowed quickly upon seeing Anne.

By her uniform, Anne realized she was a maid. She nodded back at her greeting, and the girl began to hurry towards the door while Anne searched around for the empty vase.

The girl seemed to trip and bump into Anne, and Anne helped steady her.

"Are you alright?" The girl seemed fidgety, but Anne couldn’t blame her. Who wouldn’t be nervous being in the personal space of that short-tempered man? It was like walking on a thin line hung over burning flames.

The girl nodded quickly and rushed out of the room. Anne couldn’t help but wonder why she seemed to be in a hurry, though. Andrew Sterling wasn’t here right now, so there was no need to look so afraid.

"Have you seen an empty vase anywhere in here?" Anne quickly asked before the girl fully left.

The girl pointed a hand, showing her a vase kept on a table.

Anne thanked the girl as she hurried away and then went on to pick up the vase and arranged the flowers into the vase meticulously.

Though she was annoyed with the owner of this room, the flowers were her favorite. She couldn’t desecrate them by not placing them beautifully.

Such beautiful flowers would have to see Andrew Sterling’s grumpy but handsome face every day.

At least it was good that he was handsome—the flowers wouldn’t suffer too much.

Anne even sniffed the flowers while she was at it, a smile coming up on her lips.

Unbeknownst to her, the maid who just left the room immediately called someone.

"I’ve done as you said. I made sure to select the most valuable thing I could find, and on the pretense of tripping, I put it in her bag. She didn’t suspect a thing."

The voice that came from the other end was feminine, yet mysterious.

"Very good. Andrew Sterling detests greedy people, especially those who can stoop low enough to steal. Let’s see if she won’t regret pushing her way into the Sterling family."