Carl smiled. “It’s nothing much. I just called to congratulate you. You’re finally free of all the nasty rumors!”
“Thank you.” A smile formed on Sonia’s face as well. Yeah, my name is finally cleared. I feel so much more relaxed now. “It’s all thanks to Tim,” Sonia continued. “This issue wouldn’t have been resolved so quickly if Tim hadn’t left those two videos behind.”
Upon hearing her words, Carl lowered his gaze a little to conceal the disappointment in his eyes. Why did she say that it’s all thanks to Tim? I was the one who uploaded those two videos.
Ding dong! The doorbell rang out of nowhere, and Sonia leaped to her feet. “All right, Carl. I’ll talk to you later. Someone’s here.”
“Who is it?” Carl asked.
Sonia headed toward the door. “I’m not sure. I’ll go take a look.”
“Okay. Don’t forget to check who’s outside before opening the door. You need to remember to protect yourself,” Carl reminded in a gentle and caring tone.
She nodded. “Don’t worry. I got it.” Once the call ended, Sonia put her phone aside and went to the monitor to check who was her visitor. She only opened the door when she saw that the person outside was a guy dressed in a uniform from some delivery company.
“Hello, are you Miss Sonia?” the deliveryman asked her.
“Yeah,” she answered with a nod.
“These are your flowers. Please sign here.” As he spoke, the deliveryman knelt down and picked up a large bouquet of roses from the ground. The roses looked freshly cut, and there were still beads of water on the petals, which made it look especially gorgeous.
Sonia didn’t take the bouquet immediately. Instead, she eyed the deliveryman suspiciously. “I’m sorry, but is this a mistake here? I didn’t order any flowers.”
“Someone else gifted it to you,” the deliveryman replied.
She was more puzzled than ever. “Who was it?”
“I’m not sure about that. My job is just to deliver the flowers,” he replied with a shake of his head. However, he seemed to recall something just moments later. “There’s a card in here. The answer you’re looking for might be there,” he added.
She immediately took a glance at the bouquet to see a card stuck in the middle of the flowers. Only then did she reach her hand out to take the flowers from the deliveryman. “Thank you. Safe trip.”
“No worries.” The deliveryman nodded and turned to leave. She shut the door and walked back to the living hall while flipping the card open. There were only a few words written on the card. ‘Congratulations on reclaiming justice for yourself!’
“It’s him!” Sonia frowned as she whispered to herself. There wasn’t any signature at the bottom of the card, but she could clearly recognize the handwriting on the card. It belonged to Toby. Toby is the one who gave these! I thought it was Zane at first. Zane practically gives me tiny presents and flowers every time he sees me after all. I can’t believe my guess was wrong.
A rather muddled expression formed on her face as she glanced at the flowers in her arms. She was genuinely shocked by his act of giving her flowers. More importantly, Sonia didn’t know how to deal with the bouquet of flowers. Was she supposed to throw them out, or return them to him?
She was lost in thought when her phone rang. When she came to her senses and looked at her phone screen, she saw a message from Toby. ‘Did you receive the flowers?’
Her eyes lit up a little as she lowered the flowers onto the coffee table before typing her response to him. ‘Yeah.’
In the Fuller Residence, which was only about 12 miles away from Bayside Residence, Toby was dressed in a bathrobe as he sat at the edge of his bed. The top of his bathrobe was left open to reveal his firm and broad chest. His hair was still wet, and droplets of water were still dripping from the tips of it as he hadn’t dried his hair at all. The water droplets trailed his perfect jawline and trickled down his neck to his defined collarbones. Eventually, the water droplets would run down his chest, making him an object of seduction.
At that moment, he had a towel in his hands and was about to dry his hair. All of a sudden, his phone screen lit up at a corner of his bed. His eyes seemed to light up at the very same moment, and he hastily threw the towel over his neck before grabbing his phone to unlock it. He no longer cared about drying his hair.
A surge of joy filled his heart when he saw that it was a reply from Sonia. However, his spirits were quickly dampened when he saw her reply, for all he got was a one-worded ‘yeah’. Her text response made it hard for him to imagine how she had felt when she first received the flowers.
After pinching the bridge of his nose and letting out a few sighs, he finally texted her again. ‘So, did you like them?’
Sonia frowned. Is he asking me if I like the flowers, or is he asking me if I like it when he gives me flowers? She couldn’t tell, and she couldn’t be bothered to make random guesses either. ‘It’s nice. However, please stop giving me flowers in the future. I’m afraid it might create some misunderstandings.’ Her reply was rather ambiguous.
Toby frowned after receiving the message. A misunderstanding? I thought she will be much nicer to me after the incident today. Even if she doesn’t accept me yet, I at least expected her not to be so resistant toward me. Well, I guess I was overthinking it all along. He sighed. ‘There won’t be any misunderstandings. No one else knows that I bought you flowers.’
‘Is that so? Great. I’ll get someone to send the flowers back to you tomorrow.’ He pressed his eyebrows together when he saw her reply. A hint of annoyance filled his chest as he thought about it. She’s returning it to me even though it’s just a bouquet of flowers. She really doesn’t want to have anything to do with me, huh! He pressed his lips together as he typed out his reply. ‘It’s fine. You can throw it away if you really don’t want it.’ After he sent the text, he threw his phone aside and pulled his towel from his neck before stuffing his face into it. No one else could see the expression on his face right then.
When Sonia saw his reply back in Bayside Residence, she could tell that he was rather displeased. I guess I know why he’s angry. He probably doesn’t like it that I want to return the flowers to him. After taking a few breaths, she looked at the bouquet of flowers. In the end, she gave up on the idea of returning it to him. She decided that she wouldn’t throw it out either. Instead, she would just leave the flowers there for them to gradually wilt and die on their own.
…
The next day, Sonia found herself surrounded by a group of reporters once she arrived at Paradigm Co. “Are you going to sue Tina, Miss Reed?” someone asked.
“Can you reveal anything about the hacker, Miss Reed?” another person asked. “How are you related to that hacker?” All of these reporters were asking about Sonia’s feelings toward Tina. On top of that, they were looking for Carl. She was thoroughly annoyed by the reporters’ clingy acts, and she frowned heavily as she shouted, “Shush! I’ll reply to the questions one at a time!”
The reporters actually zipped their mouths once they heard what she said. Thus, she loosened up her frown a little before she began to give her speech in a calm and flat tone. “Yes, I am planning to go to court with Tina. Firstly, she attempted to get six men to assault me. After her plan failed, she tried to crush me with the use of public opinion, and she caused great damage to me and my company’s reputation. That’s why I’ve decided to sue her. I want her to pay for her wrongdoings, and I want her to compensate for all that I’ve lost!” The reporters had their eyes wide and alert as they hastily jotted down everything she said.
Sonia then held up two fingers as she continued to say, “Regarding the second question, you have my apologies. I’m afraid I can’t reveal anything about the hacker as I don’t know who the person is or why he tried to help me. My guess is that he’s just attempting to restore justice. I hope you guys understand that I don’t have any information regarding the hacker. Alright, that’s all for now. Why don’t you guys go follow Tina instead? I’m sure she’ll be the main spotlight from now onward.”
Her words served as a reminder to the reporters. They all exchanged glances for a moment before they all rushed over to the police station. Sonia only strode into Paradigm Co. after she saw that all the reporters had left in their cars.
Meanwhile, Tina was kept in an interrogation room in the police station, and a few policemen sat directly in front of her. They had asked her a string of questions, but Tina grew especially emotional when they brought up her use of the six men to assault Sonia. “It wasn’t me who arranged for those six men to harm her! It was Tim! Tim!”
