One Night Stand Gone Wrong

The hall was still silent as everyone processed what was going on.

Arielle, the one slandered the entire week, was friends with Evan, the top jewelry designer of Soul Jewelry, the most unique and best jewelry brand in the world.

She had purchased a 10 million dollars worth of necklace for her 5-year-old goddaughter.

Emma Payne and Sophia Green, the rich kids born with silver-spoon, were involved with the case of fake jewelry and bribing and threatening.

Emma recovered and threw the necklace at the floor, which not unexpectedly broke to reveal a small chip with a glowing red dot.

Sophia was shivering and looked ghastly.

As if on cue, a police officer, accompanied by the manager, came looking for Miss Sophia Green.

Arielle interjected as Sophia started to make a scene.

“Officer, why don’t you have dinner and wait for a while? I also have to sue Miss Green. It might save time for you as well. Please!”© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

Arielle said respectfully. The officer nodded, and the manager himself brought him some refreshments.

Arielle looked back at Emma and said, “Miss Payne, I was offering you an olive branch when I exposed the fake jewelry to you, but you called me names instead. I won’t hold back either.”

She turned to the office and added, “Officer, I had asked for support from the bureau on intentional injury and defamation. Please instruct me. Here is my evidence!”

Arielle then played a video from the pantry in the office, but this time it came with audio.

PGI employees were shocked that the reality was far from what they had assumed for the past week.

Arielle, labeled as disrespectful, was someone with self-respect who simply refused to be bullied and humiliated and suffered burns for it.

“Does this count as intentional injury, officer?” Arielle, once again, ignored all the gossip and asked the police officer directly.

“Yeah, it does.” The officer replied affably.

“Thank you! President Payne asked me to hush it up and even took me to a luxurious tea house for a private settlement. Alas, some people don’t deserve such protection.” Arielle said to no one in general.

But the message was clear.

Emma saw Thomas’s disappointed expression and felt worse. She turned around and glared at Arielle.

“This is a company meeting. What do you mean by doing all these?” Emma asked furiously.

“If you had taken the time to read through my contract, Miss Payne, you would have known that this all is within my rights. Why else do you think your brother had rushed in for a private settlement and is allowing all this?”

Arielle asked with a smile that sent chills down Emma’s spine.

“Next up, a very amateur act. Here you go.” Arielle joked as she guided everyone to the projector.

Arielle played the video of the tea house without including what Sophia had whispered.

Sophia was dancing in joy internally as the video played out amidst everyone’s puzzlement.

“This does not count as defamation. There must be proof that it is nonsense.” Another office appeared in time to react.

Both the officers greeted each other and sat down.

Arielle mumbled, “You are only making things difficult for me because I brought your husband as my date.”

It created another uproar.

The man in the video was gay, and his husband was a police officer. There was no way Arielle could have had any unusual relationship with him.

Arielle effectively silenced another rumor about her without any effort.

Then she connected her phone to the speakers and played an audio recording.

Sophia knew what that was even before it played. As expected, it turned out to be the full audio of their conversion. It included everything Sophia had whispered, along with Thomas protecting Arielle and calling out her act.

“Does this work?” Arielle innocently asked.

The spectators were speechless. The employees of PGI finally began to understand why their President paid her due respect. Arielle Ward’s reputation had not been in vain.

However, they were puzzled as to why she was still an enigma. She was low-key, but a person of her caliber would have to be well known. Yet, they had only heard hushed whispers about her, nothing concrete.

They did not get to ponder for more as the officer answered, “yeah, this works. Do you want me to arrest them now? Or are we waiting for dinner and drinks?”

It left Sophia and Emma speechless.

Arielle, however, laughed, “You can have dinner. I promise to send your husband home safely if he gets drunk. The show is just starting.”

The officers looked at each other and shook their heads.

Arielle played a video of a private booth of a restaurant.

“Mister Scott, why are we here? You said President Thomas had sent you to get me urgently because he had to discuss something sensitive?” Arielle asked, annoyed.

People gasped seeing one of the board members bringing Arielle to a restaurant in a dubious way.

He was one of the people who was kicked out by Thomas two months before, which had created quite an unrest in the company. Now it seemed that the management had sound reasons for doing that.

“Miss Ward, please forgive me for being presumptuous. But I have someone important who wants to meet you.” Mr. Scott said with a wink.

A bald guy showed up in the video. Everyone instantly recognized as the deputy CEO of their competing company.

“Mr. Scott, do you realize what you have just done is illegal?” Arielle straightforwardly asked.

Then it shows the two men buttering up Arielle and offering 100 million to betray Thomas and join them.

Arielle just played along and strung them along before she exclaimed.

“Ah! My partner is here! How about we ask for his opinion?”

Then Thomas strode inside with the CEO of the competing company.

The end was clear. Those two men got dismissed from their respective companies, and Arielle received a commendation for her integrity.

Moreover, their competitor offered her an even better pay for auditing their company which she flat out refused, citing a clause in the contract.

She joked she would be more than happy to help but only after five years.

After five years, everything she had proposed to PGI would have already borne fruit. That would effectively make her clueless about ongoing or upcoming PGI projects. And so, she would no longer be contract bound and could audit any rival company.

Thomas joked that he would appoint her back after five years.