Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 275: The CEO’s Wife

Anne couldn’t believe she had overlooked the reason he suddenly put up her pictures in his office, not to mention one that showed them both getting married.

She had thought that only high ranking company executives could get to enter the CEO’s office and since they weren’t as gossip hungry as the other employees, and they would know not to spread a news the CEO himself hadn’t yet chosen to release. She didn’t consider that it might have been a deliberate action to make people talk and spread the news.

Anne stood by the windows watching as Andrew’s car drove out the steel gates. There was a feeling akin to the warm trickling of spring in her heart which made a light smile curve her lips.

A few hours later, Anne texted Jasmine she didn’t expect that just several minutes after her text had gone out, Jasmine would come skipping to the manor.

When Anne saw Jasmine at the front door, the latter jumped onto her hugging her really tightly.

"You’re so heartless, you’ve been too busy to even have time for me." Jasmine murmured, complaining but still hugging Anne tightly.

"You’re one to talk, you’ve been cancelling on me for so long I thought you had so much to do."

Jasmine stiffened as she heard that. A trace of sadness flashing past her eyes but it was quickly wiped away.

"I’m sorry, Anne." She murmured against Anne’s neck then pulled away with a brilliant smile.

"I’ll make it up to you. See what I got you?" Jasmine brightly raised a bag full of snacks to Anne.

Anne chuckled, "Are you sure those are mine and not yours?"

"What? Of course they’re yours. Now take it before I change my mind." Jasmine said stuffing the bags into Anne’s arms.

They both spent so much time together that day catching up about things that happened in the time they hadn’t met.

Jasmine shared her plans of pursuing her dreams of having a restaurant. In the past Jasmine had been forced to fulfill her parents dreams for her and not her own, after leaving the life they chose for her behind, she slowly began to find her dream.

Anne was very happy that she was finally pursuing her own dreams, after all the pain she had endured from having to carry the weight of her own family’s responsibilities, she deserved at least that.

"Jazz, what if you... what if you see that person again?" Anne was hesitant to ask this question because she knew how the reminder of her past always made Jasmine feel.

Anne had always known that running away from the past was never the solution but when Jasmine returned, she had desperately needed to get away and forget what she had been through, but if one thought about it, our past often clings to us and we can never get over it until we face it.

There were so many unsaid words, unspoken truths and unexplored paths in Jasmine’s story. Did she truly end it like that?

Did running away truly make her happy?

She detected the slight change in Jasmine’s demeanor just as she was about to put a potato snack in her mouth, Jasmine halted, her eyes looking lost for a moment.

"What are you talking about Anne?" Jasmine wished pretending to forget truly meant forgetting, if that were true, she would have forgotten a long time ago. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"I’m talking about that man."

Jasmine kept the potato chips back in it’s bag looking up at Anne squarely, for a moment Anne almost thought she would say something serious, but a few seconds later she brightened up.

"Are you hungry? I’ll cook you a new recipe I came up with, you’ll love it. You don’t even eat half as much as me and you’re pregnant, tsk I’ll make sure to stuff you up." Jasmine jumped out of her seat,

"Will you come show me the way to your kitchen?"

There was a quietly hopeful look in Jasmine’s eyes wishing Anne would drop the topic and not ask about it again.

To be honest, it was her who had deliberately avoided her friend. Everytime she missed Anne and wanted to meet her, she would think about that man’s face and a strange fear would fill her heart.

She didn’t want to see him again.

She really didn’t want to see him again.

Anne read the quiet look in Jasmine’s eyes. She knew avoidance wasn’t healthy, but we were all human, didn’t we always choose the easy way out rather than choosing to embrace pain? She understood Jasmine.

So Anne stood up and wrapped her arm around Jasmine’s elbow, brightly changing the topic as they entered the kitchen.

They talked and laughed as Jasmine made the dish she wanted with the help of some of the staff.

Later, Jasmine insistedly tried to drag Anne out saying she wanted to show her some new places. That was when one of the maids blurted that Anne had an accident the previous night and was almost severely injured.

It made Jasmine notice the scarf around Anne’s neck and she quickly pulled it loose.

Jasmine gasped in horror, "How did this happen?"

Anne went on to tell her everything that happened the previous night and how the guards said it could be a stalker or a serial killer.

"This can’t be a stalker, if you had someone stalking you, you would have felt it because stalkers try to make their presence known by scaring their victims, and they don’t go all out to try to kill their victims because their goal is usually to plant fear. Also, they should rule out the serial killer option because serial killers only move with intention, serial killers mostly choose their victims, they won’t just show up at a parking lot with the aim of taking your life when they would have planned and calculated it beforehand. I think this is a case of someone deliberately calling a hit on you."

Anne furrowed her brows thoughtfully.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about it like that before...it was just that, the only person that came to mind, she didn’t think they would actually dare to do it like this.

"You know what? Don’t go anywhere for now, it’s safer for you to stay here. I’ll come visit you every single day so you don’t get bored alright?"

Anne nodded resignedly, her mind drifting off to Clara.

Could it really have been her?

Meanwhile at the Sterling Enterprises company building, the CEO had summoned some random employees to his office which was unusual because he could have sent directly for their superiors but he chose the lower employees and when they entered his office, inevitably they spotted the pictures on the walls and talks of it spread like wildfire.

No one in SE didn’t know who that women was because of how her pictures had circulated several times in the company.

Immediately they left the CEO’s office, they began to spin tales, mixing and matching scenarios going from the very first time a picture had been released on the forum where Andrew was smiling warmly at a woman for the first time, looking at it now that figure from behind and the wavy long brown hair...it had to be her.

By the time they spread the news, they had created a catchy love story which came from mere assumptions but it caught on immediately it fell into any employee’s ears.

Annelise Thompson...no, Annelise Sterling...she was the CEO’s wife!