Bought For A Baby, Kept For A Lifetime-Chapter 295: Strange Woman

When she stepped out of the car immediately it drove to the entrance of the Sterling Enterprises company building, there was a long row of the company’s employees standing outside.

"Welcome back, Mrs Sterling." They all echoed in unison making Anne stop abruptly, looking taken aback.

She knew the whole company already got to know that she was Andrew’s wife, but what she didn’t expect was this dramatic welcoming from the employees.

Andrew stepped down from the car as well, coming to stand next to her.

He saw the long line of employees but said nothing, merely holding Anne’s hand in his and taking her inside while the crowd parted to let them through, excited murmurs flying in the air as they passed by.

The CEO’s office was at the highest floor, but Andrew escorted her all the way to her office, anyone they passed by on the way would look startled seeing the CEO himself before they would greet him and watch him pass by with surprise filled eyes.

Anne thought she would sit for a meeting with her team to catch up first before diving to work, but immediately Andrew left, the whole team A office space was crowded by more employees.

Some bringing in unsolicited gifts to her, smiling and complimenting her fawningly, others just coming to welcome her.

Anne had never spoken to so many people in a single day at once before. What shocked her however was the fact that the PR department team B members were also among the crowd.

The people who had ridiculed her before actually came to fawningly build connections with her.

"We were very immature before, playing silly tricks. We’re hoping that you’ll no longer hold it against us, after all it’s been a long time." It was Jessica who took the lead in speaking to her about the apology they prepared with grand looking gifts.

Anne subtly refused their gifts and told them she held no grudges against them, but persistently continued to apologize even after she had told them it was all in the past.

They even made subtle hints at how they would like to be transfered to team A, apparently team B was stressful and suffocating, however it was a request Anne cleverly shut down. She might not hold any grudges against them, but she also didn’t want to work with them again.

Maybe they wanted the security of working with the CEO’s wife directly.

To be honest, Anne knew their thoughts, but she wasn’t the kind of person they thought she was.

They most probably assumed that since she was now the CEO’s wife, she would seek revenge against them for what they did to her in the past, and by offering to work with her it was like them waving a white flag and showing subservience to her, submitting to her because a superior wouldn’t harm their own people.

It was hours later that Anne finally got her freedom from the tons of people rushing to her, it wasn’t that they’d stopped coming, it was the members of the team who noticed Anne was soon getting overwhelmed by the rush of people so they asked security to stop anyone attempting to enter the work space if it wasn’t actually for work.

Anne heard that Clara had recently gone on leave, perhaps her absence was the reason her team members were trying to switch sides before she would return.

Anne didn’t bother about Clara’s issue and focused on her work, for the next week they worked on the company’s campaign which was organized as a charity event. It became a huge campaign that had talks about SE spreading all across Verizon and beyond.

It wasn’t just the effort of outreach the company had taken but also the history of the Sterling family which had been revealed during this campaign, it made people see the Sterling family in a new light.

In the evening, after work hours on a cold Tuesday, Anne came out of the company to find Andrew’s car parked and waiting for her.

Just as she was about to sit in the car, Anne spotted a woman across the road.

The woman was dressed strangely, all covered up as if she were hiding something. Her face was covered up by a hoodie underneath which she wore a baseball cap, yet Anne noticed that the woman’s line of sight remained fixed on Andrew’s car as if she was watching for something or someone.

Anne narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the woman, but the latter seemed to notice that Anne’s gaze was fixed on her, before Anne could decipher anything about that woman, she suddenly moved, a car drove by at this moment blocking Anne’s view of the women, unexpectedly by the time the car drove off again, the woman was gone.

When Anne looked around and couldn’t find her anymore, she decided it must have been her own imagination and got into the car, but it wasn’t the last time Anne would see this person.

Several days later, she had gone shopping with Jasmine, when they were returning to the Black Thorn Manor, Anne saw the familiar figure of that same woman lurking outside the Manor’s gates.

Anne asked the driver to stop the car some distance away from the manor and she made to step down to approach the woman but Jasmine stopped her.

"Who is that Anne, do you know her?" 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Anne shook her head. Because the woman was wearing a hoodie that covered her face, she couldn’t see the woman’s face so Anne had no idea who she was.

Anne told Jasmine about how she had seen the same woman just a few days ago but at work.

"If someone seems to be following you around, they probably don’t have good intentions for you. I’ll go with you to see who she is or what she wants."

As Anne and Jasmine alighted the car, the sounds seemed to have alerted the woman, she whipped her head around and upon spotting them, she ran off and immediately.

There was a car parked close by, she jumped into the vehicle and drove off even before Anne and Jasmine could reach her.

Anne was even more confused.

Who could that woman be and why was she following her around?

First at the company and now at home?

It was only after some time had passed that Anne found out exactly who this woman was...