After that night, Sawyer no longer set foot in the master bedroom. His excuse was that Vanessa had been plagued by recurring nightmares after getting hurt. She would feel so ill at ease whenever Sawyer left her sight that she would attempt suicide.

A week later, the negotiations with a company from a neighboring city reached a crucial point.

As Jessa prepared to fly to Soverna, Sawyer went to her with Vanessa by his side.

“What’s your plan for the negotiations?”

“The proposal is fine, but I’m going alone. The company has a complex background, so having more people would only complicate matters and jeopardize the negotiations.”

“Alright, but bring Vanessa with you so she can learn a thing or two.”

Jessa looked up abruptly. It was a long-established rule that Jessa would not intervene in the group’s management, while Sawyer would not interfere in its business negotiations. Sawyer was breaking that rule because of Vanessa.

“We’re going to negotiate, not fight in a ring. I can go on my own.”

Sawyer had been straightening Jessa’s coat collar. When he heard her words, he stilled and frowned. His tone hardened as he said, “I’d feel better if Vanessa were there.”

After he spoke, he looked past Jessa and commanded Vanessa, “Take good care of Ms. Darling today.”

Then, he leaned close to whisper into Jessa’s ear, “Trust me, Jessa. Give me seven months. I will give you a huge surprise after seven months.”

Jessa’s heart sank heavily.

She did not understand what Sawyer meant by asking her for seven months, but she was willing to trust him that one time.

As expected, the negotiations were tense.

The head of the company she was dealing with, Tom Rogen, had a beer belly, coupled with vicious, beady eyes. He intentionally provoked Jessa. “Ms. Darling, you’re such a great beauty, but you’re such a shark when it comes to business negotiations. I wonder if you’re just as formidable in bed?”

Strangled laughter sounded within the conference room. It was awkward, but Jessa knew that her opponent had run out of moves when they resorted to personal attacks.

Just as she was about to speak up, Vanessa kicked the redwood conference table, flipping it.

Everyone watched in stunned silence as Vanessa rushed forward and pressed Tom to the floor. She rained punches on him until he was out cold.

Before that incident, Jessa had the upper hand in the negotiations. After Vanessa’s assault, they had become the party in the wrong. As such, they owed the other party compensation.

“Call an ambulance! Vanessa, stop now!”

Jessa’s face was deathly pale.

Sawyer walked in at that very moment.

He rushed instinctively to Jessa’s side and took hold of her icy hands. His eyes were filled with worry.

“Why are your hands so cold? Did he do anything to you?”

Jessa was about to speak when Vanessa broke through the chaotic crowd. She dropped to one knee and pulled out a knife. With great force, she plunged it straight into her thigh.

The wet squelch of the blade entering flesh stopped everyone in their tracks.

Vanessa’s face immediately went pale with pain. When she looked up, there was steel in her gaze.

“I have failed in my job, Mr. Pitt. I should be punished!”

Sawyer was taken aback. “Have you gone mad?”

His voice was tense and thready with fear. It was far more sincere than when he had spoken to Jessa.

“Doctor! Call a doctor! Where has everyone disappeared to?”

Jessa could feel her heart plunge back into the icy depths after having just warmed up the slightest bit.

Normally light-footed at the negotiation table, Jessa suddenly found herself at a loss for words.

An ambulance quickly arrived. Sawyer said, “Handle things here,” picked up Vanessa, and left.

“Ms. Darling, your arm…”

Jessa’s assistant, Alex Johnson, rushed over as Jessa let out a shocked cry. He started bandaging her wound.

The wound on Jessa’s arm was so deep that the bone could be seen. But even though the blood had stained Sawyer’s palm, he had not even noticed it.

“I’m fine.”

Jessa looked away from Sawyer’s and Vanessa’s parting backs to survey the mess they had left behind.

Jessa spent the whole night dealing with the fallout from the incident of Vanessa’s attack on Tom Rogen.

She had visited him personally to apologize while also promising that she would pay for all the medical fees incurred. She also paid a premium of twenty percent more than the agreed amount for their contract. It was the only way she managed to resolve the situation.

When she got back to the villa, the sky was just getting lighter.

The dawning light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, casting shafts of light on the floor.

Jessa dragged her tired body upstairs. She kept moving around after injuring her arm, so it started to hurt again. Blood spotted the bandage.

She forced herself to go back downstairs for some medication. When she passed by the study, she heard muffled crying coming from inside.

“I didn’t do it on purpose, Sawyer. Really, I was just trying to protect Ressa. He wanted to sleep with her! I didn’t want her to suffer that kind of insult.”

“I know.” Sawyer’s voice was extremely gentle and hinted at a level of patience Jessa had never experienced before.

Vanessa’s sobs lessened. “By the way, the baby has been kicking me today. I think it’s trying to tell its dad not to be angry.

“Thankfully, the baby’s only three months old. If it were bigger, I might not have been able to defend Ressa today.”

What Dad? What baby?

Jessa’s heart constricted painfully.

Sawyer’s voice echoed again in the study. “Don’t think about this nonsense. Focus on the pregnancy. Jessa will take care of that business deal.

“Vanessa, remember your place in this house. I only spent that night with you because I made a mistake. I’m only giving you a place to live. Don’t think you can use this baby to win my love.

“Jessa is the only one I love. We can’t let her know about our relationship. If she finds out, you’ll be done for.”

Jessa did not hear the rest of their conversation. She felt the blood freeze in her body.

A pregnancy lasted forty weeks. The baby was already three months old. Was this what Sawyer had meant about the seven-month stay?

Was Sawyer’s idea of a surprise to give her someone else’s child?

Jessa did not know how she ended up back in her room.

As she sat on the bed, she realized that her wound had reopened.

Crimson blood stained the bandage, but she could not feel even a hint of pain.

At that moment, she understood that the pain in her heart could hurt more than physical pain, so much so that the physical pain could be completely numbed.

Jessa gripped her phone tightly. The voice recording was still going.

She had cultivated this habit over the years, but she had never expected to use it at home.

Jessa carelessly redressed her wound and turned on her laptop. The light of the screen illuminated her pale face.

[Finish up the investigation and send everything you’ve found to me after you’ve compiled it into a report.]

An encrypted email promptly arrived in her email inbox. The contents shocked her thoroughly.

Vanessa’s story was much more complicated than she had anticipated. Sawyer had basically invited a wolf into their home and treated it as a precious puppy.

Jessa closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. She would not let Sawyer’s stupidity ruin the Pitt Group.

Jessa spent the night sending out orders to people on her laptop.

She got some employees overseas to find new sources of capital. Once everything was ready, she would uproot the Pitt Group and leave. Sawyer could stay there and rot with his loyal side piece.

Early the next morning, Jessa put on delicate makeup and hid her bandaged wound under a silk shirt.

Her world-shattering, heart-breaking experience from the previous night was nothing but a dream.

She went downstairs and saw Sawyer passing Vanessa a plate of breakfast. It was such a gentle and caring gesture.

When he saw Jessa, Sawyer froze. He stiffened, only for a moment.

Vanessa immediately stood up, but the wound on her leg made her hiss in pain. “Mrs. Pitt.”

“Vanessa’s leg got hurt, Jessa. Don’t treat her too badly over the next few days.”

Treat her badly?

Jessa stood in place and stared at Sawyer. She had never even said anything before Vanessa stood up and attacked someone. Did that count as Jessa treating Vanessa badly?

Sensing that he had misspoken, Sawyer immediately changed the subject. “Have you handled the situation with Tom Rogen and the business negotiation?”

“It’s settled.”

Jessa’s cool and detached demeanor made Sawyer strangely annoyed. Still, he did not try to say anything further.

Due to the tense relationship between Sawyer and Jessa, things for the upper management in the company became tense as well.

For half a month, Jessa lived at the office, working through the night with her team.

“Ms. Darling, I’m done here.”

With the last Enter key pressed, everyone relaxed.

Jessa stood up and said, “I ordered takeout for everyone. Handle any leftover work while I bring the food up. We’re having dinner together.”

As everyone cheered, Jessa went downstairs. However, when she returned, she saw her team sitting dumbfounded as they looked at their laptops with their blue screens.

Vanessa was sitting next to her desk.

“What’s going on?” Jessa’s heart started racing.

Vanessa sent a pitiful look in Jessa’s direction.

“Mrs. Pitt, it’s all my fault! It’s my butter fingers! I only wanted to strengthen security and clear up the trash in the system, but then… But then this happened.”

Clear the system’s trash?

A buzzing started up in Jessa’s head. She did not have the energy to deal with Vanessa at all, so she sent Sawyer a message to handle it. It would be best if she could delay the meeting she had. Then, she turned on her laptop and went back to working nonstop.

They needed to retrieve the key documents that had been lost, even if they could only get one of them back.

Jessa led her team in trying to salvage the situation, so she did not even notice when Sawyer had arrived.

However, at the key moment, Vanessa let out a loud sob, and Jessa’s laptop screen went black.

She was done for. They were all done for.

Jessa was devastated, but she did not even have the energy to show it on her face. She turned around and saw Vanessa with her knee on the plug point switch. She slapped herself repeatedly.

“You should just kill me, Mrs. Pitt! I only wanted to help you because Mr. Pitt keeps saying the company’s internet access wasn’t safe…”

Meanwhile, Sawyer stood behind Vanessa. As he watched Vanessa’s eyes turn redder and her face swell up, his anger lessened.

He sighed and looked at Jessa, who had not spoken a single word. “Jessa, she’s only trying to help. You’re so capable. You should be able to redo the work if you work through the night, right?”

Jessa looked at Sawyer for a moment before suddenly letting out a laugh.

Had he rushed here in the middle of the night to comfort Vanessa?

How could he ask her so easily to use her skills and knowledge as an excuse to let Vanessa keep messing up?

But she had no energy to argue with Sawyer about this.

She could only muster a cold and sarcastic, “Sure.”

That night, she held a meeting with everyone in the company except for Sawyer.

She needed more time to leave, but at that point, she first had to make sure everyone in the company had a way to escape this sinking ship.

Jessa did not sleep that night.

She spent the entire night producing a new proposal. At the meeting the next day, Vanessa was sitting in the seat usually reserved for Sawyer’s assistant.

But she had no right to be there at all.

Sawyer stood up and introduced Vanessa to everyone. “Vanessa Rivera is our new partner. She will be joining this meeting to learn a few things.”

It was ridiculous to have a bodyguard learn about their upper-level business strategies.

Everyone showed their disapproval on their faces. Jessa subconsciously clenched her fists before she quickly regained her composure.

Once she got everything together and took the Pitt Group away with her, Sawyer could let Vanessa learn whatever she wanted.

During the meeting, one of the shareholders, Mr. Covey, spoke up suddenly. “Ms. Darling, your proposal is solid as usual. However, it’s too conservative.”

Mr. Covey had always gone against Jessa. As one of the old guards in the company, he always felt the need to question whatever Jessa said. As such, no one ever bothered to take his comments to heart. Even Jessa did not plan to answer him.

However, right then, another voice piped up. “I think Mr. Covey is right.”

Vanessa stood up and added, “Ms. Darling, your proposal is too conservative. I would go all out. Isn’t market share something you fight for control over anyway? What is there to be afraid of?”

Everyone at the meeting was shocked. They all looked at her like she was a madwoman.

Jessa shot Sawyer a look, silently asking him to stop this drama. But when their gazes met, Sawyer let out a soft chuckle. “Jessa, you should be as passionate as Vanessa sometimes.”

With that, the meeting ended on this absurd note.

Even after everyone left, Jessa remained in her seat.

In a daze, she recalled what happened five years ago. They were in this same conference room, but the company was still new, and every bit of progress they made was hard-won. They faced the doubt and questioning of the company’s old guard all the time.

Sawyer constantly supported her and was the loudest voice backing her plans. “I will say this again. Jessa is my partner. If anyone has anything to say against her, you can get out now!”

Back in the day, Sawyer had been her shield against everything ugly in the world. But five years later, Sawyer was shoving her forward to be judged by a pack of wolves.

The contrast nearly tore her apart inside.