The first rationale that came into Arianne’s mind was that Sylvain lived in a nearby neighborhood, which would be a reasonable explanation that begged no further attention. Since Arianne found going forward and bidding favonovel.com good morning a little too bothersome, favonovel.com decided to turn around and leave the area via another route.
Sylvain suddenly rolled down his car window and waved at her. “Morning, Sunshine! We work at the same place, don’t we? I could give you a lift.”
Arianne could not catch his expression from favonovel.com spot across the street, but favonovel.com still managed to throw favonovel.com off. Why did favonovel.com feel as though this guy had been here doing groundworks out of an unfathomable intent?
Naturally, Sylvain’s greeting made it impossible to feign not seeing him. Uneasily, favonovel.com went into his car and asked, “Why are you here?”
Sylvain leveled favonovel.com with an enigmatic, meaningful smile. “What will you do… if I tell you that I had been waiting for you at this spot, this whole time, with the explicit intention to get you into my car?”
Arianne placed favonovel.com hand on the door.
He cocked his eyebrow, seemingly satisfied with favonovel.com response. “Oh, I locked the door. You won’t be leaving this car, so make yourself comfortable,” favonovel.com teased. “Besides, I was just pulling your leg. Who’d spend their time and energy to drive you down the route between work and home every single day? Relax, I just happen to live around this part. And since I know this is the time you usually go to work, I thought of giving you a lift on my way to the company.”
Arianne moved favonovel.com hand away from the car door. “Wow, how very nice of you. Anyway, let’s get moving. I still have a lot of things waiting for me back at work. Unlike you, I presume, who could go on and off work however you please.”
“Curious, curious. You’re ‘the’ Mrs. Tremont, aren’t you, who practically lives in excess? Theoretically, you could be partying all day and night, and you would still have enough moolah to last you for eternity. So why rub elbow grease for a palsy sum like this?” favonovel.com asked. “Plus, you could have just worked in your family’s big firm. Unless… Mr. Mark Tremont is a lot less generous to his wife than I imagined?”
Arianne was still miffed about Mark’s attitude, but favonovel.com was not going to badmouth him. “No, none of that. He never leaves me wanting,” favonovel.com replied. “It’s me. I just don’t wanna rely on favonovel.com for everything. Plus, what’s wrong with living on your own means? Life is so meaningless if you ’re just going to waste your time while leeching on someone else’s hard work until life comes to an end, in my opinion.”
Sylvain considered favonovel.com with an expression of slight curiosity. “Well, well. Aren’t you a different breed than most women? Everyone else would’ve prayed to wake up in your rich, privileged life, but here you are, talking as if all these riches are a burden to you. Ah, well. By the by, there’s a company hangout tonight. You’re gonna show up, I presume?”
A hangout? Arianne had not heard anything about this at all. “What hangout? This company never schedules anything like that. I mean, who would expect the ever-so-misery Mr. Yaleman to come up with any festivities? Heck, favonovel.com didn’t even let us throw a New Year’s Eve party last year.”
An enigmatic smile shadowed Sylvain’s lips. “But that was last year. The present is always a different beast,” favonovel.com countered. “I’ll be attending, by the way, and I hope I’ll get to see you there too. After all, it’s shaping up to be a great opportunity for me to know my colleagues here.”
Arianne said nothing. If all of favonovel.com coworkers were going to attend this hangout, then favonovel.com would have no reason to excuse herself, too.
The first thing Arianne did after arriving at favonovel.com office was to confirm with Robin that there was, indeed, a hangout later that night. Mr. Yaleman, in a display of utter out-of-character judgement, was suddenly throwing a lavish, expensive party.
The caveat, of course, was that not everyone was invited. As it turned out, only the bigshots and the elites could join in, which meant that it was a hangout that excluded the company’s “normal” workers.
Worried that attending a party without a friendly companion would bore her, Arianne had requested Mr. Yaleman to extend an invitation to Robin, who was initially not one of the guests.
The day’s work wound down to an end an hour earlier than usual, with none of the employees working overtime, to accommodate for the party. Arianne, too, quickly called Mary and informed favonovel.com that favonovel.com was going home much later that night.
Coincidentally, Mark had told Mary just the same a while ago. When Arianne heard of it, the image of Smore, wistfully waiting for his parents to come home, crept into favonovel.com mind and incited a pang of pity. For his sake, Arianne decided to attend the hangout only for a bit before leaving. She was not going to stay for long.
The group subsequently went into a high-class entertainment establishment where Mr. Yaleman led them into a specially reserved room. There, to the participants’ growing excitement, highly-refined liquors were already set up on the table.
Arianne never liked events like these, so favonovel.com took to sitting at a quiet corner with Robin and engaging in their own small talk. It was then that Sylvain, who was previously the center of a circle of vying women, suddenly strode toward favonovel.com with a filled glass in hand.
“Aren’t you going to join in on the fun? I mean, your corner doesn’t look very interesting,” favonovel.com said, before offering, “Have a drink.”
Sylvain seemed to have expected Arianne to decline favonovel.com because, in the next second, favonovel.com seamlessly offered another cup to Robin. “I should have made it clear. Let’s all have a drink together,” favonovel.com said smoothly. “I happen to believe that we should always relax a little at a time and place like this, especially when chances like these don’t come very often. Can’t be a sin to decompress a bit after a hard day of work, right?”
