As soon as Lucas left the office, Marie took a deep breath before running over to her mother and hooking her arm around the surprised woman's arm, "where is my hug, mother?" She asked with a pleasant smile while her mother rolled her eyes, not even trying to mask her annoyance.
"Oh, grow up!" Mrs. Garnett chastised her while harshly shoving Marie away. Marie did leave and went to her father to bother him instead, "how are you, Dad?" Her father kept staring at her without a response, so Marie decided to take things up a notch. She threw her arms around her father and hugged him tightly while sighing contentedly. Unlike with her mother, she wasn't pushed away but was scolded heavily.
"Why are you wearing such a short skirt, and what's with the perfume? Do you think this is a bar?" The man said all this in one breath while pinning Marie down with a stern gaze. Stuart, who had chosen her clothes and perfume, was speechless. Even he knew that there was nothing wrong with Marie's clothes and perfume. If there was, he would not have let her leave his house like that.
"Dad!" Stuart called, but he was shunned immediately by their father who was now also glaring at him like he had done something wrong. "Why are you both arriving now? Do you know what time it is?" Stuart was stumped. Sure, they might have arrived a few hours later, but weren't there like the CEOs or something? Their presence or absence had nothing to do with the company's efficiency and growth. He tried to say something, but his mother beat him to it.
Mrs. Garnett couldn't bear her husband scolding her baby boy, so she interfered, "Don't scold him. He is obviously tired. Can't you see his dark circles? He must have stayed up all night because of work." Marie, who knew that her brother had been out partying all night with his boyfriend, found it difficult to hold back her laughter, and the sound of it, no matter how subtle it was, earned her a glare from all three people in the office.
Their parents were glaring because Marie dared to laugh in a situation like this while Stuart was glaring because he knew what his twin was thinking. "What's so funny, Miss Garnett?" Their father asked, his eyes now solely fixed on Marie, who was trying to find the best and most pitiful expression to give while apologizing. "Is this a joke to you?"
Marie would have apologized like she should have a while ago, but after hearing her father's serious voice, she knew it was time to strike. Their parents needed to leave, or her brother would be in so much trouble and so would she. "To be honest, I find this really funny. What's wrong with being late for a few hours? Stuart is the next chairman of this company, and I am just another shareholder. It doesn't matter if we show up or not. We could decide to stay home for a week without doing anything work-related, and nothing will happen to the company. Worst comes to worst, it would be resolved by signing a few papers."
"Marie!" Their mother yelled at the top of her voice, and Stuart immediately held her by her shoulder. He worried for his mother a lot because she was asthmatic, as was Marie, and his little sister, more than he worried for his father because his father was... well, he was a man. Marie finished when her name was yelled, but that was only a sign that she was on the right track. "Don't yell, Mum, I can hear you just fine," she said with a sickening smile playing on her lips.
Stuart didn't know where she was going with this, but he was starting to think that she was going too far. Their parents would get angry just because Marie was breathing; there was no need to aggravate them further by saying nonsense. "Marie…" he tried to talk to her, but he was quieted mercilessly by Marie's glare. "I am talking to my mother," she said, "what's wrong with what I said? Nothing will change whether we are in the company or not. The company would grow because we have employees for that reason, and there is no need to stress us by making us come here every day."
"Marie!" Their father was yelling this time. Stuart was already holding Marie and trying to shut her up at this point because their father looked so angry like he was about to slap someone. "You should be leaving now; we have to work," he said calmly, politely sending his parents out of the company.
The couple, angered to the max, could not spend another second in the office, so they left with a huff. Stuart sighed in relief when he heard the rather loud closing of his door. He knew his parents were angry, but that was a problem for some other day. He glanced down at Marie, who was now hugging him for some reason. He heard her sniffles and sighed again. This was one thing he disliked about his parents' visits. It would leave one of them in tears.
"When was the last time you went home?" He asked curiously as one thing that could make their parents suddenly visit was if neither of them had visited home in a while. He stopped going home because his parents didn't approve of his relationship with Kevin, and Marie would only go back when she felt like it. His little sister was in boarding school and she would not come back home even if she was on holidays. "Eight months," Marie replied, her voice muffled because she was speaking against his chest.
"Well, you'd better visit them often so they don't come here again."