Gap, rarely seen in his apron, was busy at his desk, having finished all the work at hand up until yesterday with good results.
Mr. Neo, the president of Ristoan, had personally received him and would be nominating him to become a junior partner in the Ristoan Group at the quarterly meeting between the end of this month and the beginning of the next.
With just the status of a partner, the dividends he would be able to get from the group every quarter would be more than his current annual salary.
In fact, he was well aware that the reason for Mr. Neo's and the board's approval was to plug the many loopholes in the books that he had helped the group of companies with in the meantime.
These loopholes wouldn't be too much of a problem most of the time, after all, Ristoan was Sabine's pillar business group, even if it did go wrong, as long as it wasn't a problem that shocked the whole country, Sabine and even the state government would be dead set on protecting the Ristoan Group.
But when these loopholes and the HENG HUI Group malpractice case are linked together, which moreover involves senators, and even the possibility of involving the President's cabinet, even a small problem will become a sharp knife that stabs into the heart fatally.
In order to deal with these accounts Gap could be said to be in overdrive, finally making those books manageable.
Now that his work was over, Mr. Neo personally gave him a bonus in appreciation for all the overtime he had worked during this time, and he was promoted accordingly to his job position.
With all of this behind him, he finally had time to work out some minor family conflicts.
During this time he had noticed a change in his wife Vera, but he hadn't done nothing to let it happen, he had hired a detective agency that had a relationship with the Ristoan group to investigate the question of whether or not there was an affair between Vera and Lynch for him.
To his credit his wife had always been loyal to him, and that Lynch chap, though he sometimes seemed like a bad guy, had adhered to a bottom line in their dealings with each other.
Today, he personally made dinner, on the one hand, for this period of hard work to reward himself, on the other hand, but also to resolve the family conflict.
He was sure that his wife could understand his plight, and he knew that Vera had participated in the orgy that followed Lynch's Mobile auction, and while she had only attended the first half of it, everyone was an adult and knew what was going on in that house.
She should understand that one's will could not shake the birth of something, and that rejection was often not so much a matter of telling someone about one's own cleanliness as it was a matter of expressing a different stance.
How could he stay away from other people when he was in such an important position in such an important department?
Adjusting the cutlery set out on the table and the napkins folded into heart shapes, he gave a satisfied nod.
He also inspected the gifts used as apology and compensation, a string of diamond necklaces worth more than three thousand dollars and a white gold bracelet, and the romantic atmosphere was so thick that the air in the room seemed to be filled with sweet-smelling scents.
The sound of a key being inserted into the lock cylinder came through the door, and Gap hurriedly changed his clothes, and hid the gifts, which were such a surprise that he even turned off the lights in the dining room.
He walked to the foyer and opened the door, greeting his wife's return with a smile on his face, the two of them stood, one inside the door and the other outside, staring at each other for a few moments across the distance of the door.
Something quickly changed on Gap's face as the wind outside the door blew in the moment the door was opened, bringing with it the smell of alcohol in addition to the cool evening breeze of a summer evening.
He asked, "You've been drinking?"
With one word, breaking the peace between the two, Vera walked through the door carrying the gift bag Lynch had given her and nodded a little, "I had some at dinner."
Gap's brow furrowed, "I didn't realize you were going to be eating out."
In the Baylor Federation, dinner would be late, but it would also be grand.
Businesses and factories, in general, wouldn't finish their day's work until around six o'clock, and with the time people needed to consume to get home, as well as a few other hours, most families wouldn't start their meals until around seven o'clock.
Gap knew that that Mobile auction of Lynch's would end a little later, and he had purposely allowed time for that, at which point he couldn't help but lift his wrist and look at the delicate watch on it; it was just a little after eight o'clock.
Vera wasn't in the best of moods, somehow, before she opened the door she had a bit of a smile on her face, and some expression that she couldn't tell if it was remorse or not that she was starting to be happy, she didn't feel like she should have kissed Lynch at the urging of others.
But the moment she opened the door, at the sight of her husband Gap s face, her mood ... could not be described as low, it just became calm and rippled up.
She nodded as she walked upstairs, "You know now?"
"I thought you'd be back for dinner, I had dinner specially prepared!" , Gap chased after her, was this the end of the romantic dinner he had been setting up for so long?
Vera's footsteps paused slightly as she turned sideways and looked back at Gap out of the corner of her eye as he caught up, "So what are you going to say now?" , the expression on her face had a sneer on it that Gap had deliberately created in the not-so-bright dim light that made it hard to tell, "Shall I have some more?"
The comment made Gap hard, but he nodded, "I've been preparing this for a long time, you can try my handiwork, it might surprise you."
Vera hesitated for a moment and finally nodded a little, "I'll go change ..."
With that he continued towards the stairs, Gap didn't stop her this time, he could sense that his wife seemed to be compromising as well, and that was good.
His eyes fell on the gift bag Vera was carrying, he was tempted to ask something but in the end he chose not to open his mouth.
A normal, intelligent woman, he was sure, knew how to choose.
Whether to choose an entrepreneur with no tomorrow, nothing but good looks and bound to be a failure.
Or to choose their own such a favorable bright future, became a partner of the group company, has a decent job and social status of the upper class.
Gap, who had always worked with numbers, was confident of this, and could understand how realistic people's choices could be, judging by the bitches in the office who forgot to "summarize①" every day.
Soon enough, Vera came down the stairs in a relatively homey outfit, and Gap frowned slightly, "I thought you'd have chosen an evening gown, like the one I bought you for the Spring Festival."
The evening gown Gap was talking about was a high-cut, bare-backed, open-backed evening gown, one that required not only a great body to hold up, but a certain amount of guts as well.
Sometimes it's hard for the underclass to tell what's "polite" about evening gowns, because sometimes they do look like they're more likely to arouse some latent, naked desire.
"It's more comfortable this way ...", Vera said, not bothering to change again, as she walked downstairs and looked at Gap, who was standing at the table, pulling out a chair for her, and walked over to him, before sitting down.
It was a dinner to ease the problems between them, and Gap didn't want to let all the preparations go to waste because of a little inconsequential thing, he didn't emphasize the issue any more than he had to and started serving the food.
As he explained the dishes he was serving, he told little stories that had something to do with them, women always liked men who were knowledgeable, maybe younger women would obsess over a man's appearance, but women with life experience would appreciate men's talents more.
This was a good opportunity, a good chance to show his talent, he memorized all those that he had read during the day today, adding some of his own renditions to recite them.
When he was about to pause for a moment to give Vera some insight into the situation, he was a little put off for a comment.
"Can we eat?"
The two stared at each other for a few seconds before Gap gritted his teeth and nodded a little, "Of course, I made these so we could enjoy them together, do you need me to separate the steaks for you?"
"No!"
It was destined to be a not so cozy and romantic dinner, Vera took a sip of her dinner wine after eating so much of each course and reached for her napkin, "I'm done, great dinner ..."
Gap froze for a moment as he hastily removed the gift he had prepared, "Maybe today isn't the day, tomorrow we'll go out to eat?"
In the light, the diamond necklace and white gold bracelet shimmered with a glamorous luster, but Vera wasn't the least bit interested at the moment.
Out of the blue she asked a question, "Did you use those same methods on female cousins who would kiss your ass?"
With one word, all the romance was torn to shreds and Gap's hand holding the gift box was placed back on the tabletop as he frowned at Vera, "Those are things of the past, and the sun won't come up if you keep dwelling on this one thing!"
Vera had something of a sneer on her face, "The past? Do you dare swear on your mother that you haven't touched another woman since that day?"
Gap's parents had divorced when he was young and he had been condemned to his mother, the woman who had worked so hard to raise him and provide him with the opportunity to be able to go to college.
Bent on getting ahead, Gap hadn't noticed that his mother had actually suffered from very severe depression after the divorce.
His mother wore long-sleeved dresses and pants even in the summer, and it was true that a lot of traditional women at the time would dress that way, but that wasn't why she did it.
She just didn't want Gap to see the marks left by her hurting herself under extreme depression, she didn't want her son to be distracted by her problems, and eventually after attending Gap's college graduation, the poor woman ended her life.
It also left Gap with an unrelenting guilt that he always contained for his mother, maybe if he had noticed his mother's condition earlier things would have changed.
Vera was well aware of this, and she hit Gap right where he needed it.
After a pause of maybe two seconds, Vera stood up and headed upstairs, already knowing the answer.