'I thought I would stay much longer at home due to that annoying lady's influence over the whole city but I guess I was wrong. Luckily for me, I have landed myself a new job,' Jillian's smile broadened as she stared out of the window.
"But unfortunately she is afraid she won't be able to handle Miss Summer's troubles. She would have definitely employed you if she had a choice. You might not know this, but Miss Summer is quite nasty when angry," Beatrice said regrettably.
It took just a few sentences from her to crush the excited Jillian's hopes. For a minute the heartbroken lady couldn't say a word.
"Are you there?" Beatrice asked when she couldn't hear any sound from the other end.
"I guess that couldn't be helped. Anyways thank you for putting in a good word for me," Jillian managed to say. She hadn't felt the desire to shed a tear for a long time until this moment.
She really wanted to cry for her ill luck.
"I am really sorry I couldn't be of much help. I promise to inform you if I hear of any vacancies in other malls and boutiques," Beatrice gave her word. Jillian disconnected the call without bothering to say anything more.
"Was that the old acquaintance you talked about?" a lady wearing a black fitted knee-length skirt and a matching suit asked, walking closer to where Beatrice stood.
"Yeah and can you believe she thanked me thinking that I had put in a good word for her?" Beatrice asked grinning devilishly.
"That is a lie!" The lady with long curly black hair exclaimed, suppressing her laughter since there were many customers around.
"Who told her to steal all our clients and make me look bad in front of my former boss in my previous workplace," Beatrice growled without any sense of guilt.
"I guess she has no one but herself to blame for her bad luck," the lady with curly hair supported, without feeling the need to reprimand her colleague for what she did.
At Jillian's home, her mood changed drastically after the bad news she received. Even when Brayden arrived at her doorstep with the contract he promised, she didn't look enthusiastic.
Her mood was so gloomy that Brayden had to ask if the girls were responsible for her unhappiness.
Unlike how Oliver promised to return home to Jillian's side, he wasn't able to fulfil it. Instead of going back to their joint apartment, he had to go home to his mother when he received the news that she was ill.
Thanks to this perfect timing, Jillian had enough time to think of how to convince Oliver to accept the girls who would be living with them.
On the evening of the fifth day, barely ten minutes after the driver sent Marley and Monalisa home from their academy, Jillian's doorbell rang.
"I am coming," Jillian shouted from the kitchen. Before she could pause her work to answer the door, she heard a man's voice coming from the living room.
"I told them not to open the door for visitors that it was my job, but I guess they just won't listen right?" Jillian murmured not knowing what to do with the two girls who had been very well-behaved.
They only had a few flaws which she noticed and she was trying her best to patiently teach them even though she wasn't a good teacher herself.
At the living room, Brayden dropped the ice cream he had gotten for the girls on the centre table and scrutinised his environment hoping to see Jillian around.
"Where is Jillian? Also have you girls had dinner yet?" Brayden asked, his eyes fixed on Jillian's bedroom door.
"Mommy is in the kitchen," Marley replied, gesturing towards the direction of the kitchen.
"Marl and I haven't eaten yet, but Mom wants to prepare our meal," Monalisa supported.
"Isn't that a good thing, but how come you both don't look happy? Is Jillian's food horrible? Is that what you are dissatisfied about?" Brayden was forced to ask when he noticed that the girls who were always brimming with laughter anytime he visited weren't smiling at the moment.
"She makes tasty food," Monalisa and Marley chorused.
"If that is the case then what is the problem?" Brayden asked a bit more seriously, hoping the girls would tell him their concerns this way.
"Uncle, why do you think mommy doesn't eat? Is she sick?" Marley asked out of the blue, her innocent eyeballs fixed on Brayden's face.
"What do you mean Jillian doesn't eat? Is there any human out there who can function without food?" Brayden asked, not able to ease his confusion.
"Mom either eats two boiled eggs, two pieces of banana or a cup of juice for the entire day. Isn't that because she is ill?" Monalisa asked innocently.
'If what Lisa and Marl said is true then that means Jillian is on a diet. How do I tell them that, so they will no longer be worried?' Brayden's mind wandered away even though the kids in front of him were waiting for his reply.
He jolted back to the present when the anxious Monalisa grabbed his hand.
"Hmmm… I have a way of making your mommy eat, but you must help me out later ok?" Brayden asked, knowing too well that he could rely on the girls to do a good job.
Just when Marley opened her mouth to say something, Jillian entered the room wearing a red apron and a matching hair bonnet.
"Ooh… it's you," Jillian murmured when she realised that Brayden was the visitor who rang the doorbell earlier.
"You look disappointed. Were you perhaps waiting for someone else?" Brayden demanded upon seeing Jillian's fallen expression. He left where Marley and Monalisa stood and moved towards Jillian.