The Spare Wife by Nadia Gordon

Chapter 39
Joan seemed calm as she watched Sabrina tuck the box with the watch
inside the latter’s purse, but deep down inside, her heart was squeezing
tightly.
She had just bought the watch, and it had been a hard decision for her too,
due to its price.
However, a little sacrifice was necessary in exchange for fame.
“Oh, by the way, I have a few photos. See if you can make use of them.”
Joan chose a few pictures from her phone. Sabrina glanced through them.
They were all pictures of Joan and Sean together, though only his side profile
could be seen.
“Send them to me,” Sabrina said with a look of satisfaction. She could tell that
Joan got the message. After taking her phone out in preparation to receive
them, she instructed, “You can leave the rest to me. Give me your social
media accounts. I’ll get a team of professionals to run them for you.”
“Okay.”
800
When it was nearly time to get off work, Abigail set aside her design drafts
and, as if under a spell, opened up her chat with Sean. Yesterday’s
conversation filled her screen. There was no new message.
Abigail tapped one out. “Are you coming home tonight?”
She hesitated for quite some time, but in the end, she hit send.

Though she waited for a while, she didn’t get a reply.
Abigail only realized that it was dark out when Luna came over and patted
her on the shoulder. “Isn’t that fellow coming to pick you up tonight?”
It was time to get off work and almost everyone at the studio was gone. Luna
only noticed that Abigail was still at work when she came upstairs,
“It’s just as well that he’s not, right? Saves you the trouble of calling me a fool
in love.” Abigail exhaled and tidied up her desk as she got ready to head off.
“The production team will be officially announcing our partnership on Twitter
tonight. Remember to retweet the announcement later.” Noting the
anxiousness in Abigail’s eyes, Luna simply gave her a reminder without
asking any other questions.
“I got it.” Abigail didn’t spare the time to say much else. She grabbed her
purse with one hand while making a call to Ana lise with the other.
Even as she started her engine, Ana lise still wasn’t picking up her calls.
Abigail got a bad feeling. All sorts of scenarios flooded her mind.
Her grandma didn’t know how to use the gas stove. No one would realize
anything if she slipped and fell unconscious.
She ended up taking fifteen minutes to complete the half-hour journey back.
As soon as she got back, she rushed into the empty living room without even
taking her shoes off and heard sounds coming from the kitchen.
“Grandma! Are you alright?”
Abigail rushed into the kitchen, only to find that Sean was sitting in the
kitchen picking through the vegetables while Ana lise cooked.
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you as clumsy as you were as a child?
You should learn a thing or two from Sean. Even though he’s the company
president, he’s still sitting here in my kitchen helping an old lady like me cook.
You should be nicer to him.”
Upon hearing the commotion, Ana lise slowly turned around. The kindly smile
on her face allowed Abigail’s heart to settle back in place.
Abigail eyed the vegetables in Sean’s hands with a look of surprise. His hands
were dirtied by the soil from the vegetables. For a moment, Abigail was
dazed.
Was this still the same proud and haughty Sean that she usually saw…
Meanwhile, Sean ignored her and calmly sorted out the vegetables.
“I kept calling you but you didn’t pick up, so I thought…” Abigail didn’t finish her
sentence.
She thought something had happened to her grandma.