"Come on, get up!", Hannah pulled her best friend off from the sofa."Why? Where are we going?"
"Retail therapy. I don"t like what you look like right now. You"re ugly." , Hannah didn"t hold back with her words. She"s been always straight forward to Samantha.
Samantha finds it hilarious when she does this, "Am I really?"
"No, S! You"re the most beautiful woman I"ve ever known but right now... forget it. Go change and we"ll go shopping."
The two friends spent the whole afternoon pampering themselves, well... it was Hannah forcing Samantha to "pamper" themselves. Late in the afternoon when the sky started to darken, they were at the Busy Bean Cafe"s rooftop garden talking.
"I have to go pee. Wait here, S.", Hannah said before she stood up and ran downstairs.
Samantha walked over to the potted fruit garden where she saw a ripe red strawberry hanging outside the clay pot. She extended her hand to pick the fruit when she suddenly felt a very comfortable and warm presence behind her.
A pair of long and manly arms wrapped around her, trapping her in place. She smelled his familiar scent of the Versace perfume.
His head nuzzled at the crook of Samantha"s neck and inhaled her peachy fragrance, his embrace tightened before he spoke, "I missed you."
Samantha"s heart jumped when she realized that it was Daniel. The corner of her lips lifted and her expression brightened. "I thought you weren"t coming home until the next few days?"
Daniel Cho spun her around to see her face, "Surprise."
"So cheesy!", Samantha exclaimed but she loved his surprise anyway.
He chuckled and tucked a loose hair behind her ear, "How could I not come home? I have to have dinner with you tonight."
"Dinner?"
Actually, when Daniel called Samantha earlier, he was already at the airport and was about to board the plane going back to City M. It"s been almost two weeks and Daniel got grumpy for not being able to see Samantha especially when his business trip was dragging. When he checked his calendar, he noticed that today marked their first month since they agreed to date each other. He decided to go home for the night and fly back the next morning to City T just to have dinner with Samantha.
The couple had fun on their dinner date. And when Samantha heard Daniel"s reason why he suddenly came home, she laughed at him. She couldn"t believe that Daniel was this sentimental. Not at all fitting with his cold-CEO image. But she was touched nonetheless.
--
Early the next morning, Daniel flew back to City T to finish a project. Samantha, on the other hand, went to work in a hurry when Alexander called her with a worried voice.
As soon as Samantha entered her office, "What"s the problem?"
"They"ve started.", Alexander handed her a tablet with an article that Samantha had somehow antic.i.p.ated.
"I"ve expected something like this to happen but not so soon, they"re very resourceful."
"Regardless, they used this issue to dirty our company. Whether it"s true or not, people will only believe what they see."
"Have people find Minjae.", Samantha said with a dark expression on her face. "You wanna play a game? Let"s play."
"Oh, and find people to get Kevin, bring him here."
A few years back when Samantha and Alexander first started the company, they had a head programmer named "Minjae". He was Samantha"s university cla.s.smate. Although Samantha was a way better programmer, she wanted to give the opportunity to Minjae. She had excellent skills but it"s not really her pa.s.sion. In the first few months, Minjae led a group of programmers; one of them was Kevin who was also skilled in programming. In one of the projects that they had during that time, Minjae and Kevin had a disagreement. Kevin proposed to sell the current project to a different client who offered a huge amount. But Minjae was a righteous man, it wasn"t right even if the other party offered more money. Trident had a contract with their client and the software was for them.
Kevin was enraged at Minjae because ever since he joined the company he had always felt inferior to Minjae. He left the company bringing along with him the software that was almost completed, he wanted to sell it to the client that offered him a huge amount. But Samantha and Alexander were faster than Kevin, they"ve already contacted the other party and told him about the situation. Then they offered the client a deal that he couldn"t refuse. So after a few modifications, Kevin tried to sell the software to that client, but he left without a single cent. He was furious, he had no more job and didn"t get to sell the software. He couldn"t even sell it to other companies because of copyright issues. He just wanted to get away with one software for quick money but now he has none.
At first, Trident filed a lawsuit against Kevin but later on, Samantha told Alexander to give him pardon since nothing drastic happened anyway; as long as they don"t cross each other"s paths anymore. So after that incident, Kevin went back to his hometown. because of some family problems, Kevin"s life was wasted. He lost motivation, he became a drunkard and an addict. Trident company continued to flourish although a little after a year when they started, Minjae left the company. He got married and lived in another city with his wife near his old parents" house; he is living a humble life.
In the article, it stated how Trident company started as a sham. It said that they stole a software project from their old employee and fired him.
Quantum Solutions found Kevin when they were searching for any dirt about Samantha"s company. They were curious why Kevin left the company after being employed for half a year, and when they found him in his poor state, it wasn"t hard to bribe him with money to dish out something about Trident.
Kevin who had nothing to lose and lots of money to gain, he told the people from Quantum that he made a software back then but it was stolen by Trident. They claimed his software theirs and didn"t even give him credit and that they also fired him. All of these were, of course, lies. But he didn"t care, he got a lot of money from this lie.
Days after they found Kevin, a news article surfaced about Trident Company stealing the software and claiming it as their own. Software theft is one of the problems that software companies face. This matter with Trident, they could lose potential and current clients. After all, who would want to get services from a company who steals?
But Samantha wasn"t afraid because they have evidence, so this matter will be solved easily. She instructed her a.s.sistant to ask the PR to handle this matter and that they will provide an explanation soon.
While Samantha was facing this crisis, Daniel Cho in City T had no idea what was going on. He and his a.s.sistant were very busy. a.s.sistant Ahn normally checks business articles but his focuses were in Cho Corporation"s line of business so he hasn"t read the article about Trident company. They went about their project and returned to City M the next day.
Samantha didn"t think that it was important to inform Daniel about what was currently happening in her company, after all, it was her business and that she had it under control. So when she saw Daniel that day when she visited his office, Daniel was still clueless about what was going on. They had lunch and went on their separate ways afterward.
When Daniel came back to the company, he dropped by his brother"s office to give him an afternoon snack bought by Samantha. Although he felt a tiny bit jealous that Samantha was good to his brother, Liam, he didn"t stop her from being thoughtful towards his family.
"Wow! Sister-in-law takes care of me very well.", Liam beamed after receiving the box of pastries and a cup of coffee.
"Tch."
Daniel scoffed but chuckled right after. He glanced at Liam"s desk and the expression on his face changed, "What is this?"
After taking a sip on his coffee, Liam answered, "Oh.. some software company that joined the bidding had some software theft issue."
"What??" Daniel grabbed the papers and tablet and scanned the contents very quickly, seeing the name "Trident" here and there. "When was this?"
Liam wasn"t sure why his brother was so interested about it but he answered anyway, "A few days ago... I think?"
"And they joined the bidding?", he asked with a gloomy look.
Liam was carefree, he munched on the pastries and drank his coffee enjoying every bit of it, "Yeah. They"ve joined a little over a month ago. Why? Do you know them?"
With a dark expression, Daniel clenched his teeth and his brows furrowed, "Samantha owns the company. She"s Trident"s CEO."
Liam spat the coffee upon hearing it, splas.h.i.+ng liquid over the doc.u.ments in front of him.