Everyone in the board room only watched as Darryl carried his wife, his two strong hands wrapped carefully on her weak body as they left the meeting hall. Clayward was helpless as to Darryl"s advances.
Collet could only look down with shame as she balled her fist with rage.
Both President Manuel and Don Samuelle didn"t know what to feel and was questioning the whole thing inwardly although they had witnessed it themselves. Confused and filled with rage as to how Darryl acted in front of everyone, the only thing they all could do was looked at Dannah, whom they thought was the person who could explain this all better.
"What? I have nothing to do with this," Dannah defended herself as everyone from L Empire, including her father and grandfather looked at her indifferently. "However, didn"t I tell you over and over again that he was already married?"
Dannah turned her back from everyone as she had enough for the day. Darryl did already give her a serious headache and she didn"t have enough strength to deal with her father, more so her grandfather at all.
"Dannah Samuelle!" It was Don Samuelle who called for her attention when she dared to walked out.
Dannah only halted then stood sideways in response, "I told already told you everything before. But….but… I must have forgotten to tell you that his wife had already come back," Dannah arched her eyebrows dramatically and walked out laughing with sarcasm. "Sorry grandfather about that!"
***
It was a terrible day for Don Samuelle. Deeply bothered as to what happened earlier in the board meeting of LGC, he decided to take a break and relaxed his tensing nerves by going to an exclusive gold club where he was a regular.
"How that G.o.dd.a.m.n woman turned out to be my grandson"s wife?" He cursed as he was swaying off his golf club in the air, making a stance to practice a hit while making his sentiments known to his subordinates who was there with him to give him a company. Everyone who was there with him only either agreed or nod silently at his words, calculating their every moves to avoid agitating the old man.
Samuelle Lagdameo like the most of their clan was certainly a person hard to please— strict, meticulous and most of all very unaccommodating. In fact his face makes one flinched in fear even before he could utter a word.
A caddie positioned his ball for him and in just a minute, Don Samuelle hit the ball hard but it missed. He made another attempt, however, even when the ball was fuelled by his tensed up stem, only small skill and knowledge of golf can make one tell it wasn"t a good hit.
"Lame," Someone sighed, obviously not one from Don"s Samuelle"s company as no one was brave enough to make such comment against the Lagdameo Don.
"I guess the lousy hit was because of the grumpiness," A small innocent voice made a remark that made everyone"s head turned. The minute they heard it, everyone was expecting Don Samuelle to rage and so they all braced themselves. However, as surprising as it can be, when their eyes landed the culprit of such audacious remarks, all of Don Samuelle company got their eyes bulged out of shock when they saw a small child standing parallel few meters away from their boss.
The child was all in white, except from few black stripes served as a design to its dress and cap. The child was looking down at a ball, positioned it, then while holding a golf club, hit it hard and made the ball fly professionally. While the ball was in the air, everyone"s eyes followed it and when it landed in a good spot, they were all very impressed, except from Don Samuelle of course.
"See that?" The child proudly relayed, "That"s as far as you could get when you hit it while smiling, my teacher told me."
Instead of answering, Don Samuelle who had already a glimpse of the child, turned to his subordinate and instructed, "Call the club manager and report this missing child,"
"I"m not a child!" the child hollered and when her voice came to a cute pitch, everyone can already tell that it was a she. "I"m a girl…not a child. Besides I"m not lost, I know my way round here and I"m pretty smart and strong, so my uncle lets me go unsupervised. How about you old grumpy grandpa? Aside from being that weak why are you grumpy?"
"Little girl, why don"t you go and—" One of the Don Samuelle"s subordinates tried to shoo the girl away to avoid being scared away by the old man yet his attempt was already too late as Don Samuelle, to everyone"s horror, already turned to give the child a good smacking.
"What did you just said kid?" Don Samuelle"s eyes showed how p.i.s.sed he was. He thought by then to give the owner of the club a call and recommend to fire out the club manager as it was the latter"s obligation to make sure that he can do whatever he wanted inside the club without a random kid annoying him.
"Weak," She repeated whilst playing with her club. "You had so many servants accompanying you and carrying your things so I can only presume you are too old and weak to carry them yourselves,"
With her words, Don Samuelle"s already bad day had turned terrible and his mood turned him into a child inconsiderate and unforgiving monster. "You are dumb—"
As he was about to shout, the girl dragged her face up to look at Don Samuelle"s eyes and when her face was displayed under the Don"s eyes, he was left thunderstruck and was not able to finish his words.
"I am not dumb," The girl said, looking back at him with the same intensity the old man gave her, "I am Willow,"
Don Samuelle couldn"t respond right away as his thoughts and realization upon seeing the girl"s face confused him in ways one could not describe. The girl"s stare even brought him the same confusing feelings and suddenly later it turned into a familiar hurt he had sheltered within him for so long. He closed his eyes to succ.u.mb into it for a moment and let go after few good minutes.
"I am not weak," He told the girl, avoiding her eyes but his tone was rather gentle now, "I"m just rich,"
Then without waiting for any response, Don Samuelle handed his golf club to the caddie and started walking away. His subordinates who saw him leaving, packed up immediately and followed him.
Don Samuelle sighed inwardly and when he was sure far enough from the kid, he pulled his wallet from his pocket and pulled one tiny picture hidden in those leathers for long. It was an old picture, taken a long time ago.
A picture of his wife holding a small little girl he dotted favourably prior and honestly, there was nothing peculiar about the picture aside from the fact that the child whom he just meet few minutes ago, looked exactly like the child in the picture he treasured the most.
The only obvious difference from it was that, the child in the picture was his once ever loved granddaughter Dannah, while the child he met few minutes ago was someone else, someone named Willow.