Anastasia was in high spirits as she sent her son off to school. After giving Jared a flying kiss, she
hailed a cab to head to work. Once she arrived at the office, she put all of her focus into her work. She
managed to reply to a few emails before going off for their morning meeting. Felicia had been rather
pushy about launching new products for the company, and the design department had to produce the
latest designs that would help with their sales.
During the meeting, Felicia praised Anastasia for her work as Anastasia’s designs had received great
feedback from the general public. Her designs were a good match for the market, and it was already
the hit product in many stores. Even so, she took her compliments without being too arrogant about it.
After that, Felicia made another announcement. “The finance department just gave us a call. They told
us that they will release the prize money a little earlier this time, so it’ll probably be out by this
afternoon. You guys should check your bank account in a bit, Anastasia and Alice.”
Alice turned her gaze toward Anastasia all of a sudden. There was an unfriendly look in her eyes.
Anastasia noticed it, but she just ignored it as she didn’t know what Alice was trying to do. After the
meeting, Anastasia returned to the office. Soon enough, she heard the notification of her bank account.
She opened it to see seven zero’s. Oh my god. I didn’t expect the finance department to be so
enthusiastic about handing out money. They deserve a huge thumbs up.
Anastasia felt much more motivated to work after receiving the cash prize, and she finished three drafts
all at once. She was even satisfied with all three of them. Right then, her landline began to ring.
“Hello?” She picked the call up.
“Hello? Is this Anastasia? I’d like to tell you some inside news. Elliot was the one who arranged for you
to win the prize. If you were relying on your own skills, you would’ve gotten third place at most. You’d
never get first place with your standard.” Anastasia’s expression changed immediately. “Who are you?
How do you know about this?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am. What I’m telling you is the truth. You only got this prize because of Elliot.
He was the one who called the chairman of my company. You can ask him if you don’t believe what I’m
saying. Most of the competition’s judges as well as the organizing committee know about this.” The
man ended the call after that.
Anastasia was still in a daze, but she could feel her face turning hot. She could hear her ears ringing as
if someone had given her an invisible slap. It’s true. Elliot was the one who gave me this prize. I didn’t
truly deserve all of this cash. Her entire body felt like it was boiling, and she could feel her heart
pounding harder than usual. She grabbed her phone and walked out of the office without any
hesitation.
Alice had been sitting by the window, and she spread her lips into a cold smirk when she saw
Anastasia storming out of the office. Will she still claim the cash prize for herself now? Alice thought.
After what happened with Ben previously, Alice managed to contact him to ask for some inside news
regarding the prize. Then, she contacted another one of the internal managers to help her make that
call. Alice wouldn’t allow Anastasia to become more recognized than she was-ideally, Alice wanted this
whole incident to go viral so that Anastasia’s name would be ruined.
Anastasia took a deep breath after arriving at the elevator. She decided that she wouldn’t take the
money anymore. Even the trophy felt like a form of embarrassment to her. If Elliot’s going to use
such manners to thank me, I’m not going to accept his good intentions at all.
Once Anastasia got to the president’s office, she knocked on the door. “Come in,” said a man’s deep
voice. She pushed the door open to find Elliot sitting in the office. It seemed like he was extremely busy
because there were piles of documents covering his table.
“Were you the one who pulled strings for me to get the prize that I received? Tell me the truth.”
Anastasia smacked both her hands on his desk as she tried her best to remain calm and rational about
the situation.
He took a long gaze at her, and he realized that he didn’t have the ability to lie to her at that moment.
So, he gave her a soft nod. “Why did you do that? Were you trying to thank me? I don’t need you to do
that, Elliot. From now on, I don’t need you to give me any special benefits in the company. I don’t need
you to get involved with anything that I do at all, okay?” She sounded like she was begging him by the
end of her sentence.
A rather stunned look surfaced on Elliot’s face as he stared at her. All he had intended to do was to
help her-he had never wanted to hurt her.
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