Chapter 46
Mirabella had barely stepped into the living room when Delilah, who was busy organizing boxes, looked up and almost jumped out of her skin. The ledger she was holding clattered onto the floor.
“Mira… what brings you back so soon? Weren’t you supposed to visit Mrs. Catherine?” Delilah asked, her face a picture of surprise. Quickly, she bent down to retrieve the ledger and tossed it back into the box without a second thought.
Beside her. Shawn, calculator in one hand and spectacles perched on his nose, set down his device. He glanced at his wristwatch before asking with mild confusion, “Honey, you haven’t been gone for more than a few hours. Did you forget something?”
Mirabella cast a nonchalant glance at the box by Delilah’s feet and replied casually, “She had company, so I came back.”
“Oh, I see…” Delilah said, the matter seemingly settled in her mind.
After a brief pause, she continued without much thought, “You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Your dad and I thought you wouldn’t be back for lunch, so we haven’t prepared anything. Just give me a moment to put these away, and I’ll start on some food.”
As she spoke, Delilah quickly tossed a few more ledgers onto the coffee table into the box, and Shawn’s calculator followed suit. “Shawn, can you take this stuff back to the room? I’ll get started on lunch,” she instructed.
“Sure thing.” Shawn replied, sliding off his glasses and hoisting the box as he headed upstairs.
Mirabella’s gaze lingered on his retreating figure, her thoughts a mystery. She followed Delilah into the kitchen, lending a hand with the vegetables. She then asked, as if it were an afterthought. “Did we have any visitors today?”
Delilah shook her head. “Nope, why do you ask all of a sudden?” she replied, wondering if Mirabella had sensed something amiss.
“When I came in, I noticed a couple of extra clean pairs of shoes by the shoe cabinet,” Mirabella said, her downcast, her voice betraying nothing unusual.
Delilah paused for a moment before laughing it off, “I was tidying up the shoe cabinet this morning and got distracted by your dad. Must’ve forgotten to put them away.”
Mirabella simply hummed in acknowledgment, then seemed to remember something else. “Oh, and Mom, I ran into a group of men in black suits while waiting for the elevator downstairs.”
Delilah paused again, about to respond, when her daughter continued. “They looked quite intimidating. Kind of like those debt collectors you hear about, you know? We don’t have any debts, do we?” Mirabella’s gaze was serious as she looked at Delilah.
Feeling a strange sense of guilt under her daughter’s scrutiny, Delilah quickly shook her head. “No, we don’t owe anyone anything!” But after a few seconds, she probed, “Were those men you saw really that–frightening?”
“Yeah, they didn’t seem like good news,” Mirabella stated plainly.
Upon hearing this, Delilah’s throat tightened around the words. ‘They’re just from the company’s finance department, not debt collectors. She swallowed them back down.
Shawn was right to worry. The company’s staff had a daunting image, and even if she told Mirabella those were just finance guys, it might scare her. Worse, her daughter might start suspecting her parents of being involved in unlawful business dealings.
No, she couldn’t let Mirabella know the truth.
Regaining her composure, Delilah said with a steady voice. “It could be that someone in the building took out a loan with steep interest rates. If you run into these types of people again, make sure to steer clear, alright?”
Mirabella turned to look at Delilah, her gaze intensifying slightly as a faint shadow cast by her long eyelashes fell upon her face. She didn’t press further, simply placing the last of the prepped vegetables into the basket.
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