26 January, Hotel Ballroom, City K

Abigail turned and said, "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely serious. I want to see if we have a chance of a relationship looking towards marriage. But it must be a mutual decision, not something forced."

"Are you certain?"

"Abigail, as I said you are the first woman I have met at these functions that actually interests me. All I want is a chance to see what will happen. In the end what happens will be your choice."

Blushing, Abigail briefly dropped her head, before David using his fingers gently lifted her head and said "There is no need to be concerned about anything."

Observing the smile that came over her face, David was happy he had listened to Robert's advice. Just seeing the looks from most of those in the room, it was obvious that despite only having just arrived in society starting to form a relationship with someone like Abigail Mo, integrated him into them.

The only thing was the jealous stares that the two of them were receiving from others because he had seemingly chosen her. That meant he had to task one of his men to protect her sending the message that Abigail was not to be messed with. But, with the invitations from the older women, there was always the prospects of using them for s*xual release as needed.

Meanwhile Monica stood half listening to the conversation between Lexi and John Nang, watching what was happening with Abigail. Her shameless mother doing that to Abigail. However, it seemed, observing her that Abigail was enjoying interacting with CEO Hwang. Maybe the situation was not as bad as she thought, and Abigail was interested in this man.

Finishing her conversation with John and promising not to make a scene for the balance of the night Lexi moved over and looked in the direction that Monica was looking.

"What is it?"

"I am not certain. Maybe I was wrong in my view that my parents were going to force her into a marriage. Abigail seems genuinely interested in him, and maybe it is not a forced marriage."

"Possibly, but there is something about him that seems familiar."

"His name is David Hwang. There is only limited information in the public about him. His parents committed treason and were executed for their crime when he was young. As a result, he ended in state care. He attended University on a scholarship and started to develop the technology company that is the core of his conglomerate. It was so successful that within a year he repaid to the university the scholarship money and donated enough money to establish a scholarship fund for former state care people to allow them to attend university."

"Since then, he has expanded the company to the conglomerate he has. While it does not dominate any one industry it is successful as it is extremely integrated minimising costs throughout. Until recently he very rarely was seen in public, relying on his public relations team to be the public face of the company. The business reports are that he has a core group of people who surround him and are trusted but everyone else is tolerated."

"No, it is not from press coverage that he is familiar. I cannot figure out why, but it is from somewhere else that he is familiar." Lexi paused and shook her head before continuing "Does it bother you?"

"Lexi no, I married the man I love. The fact that the family disowned me for that choice, I do not worry about. I just worried about Abigail having no choice, but maybe.."

"Monica do not worry about it. You will not be able to change other's choices, you can only control what happens in your life."

"True, I just do not want her hurt trying to please the family. But you are right I cannot change her choice. All I can do is be available if things go wrong." Monica paused and continued "What are you going to do about my mother?"

"That is another story. I promised John that we would leave in a bit of time. Not because I want us to be seen to give into her, but because I do not want to create more of a scene than she has. The charities being supported tonight do not need that."

"Always thinking of others."

"You have to. If you only think of yourself, you ruin everything around you. But that does not mean that she is going to get away with it."

"What?"

"She is wearing a fake, passing it off as one of my couture pieces. I will give whoever created the fake that they are good, but they missed key things that mark it as an original."

"Those things you mentioned?"

"Absolutely, but that design had a feature that you cannot see unless it is physically in front of you. While she could argue that the other items were removed by the stylist as it did not fit the image she wanted, and the dress damaged to reflect that removal that is not. That feature is in the material weave itself so it cannot be gotten rid of. Plus, no one gets a couture design unless they personally interact with my team. That protects the integrity of the designs and ensures that the dress is custom to the individual maintaining my couture designs exclusivity. The ready to wear collection is completely different. Monday I am going to instruct my legal team to take action against her for passing off a fake as a couture design."

"You are wicked."

"Well, we are all wearing couture designs, and there is no way I want LY to be tainted by fakes. She will just have to pay the price."

Turning she saw Jessica and Sarah signalling, and said "We need think about heading off. I want to have your mother think she has won today. And to be realistic none of our husbands need to deal with the consequences of her rumourmongering. While the rumours will be disproved, they do not need to spend the time dealing with that."

"True, rumours like that for anyone in the military are always hard to deal with."

"And rumours in any occupation can stall careers."

Nodding Monica knew that for them that would not be the case but given the tension between Matthew and Lexi is was not a discussion she wanted to start with her.

"OK let us go."

-------

If you are reading this novel anywhere other than at or its apps then you are reading work that has been stolen in breach of the authors rights and those rights assigned to others.

Please support this author and only access this novel through at /book/15095783406874805 and report the illegal posting of this work.