A Family Sooner or Later
“It was my fault all those years ago. I shouldn’t have acted according to my temper and abandoned you.
Will you give me a second chance, Tina?” Tom’s expression was despondent.
“Don’t address me so intimately, Mr. Shaw. You could have anyone you wanted given your status now, so
for Miss Sinclair’s sake, please don’t make a fool out of me,” Tina replied neutrally.
“I’ve never thought about anyone else.” Tom’s gaze was affectionate but resolute. “I was never with any
woman after you. All these years, my only focus apart from business has been you. You’re the only
person I’ve missed and longed for.”
For a moment, Tina frowned, but the expression disappeared in an instant as she replied indifferently, “In
that case, let me make myself clear to you today, Mr. Shaw. You needn’t waste your time. I’m a person
without a future. Everything I own belongs to the Carnegie Family now. No matter how long you wait, we
could never be together again.”
“What if I dealt with the Carnegie Family?” he asked stubbornly.
“Don’t be stupid. They’re so powerful and you can’t possibly defeat them…”
“As long as you’re willing and wish for it, I will have a way of resolving the matter.” Hidden beneath the
table, Tom clenched his fists as cold sweat started to break out on his palms. It was as if he had turned
back into that seventeen or eighteen-year-old from all those years ago, nervously waiting for his
sweetheart’s reply.
Tina stared at him and her frozen heart started melting all of a sudden. Color filled her world once again
as she murmured, “Alright. If they will genuinely let me go, I will—”
“Sorry, I was too engrossed in my conversation. Have you guys ordered?” As Elise suddenly sat down,
the dialogue between the duo came to a halt.
Naturally, Elise could tell from their faces that something was off, but she could only shrug innocently,
thinking that she hadn’t returned at the right moment.
In truth, she had gone out to answer Joseph’s call. He informed her that they managed to get in contact
with Xavier and asked her if she had run into any trouble in Dukethorn. As she was asking Joseph to
look into someone on her behalf and have the information sent over to her, Elise hadn’t paid attention to
how long she was gone.
“We ordered some food,” Tina said politely now, pushing the order form over to Elise. “You should get
some things that suit your taste.”
Carelessly, Elise waved her hand. “It’s okay. I’m not picky. This will do.” And then, she turned to Tom. “I
nearly forgot—once the gem auction event is over, you’ll have to go with me to pick up a jewelry
designer. Her designs are novel and unique. If Shaw’s Jewelry Co. wants to make a breakthrough, we’ll
have to strike our own path and rely on unique designs as our stepping stone to success. In the future,
we shall focus only on quality, not quantity.”
Narrowing her eyes in amusement, Tina quipped, “I’m afraid my presence is interrupting your business
talk.”
After all, business planning could be considered confidential. It wasn’t proper for her as an outsider to be
listening to them.
“It’s fine,” Elise replied with a mild smile, taking a sip of her drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she quietly
took measure of Tina, thinking that there was no need to be on her guard for they would all become a
family sooner or later.
After lunch, the closing ceremony ended early. The long afternoon was the highlight for the stone
owners, for one of the rules of the gem auction event was that all stones would be broken open in public
at the venue before being taken away.
This was to maintain the prosperity of Dukethorn as the stone gambling capital and to analyze how many
pieces of rough jadeite stone came from Dukethorn every year. As much as it was publicity, it was even
more so a subtle way of showing off.
On this final day of the auction, there were even more people than on the previous two days. Most of
them were here to witness the results of Elise and Ziggy’s competition; some had even brought their
family to spectate the gossip for themselves.
“There must be only nine pieces of raw material left now.”
“More or less-—five of the woman’s and four of Mr. Carnegie’s.”
“He has less than the woman?”
“What do you know? He already managed to find four pieces of high-quality jadeite yesterday. Even if he
only managed to find one piece today, he would already have far surpassed her. Surely she can’t be the
other God’s Chosen Girl, with every selection producing top-quality jadeite.”
“True! Not to mention that everything she chose was rough stone from the outer hall, and we all know
what those stones are like…”
“Needless to say, Ziggy will come out victorious!”
“Don’t forget their wager. Don’t you wish to see what a woman so gorgeous would look like underneath
Ziggy? Ha!”
Amid all the noise of the tongue-wagging, Tom and Elise finally managed to squeeze their way through
the crowd and into the inner hall.
Upon the platform where the rock was to be broken open, all of the rough stones waiting to be machine-
cut and polished had been arranged in a row. Elise could very easily distinguish the five pieces she had
selected.
This was mainly due to hers being so small that they looked somewhat ugly in comparison to the stones
Ziggy had chosen.
“Even hearts stop, but gossip clearly doesn’t,” Elise teased the crowd.
Tom rubbed his hands together excitedly. In all his years of stone gambling, such a scene was
unprecedented.
Almost supernaturally, Elise noticed Kenneth and Melody entering the venue through the crowd. As they
were escorted by the security guards, a path opened easily for them, and they were able to make their
way in slowly and sedately.
When Elise sensed that Kenneth was about to lift his head, she cleverly averted her eyes.
Finally, like a beauty-pageant winner, the staff member in charge of explaining the process entered the
scene amid cheers from the audience.
As the rough stones were assigned to two different masters one by one, the volunteer in charge of
maintenance and inquiries invited, “Miss Sinclair and Mr. Carnegie, please step forward.”
Like a soldier up for review, Ziggy lifted his head and puffed out his chest before striding up to the
equipment nearby one of his rough stones.
Someone must have reattached his dislocated arms.
Meanwhile, Elise stood at the other end of the platform and stopped the master who was about to cut
into her stones. “No, don’t use machinery. Polish them manually with tools. They won’t be perfect
anymore if you cut them in half.”
As soon as she said that, the people next to her began to snicker.
“That means she thinks she’d be able to find jadeite. Ha!”
“What a stubborn mule! It’d be a miracle if she managed to find a glint of green from the goods in the
outer hall, let alone something whole and perfect.”
Even the master was somewhat reluctant. After all, he had been in this line of work for years. It wouldn’t
be a problem if he cut three times into the stones numbering above six thousand, let alone the stones
numbering above ten thousand. The chances of these stones producing jadeite were infinitesimal. Why
would he waste time polishing them by hand?
Nevertheless, however reluctant he was, this was his job. Although he sighed deeply, he still carried the
stone over to the hand grinder and began to manually polish it.
With familiar ease, Ziggy pointed at the master in charge of his stones and instructed, “Do the same as
yesterday.”
Simultaneously, both masters began polishing.
Despite the size of the stones Ziggy selected, it only took about a minute after the machine cut into them
for them to produce jade.
“Tsk! There’s no surprise there—high-quality goods again!”
“Yet again? Does the Carnegie Family have an all-seeing eye? Who could compete with these odds of
finding jadeite?”
At this moment, Ziggy’s master couldn’t help becoming careful for fear of damaging the jadeite inside.
Gently, he blew the powder off the stone so that the green would become even more transparent.
The cut had successfully drawn the audience’s attention, and they were now waiting with bated breath to
see what the second cut would reveal.
Meanwhile, since she had insisted on every piece being hand-polished, the progress being made on
Elise’s rough stones was immeasurably small.
Ziggy shot her a contemptuous glance and the corners of his mouth curled up into a smug smile.
He had said it before and he would say it again—he would win!
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