Room for You
Chapter 135

Chapter 135

Anastasia was in high spirits as she sent her son off to school. Aftergiving Jared a flying kiss, she hailed a cab to head to work. Once shearrived at the office, she put all of her focus into her work. Shemanaged to reply to a few emails before going off for their morningmeeting. Felicia had been rather pushy about launching new productsfor the company, and the design department had to produce the latestdesigns that would help with their sales.

During the meeting, Felicia praised Anastasia for her work asAnastasia's designs had received great feedback from the generalpublic. Her designs were a good match for the market, and it wasalready the hit product in many stores. Even so, she took hercompliments without being too arrogant about it.

After that, Felicia made another announcement. “The financedepartment just gave us a call. They told us that they will release theprize money a little earlier this time, so it'll probably be out by thisafternoon. You guys should check your bank account in a bit, Anastasiaand Alice.”

Alice turned her gaze toward Anastasia all of a sudden. There was anunfriendly look in her eyes. Anastasia noticed it, but she just ignored itas she didn't know what Alice was trying to do. After the meeting,Anastasia returned to the office. Soon enough, she heard thenotification of her bank account. She opened it to see seven zeros. Ohmy god. I didn't expect the finance department to be so enthusiasticabout handing out money. They deserve a huge thumbs up.

Anastasia felt much more motivated to work after receiving the cashprize, and she finished three drafts all at once. She was even satisfiedwith 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 wasthe one who arranged for you to win the prize. If you were relying onyour own skills, you would've gotten third place at most. You'd neverget first place with your standard.” Anastasia’s expression changedimmediately. “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 onlygot this prize because of Elliot. He was the one who called the chairmanof 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 committeeknow about this.” The man ended the call after that.

Anastasia was still in a daze, but she could feel her face turning hot. Shecould hear her ears ringing as if someone had given her an invisibleslap. It's true. Elliot was the one who gave me this prize. I didn't trulydeserve all of this cash. Her entire body felt like it was boiling, and shecould feel her heart pounding harder than usual. She grabbed herphone and walked out of the office without any hesitation.

Alice had been sitting by the window, and she spread her lips into acold smirk when she saw Anastasia storming out of the office. Will shestill claim the cash prize for herself now? Alice thought. After whathappened with Ben previously, Alice managed to contact him to ask forsome inside news regarding the prize. Then, she contacted another oneof the internal managers to help her make that call. Alice wouldn't allowAnastasia to become more recognized than she was-ideally, Alicewanted this whole incident to go viral so that Anastasia’s name wouldbe ruined.

Anastasia took a deep breath after arriving at the elevator. She decidedthat she wouldn't take the money anymore. Even the trophy felt like aform of embarrassment to her. If Elliot's going to use

such manners to thank me, I'm not going to accept his good intentionsat 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 replaceElliot sitting in the office. It seemed like he was extremely busy becausethere were piles of documents covering his table.

“Were you the one who pulled strings for me to get the prize that Ireceived? Tell me the truth.” Anastasia smacked both her hands on hisdesk as she tried her best to remain calm and rational about thesituation.

He took a long gaze at her, and he realized that he didn't have theability to lie to her at that moment. So, he gave her a soft nod. “Whydid you do that? Were you trying to thank me? I don't need you to dothat, Elliot. From now on, I don't need you to give me any specialbenefits in the company. I don't need you to get involved with anythingthat I do at all, okay?” She sounded like she was begging him by theend of her sentence.

A rather stunned look surfaced on Elliot's face as he stared at her. All hehad intended to do was to help her-he had never wanted to hurt her.