Chapter 5 Ch Five

• Everyone was charmed and impressed beyond their expectations to see the stunning female stand before them and give her speech as the new heiress, while the entire family of the Meyers was about to lose their minds as they tried to comprehend the scene. It was too much for them to bear and handle at once.
• They couldn't even fully grasp the shock. Their breath hitched collectively caught in their throats in a suspended moment of silence as if the shock had momentarily stolen the very sound of their voice, when they realized the reality of their ex-daughter-in-law standing before them, and was introduced to everyone. Audrey and Ivy clamped their palms over their lips with their eyes widened in disbelief, while Irina lost her footing as she froze with her muscles locked in a momentary paralysis.
• Only Malcolm and Isla remained comported irrespective of how they were feeling, while Aaron was too carried away by his video game to even realize the disorientation his family had been plunged in.
• 'How would Zoe Oliver, their wretched daughter-in-law, be the heiress to the Multi-Billion dollar fortune of the Sinclairs? Was that not too far-fetched?'
• 'Or was the real heiress's doppelganger? Maybe they just looked alike and bore the same name?'
• 'Was she taking someone's place? Or was it some kind of facade before the real introduction of the person they had really come to see? It was even too unimaginable for the Sinclairs to pull off something fake like that?' The members of Meyers all speculated different things in their minds, as intense anxiety and shrivels overwhelmed them.
• Please someone wake them up from their dream back to reality?!
• "Is what I am seeing truly real? Is it?" Audrey's voice came out in a cold shrill as her eyes met that of Ivy's. Their eyes met and watered endlessly with unsaid questions.
• Malcolm sat still in his spot, with his attention fixated on the stage as he watched the lady before their very eyes. His eyes compulsively darted around the room after a while, searching for confirmation to be sure that what he had seen was not a fragment of his imagination, and that it was indeed his ex-wife, whom he had flashed a divorce paper at two weeks ago, that was standing before everyone.
• Everyone soon stood up to clap after her great speech, and she stepped down to make her way down into the crowd through the pathway of regality that had been positioned for her to walk through. Everyone wanted to talk to her.
• There were flashes of brilliant lights that were so blinding, and they captured the beauty of Zoe, as she met with people of the highest positions in the society and exchanged pleasantries with them, the same way she had mastered perfectly.
• Zoe's eyes trailed across everyone in the room with so much confidence as they all marveled at her gorgeousness, and they landed on the very people she had been truly waiting to see among the crowd. It was so satisfying to see every one of them that had belittled her and treated her like rag aghast at the sight of her, as she remained flinty-eyed as she strutted past the Meyers to exchange pleasantries with the royal family that was well affiliated with the Sinclair's.
• Throughout the evening as the ball party got more splendid and exquisite, bodyguards were around her and didn't let anyone come near her till it was time for the car that brought her back. The Meyers family were not even able to get close to her till she left the ball and entered into the car that was meant to drive her back.
• "Do not take me to the Sinclair's mansion. Find me a nice five-star hotel and just drive there," she instructed the chauffeur tiredly, and shut her eyes immediately as the car zoomed off from the spot.
• There was so much to get done.
• ~•~°`•`°~•~ :::….**•**....::: ~•~°`•`°~•~
• Standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror at the suite that had been booked for her, Zoe stared at her beautiful reflection in the gorgeous dress that she was still donned with. Her mind traveled back to the moment when she was at the ball and the feeling of standing before everyone, and she heaved a sigh
• How she got to that position and became a billionaire heiress, happened by the tiniest bit of hope she never thought would shine again.
• She had grown up as a poor lady with her grandmother in the countryside where they fished domestically for a living, after her mother, Emily, dropped her off at birth and only came to visit once in a while. And as she became an adult, enough to fend for herself and struggle to go to school, her mother barely came around again.
• With only a little information about her father and how he rejected her, Zoe had been living her life in the dark as a lonely child until her life changed when her grandmother, Evelyn, got in touch with an old friend after Zoe finished college and got her married to his grandson, which turned out to be Malcolm.
• Thinking she just had to endure the suffering and torture for the sake of her grandmother, Zoe learned to love Malcolm and do every his family wanted for her sake, but her life became miserable by the day because they never loved her.
• She was in no way close to the standard of ladies they would have wanted for Malcolm, and they could never stand the thought that she was from a poor and wretched family. However, Malcolm didn't mind. He got everything his grandfather promised concerning the corporation, and that was all that mattered.
• The biggest turnaround for Zoe in her life which she could never imagine was when Francis Sinclair contacted her grandmother, who wanted his long-lost daughter to come back to his corporation to inherit the properties.
• Apparently, Zoe's mother briefly dated a wealthy guy she met while working as a bartender and got pregnant by him. He rejected the baby and told her off, but she was determined to use the baby to change her life by trying to find the contact of his father, Francis Sinclair, to tell him what happened.
• However, the old man dismissed the email after he read it, which caused Emily to suffer because of how poor she was and for her to abandon the child after she had her. One could never imagine that Francis Sinclair would come back to locate the child after his son died, and he had no one to inherit his fortune amongst the hundreds that were trying to take over through dubious means. There was no way he could leave his entire wealth in the hands of strangers to take over.
• Zoe became his only choice.
• Her lips curled up into a dangerous smile as she spoke to her grandfather the day they met again, and she decided to take his offer to be the official heiress of the corporation after rejecting the offer the first time she met him. It was a win-win situation for her, and it would change her life forever.
• "On these conditions. I will not be changing my mother's last name from my name. I will bear Zoe Oliver and then Sinclair as an additional. And also, use your connections to find my mother. I haven't seen her since she left. Also, I will be allowed to make my own decisions and voice out opinions. I refuse to be a puppet," she told him sternly, as she presented the undertakings he had to sign so as to make their agreement valid.
• The old man paused for a while to think for a while because of his calculating and witty nature, as he stared at the lady, whose entire story he had done a background check on. He thought it would be easier to make her do his bidding since he knew of her marriage to Malcolm Meyer, but it seemed like something in her had changed. She didn't even seem fazed by him, unlike the first time they met.
• However, he did not have much of a choice. He needed her to carry on the family name and the companies as his surviving family member. And they made it clear to one another that their closeness and doting nature were only going to be to the sight of those around and not when they were by themselves.
• He extended his hand to her and shook her with a grin, "Fine. Welcome home, my dear grandchild."