It had been a while since John left, during which Sophia wondered if he was playing the same trick on her again by hitting up a random woman. However, she felt relief upon seeing Isabelle a few minutes later, as she wouldn’t care who John was with as long as he wasn’t with Isabelle.
Apparently, Isabelle already saw Sophia and was coming straight for her after noticing that John was no longer beside her. In the meantime, Sophia leaned against the wall lazily with a half smirk on her face before opening up, “Hello, we meet again.”
With an upright posture, Isabelle stood while spouting words of accusation, “I never knew you have so many tricks up your sleeve, Miss Gwendolyn.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sophia huffed a laugh despite the stern look Isabelle wore. The heels Sophia wore helped to cut down the height difference between her and Isabelle as she was slightly shorter. There was a twinkle in her eyes when she pressed on, “He is my husband, so what if I played some tricks on my man? You aren’t even qualified to correct me.”
Despite the fact that Sophia wasn't shrieking at the top of her lungs, neither was her voice soft. Isabelle frowned as she reminded, “You should be more wary of your surroundings.”
“Are you seriously telling me that?” There was a look of exasperation on Sophia's face. “Why don't you hold yourself accountable when you're the one pestering my husband?”
One of the passersby who came to get some food by the buffet counter turned to look at them. It was well-known that the Constances and Baileys used to set up an engagement between John and Isabelle; even the engagement date had been well thought out.
However, no one had expected that Sophia would manage to step in and snatch him away from under their nose despite the fact that the two families had set down on a wedding date. While it wasn't a widely known story, there were still a handful of people who knew about it. Isabelle frowned as she didn't know Sophia had such thick skin to be able to say anything as she pleased. “Miss Gwendolyn,” she said by way of reminding the latter.
“It's Mrs. Constance for you.” Sophia's voice was much louder than Isabelle's. “I had been reminding you multiple times that I am his wife, and as long as I remain as his wife, you'd better keep your hands to yourself because you will always be next in line no matter how badly you want to be with him. I don't care about being shamed, nor would such a scandal affect me in any way. If you would like the media to report that you, a daughter of the prestigious Bailey Family, not only associated yourself with a married man but went so far as to court him, it wouldn’t take much for me to contact the media for a press conference.”
“Sophia, you...” Words failed Isabelle, as she was no good at quarreling due to her education and upbringing, so she was never on equal grounds with Sophia to begin with. Even the unreasonable Mrs. Constance was no match against Sophia, say less of Isabelle.
“Look at yourself, Isabelle. Your confidence faltered as soon as I raised my voice, so you couldn’t possibly fight against me.” A fleeting smirk formed on Sophia’s face as she spoke before she turned to see John walking toward her, so she stood and walked over to him. However, she gave such a hard pat on Isabelle’s shoulder when she walked past the latter that her body swayed. With a low voice, Sophia said, “You’d better not cross me, Isabelle. Whenever I am upset with your performance would be the end of your carefree days.”
A smile bloomed on her face as Sophia walked over to John in a hurry. “What took you so long? I thought you went missing again.”
“I needed to give my orders regarding matters, but it’s done now, so we can leave.” That was his reply.
Sophia paused. “What?”
John thought for a bit. “They’re running out of food, so we’ll go grab a meal somewhere else as we can’t just have what we ate.”
“Can we do that?” Sophia was surprised to hear that as she assumed that they had to wait till the banquet was over.
“We can always leave without having to wait for the banquet to end since there’s no point in staying.” There was a smile on John’s face. Relief washed over Sophia as she disliked such occasions where people wore metaphorical masks when they interacted. Not only she had to upkeep her image when she ate, but she couldn’t cross her legs when wearing a gown as well. All in all, she disliked the rules that she was required to follow during such occasions, so John led her away from the banquet.
Isabelle stood behind them to watch as the both of them left. Sophia scuttled along as if having twisted her ankle, then held onto John’s arm as she laughed, while John turned to look at her with a look of defeat.
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