The Apple of My Eye novel Chapter 2003

That morning, Charles woke up in his bed in his villa in Dream Garden.

Although he had barely slept a wink last night, his head felt fine.

Downstairs, Charles noticed that Nancy had already prepared quite a spread for breakfast. At the end of the table sat his mother. Melissa had already been up and waiting for her son.

"Charles, you're awake! Come and join me for breakfast." Melissa beamed at Charles. She was obviously in a good mood this morning.

Charles looked at Melissa speculatively. He nodded to acknowledge his mother's exuberant greeting before taking the seat opposite her.

As they started to dig into their breakfast feast, neither said a word to one another. An awkward silence filled the table. After a moment, Charles broke the silence. "Mother, about me and Sheryl," he began. "Can you please stop meddling and just leave it to us?"

Melissa's gut instinct was to say no to Charles. As his mother, she would always want to help his son. But as she saw how serious he was being, Melissa reluctantly agreed. She would have to stop pushing before her meddling backfired on her and her relationship with her son.

"Fine. I promise to stop meddling between you two from now on." Melissa then directed her attention to her breakfast to distract herself. She may not like agreeing with Charles, but he didn't have to see how reluctant she was in doing so.

After their uncomfortable breakfast, Charles hurried to leave for work at the Shining Company. Melissa could swear there were skid marks at how fast Charles escaped the awkwardness that was their breakfast. As soon as his son left, the gears in Melissa's head started turning. She may have promised to back away, but that didn't mean she would stop thinking about how to patch things up between her son and Sheryl.

Meanwhile, Sheryl and Isla were on a shopping spree. Bags and bags of retail therapy were shared between them, but even that couldn't help improve Sheryl's mood.

After satisfying their little shopaholic hearts, they went back to their company. As they entered their office, Isla immediately hit the couch and moaned at Sheryl, "You're doing this on purpose. You knew I'd be dead tired from my business trip for the past two days, and you still dragged me to go shopping today. You're killing me, Sheryl!"

Sheryl chuckled at Isla's prone figure. Sitting beside her friend, Sheryl mocked while massaging Isla's arms, "Aw, come on! Stop playing around, Isla. We both know you're a shopaholic. There's no shopping spree you'd ever turn down."

"Fine, guilty as charged! But this time, it was you who tempted me into going shopping. This is on you!" Isla continued whining on the couch.

Sheryl shook her head, a look of amusement on her face. "Fine! What about this: The clothes you bought today are on me. Happy?"

"Awesome! No take-backs, okay." Isla jumped out of the couch, obviously energized by Sheryl's suggestion. She widened her eyes as she peered at her friend, looking for signs that Sheryl was playing her.

Sheryl nodded at Isla's adorable peering eyes, promising to keep her word.

"Ha-ha! Now you're talking!" Isla felt both excited and relieved. Sheryl was indeed being serious about her promise.

"Sure," Sheryl shrugged. "A promise is a promise, so I'll pay for them. Take your stuff and get rest some rest. Lucky you, there's not much work we have to do at the moment." After assuring Isla of her word, Sheryl pushed her friend out of her office so she could be alone with her thoughts.

As she closed the door and had the room to herself, her mood did not improve. Instead, she grew even more anxious and agitated. Things between her and Charles still bothered her. How was she going to deal with her problem with Charles?

Melissa might have started it, but now Jackson was already in the picture. Sheryl felt responsible and even a little guilty of dragging him into this mess.

Speaking of Jackson, Sheryl thought of something. She called her secretary through the intercom.

"Please make an appointment with Jackson. Tell him we still need to discuss our project with him. Let me know when he will be available for a meeting here in our office." It was a little underhanded, but Sheryl wanted to meet Jackson in her office so she could personally apologize. She couldn't think of a way to go about it without being blunt and obvious. So if doing this under the guise of a business meeting helped, then she would take the opportunity.

"Sure. I will get right on it."

As she watched her secretary go, Sheryl took a deep breath and began to think of what she would say to Jackson.

Back in the hospital, Vicky had been quiet for the past couple of days.