Chapter 8 This Is My Room
The voice belonged to a teenage girl.
Ophelia’s eyes darkened as she handed her suitcase to a servant. “Take this upstairs later.”
Then she walked upstairs straight to the second bedroom.
A fashionable teenage girl with delicate makeup was sitting on the bed, ordering the servants to clean up the room, looking no different from the hostess.
The clothes Ophelia had put in the wardrobe were all out here.
And Ophelia’s suitcase, which had been in the corner, was dragged out and placed in the middle of the room randomly like trash.
Ophelia’s gaze turned icy.
“Mrs. Pruitt…”
The two servants saw her, and their expressions changed. At a loss of what to do with her stuff in their hands, they stood in situ, instinctively looking at the teenage girl.
Ophelia’s gaze fell on her, too.
She recognized the voice when she was downstairs—it was Elva, Bertha’s daughter.
Bertha’s late husband had been the Pruitt family’s driver and died saving Glenda in an accident. From then on, Bertha and Elva were treated as more than just the family’s maids.
Though Elva was just Bertha—the housekeeper’s daughter, Glenda treated her nicely. As time went by, Elva got carried away and thought of herself as no different from the heiress of the Pruitt family.
In Ophelia’s past life, Elva had caused trouble for her a lot of times.
“Who said you could touch my stuff?”
Standing at the door, Ophelia looked around at her messy room and asked coldly.
The servants parted their lips but didn’t dare to utter a word.
“These are yours?” Elva stood up, sizing Ophelia up. “Why are they in my room? Are you a new maid? Didn’t anyone tell you that you couldn’t enter these rooms without permission? Only the Pruitt family can step inside.”
She sounded condescending as if Ophelia really were just a maid.
However, given Ophelia’s temperament and attire, no one would mistake her for a maid.
So, either Elva was blind, or she deliberately said so.
Elva wasn’t blind, obviously.
And she wasn’t deaf either—she clearly heard those two servants address Ophelia as “Mrs. Pruitt”.
Ophelia looked up lazily.
Ignoring Elva, she asked the servants, “She doesn’t know who I am. Is she a newly hired maid?”
Elva froze slightly. Then she looked down at her expensive clothes, which clearly distinguished her from the maids.
“I’m not a maid!” she said loudly.
“Who are you then?” Ophelia asked.
“I’m Elva Sherman.”
Her tone carried a blend of reserve and faint arrogance, as ifOphelia should have recognizedherthe momentshegaveher name.
To her surprise, Ophelia crossed her arms, looking puzzled. “Elva who? I’ve never heard such a name.”
“You…” Feeling humiliated, Elva bit her lip. “Bertha is my mom!”
“Oh. So, you’re Bertha’s daughter.” Ophelia nodded. Secretly sneering, she thought, “What a ‘big shot’ Bertha is. Had I not known better, I might’ve thought she ran this house.”
Then she continued, her voice flat, “In other words, you’re not the hostess of Sunset Vista. Who said you could come into my room?”
Her words were like a hard slap in Elva’s face.
Elva suppressed her anger and smiled provocatively, “Mr. Pruitt said I could live here.”
Winford said this?
Ophelia didn’t buy it for a second.
If so, he wouldn’t have agreed to let her live here.
She put on a half-smile in response to Elva’s lie and said, “You said yourself earlier that only the Pruitt family can step inside. Know your place before you say anything. For the sake of Bertha, I’ll let this slide and take it that you went into the wrong room.”
Ophelia knew Elva enough to know Elva hated it the most when others brought up her background. Elva never introduced herself as a maid’s daughter and deliberately led others to believe she was the heiress of the Pruitt family. So, Ophelia said so on purpose. Sure enough, Elva pulled a long face.
Ignoring Elva’s expression, Ophelia glanced at the servants and ordered, “Restore my room before Winford comes back. This is your only chance. Better take it.”
With that, she turned to leave.
Those in the room were intimidated by her sudden commanding presence and fell silent for a few seconds.
The servants exchanged glances and then looked at Elva uneasily. “What to do, Elva?”
Suppressing her anger, Elva responded, “What do you think? Don’t tell me you’re gonna do as she says. Bring my stuff in here!”
“What if she tells on us to Mr. Pruitt?”
“Let her. Who do you think he’ll side with? Me or her?” Elva sneered while lifting her chin.
Seeing her like this, the servants immediately remembered that she had done the same to Winford’s previous wives, and Winford had never bothered to intervene. So far, Elva had never been punished.
Thinking this, they were no longer uneasy.
At Sunset Vista, buttering up Winford’s wife wouldn’t do them any good, but buttering up Elva was another story.
Ophelia went downstairs while her attention was still on upstairs.
She noticed no one came out of her room.
Smiling coldly, she didn’t go back upstairs.
Winford came back two hours later.
Her eyes lit up as she heard the door opening, and she walked out to greet him briskly.
Graham pushed Winford’s wheelchair inside, and a few other subordinates followed behind them.
“You’re back!”
As Winford looked at Ophelia running toward him with a bright smile, his eyes which were always deep and icy softened for a second.
He nodded, and then his gaze fell on the suitcase she brought back from the Greene’s house next to the couch. He said, “You just came back?”
She shook her hand and said coquettishly, “I’ve been waiting for you for more than two hours.”
Her words tugged at Winford’s heartstrings, but soon, his gaze darkened as he glanced at her suitcase again. “Then how come your suitcase is still here? The servants wouldn’t obey your orders?”
Clearly sensing his displeasure, a maid nearby panicked.
With a pale face, she looked at Ophelia pleadingly, hoping Ophelia could explain. “Mrs. Pruitt…”
She didn’t dare to disobey Ophelia’s orders at all. But the second bedroom was occupied by Elva, so how was she supposed to take Ophelia’s suitcase up there?
Glancing at the maid, Ophelia knew she wasn’t part of Elva’s gang, so she said, “It’s not her fault…”
Before she could continue, Elva walked downstairs.
Surprisingly, she was dragging a suitcase behind her, seemingly about to leave.
At the sight of Winford, she ran over happily. “Mr. Pruitt!”
In the next second, she saw Ophelia next to Winford. Immediately, her eyes turned red, and her smile seemed less genuine.
Ophelia squinted, thinking, “What’s Elva up to now?”
“Hey, Elva, you’re back,” Graham greeted Elva casually because he was more familiar with her. “What’s with the suitcase?”
“I…” Elva looked aggrieved as she shot a quick glance at Ophelia. “Someone can’t stand seeing me here. I better move out, Mr. Pruitt.”
