– Chapter 19 –

“But it’s really okay.”

Erin grabbed Aiden’s hands and shook them lightly.

His mouth tickled and a smile crept upon his face.

Why is she so cute? I always want to be better for her.

Aiden lightly pulled the hand that was grasping his.

Erin, who was wary, stumbled and fell toward Aiden.

Erin looks at Aiden with surprised eyes,and his lips part looking straight into her eyes.

“I’ll be good to you, Erin.”

Aiden confidently spoke without an ounce of hesitation.

He wanted to express his faith and support for Erin, who had frozen with embarrassment for a moment, and blinked.

The distance between them quickly shortened, and his heart was beating fast.

Suddenly, Aiden felt firm and mature.

Was it always supposed to be like this?

Erin’s eyes trembled.

Get yourself together. It’s just Aiden being supportive.

Erin retreated slightly, holding onto Aiden’s arm for balance.

Looking straight into Aiden’s eyes, she opened her mouth.

“Okay!”

Erin answered confidently with a laugh, then made a promise.

Let’s use the power that the Duchess granted me well.

Looking around the mansion, it seemed that the butler was in charge of many affairs.

Other than those affairs, he was also in charge of welcoming guests.

There was one person in charge of every other task, but they only had enough influence for that particular task.

For example, Whitney, who was Aiden’s nanny, was about to influence the other employees beyond their duties.

Thanks to Aiden, she was able to gain higher influence.

Whitney’s influence grew across the mansion, and Aiden’s circle of life decreased.

For Aiden’s sake, the authority of the nanny was able to change the employees’ requirements separately.

Erin looked at the employees who were dissatisfied and started to assign their own duties.

Erin first asked the employees about the type of work they desired.

Then she went around and saw how each employee worked with her own two eyes.

Then, she encountered Whitney.

Whitney approached Erin as soon as she saw her.

She saw what Erin was doing, frowned slightly, then spoke.

“What is going on here?”

Whitney politely asked.

“I have decided to take charge in distributing the work to the employees.”

“… Did the madam tell you to?”

“Yes, Mother left the duties to me.”

Whitney most likely didn’t know, as her eyes widened in shock.

Whitney, who was at first surprised and perplexed, smiled with a look of displeasure.

“I see, I hope you do well on your first time.”

“Yep, I will.”

Erin smiled broadly and responded as if it was natural.

“Then, work hard.”

And with that, Whitney left.

Erin’s head tilted sideways.

Is she really just going to let it go like that?

She felt uneasy.

Why is she leaving so calmly?

The Whitney she knew would constantly harp about how Erin wouldn’t be able to do anything right.

However Whitney reacted differently, and it was surprising

“Well, it has nothing to do with me.”

No matter how she is thinking, Whitney can do her job well.

Erin started walking down the hall again.

Whitney, who had just walked past Erin, smiled as she continued down the hall.

It’s for the better

Whitney had schemed to cause trouble for Erin by intentionally misleading her and have her make mistakes.

However it wasn’t easy to get her in trouble with Aiden around.

Additionally, Aiden would always take Erin’s side, and Whitney couldn’t do anything.

But that didn’t worry Whitney.

Because if one is a whole mess, then the other is indispensable.

It was making it look like Erin was the problem due to her making mistakes.

And distributing the work of the employees could be a good opportunity.

I was bored just waiting.

The corners of Whitney’s mouth rose higher.

Whitney met with the employees that supported her one by one.

“This time, you’re going to a harder place than you’re working now.”

“R-Really?”

“You’ve done a great job so far, but can you accept being kicked out all of a sudden?”

“Then… What should I do?”

Then they were dissatisfied with Erin’s work.

It was a given that the confidence with the duchess would lessen if trouble was made in the beginning

Erin and Aiden shared what happened today as usual.

Aiden was laughing and enjoying listening to Erin, when his face hardened when he saw Whitney.

“Erin, I’m not going to let Whitney do anything to you.”

Aiden spoke with a serious tone.

“Same here. But I don’t know what to do, so I’ll just wait and see what happens.”

Erin was on the same page as Aiden.

There is no way Whitney is rooting for Erin.

She was definitely thinking of something else.

“Don’t worry too much. Even if Whitney does something, there are things I can do.”

Erin reassured Aiden.

But Aiden just couldn’t stop being bothered about it.

He couldn’t help but continue thinking about it.

He thought about what Erin said over and over again.

“Erin, you said that Whitney told you to do a good job, right?”

“Yeah. It felt a bit strange when she said that though.”

Up until this point, the Duchess entrusted everything to Whitney.

After Whitney had started making her own decisions, the Duchess began to only bestow her formal permission.

And since the Duchess handed everything over to Erin, there wasn’t much Whitney could do.

And Aiden was caught up with Whitney for some amount of time.

For some reason, it felt like Whitney was up to something whenever she hovered around Erin.

Because it was definitely not because Whitney liked Erin.

He couldn’t stand it if Whitney caused something bad to happen to Erin.

Aiden’s face became cold as he thought deeper.

His eyes narrowed, and he spoke.

“Erin, do you want to listen to what I have to say?”

“Sure.”

“I think…”

Aiden explained what he was thinking.

Erin listened to what he had to say very carefully

Erin gathered all of the employees.

She explored the mansion for the past few days and organized everything from what she’s heard from Mona and the other employees.

There were several problems with the employees.

And Whitney was the sole root cause of it.

The employees with a lot of experience and good work ethics experienced a lot of conflict with Whitney since she held power.

But on the other side, the employees who kissed up to Whitney were assigned tasks that were easy and desirable, even though they lacked the proper experience and were therefore incapable of doing their jobs correctly.

Naturally, the work done was inefficient, and all the people had to do was look good in front of Whitney.

Of course, Erin intended to put everything back on track.

“I’ve redistributed the work based on people’s abilities. If you don’t like what you are assigned, if you work hard, I will reflect on my decisions.”

Erin said while assigning everyone their work.

And before they had already gathered here, the newly redistributed assignments were shown to them.

“I can’t accept this.”

As Erin had predicted, one of the employees had a problem with this.

“Why?”

She asked the employee who just spoke.

“You’re doing great and all, but you’re just kicking me out of my position without asking for my opinion.”

“As if I’m kicking you out. These are all essential work.”

“How is this work similar? Pulling weeds is different from giving manicures.”

“Does the little lady discriminate against us by sending us, who have been doing well so far, to a hard and good place because of Whitney?”

“I am not going to comply with this.”

“I will not go either. I’m going to stay and do what I’ve been doing this whole time.”

Immediately, there was a huge commotion.

Employees rushed to each other and said what they wanted without any order.

Erin, who was watching the chaotic scene, opened her mouth looking at the employee who had just protested.

“What you’re doing right now is medication management, right? But you couldn’t even distinguish the medicinal herbs properly, so they were used incorrectly more than five times in the past three months.”

The employee who blushed and claimed it was unreasonable just a moment ago was very embarrassed and at a loss for words.

And that wasn’t the end of what Erin had to say.

“The tea leaves weren’t properly maintained, so they had to be disposed of quite often recently. If they were managed with even a bit more care, they wouldn’t have needed to be thrown away. In addition, the cost of disposing vast amounts of tea leaves and repurchasing them cost twice as much money.”

This time the people who held their heads up high hung their heads low.

Quickly, the other employees who protested lowered their heads, afraid of being Erin’s next target.

Erin began to speak once again to add on impact.

“I went and checked Aiden’s dressing room. The moment I touched one of his clothes, one of his buttons fell off and his clothes weren’t ironed properly.”

Erin pointed out the problems without an ounce of hesitation.

The employees who were in charge of that winced and avoided eye contact.

Erin sharply identified them.

“Are you guys so sure you did your jobs correctly?”

Erin questioned sharply.

The employees breathed heavily.

She wanted them to accept it like this, but someone else spoke.

“Even though there were mistakes, people can make such mistakes at work. It is a bit unfair that we are kicked out of our jobs like this.”

“I think so too.”

He was the best employee at gaining Whitney’s favor.

And at that, the other employees began to speak up as well.

The atmosphere was getting more and more cluttered, and a calm voice broke in the midst of the conflict.

“What’s going on?”

Isabella approached where Erin was standing

At that moment, Erin did not need to hesitate to see Whitney’s eyes twinkling.

– To Be Continued –