The Contract Said No Strings Attached (Charlotte) novel Chapter 360

Now they were eaten up with regret, but it was far too late.

After a tense silence, someone finally couldn't contain themselves and hurried forward to apologize to Rebecca.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gossiped about you behind your back, and I never should have spread those rumors."

The other staff quickly followed suit, voices trembling: "Ma'am, we were wrong, please forgive us."

"Ma'am, please don't let us go, we won't ever do it again..."

They were terrified of losing their jobs, and even more afraid of what Rebecca might do.

But Rebecca was unmoved. Instead, she turned to Jack. "Jack, are you still going to claim you know nothing about this?"

Jack's face flushed with embarrassment, his composure slipping. For a moment, it seemed he might apologize and beg for forgiveness. But to everyone's surprise, he straightened up and said, "Ma'am, sure, people have chatted in private, but we've always done our work properly—the gardens, the vegetable patch, the orchard, they’re all well-kept, and the house is spotless. We... we haven't been slacking off!"

The others quickly chimed in, emboldened by Jack: "That's right, we haven't been lazy."

"We only ever chatted a bit after our work was done."

Rebecca's voice carried a trace of mockery. She found their logic laughable.

They seemed to have forgotten their place and duty, as if their only concern was sneaking around behind her back, feeding their appetite for gossip.

"So because you haven't been slacking off, that makes it acceptable to spread lies and rumors? Is this how you treat your employer?"

So she was the one who’d started the rumors…

Upstairs, the four little boys froze in shock.

What? They said that?

Rebecca was speechless. Emma hadn’t just started the rumor—now she was pinning it on the children.

Someone like this—there was no way Rebecca could keep her around.