Chapter 126 - Calm down Lexi

2 January, LY Studio, City K

Given Lexi's attitude, Matthew paused to consider what he needed to do. Those couple of seconds made him realise he needed to come down heavily on Lexi to get through to her the risks based on what they knew and deduced from the information they had.

Hearing the silence on the other end of the phone, Lexi observed her staff gathering for the meeting she indicated they would have. Matthew's silence was not to be passed up, so she decided to make her position as clear as she could.

After quietly taking a deep breath, Lexi in a determined tone continued "I told you I did not want to be married to you. More importantly I do not want them here. Matthew Rong, you have two choices. Pull them out of here and give me the freedom to do what I want here and travel where I want throughout the world or I will make your life hell through causing you so many problems. Either way I will get what I want, it is the damage to you that is your only choice."

Matthew could not believe it. All Lexi was focused on was a divorce. As soon as the thought crossed his mind that Lexi had something to hide, he immediately dismissed it, because there was, as far as any investigations had shown, nothing for her to hide.

Matthew, trying to keep his frustration of her attitude from his voice responded, "Calm down Lexi. I will tell you clearly again. Forget about your options to me. The reality is you have two simple choices. You keep the guards, whether they are civilian or military that I arrange with you, and within reason, you can travel freely within the country and work at your business and with a little pre-planning you can travel overseas as needed for your business. If you fight me however, that will not happen and I will confine you to the Villa, It will them get worse if you keep it up as I will confine you to my quarters on base."

"Do not threaten me," yelled Lexi.

Matthew calmly responded "Lexi it is not a threat, it is a promise. My position limits your activities, but if you are reasonable I will allow you as much freedom as I can within those limits. Fight and that freedom goes. My actions will be dictated by your choices, and you have to live with the consequences of that decision."

"I want a divorce. How dare you hold me to a marriage that I did not consent to."

"As to a divorce Lexi, you know my position. We have been over that multiple times in the last few days. As I explained, you consented when the pre-requisites for a military marriage were put into place, and knew what all that meant. If I was the b*stard that you claim I am, I would have taken action to have your marriage to Dominic's father declared invalid, because having done those pre-requisites for a military marriage a subsequent civilian marriage to anyone is invalid."

"Well la-di-da, how caring you are," responded Lexi in a sarcastic tone.

"I have given you your options Lexi, it is your choice. From what I understand you are very busy at the studio and …"

"We will continue this conversation. Do not think you won the argument; it is simply suspended." With that Lexi ended the telephone call, and under her voice she said to herself "That b*stard. He will not win this argument."

Lexi heard her own quiet words and knew that Matthew was right, she needed to calm down. There was a full day ahead given the work needed for the upcoming ready to wear lines. The designs needed finessing and the timetable for their manufacture needed finalised. Plus, there were the couture designs for the elite bride to finish before they came for their preliminary discussions in the next few weeks. Two of those bridal parties ultimately made her business more than the annual profits on the ready-to-wear lines.

After taking a few deep breaths, Lexi moved to her door, and headed towards the design team, being trailed by the guards. This would take some getting use to, as she was not going to let Matthew constrain her movements.

Walking up to the team, Lexi said "Ladies and Gentlemen, apologies for the last few days, I have had some family things going on meaning that I have not been here." Lexi looked around her staff and realised that they seemed to believe her words. There is no way that she could tell them the truth as it would become so messy.

"Before you ask, the people accompanying me are guards assigned to me by my family. There are concerns for the safety of some of our family, so we all have guards to protect us. I will do what I can to ensure that their presence does not impact you, but until the concerns about our safety are resolved you will have to put up with their presence. If they interrupt your work, please let me know and I will address it." Lexi hoped that they would to allow her to get rid of them.

"Today, the important things are to finalise the designs for the upcoming ready to wear releases and the expanding current lines for the retail stores, and have their manufacturing resolved. Then we will turn to the designs for the upcoming bridal parties. I then want your ideas as to what we can add to the store lines."

Quickly everyone sat down around the table, with copies of the ready to wear designs in front of everyone with pencils, erasers, and material swatches spread over the table. Lexi and her designed team started to work through each of the designs finalising them to Lexi's satisfaction and determining the colour palettes for them.

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