It was a chilly Monday morning and Ariana Sterling quickly got out of bed, ready to leave for work. She dashed into the bathroom, had her bath and clad herself in a blue Italian two-piece suit.
As she exited her room, she noticed the mansion was strangely quiet. If she lived alone then there was no reason to worry but her family insisted that she stayed in the family house despite the fact that she was old enough to live on her own.
Ariana found the quietness in the mansion strange because usually on mornings like this, her father and mother would've been ordering the servants around and her sister would have been walking around the house with the intention to start her daily vlog for her fans.
But today, there was stillness. Absolute silence.
She walked down the grand stairs to see the servants carefully placing her breakfast on the dinning room table. "Good morning young miss" the first servant that saw her said.
"Good morning Lizzy. Where is everyone?" Ariana was quick to ask.
"Oh! Your parents and sister headed out early. Young master David is still asleep" Lizzy answered.
Ariana's brows twisted in confusion, her parents and sister would never leave the mansion this early. She was the early bird, not them. She sighed and took a seat at the dinning table before asking Lizzy to get her little brother, David.
David was seven years old and he was such a sweetheart. As much as Ariana didn't want to pick favorites in her family, she subconsciously found herself loving little David the most. He was a ray of sunshine.
After having his bath, the little boy joined Ariana at the table, they both ate breakfast and Ariana dropped the little boy at school before driving off to work.
Reaching her workplace, she parked her car to look at the towering building before her, the Sterling Group company. The company she had poured her blood, sweat and tears into.
Today was the day her father was to announce her to the board as the new president of the company but she didn't know his whereabouts as he had left early.
She walked towards her office and got to work. Minutes later, her secretary rushed into her office, earning a disgusted look from Ariana. "Miss Sterling I apologise for barging in on you like this but you need to go to the conference room immediately!". Still in shock, Ariana asked "What is the problem?". "Ma'am, you need to go first, questions later!".
Ariana quickly got up and headed to the conference room like her secretary had told her. Reaching there, she opened up the double doors to find the board of directors seated, her father at the head of the table, her mother to his left and her sister by her father's side.
All heads turned to her direction.
"Ariana you can't just barge into a meeting like that!" Her father raised his voice at her.
"What exactly is going on here? Why are you all in a meeting" Ariana asked as she began to feel suspicious of the whole situation.
Her parents and sister had woken up early to beat her to the company just to hold a meeting she wasn't included in? She asked herself.
"Well, though we didn't want you to find out this way, you brought it on yourself. We just concluded a meeting and myself and the board of directors have all come to a conclusion of your sister being the new president of Sterling Group".
Shock, betrayal, anger, were the emotions cursing through Ariana's veins. It all felt like a joke, she had the urge to burst out laughing but she knew her father wouldn't joke about something like this.
She was confused.
"Father I don't think I heard you clearly." She paused and scoffed. "My sister Ava? Or there's another sister I'm not aware of that has worked so hard for this company more than I did and deserves to be the president?" She asked sarcastically.
"We'd talk about this at home young lady. The meeting is over everyone" Mister Sterling said and all present in the conference room except her family dispersed. As they walked away, they murmured amongst themselves about the current situation before exiting the large room.
Mister Sterling had a grimace on his face as he walked towards Ariana. Reaching her, he landed a slap on her face leaving Ariana in utter disbelief.
"Dad!" She called out in shock. Her father has never laid a hand on her before.
"Do you intend to embarrass our family in front of our subordinates? Why make a scene when you clearly saw everyone here?" Mister Sterling barked.
Ariana was short of words and was wrapped up in disbelief.
What the heck just happened?
Did she just have her position stripped from her?
Did her father just hit her? Or was this all a bad dream?