"So?" I scoffed.

Steven stared at me, clearly at a loss for words.

"I don't even care about you anymore. Why would I care about an ex-mother-in-law who just made my life miserable? I hope you get that," I said unhurriedly.

Then, I grabbed Zane's hand. "Let's go grab something to eat."

"Sure," Zane said.

Steven watched me walk away, his voice full of bitterness. "You're going to regret this, Annalise."

"I won't," I said, not even breaking my stride. "I'll never regret it, Steven."

Jessica had been hiding around the corner, watching the whole thing, but the drama she was hoping for never happened. If she posted the video online, it would only draw more support for Annalise.

Without thinking twice, she deleted the video from her phone. She scoffed. She wasn't about to do anything that would help Annalise.

...

We got to the restaurant. We didn't order much since we weren't big eaters. Once the waiter left, Eric slid into the seat across from me.

He smiled at Zane. "Mr. Huxham, mind if I give you a quick update on work?"

Zane, of course, didn't mind. He raised his hand to flag down the waiter and asked for an extra serving.

"Our comic is still in pre-sale, but the merchandise is flying off the shelves. Now, all these nearby countries want to secure the right to distribute it.

"The best part is: they're offering solid revenue shares. I think we should go for it and give them the rights. What do you think?" Eric asked.

I didn't know much about the whole thing, so I decided to trust the experts. I looked over at Zane.

Zane nodded. "Yeah, sounds good."

Only then did Eric pull out his phone and reply to the potential distributors, letting them know everything was set.

They all said they'd hurry over to sign the contract. They were afraid that if they missed this wave of hype, they'd lose out on the chance to make money.

Once Eric was done responding, he

looked at me. "By the way, even though our comic hasn't officially been published yet, the publisher's already started pre-sales, and it's doing really well."

"Huh?" I might not have known about the pre-sales if he hadn't mentioned it.

Eric probably thought I didn't get what a pre-sale was, so he explained, "Pre-sales just mean they're selling the comic before it's even printed." "Oh." I finally got what he was saying.

Looking pretty pleased with himself,

Eric said, "Sales are through the roof. We've already broken the publisher's record. Each copy's going for 19 dollars, and we've sold 200 thousand copies so far.

"They were only expecting 100 thousand copies in total. We hit that in just a couple of days, and the numbers are still climbing.

"The publisher's pumped. While

they're rushing to the printing plant for more copies, they're also telling us they want the second volume. They're even talking about running special promotions to see if they can hit a million copies."

Eric grinned widely and added, "Your comic's definitely the biggest surprise hit of the year."

I couldn't help but get excited. "Are there really that many people buying it?"noveldrama

"Yeah," Eric said confidently. "Your comic's way more popular than you thought. And now that people know how badly your ex-mother-in-law treated you, I bet sales are going to skyrocket."

Just then, his phone buzzed with a new message. He opened it and saw t was from the publisher, and the screen was practically flooded with exclamation marks.

"They want another reprint!"

The Novel will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!